Midnight Movie of the Week #94 - Malevolence

I just recently saw Malevolence for the first - and soon after second time.  Two parts of me think I'm in love with it, one part of me thinks I'm overreacting to it, and one part of me thinks that part of me that thinks I'm overreacting is a "poopy head".  Outside of the obvious conclusion that I am split into (at least) quadrants, the question remains: What the heck is going on with this Malevolence flick?

Released in 2004, Malevolence doesn't look like much more than your everyday average indie slasher film from the outside.  I must admit, I passed the DVD box on many stores' shelves hundreds of times, because nothing about it really jumped out at me at all.  It was your average "shiny" packaging from Anchor Bay - back when they brought the thunder to the horror-on-DVD scene - which often was designed to hide something far less shiny on the inside.  With little information except a NY Times quote claiming the film was "fittingly malevolent" (Gee, thanks for the redundancy, Chet?  How would you explain Psycho?), I let the film be until recently when I started hearing buzz about a newly released prequel - Bereavement - which has garnered some awfully positive buzz from horror fans.  I wanted to see that movie, so I had to see its forefather first, even though no one seemed to really say anything good about Malevolence.

Like my inner monologue about the film's quality, Malevolence is a disjointed little horror tale.  The opening features a bit of torture and brutality that's one part Texas Chainsaw and one part Hostel, and I have to admit that my initial impression of the film was not positive.  Something like "Oh geez, not another one of these mean little pointless torture movies!" went through my mind as we watch a young woman gutted in front of an innocent child witness.  The film promptly shifts gears after a title sequence, introducing a group of criminals who botch a robbery and a single mother and daughter (lets face it, no one in horror has a kid and stays married) who cross paths with the desperate failed robbers.  They hide out in the countryside at a seemingly abandoned house near a seemingly abandoned slaughterhouse and seemingly things obviously aren't gonna end well for most of them.

And that's when the slashery part of the film kicked in - and, against type, when I kinda started to fall for Malevolence.  If you've ever read this silly site before, y'all know that I looooovvvvveee to complain about slasher movies and how they all ripped off Halloween and how they're not even real movies anyway - even though I kinda love watching slashers.  Malevolence doesn't shake that perception - in fact it's often a blatant homage to John Carpenter's masterpiece of slashing - but I found it all shockingly well done.  We've seen these settings and situations before, but director Stevan Mena has a really cool vision that kept me involved in the film.  Sure, that might be because it apes John Carpenter's vision - but there are worse crimes a slasher director could commit.

Of course, the best thing Mena does by following Carpenter's lead is that he keeps his film dark in tone throughout.  You can forget gratuitous nudity or comical partying or random silliness, Mena's film maintains that dark tone that the opening scene gave us for a strong 85 minutes.  There's one silly tacked on moment near the end of the film, but it's followed by a final scare that I quite liked.  And, the truth of the matter is that - when Malevolence is at its most tense and dark shadows become a killer with a pillowcase over his head and an effective musical score (also by Mena) jumps in - Malevolence might be the most physically tense slasher film I've seen since Halloween. 

Unlike the inexperienced criminals that began the film as villains - that's one of them holding a gun to the girl's head in the image I posted above - the stalking killer works very well in Malevolence.  He doesn't appear like Myers would have in Halloween, vanishing as needed and taking on a boogeyman form, but the reveal of what he is and how he ties into that brutal opening scene is an interesting reveal.  I'm not quite sure it works entirely in the context of this film - Bereavement, which I'll probably cover one of these days, ties up the loose ends incredibly well - but it adds a unique scene to the end of the film that makes sense out of the rest of the film's heavy tone.

I guess I might be able to convince me to admit that Malevolence isn't a great movie - the actors aren't great and there are a few lulls - but its best moments are really friggin' good.  This is a far better movie than its standard slasher appearance lets on, and I'm willing to give it a pass for some of its faults.  Malevolence hit me perfectly on a primal level, and stands as a fine debut for a talented filmmaker who I'm gonna keep my eye on.  Next time I'm needing some late night creeps from a slasher film, I'm probably gonna consider Malevolence (and/or Bereavement) seriously, because Mena does Carpenter really well. 

The Mike's True Heroes of Horror (6/10) - Bruce Campbell

Gotta admit it...there were a few times when I almost convinced myself to vote this guy off the list.  That's less a statement against him and more of a statement about how many people there are who could be listed as true heroes of horror.  But, when push came to shove, I realized that every list needs a King. Who am I to deny y'all that?

Bruce Campbell

Who is Bruce Campbell?

Born and raised in the land of Michigan, Bruce Campbell started making Super 8 movies with friends as a teenager and never looked back.  His first feature - made alongside old friends Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert - would slowly but surely make its mark in the horror viewer's mind.  A couple of sequels and a few other horror roles - but mostly those sequels, would skyrocket Campbell to the top of the nerd love food chain in the early '90s.

Campbell has spent much of the last twenty-five years at work thanks to this horror trilogy. His travels have included frequent collaboration with Raimi and the Coen brothers, a couple of cult favorite television shows (I still think The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. is one of the greatest things ever on TV, but that's a different story), and recent mainstream success in the USA series Burn Notice.  Campbell has also written a couple of books, done some voice acting, and even starred in Old Spice commercials.  Oh, and he's made a few more horror movies too.

Bruce is most known for....

Being groovy. Even though his character in the first Evil Dead film was far from it, Ashly J. Williams - or, just Ash - has a place at the top of most horror fans' lists of cool dudes.  Campbell played the character across all three Evil Dead films - The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn, and Army of Darkness, if you're counting along at home - and his progression from ambitious young actor to posterized cult God can be graphed in a linear fashion through the films.  By the end of Army - and I'm talking about the superior "Eff Yeah, Ash Rules" ending that the studio tacked on, not the drab and dopey ending Raimi wanted - Campbell's appeal to the horror fan had become everlasting.  And, based on those three movies alone, that appeal was completely earned.

Other horror hits....

After the Evil Dead flicks, finding Bruce Campbell movies became a favorite pastime of many horror lovers.  Though his career has taken many paths into many genres, he's always had a place in the horror genre, for better or worse.  Early in his career he popped into films like Maniac Cop - which I loved last night - and Intruder, but with time he started making fun cameos in things like Waxwork II (a personal favorite).  Campbell has strayed from the horror genre at times, but has made many returns in the last decade, even directing himself in a couple of campy films, The Man With The Screaming Brain and My Name is Bruce.

To be honest, my favorite performance from Campbell doesn't come from any of these movies or any of the Evil Dead flicks.  It comes from Don Coscarelli's brilliant Bubba Ho-Tep, in which Campbell rocked the screen as a retirement home Elvis who battles a soul sucking mummy.  I kid you not when I say that this ridiculous sounding movie pretty much rocked my socks off dramatically; Campbell's ability to bring the King to the screen in such a sad state is insanely moving.  It's one of my favorite movies of the new millennium, easily.

(Oh, I also have to mention Terminal Invasion here.  Sure, it's a bad movie that premiered on what is now SyFy, but it borrows from one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes and Campbell rocks and I just love it. So yeah, Terminal Invasion. And I'm saying that now, even though I just watched an interview where Bruce made fun of people who like Terminal Invasion.)

So, why's Bruce Campbell here?

Part of me thinks that question is too easy to answer, part of me thinks that question deserves more thought.  I mean, he IS Bruce Campbell, after all.  That fact alone makes him one of the most important, raddest, and best people to ever step foot in horror.  At least that's what a lot of horror fans think, and Campbell knows it.  The deification of the Evil Dead star has often left Campbell reacting to fans in a darkly humorous manner that doesn't seem too far off from the spoof version of himself that appeared in My Name is Bruce.

In recent years, I've really come to respect that side of Campbell.  No human who's worth a hoot wants to spend all day having people blow sunshine up their rear and treat them only with reverence.  If you've ever checked out footage of Bruce interacting with fans at screenings or conventions, you'll generally find an air of disregard for the drooling and screaming that goes on around him.  The guy knows he's just a guy who's been in movies - some good, some bad - and he doesn't buy in to that diva mindset that many other celebrities are cursed by.

Some have read Campbell's attitude as a dislike for these fanatical fans, but I've always found the guy to be a fresh kind of humble.  Since joining Twitter a few months back, Campbell has used the microblogging tool to interact with plenty of fans who have plenty of questions for him, and provided a good insight into just who Bruce Campbell is by sharing his thoughts and humor with most of us.  I got my own little interaction with Campbell back when I questioned him about the new Evil Dead project - and inadvertently started an internet feeding frenzy - which I must admit is one of the highlights of my year.  But it's not a highlight because I'm in awe of Campbell, it's a highlight because I really respect what Campbell has done in horror.

And truthfully, what became of Ash in the Evil Dead films was worth the accolades.  Campbell's willingness to throw himself - and his body, which must have been battered thoroughly throughout the three films - into the splattery situations of these films is nothing but wonderful, and his snarky charisma really carried the latter films at times.  The resulting iconic quotes and hilarious sight gags of Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness were just what horror fans needed at the time, breathing life into the slasher filled wasteland that was the '80s and early '90s.

When we think of Campbell as Ash, it's easy to want to throw ourselves at his feet and scream "We're not worthy!"  Heck, I stumbled into calling him a King in the opening of this post.  But Bruce Campbell should be recognized as a hero of horror for more than just his character in an iconic trilogy.  The fact that Bruce Campbell continues to throw himself into the horror scene and interact with his fans, even when some of them lack sanity, is what's cemented his status as a true hero of horror to me.  He's having fun with us, just as we're having fun with him.  I dig that.

Maniac Cop

(1988, Dir. by William Lustig.)

Maniac Cop is one of those movies I'd always heard the cool horror fans talk about, but never checked out anyway.  I'm not sure if I was just trying to be a nerd rebel or if I was afraid it was gonna be one of those movies that SAYS it stars Tom Atkins and Bruce Campbell but really only has small doses of said actors.  Maybe it was a combination of both (or maybe it was the fact that my first brush with director William Lustig was the laughable, yet entertaining, Uncle Sam - which I never took too seriously), because I just kinda let Maniac Cop be up until recently.

Curiosity never lets go, however, and I finally found myself sitting down with Synapse Films' new blu-ray disc of Maniac Cop this evening.  And now I'm kicking myself, because those cool horror kids obviously know what cool is. 

Maniac Cop is pretty much the story of a maniac, dressed as a cop, who puts a hurtin' on anyone and everyone in New York City.  He's one of the '80s most imposing killers, towering over victims in his proper uniform and police hat while brandishing a club that has a knifey surprise inside.  This presentation makes him one of the most ominous killers of the decade, even if he isn't at all stealthy.  In fact, the Maniac Cop presents himself more like Frankenstein's monster and other lurching killers than your run-of-the-mill slasher killer, because he's actually a seemingly undead gigantor with a chip on his shoulder.

And when you've got a seemingly undead gigantor, you gotta call in the pros.  It appears the Ghostbusters wouldn't take this case, which leaves a bunch of cops on the case - including Atkins, Campbell (playing the honest cop who was set up, presumably by the Maniac Cop himself), Richard "Shaft" Roundtree and veteran gruff guy William Smith (who I most love for being Conan the Barbarian's dad).  We sadly don't get a lot of Atkins and Campbell on-screen together - possibly because the combination of such amazing elements could have combusted the space-time continuum - but both actors are very welcome as foils to Robert Z'Dar (I checked, he's NOT a robot despite his name) and his massive Maniac Cop frame.  (And, if I'm being honest, I kinda wanted a little more Atkins than Campbell.  Bruce's character just wasn't quite "groovy" yet.)

Maniac Cop combines elements of the slasher genre with the inner city style that made Lustig's previous films Maniac and Vigilante so intriguing, particularly capitalizing on the latter film's gangland focus.  Some of the police scenes feel like they'd be more at home in an action film of the '80s, with Smith and Roundtree occasionally appearing to not even know they're in a horror film.  The balance between police drama and horror isn't hard to find, and the gritty realism of some scenes - even ones with Sam Raimi as a news reporter talking about tensions in the city or a shockingly beardless George "Buck" Flower as a nice homeless man - occasionally makes the film seem a little more serious than it is.

Then the film speeds to a cheesy final act that's full of violence and silly carnage, which makes me dig it even more.  I'm not sure the finale does anything really well - though I did find the final moments very pleasing - but it's at least a fun wrap-up to the film's interesting set up.

I think my thoughts on the finale not doing anything extremely well are indicative of the whole film's quality.  I don't know if I'd really call Maniac Cop a good film compared to Lustig's preceding films - Maniac provided a more interesting look at a killer and Vigilante gave us a crime story that involved us in the inner city action - but there's still a lot of charm to be found in this movie.  Maniac Cop is a brute of a film, just like its killer, and it's a lot of fun to see its mixture of genres play out.  With its unique villain and its horror heroes leading the charge, Maniac Cop should at least provide an entertaining viewing experience for horror fans who are simply looking for a campy thriller.

The Mike's True Heroes of Horror (5/10) - Jamie Lee Curtis

This choice bugs the hell out of me.  That annoyance has nothing to do with the choice, which I'm 100% certain represents one of my favorite people in horror, but it comes because - sadly - this is the only woman who made their way onto my list.  As someone who stands in support of women in horror - as well as women in all other sane pursuits - I am not happy about this.  But, my goal was to put the best ten on the field, and I think I did that.  So, I'm annoyed with myself, but it has nothing to do with our choice....

Jamie Lee Curtis

Who is Jamie Lee Curtis?

Born into Hollywood royalty - she's the daughter of Tony Curtis and Psycho's own Janet Leigh - Jamie Lee Curtis grew up around the movies in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles before heading off to a preparatory school in Connecticut during her teenage years.  She returned home in 1976 to attend The University of the Pacific, but left school after a year to do what most young Californian girls want to do - become an actress.

Jamie Lee made her film debut in 1978 - we'll talk about that film a bunch today - and has stayed busy on screen ever since, despite personal struggles.  Her early horror career is what brings her to this list, but she developed a reputation for her comic skills, and has received numerous awards/nominations for fun stuff like Trading Places, A Fish Called Wanda, and True Lies.  She's now semi-retired, is in recovery regarding alcohol problems that plagued much of her career, and stays active online as a blogger for The Huffington Post. She's also written and published several children's books.

Jamie Lee is most known for....

Being the Alpha "scream queen".  Though many actresses are given that title - these days young actresses who are willing to wear low cut tops get a coupon in the mail, I think - it was Curtis' character in Halloween that created the template for horror movies that would follow.  She followed up that role by riding that train of success through several other films, and also appeared in three more Halloween sequels as Laurie.

Other Horror Hits....

 The template I mentioned didn't come from just Halloween, as Curtis would dive into the horror scene a few more times in the first years of the 1980s.  She continued to be the survivor girl in slasher films Prom Night and Terror Train, and picked up a couple of meatier horror roles in John Carpenter's The Fog and Richard Franklin's Roadgames. She also reprised her role as Laurie in 1981's Halloween II, proving her strength against Michael Myers once more.

Curtis would return to the genre with moderate success later in her career.  She headlined the psychosexual thriller Mother's Boys in the early '90s (which was a real dud, BTW), and made a move back to Halloween land for the final two films in the series (I refuse to acknowledge you, Robert Zed-word) - 1998's Halloween H20 and 2002's Halloween: Resurrection.

So, why's Jamie Lee Curtis here?

I've tipped my hand a few times already, so you may already know the answer to that question.  But it's so much more complicated than you think.  I've said that Jamie Lee was the queen of scream queens, but seeing why that's the case takes some work. 

When you really watch Halloween and start looking at the parts of the film - something I've done dozens of times with my favorite horror film - you start to see that there's really nothing special about Laurie Strode.   She is a plain-Jane, run-of-the-mill, average teenage good girl.  It was nothing new or shocking, it was simply what the movie needed.  So why's Jamie Lee so important, if all she did was act like a normal girl?

With a big knife.

If you look back at horror movies that came before Halloween, there weren't a bunch of characters like this.  For starters, horror movies made before the 1970s were primarily period pieces or monster tales, the type of stories that were anchored around a strong male lead and a female in distress.  There were outliers - like Curtis' mother in Psycho - but it's really a falsehood to claim Janet Leigh was a "scream queen" in Psycho.  Her character was a criminal, a fornicator, and (most importantly) a victim - three things that don't really apply to Laurie Strode. (Although, Laurie technically was a criminal when she smoked that wacky weed with Annie - but I guess we'll give her a pass on that one.)

Other movies that preceded it had final girls - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Black Christmas spring to mind - but they didn't present themselves like Jamie Lee did.  Large portions of Carpenter's film are specifically designed to make us realize why Laurie Strode is fated to be opposite the boogeyman that's represented by Michael Myers.  Her virtues aren't just there to make us feels she's innocent, they exist to counteract the humanized evil that is represented elsewhere in the film. 

Most of what I'm talking about is on the writers, but it was still up to Curtis to represent what the film had in mind when it came down to humanity vs. evil.  And, despite the fact that Curtis was actually more like the other female characters in the film, she stepped in and became that pure "girl scout" character without a flaw.

And then she proved it, again and again, despite some awful haircuts and wardrobes.  Though Prom Night and Terror Train are certainly lesser films than Halloween, it was Curtis' ability to make us feel for the lead character that carried them to an audience.  Perhaps her performances in these films and Halloween II were re-runs of her work in Halloween, but I like to look at them like a science experiment.  Halloween was the first test, these roles were her way of turning theory into common practice.  (You'll notice I didn't mention Fog and Roadgames here.  I don't think her roles in these two films fit the final girl template that she pioneered, so I left them out - even if they are awesome.)

Whether it's completely her doing or not, Jamie Lee Curtis represents a shift in horror, the time when it went from what it once was to what it is today.  She fell into the perfect situation in Halloween - where she originally auditioned for PJ Soles' role - and she spent the next five years becoming the face of American horror for a new generation of horror fans.  It's a storybook case of being in the right place at the right time, and it worked out perfectly for both Jamie Lee Curtis and the horror viewer.

 I think it sounds like I'm trashing on Jamie Lee a little, which is not my intent.  I've never seen her in a movie where she wasn't one of the best things about it.  But her other talents - like her comic turn in the flawless A Fish Called Wanda - are so diverse that some of her horror roles seem like small potatoes in comparison.  That might be a testament to how talented Curtis is in general, but I don't mean to take anything away from away from what she did in the strong horror performances that kickstarted her career.  They made her one of the true icons of horror, and that's not a bad thing to be.

The Thing: The Phantom Menace

(2011, Dir. by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.)

(Had to change the title of the review just so we know it's a prequel...and Attack of the Clones would have been too easy.)

The dreaded task of following a classic falls squarely on the shoulders of The Thing this October, despite the filmmakers' insisting that the film is actually a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece that basically everyone who's ever watched a horror movie loves.  As is the case with every horror movie that comes down with a case of same-title-itis, comparisons to the preceding film are near impossible to avoid.  I certainly won't be able to write any of this without referencing Carpenter's film, and I apologize for that in advance.

The thing about The Thing - and when I say The Thing in this review I mean the 2011 version of The Thing, not the 1982 or 1951 versions which FMWL has already talked up - is that I want to say nice things about The Thing.  The idea of showing us what happened before the creature made its way to U.S. Outpost 31 where it encountered Kurt Russell's beard is a good one, and the first act of the prequel really had me convinced that this film could pull off something on its own.  The characters are decently developed, we're given a strong-willed female protagonist (who is played well by Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and the film retains a lot of the atmosphere of Carpenter's film.  Most of that retention comes from simple things - ranging from the use of what I call "Carpenter font" for titles to the wardrobe and set design to the original film's musical score - but these little things go a long way to making us feel comfortable about the film.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of flaws in the film too - and you don't need to know the original film to see them.  The most blatant offense comes from the overuse of computer generated effects, which are - for lack of a better term - pretty terrible.  Viewers who aren't familiar with Carpenter's film will most likely be put off by the monsters that the film creates with these effects, and they're even more likely to have a negative effect on those who are familiar with Rob Bottin's work on Carpenter's film.  The practical Thing of that film is long gone, and the prequel overdoses on tentacle-fu throughout the film.

While the film goes overboard on monster action, it loses a lot of the paranoid frenzy of Carpenter's film.  Winstead's character tries to be a ringleader in pointing out the fact that no one can trust each other throughout the film - perhaps because she's listening to Men At Work's classic hit "Who Can It Be Now?" when we meet her - but the film often tips its hand by simply having a character explode into a mass of tentacles and teeth.  The film states that it is an adaptation of the novella "Who Goes There?" and not the films that preceded it, but it troubles me that this Thing is so quick to step away from the psychological tension that Carpenter's film took from that story.  To be fair, I haven't read that story....but I doubt it had so many scenes that feel like badly mutated scenes from Jurassic Park.

I really wanted to come home and defend this movie. It's a good idea that's mostly well acted (Eric Christian Olson should have never been allowed on set) and is well produced and feels like a unique take on the story that's already produced two unique classics.  Oh, and it sounds really good too - the music and sound effects had me in chills a couple of times, particularly when the Thing started shrieking.  Regardless, the movie loses its way as it moves on and just becomes an effects movie - which is a bad thing when the visual effects aren't any good.

Honestly, I think fans of Carpenter's movie might be more forgiving to this film than the general public.  There's a lot of nostalgia to be had in those little things - including a nice mid-credits sequence that ties the film to U.S. Outpost 31 - and the fans will surely get a kick out of those moments.  I really think there is a place for this script in The Thing universe, and that a story headed by Winstead's strong character and the Norwegian outpost's crew could have worked as its own film - it's just frustrating to see that the film couldn't put everything together and hold its early momentum.

So yeah, I can't defend this Thing.  If I squint really hard I can see the charm of Carpenter's classic behind it, but the overuse of the creature's alien form and the dumbed down scientific and psychological sides of the film are a bit insulting.  The film sums itself up perfectly when it suggests a blood test like the one that was one of the highlights of the original film, then cuts corners and uses discussion of dental hygiene to separate the real from the unreal.  The folks behind the movie didn't give the audience the credit they deserved, and their simplified version of The Thing's story falls flat due to their missteps.

Midnight Movie of the Week #93 - The Thing From Another World

Though it's about to be further concealed by a prequel to its famous remake - which is one of the best flicks ever in its own ridiculously awesome way and was voted FMWL's 2010-2011 Midnight Movie of the Year - The Thing From Another World still makes my socks rock sixty years after the fact.  The 1951 film shows it age at times, but that charm that once inspired John Carpenter and a whole generation of horror and sci-fi fans still shines through in plenty of ways.

One of the first studio examples of the flying saucer genre that would dominate movie screens in the 1950s, The Thing From Another World is also a movie that represents some of horror's best traits.  Adapted loosely from Joseph Campbell's novella - whose monster resembles the shapeshifting terror of Carpenter's Thing - the elder version of the story gives us a straight-laced military crew, a few scientists, one wonderful broad, and a hulking stalker from outer space. 

While this Thing certainly plays to the strengths of its era - the characters definitely present themselves with that "aw shucks" charm our generation expects from classic cinema - there are a lot of interesting things going on inside the film.  One of those things is probably not the male characters - the slightly comedic reporter character is a little fun, and the doctor looks like what you'd expect a super science guy to be these days - who are one note cliches.  I once argued that Carpenter's version of The Thing needed characters who we don't know too well so they could be interchangeable within a tale where no one can be trusted, but the original takes a much straighter approach to its characters.  The Captain's a captain, the doctor's a doctor, the reporter's a reporter....and everyone else is just pretty much there.

But there is one wild card in The Thing From Another World's hand - female station hand Nikki Nicholson, played by Margaret Sheridan.  First glance might present her as your average Jill Friday in an old movie, but there's an edge to the character that reeks of producer/possible-director Howard Hawks' involvement.  We're introduced to her via a discussion of her embarrassing the romantically interested captain during a previous affair, in which she apparently outdrank the heroic soldier AND managed to not have sex with him.  Their relationship throughout the film evolves into smoking together, drinking together, and even a small dose of bondage - and I don't think I need to tell you that that wasn't exactly commonplace in 1950s cinema.  So yeah - I kind of love this tough chick character who was randomly thrown in to the movie.  She's literally decades ahead of her time.

Actually there are two wild cards in the film's hand, because you can't really ignore the nearly seven-foot tall man beast that is loosed upon the Alaskan military facility in the film's second act.  Though the title creature is kept off screen for much of the film, he's always near the film's proceedings.  Some sort of device that's kind of like that alien detector from Alien comes in handy in a few scenes, and other moments obscure our view of him using the elements.  One of the best examples comes when the newly unthawed Thing battles with the sled dogs outside the camp, and the viewer only sees flailing limbs as the dogs make the kind of noises you never want to hear from dogs.  Dogs played a different role in Carpenter's version, but both films use them as a tool to make the viewer concerned about The Thing and just how brutal it is.

Though some of the sciency talk has always gone over my head - seriously, I couldn't tell you the difference between a zygote and orange marmalade - I kind of like the original Thing's monster.  Though it only comes in one shape (that of future Gunsmoke star James Arness), the weird connection between this alien lifeform and plants adds something to the proceedings.  There's that weird scene where the doctor listens to a bunch of bulbs with heartbeats using a stethoscope and lots of talk of cell structure and other sciency things, which creates a unique kind of alien that hasn't been matched often in horror or sci-fi cinema.  I think the message of the film is that this lumbering beast is kind of a cross between Little Shop of Horrors and Frankenstein, and I dig that.

That's another thing about this Thing - the script is both smart and sharp.  The adaptation by Charles Lederer is alleged to have been "touched up" by both Hawks and famous screenwriter Ben Hecht (whose amazing Hollywood career simply can not be summed up by me naming only one movie here), and it features some of the coolest moments in sci-fi.  I've already discussed Nikki - who seems to have come right out of Hawks' epic comedy His Girl Friday - but other parts of the film provide interesting nuggets of dialogue and surprising doses of humor.  The most famous call from the film is the final "Keep watching the skies!" commentary from the reporter - which has been a sci-fi staple ever since, but there are other bits and pieces of explanation that really strike a chord, even with modern audiences.  Perhaps my favorite random moment in the script comes when the Doctor proclaims "At 12:10 AM, the hand became alive" while reporting his findings while working with remnants of The Thing.  It's such a simple moment, but it shows where The Thing's writers - whoever they were - had their heads.  And it might even show how much they wanted to surprise us.

I know we're supposed to look back at The Thing From Another World as simply a template that led to Carpenter's classic these days, but I'm sitting here and thinking there's a lot more to this bit of sci-fi monster mania than people often remember.  Comparing Hawks' production (which I should mention is credited to director Christian Nyby) to Carpenter's film isn't really a valid move in my book, as these two films are unique in many ways.  So when you're considering Carpenter's film and the newfangled prequel/remake/premake that's hitting screens as I type - don't forget where things started.  Because The Thing From Another World is a classic too, and I think it still has a lot to offer the genre fan today.

The Mike's True Heroes of Horror (4/10) - Lon Chaney, Sr.

Some people say that you never forget your first time.  I certainly didn't when I started looking through the candidates for my list of True Heroes of Horror.  Though there are plenty of people I know more about and plenty of people who have spent more time in the forefront of the horror verse in the past 80 plus years, but I couldn't possibly end this list without adding the name of...

Lon Chaney, Sr.

Who is Lon Chaney, Sr?

Leonidas Frank Chaney was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado on April Fools' Day of 1883.  He was born to two deaf parents, which meant that he learned to communicate without words at a young age.  He began a stage career in 1902, and met and married his first wife, Cleva, in 1905.  His seventeen year old bride gave birth to their only son, Creighton - more on him later - a year later, but things wouldn't stay so rosy for long.

In 1913, the couples' marriage was on the rocks, and Cleva attempted suicide at the theater, setting loose a scandal that led to divorce and the end of both of their stage careers.  Lon moved on to film, and began to make his mark in the latter part of the decade - before becoming one of the screen's biggest stars in the 1920s.  Sadly, Chaney was cut down still in his prime via lung cancer in August of 1930, ending his life and film career at age 47.

Lon is most known for....

Being the silent screen's biggest horror icon.  His use of makeup effects to disfigure his own face made him a star, which led him to his highest fame in the mid '20s.  The most iconic image of Chaney comes from 1925's The Phantom of the Opera, in which he shocked audiences as the title character of Gaston Leroux's novel long before the musical adaptation.  More on that later too.

Other Horror Hits....

Chaney managed to act in 161 films in his 47 years, and many of them are still recognizable names in the horror lexicon.  Hits like Phantom and The Hunchback of Notre Dame have plenty of name value - not to mention ties to Broadway and/or Disney - and Chaney led many other well regarded films.  I will admit that I'm not as experienced with Chaney's films as I should be - I've seen those famous ones and a couple others - but what I have seen from the man has always exceeded expectations. And there's also the big pink elephant in the room whenever it comes to Chaney, Sr. - London After Midnight.  The now lost film - which is responsible for the harrowing image above - is pretty much the Roanoke Colony of horror films.  Its mystery has intrigued thousands, and rightfully so - because that thing looks creepy.

My favorite of the films I've seen (that isn't Phantom) is most definitely The Unknown, a 1927 bit of sleaze that teamed the star with director Tod Browning and future star Joan Crawford.  In fact, I once used the film as an example of just how talented "The Man of 1000 Faces" was.  But, honestly, that has very little to do with why Lon's on this list.  (Also not the reason he's here - but totally awesome - is the fact that his son, Creighton Chaney, grew up to be Lon Chaney, Jr. - who would star in three of my favorite films, The Wolf Man, High Noon, and Spider Baby.  He was a contender for this list too, but his father won the spot.)

So, Why's Lon Chaney, Sr. here?

For the record, I'm pretty sure that my parents are the smartest people of all-time.  I'm not exactly sure what possessed them to do it, but when little baby The Mike started asking for scary movies, they gave him The Phantom of the Opera.  I'm not sure how many kids of the '80s first experienced horror via a silent film, and I don't entirely remember my first time watching the film - but I know that it set the tone for my life in horror that followed.  Yes, my beloved The Blob and Creature From the Black Lagoon also stole my heart around the time of second grade, but it was Chaney's Phantom that was my first approved piece of horror cinema.

Considering I was the kid who memorized The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree before I was 3 years old (best book ever, man!), I was pretty willing to try to read my horror on screen.  And the choice was a fantastic one, because the film wasn't entirely scary but had the moments that just make a kid go "WHOA".  I mean, think about every little kid you know. Do they like Cars or Up because of the plots?  Do they read into the full story.  NO.  They know what it's about, they know how it ends, and they know there are parts of it that make them go "OH MOMMY THAT WAS AWESOME!"  And then they spill their Cheerios or pee their pants.  And that's what Phantom of the Opera was to me.

The thing that made Little The Mike go whoa? Lon Chaney being a disfigured monster.  And I loved it.  I like to think that I was smart enough as a little chum to recognize the sympathetic side of the Phantom's plight - that he was really not that bad, that he was trapped in his ways by his looks - but I'm betting in retrospect that I probably just sat there and stared at the Phantom's surprising face.  And loved it.  

This version of the unmasking actually comes from a 1929 re-edited version of Phantom, but I think both versions are pretty much amazing.

But it's not just nostalgia that propels the senior Chaney on to this list - it's the fact that that moment in Phantom when the mask comes off and The Mike was introduced to his first on-screen monster is still pretty much fantastic.  It's a moment that never, ever gets old.  I seriously think it might be the best individual scene in horror history.  Mary Philbin (who, if we're being honest, was kind of a fox) does the Christine Daae thing perfectly, sneaking up, getting curious, removing the previously polite fellow's mask - and then stuff gets real.  Chaney does that silent shriek thing you see above that makes his face look like an evil Pez dispenser, Philbin gets terrified, and poor Erik - who just wanted to play Don Juan Triumphant on his underground piano - loses his cool.  It's just 100% fantastically done by director Rupert Julian and his two cast members, and I don't know if anything else in the horror wold can top it.

I'm pretty sure that the cinemagoer of 1925 - much like Little The Mike - had never seen anything that represented horror quite like Chaney did when that mask came off.  And I'm pretty sure the world is better because of it.  I don't want to make this all about one scene in one movie - Chaney's wowed me in several films and I'm sure he will keep up the charm as I keep digging into his career - but I can't understate just how much I really love The Phantom of the Opera and this one perfect scene.  In about 20 seconds of action, represents a gigantic part of the horror loving foundation that keeps me going on my quest to keep horror alive in my own way.

Lon Chaney Sr. remains one of my true heroes of horror for simple reasons, but sometimes the simplest answer is the right one.  Plenty of horror icons have come and gone since - I've already mentioned some this month, and I'm sure I'll mention more by the end of it - but his silent control of the horror genre demands as much attention as I can give it.  If you haven't seen what Chaney could do, I'm kinda worried that you haven't seen what horror cinema can be.

FMWL Indie Spotlight - Ashes

(2010, Dir. by Elias Matar.)

I'm probably not telling you anything you didn't already know, but hospitals are pretty much the place to NOT be.  No one wants to be there as a patient (because it means they're sick), no one wants to be there as a visitor (because it means someone they care about is sick), and no one wants to work there (because anyone there is sick or exposed to sickness).  You could argue that babies want to be there, but they're babies - they don't know what they're talking about.  So when you're introduced to someone who actually wants to be at a hospital, you have to kind of wonder about them.

Enter Dr. Andrew Stanton, played by Brian Krause, the lead character of Ashes.  Dr. Stanton is presented immediately as one of those "driven" fellas who works because he believes in what he's doing.  He's deeply involved in research to find a cure for that demonic disorder known as AIDS, and he responds to emergency calls with comments that imply that he lives for those moments.  He certainly cares about what's going on around him, which puts him squarely in trouble's path when he begins to provide experimental care to young boy who was the victim of a sting from a beached jellyfish. (The great thing about horror movies? I could not have made that up.)

The film is Dr. Stanton's journey from that point forward, and Krause is tasked with carrying the film in a dramatic manner.  I had previously encountered Krause in a few films - like Loch Ness Terror (which was featured on the SyFy Network) and Sleepwalkers (which I thought was kind of embarrassingly bad) - so I will say that I was a little leery of him carrying a dramatic horror film going into the film.  I'm therefore glad to say that I was very pleased with his performance in the lead.  It's not a perfect performance - there are a few scenes when his character is spiraling out of control that seem forced - but it's a very good one that meets the film's needs.  Krause really buys in to the role, both physically and mentally, which makes him an enjoyable face of the film's plot.

The plot of the film follows a formula we've seen before - exposure, trouble, repeat - and does so in an intelligent manner.  Director Elias Matar handles things with a clear vision for where his film is going, and doesn't rush things.  The film only runs 88 minutes, and it uses almost every one of those minutes perfectly to advance the story of infection and disease.  Some of the side plots - like the government agency inquisitor who gets involved with the Doctor's work - don't fire on all cylinders, but Matar and Krause keep the film grounded with the lead character's plight and do a good job of refocusing the attention when the film suffers its momentary lapses in judgment.  The final act of Ashes had me scratching my head a little - I think I wanted to see more of what was going on - but considering the film's resources it makes sense to keep things focused on Dr. Stanton.

I can't say I was blown away by Matar's film, but I did find a lot to like about it.  This is a smart thriller that doesn't cheat the viewer, with the hospital setting providing some realistic and frantic drama and Stanton's outside life adding to the horrifying side of the proceedings.  Matar shows that he understands the balance that is needed to present a real world horror tale, which is especially impressive for a director making his first feature.  I think the film's a little too standardized at moments - we've seen doctor creates monster and races to fix things before - but Ashes does its best to provide a new twist on the formula several times throughout the film.  The final product is worth looking out for, and I have to think that Matar is a filmmaker who could continue to make his mark on cinema in the coming years.

If you want more info on Ashes - and you should, especially considering that many folks I know liked this one even more than I did - be sure to check out the film's official site or the film's Facebook page.  And, don't forget that those of you in the Boston area can see this - along with FMWL favorites I Didn't Come Here to Die and Absentia - playing this weekend at All Things Horror Presents Shudder Fest!

And watch the trailer!

The Mike's True Heroes of Horror (3/10) - George A. Romero

As I continued my personal journey to determine the True Heroes of Horror, I pushed myself to focus on folks whose achievements in horror outweigh some of the lower points of their careers.  Sometimes, it's not the most consistent performers that really make things happen, it's the people who put everything on the line and manage to make a couple of ground-shaking changes in their field.  With that in mind, I'm happy to present....

George A. Romero.

Who is George A. Romero?

Born in New York City in 1940, George Andrew Romero is most known for the time he spent in the Pittsburgh, PA area after attending college at Carnegie Mellon University.  It was after his graduation that Romero began making short films and - in a twist of strange fate - became inspired to make horror movies after directing a segment about a tonsillectomy for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.  Near the end of the 1960s, Romero made his first movie - and the rest is history.

George is most known for....

Inventing zombies.  Yeah, I know the dude didn't exactly INVENT zombies...but if you ask most people that's the general idea they have.  The point is that those zed-words have become the horror fans' favorite monsters over the past fortyish years, and that craze began when Romero and his friends made a cheap black-and-white horror film in 1968.

His first three zombie films (and it STILL feels weird to realize the man now has six zombie films under his belt these days) have served as the template for dozens of horror stars, directors, and fans that would follow them.  Night of the Living Dead set the tone, Dawn of the Dead showed off the power of social commentary in horror, and Day of the Dead reminded us that people aren't always the good guys.  They're three wildly different films in plot and execution, which is a testament to the director's willingness to adapt over time.  But the message is the same - George A. Romero is the King of the Zombies.

Other Horror Hits....

Romero hasn't been as active as some horror directors throughout his career - he's only directed 16 features to this point - and his biggest hits are primarily those Dead films we already talked about.  But Romero's had some other winners to his name, primarily his vampire drama Martin - which is his personal favorite of his films - and the Stephen King collaboration Creepshow, which perfected the horror anthology formula.  His other horror films have had mixed results, and his last three zombie films have inspired plenty of mixed reviews among horror buffs.

So, why's George A. Romero here?

Despite what I mentioned earlier about George being known as the king of the zombies, that isn't why I have him as one of my heroes of horror.  Sure, I respect the heck out of the man's role in basically creating a staple of the horror genre but that's not why I love his movies, particularly Night and Dawn. 

If there's one thing we've learned in horror recently, it's that any jackass can make a zombie movie.  If I were to list the worst horror movies I've seen in the last decade, at least 3 of the bottom 10 would have zombies in 'em.  I'm sure that number would go up if I was interested enough to hunt down most of the zillion independent and DTV zombie productions that have come out in the past ten years, but thankfully I'm not a glutton for punishment.  Zombies have become a walking cliche to the point of being spoofed lovingly in the widely worshipped Shaun of the Dead and the point of becoming the thing people add to video games when they get bored.

There's even a video game zombie version of George A. Romero.

What's this got to do with George A Romero, who some might claim has become one of those people who just do zombie stuff to get a rise out of people?  Let's go back to the two movies I mentioned two paragraphs ago, Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.  There is zero doubt it in my mind - none, nilch, nunca, nada - that they are the two greatest zombie films in existence.  And I'm struggling to say anything else is close.  Sure, I love Zombi 2 and yes I Walked With a Zombie is a classic and yes, some people do consider the Evil Dead films to be zombie films. I will not be swayed on this matter. For me, zombies start and stop with Night and Dawn.

But the zombies - while iconic in their own ways - aren't the things that matter to me about these two masterpieces.  Dawn of the Dead, on one hand, is a rare horror epic that's all about the characters and how they react to the apocalyptic events around them. Dawn's about an hour longer than most zombie movies, but there's little to no filler as we follow four folks who have to fight to survive despite the knowledge that the world around them has gone mad.  It's one of the most thought provoking films in horror, and the creatures that eventually fill the fated Monroeville Mall are simply tools that push these characters' stories forward.

In the meantime, Night of the Living Dead is what I consider to be the prototype for a perfect horror movie.  Romero's original classic is filmed effectively in black-and-white and written with plenty of sharp jabs at human relations, as the director creates simple, but realistic characters to fill different roles in the film's dramatic arc.  The characters would become a template for future horrors - including the slasher genre and plenty of movies that didn't include zombies - and Romero's simple approach to telling his horror tale (he keeps the film free of unnecessary explanation or Hollywood heroism) has become a standard outline for screenwriters.  I'm not trying to say it's the best horror movie ever made - it does have some problems, like how poorly the catatonic Barbara character has aged - but if someone comes to me who's never seen a horror movie and asks for an example, I'm saying Night of the Living Dead.  It feels exactly like the movie you'd want to throw on at midnight when the witching hour calls.

Romero is known for his zombies, but it is his vision of horror and how it fits into the human world that I will remember.  These two films - supported strongly by Creepshow and Martin, which I could ramble about if I wanted to make this the longest thing I've ever written - show off what George A. Romero is all about.  These days he's widely (and correctly) recognized as one of the most iconic figures in horror, but it's important to remember that his stamp on the genre spreads far beyond a few shambling corpses that hopped out of their graves.  George A. Romero knew what horror meant to the people in his films, and it's his attention to these details that has made me forever grateful for his work.  As those jackasses I previously mentioned have proven, zombies are cheap.  Great horror films like George A. Romero's best works, on the other hand, are truly treasures of the horror genre.

Midnight Movie of the Week #92 - Carrie

As far as I can tell, I think I managed to keep all the bush out of this shot. If not, sorry to the children!

The best thing that can happen to someone who wants to write about a movie is that something in that movie sticks out to them and becomes a topic worth rambling about.  99% of the things I've ever written that I thought were good happened because I was struck by some random piece of a movie that thrilled me and realized I could easily spew some thoughts about it onto a keyboard.  It's kind of like when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, except that no one really wants pizza sauce and melted cheese in their ocular cavity.  (Seriously, Dean Martin....what the heck were you thinking?)

 When I first decided that I wanted to cover Carrie here at FMWL, I was a little concerned. After all, everyone and their mother has seen Carrie.  It's been around for a while, it's kinda a horror classic by one of the best directors ever, and it's the first film to ever be based on a Stephen King book or story or idea or used kleenex. But when I started watching Carrie again, for like the umpteenth time, I immediately began noticing all the reasons that it's so worth talking about again.

Tried to hide the dirty pillows here, too. You're welcome.

There's the horrifying opening segment, which features one of the most terrifying images of all-time: a frail and naked Sissy Spacek howling frantically because she never heard that her maturity is pretty much the opposite of this sentence. (Y'know, it starts with a PERIOD.)  No offense to Ms. Spacek - but she pretty much found a way to turn herself into the ugliest image that's humanly possible while writhing in fear while her evil classmates throw feminine products that I don't understand at her.  I swear that - if you look close enough - there's a moment in the middle of the scene where Spacek, for just a split second, looks JUST LIKE Zelda from Pet Sematary. Has a horror movie ever done more to make us feel sorry for a potential victim in an opening scene?  If so, I don't believe I've ever seen it.

Let's skip back to those evil classmates, who are probably one of the most well-discussed parts of the film - and there are good reasons why.  Led by the diabolical Chris Hargensen (played by Nancy Allen, who would become De Palma's number one leading lady over the years),  they pretty much represent what can be worst about teenagers.  And while we've probably all seen bullies in our days, I'm pretty sure Chris and her cronies - including P.J. Soles and Vinny "John Travlota" Barbino - are among the worst.  This leads to one of the film's most fulfilling scenes, the playful "detention" montage in which Chris and the girls who have tortured Carrie get tortured by their no-nonsense gym teacher played by Betty Buckley.  Set to a whimsical piece by composer Pino Dinaggio, this little sequence shows us how easy it is to push back against a bully...but it also leads to a bit of backlash from the devilish Chris and her friends.

Speaking of, there can't be more than 10-20 things in the world cooler than the shot where Allen, Travolta, and friends head up to the meat packing plant, with its strange gigantic happy pigs-in-fields-with-woman mural that leads to its pig pens, which look like - well, pig pens.   It's just such an amazing little scene (to a biased former child pig farmer), particularly when the Psycho-esque stingers in the musical score accentuate a sledgehammer swingin' Barbarino and Allen cheers him on.  You could take that moment and put it into some backwoods Texas Chainsaw Massacre-y film, and it would not feel out of place at all.  It's the primal side of Chris Hargensen, and it is awesome.

And then there's the prom sequence, which goes a long way toward proving once again how great Brian De Palma can be without using a single word.  The sequence that starts with Carrie White feeling like her dreams have come true and devolves after Chris Hargensen pulls the strings features sweeping music by Dinaggio and great camerawork by cinematographer Mario Tosi; playing out the drama in real-time as we watch the paths of the innocent girl and the devious bully pass for the last time.  The sequence is punctuated by another character, Sue Snell (Amy Irving), who has always been the film's most ambiguous cog to me. 

The motivation of the characters - aside from Chris, who is just simply demonic - throughout Carrie might be one of the film's biggest weaknesses.  One character goes from loving supporter to mocking onlooker in one of the film's key moments, and several other characters - including plenty of adults who are supposed to be looking out for these young people's best interests - seem distant and unreliable.  But then there's Sue, who makes the move to have her football star boyfriend Tommy Ross take Carrie to the prom I was already talking about.  It took me a long time to figure out just what is going on with Sue's character and whether or not she's part of Carrie's problem or Carrie's solution, but the more I watch the film the more I realize that she's a fantastic twist thrown into the otherwise straight-laced film.

But let's get back to that prom, because I feel its also worth talking about how shocking the final act is.  Throughout most of the film, we only see bits an pieces of Carrie's telekinetic power, and there's little to really suggest that she's capable of the kind of things we see play out.  The developments that De Palma shows us - doing the best to utilize both sides of the screen are frantic and fast paced and surprising.  It's easy to get lost in the coming of age drama and the revenge from the evil Chris parts of the film - not to mention the religious stuff with Carrie's mother, played cruelly by Piper Laurie - that we occasionally lose track of what it really is about Carrie that will turn this movie into a literal blood bath.

There's too much to talk about when it comes to Carrie.  The conjunction between King's dramatic approach to horror and De Palma's romantic approach to sleaze is a near perfect one.  This might not be the perfect King film or the perfect De Palma film, but it works because it brings most of the two titans' top traits together.  When mixed with the great performances - Spacek and Laurie got the pub and the Oscar noms, but literally everyone in the film is spot on - Carrie lives on as one of the great conversation pieces in horror.  There's so much to talk about in this film, and I'm glad I've finally taken the time to talk about some of it.

(Oh, and there's also that final scene. Still gets me every time.  Even when I know it's coming.  At least I don't scream like my sister did when we first saw it.)