Sunday, December 17, 2023

New holiday canon: the Black Christmas movies

 HOLY CRAP IT'S NON-OCTOBER POST!  Don't get too excited: I don't imagine this is going to a regular thing around here.  But last weekend I was in a particular sort of holiday mood and watched the three Black Christmases.  And it was good.  I only like a couple of real Christmas movies - Elf and A Christmas Story are it.  I am a big fan of non-traditional Christmas fare, however, like Die Hard, A Nightmare Before Christmas, Gremlins ... and now the Black Christmas movies.  In fact, the more time that passes, the more fond of them I am.

I started with the OG from 1974, the one that started it all, the one that started slashers (an argument can be made).  It's right before Christmas, at a sorority house, and the sisters are having a little party before everyone takes off for the winter break.  There's sassy Barb (Margot Kidder) (OMG I love Barb), our SPOILERS FOR A 49 YEAR OLD MOVIE Final Girl Jess (gorgeous Olivia Hussey), loyal Phyl (Andrea Martin, recently seen in Only Murders in the Building), etc.  Barb drinks a lot - so does their house mother, Mrs. Mack, so there's really no judgment - and is outspoken; Jess is going through some shit with her pretentious conservatory musician boyfriend Peter (she's pregnant and he doesn't want her to get an ab0rt10n); quiet Claire is packing before her dad comes to pick her up and meet her townie boyfriend.  The house is getting a bunch of obscene phone calls and to be honest, they're a little disturbing.  The girls try to get the police involved but are brushed off until bodies start piling up.

Best poster too

In fact, we waste no time getting to the killing: Claire goes first, then Mrs. Mack, and both are stashed in the attic by the killer.  There is the classic glass unicorn scene, creepy killer POV, "The call is coming from inside the house!" - it's terrific.  I mean, it is a little slow - way too much time watching Peter play the piano.  But I guessed wrong about the killer, the ending is totally ambiguous and this movie is even kind of feminist.  Pretty rad for 1974.

The second Black Christmas is from 2006 and has a pretty major cast, very 2000s.  Andrea Martin is back, this time playing the sorority's house mother.  The sisters include Lacey Chaubert, Michelle Trachtenberg, Katie Cassidy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead; Oliver Hudson plays the bad boyfriend.  It starts pretty much the same with the sisters having a holiday party, and obscene phone calls, and the first girl (poor Claire, again) gets it within the first three minutes.  This time, however, there SPOILERS FOR AN ALMOST 20 YEAR OLD MOVIE two killers, because the crazy person hasn't quite escaped from the asylum yet.  But he does, and goes straight to the sorority house which had been his family's growing up.  The bigger twist is who the second killer is.

"slay ride" haha I get it

This BC iteration is very gory, like eyeballs and stuff, so fair warning if eyes squick you out.  And hoo boy do the bodies stack up: I counted thirteen (and may have missed one).  There isn't much suspense, however, and the movie spends quite a long time on the killer's backstory.  Other than two killers, however, it stays pretty faithful to the original idea.

The third Black Christmas is as recent as 2019 and departs somewhat from the formula of the first two.  It does start the same: sorority Christmas party, but the sisters are getting ominous texts instead of phone calls (who even makes phone calls anymore?).  The first two girls are offed similarly as well: the first, just before she leaves for break; the second, in her room.  This movie is PG-13, by the way, so it is relatively bloodless.  These sorority sisters have a strong bond and they are not shy about speaking up against injustice.  And when the movie takes a hard left and swings into supernatural frat boy secret societies, the girls fight back.  Girl power!  Topple the patriarchy!  Watch out for bows and arrows though (I laughed out loud when the bows and arrows showed up)!  I do like supernatural stuff but I thought BC #3 was stronger when it seemed like a straight slasher.

So anyway, happy holidays to you all!  And enjoy watching whatever makes you happy this holiday season.  Except for It's a Wonderful Life - I can't stand that movie.

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Fourteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #17 Doctor Sleep

 In which we end this October with a whimper, not with a bang.  Doctor Sleep (2019) is based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, directed by Mike Flanagan (Hush, Midnight Mass, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Haunting of Hill House, The Midnight Club, The Haunting of Bly Manor).  It's a sequel to The Shining (book and movie) but hews rather closer to Kubrick's vision than King's sequel.

In a nutshell, little Danny Torrence (Ewan McGregor), who just barely survived that fateful winter at the Overlook Hotel with his mom, is all grown up.  At first, he drinks/drugs/screws around to dampen the demons in his head - he's still got the shine, you see - but visits from ghostly Dick Halloran set him on his path.  He finds a job at a hospice where he (and the resident cat who can tell when a patient is about to die) comforts the residents when they are in their final moments.

Also, there's this supernatural group - the True Knot - who kind of look like carny folk and who travel the country in their RVs, searching out children with psychic abilities (the "shine") so they can torture them and devour their abilities (the "steam") as the children scream and die.  They are lead by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson, terrific) and Zahn McClarnon ("Officer Big" from the incredible Reservoir Dogs) is on her crew.  When the True Knot catches a kid in Iowa, his dying torment is so huge that it catches the notice of both Danny and young Abra, a teenager incredibly strong in the shine - but Rose notices them too.  Danny and Abra join forces to flee and then fight Rose and her gang.

First of all, distractably shitty New England accents, per usual.  Second, this is a long movie (2.5+ hours) and should either have been a limited television series or maybe Danny didn't need to wander around the Overlook Hotel quite so much, revisiting all the old hauntings.  It drags, is what I'm saying, and I was a little bored if Rose wasn't onscreen.  Third, this movie does do a great job of evoking and revisiting Kubrick's movie, including the casting of Danny's parents in flashbacks and the hotel's set design.  The movie is decent enough but I think Flanagan's television shows are stronger.



You know, I think I'll go watch The Lost Boys again, just to end on a high note.  Consider October extended for just a bit longer.

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Fourteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #16 Hatching

 I'm on a roll - I really liked Hatching, my first Finnish horror movie!  This was recommended to me by a college friend and she was right about it.  A gorgeously art-directed, gross monster movie? SIGN ME UP.

Tinja is twelve, bullied, a competitive gymnast and the daughter of a self-centered, self-involved lifestyle blogger (only ever referred to as "Mother").  Mother has created a pink and floral, gold and crystal house for Tinja, her largely-ignored little brother Matias, and her definitely ignored husband to live in.  Mother is also a former ice skater and has put all of her thwarted ambitions onto her daughter, who is good but not quite good enough.  

When a small crow gets into the house, Tinja captures it to release it back into the wild but Mother snaps its neck and tells her to get rid of it.  Later, Tinja finds the dying bird in the woods next to a nest with a single egg.  After performing a mercy killing, she takes the egg home and nurtures it, pouring her loneliness, isolation, confusion and stress into it.  When she cries on it, the eggshell absorbs her tears.  The egg grows.  And grows.  And finally hatches out a gooey, grotesque, toothed bird-monster - a wonderful practical effect. Tinja is both repulsed and compelled to take care of the hatchling, naming it Alli after a lullaby.  Alli is really her only friend.  And the two share a psychic bond.  As Alli starts to morph into a creature more like Tinja, she also tries to punish those she sees as harmful to her caretaker.

I thought this was quite good, a bit of a discourse on motherhood.  It's a very pretty film - other than the gooey bird-monster, and that monster/body horror is well done.  In Finnish with English subtitles.



Friday, October 27, 2023

Fourteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #15 The Menu

 After a run of less than stellar movies, I finally watched one that I ... liked?  I've been keeping my eye out for The Menu to arrive on a streaming platform that I have and it finally popped up.  What a stacked cast: Ralph Fiennes, Anna Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Janet McTeer, John Leguizamo, Judith Light (who really didn't get that much to do but still).

The premise is this: twelve guests arrive on-island for a specialty dinner at an ultra-snooty restaurant - $1,250/per person.  The boat drops them off and then leaves, effectively stranding them, a fact that Margot (AT-J) notices a little uncomfortably.  She is there as the guest of Tyler (Hoult), a pretentious, self-proclaimed foodie influencer, despite the fact that he doesn't cook himself.  We've also got a ruthless restaurant critic (McTeer), a washed-up movie star (Leguizamo) and his assistant, a grouchy couple and three investment banking bros.  Everyone is rich, entitled and kind of an asshole, in various ways.

Fiennes is the chef and his small army of staff follow him worshipfully.  Service is both impeccable and inflexible; the food is abstract and ostentatious.  Chef introduces each course with a little monologue and as the courses go on, his speeches get stranger.  His mother is over there in the corner, drinking herself into oblivion.  Chef has been disillusioned and driven quite mad by catering to the thoughtless, careless rich and, well, as it turns out, everyone on the island tonight is going to die, guests and staff alike.  The dinner to end all dinners.

Both Anna Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes are great, of course.  The Menu isn't straight-up horror but seems a little uncategorizable - weirder than your typical thriller, medium bloody, not funny enough to be a dark comedy.  If you like odd little movies - if you like to eat the rich - take a taste for yourself.



Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Fourteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #14 Spellcaster (1988)

 I also found this one on that AV Club's list of "great horror movies never releases in theaters."  The production ran out of money and Spellcaster only surfaced on video in 1992; it's on Youtube now.  I enjoyed it but how this little movie made any sort of "great" movies list is beyond me.  It ain't good, y'all.

We open with a Goth music video vixen, Cassandra Castle (played by A-ha!'s "Take On Me" girl), lip-syncing and fluttering around a damn impressive castle (any budget they had must have been spent on the location shots at that castle, in Bracciano, Italy).  This is all part of a "Rock TV" (stand-in for MTV) contest where contestants win a trip to the castle to hang out with Ms Castle and search for a hidden $1,000,000 check.  There are seven contestants: a British woman who likes to hunt; Yvette, French girl; Tony, smarmy Italian; Tara from California (who likes to run around in leotards and leg warmers); a chunky guy; and our heroes, a brother and sister from Cleveland, Tom and Jackie (Gail O'Grady).  The castle is owned by the mysterious Signor Diaboli: the contestants have the run of the place but are admonished not to damage any of the priceless antiques.

Well, you know how it goes.  Bodies start piling up immediately.  Yvette petulantly breaks some glassware and then, when she sits down in a wooden chair/throne ornately carved with lions, she gets eaten alive when the lion carvings come to life.  When a drunk Cassandra stumbles into a dungeon, she gets chased out when reanimated corpses come after her.  Tony slashes a painting with his switchblade and ends up "falling" off the highest tower.  The chunky guy gets turned into a pig (this movie is not subtle) and the pig-man suit is amazing.  There are demons popping out of paintings, an aggressive suit of armor, a winged and toothed worm and some sort of tiger/wolf thing.

When it's down to Jackie, Tom and Cassandra, Jackie makes her way to Signor Diaboli's chamber.  As it turns out, he's actually the Devil - Diablo - and he's PLAYED BY ADAM ANT.  He's handsome and charming and hopes they've been enjoying the contest, although really all of them have deserved what they got.  It's a gruesomer Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory!

This is an ultra-low budget film and the effects are primitive, especially since it was filmed in 1988.  That said, I adored the practical effects: the lion chair gnawing on Yvette, the pig-man; the reanimated corpses were all fantastic.  I am willing to forgive a LOT for practical effects.  I do stand by my previous statement, however: this is not a particularly good movie.



Monday, October 23, 2023

Fourteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #13 Th Babysitter (2017)

This one was plucked from the AV Club's recent list of "20 great horror movies never released in the theater."  It's from 2017 and can be found on Netflix: The Babysitter.

Nervous and nerdy Cole gets bullied quite a bit but has a loving, supportive family, a cute and friendly neighbor and a hot babysitter, Bee (Samara Weaving).  He's twelve, and is ridiculed for still having a sitter - until they see her.  Not only is she hot, she's super-cool: drives a rad truck, knows her science fiction and old Westerns, is always down for homemade pizzas and impromptu living room dance parties.  When Cole's parents do a quick weekend away, Bee stays over.  She's done this before and Cole has always wondered what she does after he goes to bed.  So this time he stays up and spies on her.  Bee's friends come over - the quarterback (Robby Amell), the cheerleader (Bella Thorne), the fun guy, the goth chick and the nerd.  It's all fun and games and spin the bottle ... until Bee stabs the nerd as a human sacrifice for her most recent deal with the devil.  You know, s@t@anic de@th cult stuff.

From there, things escalate quickly as Cole is caught out.  He defends himself well, however, since this is his home - basically Home Alones their asses.  The movie gets very bloody and very funny.

Directed by McG, this is a slick, self-aware production.  I would put it on a par with Jennifer's Body - better than average, far better than your usual straight-to-video-or-streaming, and vastly entertaining.  There is a sequel, The Babysitter: Killer Queen, but from what I've read, that one should be avoided at all costs.



Saturday, October 21, 2023

Fourteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #12 Totally Killer

 Here's a brand new horror-comedy for you: Totally Killer and yes, we're going back to the 80s again.  

It starts out in present day, with Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) being completely over it with her parents.  Thirty-five years ago, their high school was shattered by three murders, of Jamie's mom's friends, by the Sweet Sixteen Killer.  And then, on Halloween, the SSK returns for unfinished business: stabbing Jamie's mom (Julie Bowen) sixteen times and killing her right there in their home.  Luckily, Jamie's friend Amelia is a science prodigy and builds a time machine, based on her own mom's schematics.  When Jamie is chased by the SSK, she manages to get the time machine working and transports herself back to October 27, 1987.  She meets up with Amelia's mom and sets out to save the three murder victims - and her own mom too, all of whom are sixteen years old, just like her.  

As someone who was there in 1987, the "80s hair" in Totally Killer is, like, totally wrong.  And we didn't call our friends "bitches" - that's a more modern usage.  Kiernan Shipka is great as a fish out of water, trying to apply 2023 morals/ideals to the late 1980s.  There are pretty wild swings between comedy and horror - it's never suspenseful or scary, but a little bloody and violent (Jamie's mom's fight against the killer is brutal).

This is lightweight entertainment, like they wanted to be Scream but it's less well done and not as smart, with more superficial characters.  Good enough for a watch but it won't be one of the ones we remember.



Thursday, October 19, 2023

Fourteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #11 The House on Sorority Row (1983)

I got so burned by Stephen King adaptations in the first part of the month that I've decided to embrace as many 1980s slashers as I can.  Hence The House on Sorority Row, starring an absolutely gorgeous young Eileen Davidson.

It opens with a flashback to June 19, 1961, as Mrs. Slater struggles through a difficult birth.  It appears that she loses the baby ... or does she?

And then we're back in the "now," a/k/a June 19th in the early 1980s.  College graduation has just wrapped up and the sorority girls are packing up after the school year.  Seven of them - Katie, Vicki (Davidson), Stevie, Morgan, Liz, Diane and Jeanie - are resentful that their house mother (Mrs. Slater) is closing the house before they can have their blow-out party.  They decide to rebel against her and have the party anyway.  She gets very upset and a little violent, whacking people with her cane.  They plan a prank against her and it goes horribly wrong: Vicki ends up shooting and killing her.  They sink her body in the pool and plan to deal with it after the party.

The band playing the party is VERY 80s, by the way.  Also very 80s: Liz's bitchin' van.

Once the party really gets going, so does the killer, whom for a while everyone thinks is a not-as-dead-as-we-thought Mrs. Slater.  In order, these folks get stabbed by that cane or otherwise sliced and diced: some random glasses-wearing nerd who is in the wrong place at the wrong time; Stevie, in the basement, trying to turn off the pool lights; Morgan, in her own bedroom; Diane (in Liz's bitchin' van); Jeanie (in the bathroom); Liz (in her van); Vicki (adjacent to the van); the doctor who attended Mrs. Slater's fateful delivery back in 1961.  Katie ends up being a fairly clever Final Girl (despite some egregious over-acting), luring the killer out and fighting back.  She ends up killing the killer ... or does she?

I didn't like The House on Sorority Row quite as much as Slumber Party Massacre, largely because THoSR took itself so very seriously.  Still, a solid entry into the genre.



Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Fourteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #10 Barbarian

 My friend JG - from elementary school holy moly - has been an excellent resource for television and movie recommendations lately.  He insisted that I watch Wentworth and was SO right about that; if you haven't watched that Australian women's prison drama on Netflix yet, GO DO THAT RIGHT NOW.  So when he recommended Barbarian, I was like of course I will watch that.

Tess, in Detroit for a job interview, arrives at her AirBnB to find it double-booked and already occupied by Keith (played by Bill Skarsgard, never not twitchy).  There are (apparently) no available hotel rooms in all of Detroit so she reluctantly agrees to share with him, and they end up getting along and chatting into the night.  Cue creepy noises overnight and doors opening by themselves.  After the interview the next day, Tess returns to the house and ends up locked in the basement because the movie wants her to.  She can't get out the window because the movie doesn't want her to.  Instead, she finds a creepy hidden door, opens it, walks down the creepy hall to a lighted room that contains a stained mattress, a camera, a bucket and a bloody handprint on the wall.  Keith returns in time to free her from the basement but since he doesn't really believe her, goes down to look for himself.  He doesn't come back.  When she goes down after him, she finds a creepy stairway to an even creepier sub-basement.  She finds Keith down there.

Y'all, the movie comprised of the above paragraph is so tense and terrifying that not only was I watching through my fingers, I actually had to stop the movie when Tess first got locked in the basement, read a whole bunch of plot summaries and then finish the movie the next night. My notes from the first attempt read: NOPE CAN'T DO IT.

But this is a tale of two movies, you see, because after Tess finds Keith in the sub-basement, there's a slam cut to a douchebag actor (played excellently by Justin Long) driving his convertible along the PCH.  Which, thank goodness, because it gives the viewer a break from the tension.  There's another slam cut to a flashback to the Reagan years later, before finishing up back in the house.  But here's the thing, once Justin Long's character enters the fray, Barbarian just isn't scary anymore.  It just starts getting more and more out there and even silly.  And the characters make SO MANY stupid decisions that real people just wouldn't make.  It's as though the screenwriters completely changed their mind halfway through as to the type of movie they wanted to make.

The tape measure scene is intentionally hilarious, however.  Also, I will never rent an AirBnB after this.




Sunday, October 15, 2023

Fourteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #9 Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

 Finally!  I had to go back all the way to 1982 to find an enjoyable horror movie!  Slumber Party Massacre (a/k/a The Slumber Party Massacre) is an excellent little slasher, written - as satire - by a woman and directed - as straight horror - by another woman.  There may be naked b00bs within the first three minutes, and a full on gratuitous shower scene (apparently insisted upon by Roger Corman as producer), but this flick is full of Girl Power.

Trish's parents go out of town for the weekend so she invites some of her BFFs from the varsity high school basketball team to come over for a slumber party.  Meanwhile, a dude has escaped from a nearby mental hospital with murder on his mind and a big electric drill in his hands.  There is a high body count (see following paragraph) but we end up with three Final Girls.  Traumatized, of course, but alive and having prevailed over the killer.

Here's who gets knocked off: female phone technician gets pulled into her own van and drilled between the eyes; Trish's friend and teammate Linda gets trapped in the locked school with the killer; Trish's slightly creepy neighbor gets impaled; Trish's friend and teammate Diane and her boyfriend John get drilled in Trish's garage during a make-out session; the pizza delivery guy (through the eyes - yikes); high school boy Jeff, gutted by the back door; Jeff's buddy Neil, in the neighbor's yard; Jackie, Trish's friend and teammate, whilst opening the front door and letting the killer in the house; Kimberly, Trish's friend and teammate, stabbed in Trish's bedroom; and the girl's basketball coach shows up to see if everyone is okay, whales on the killer with a fireplace poker but ultimately gets gutted too.  Only Trish, new neighbor and teammate Valerie and Val's little sister Courtney make it out alive: after Trish, with a kitchen knife, and Val, with a machete, fight back.

This is a terrific little slasher.  The killer's weapon is totally phallic - but Val's machete is bigger.  The girls get ogled by the guys but they also pass the Bechdel test; they are friends and teammates with interests other than boys, plus none of the males survive.  The kills are numerous and varied.  There's a sense of humor too: Kimberly in the fridge; Val trying to utilize an electric circle saw.  This was a great palate-cleanser and has left me ready for the next one.