Category: Uncategorized
Traumafession:: Unk on The Exorcist ('73)
There’s not much that can be said about William Friedkin’s adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s brilliant novel THE EXORCIST that hasn’t been said before but I’ll give it a shot. Although I recently watched the film for the umpteenth time, I can tell you that there were many years in which I absolutely wouldn’t dare do so. I thought of it as akin to courting the devil and I guess my ultimate fear was that by watching it, I might become possessed myself. Looking back, I guess there was a lot of magical thinking and supernatural paranoia occupying my head as a kid. As much as I enjoyed watching babysitters and camp counselors get killed in creative ways as a budding horror fan, my bravery evaporated when it came to anything religious or especially, anything dealing with the devil. I believed in that Satan guy until one day I miraculously didn’t and what a relief it was.I still consider myself spiritual to a degree but these days I take everything I absorbed as a child from Sunday school with a hearty pinch of salt. Still, my mind remains open a wee crack, there are no atheists in foxholes after all and who knows what the future will bring. Anyway, when my abject fear of religion hit the high road so did my overwhelming terror of the demonic force in THE EXORCIST. That said, I highly doubt there will ever come a time when I don’t squirm like a worm on a hook during the medical procedures endured by Regan (Linda Blair. Those scenes always make me wince and stand to prove that there are some kindertraumas that you never grow out of.
Luckily, you don’t have to be shaking in your shoes or freaking out in your footwear to enjoy THE EXORCIST. No matter your level of skepticism it’s still an expertly crafted masterwork with a hypnotic score, dynamic acting (the entire cast is impeccable) and an autumnal atmosphere that’s singularly seductive (that scene when Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) strolls through Georgetown sidewalks carpeted with fall leaves as trick or treaters pass to the tune of Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” is one of my favorite moments in all of cinema). Even though the lightening quick flashes of Captain Howdy’s pale visage no longer have me hiding under the couch, I’m very far from the mentality of a semi-recent audience I viewed it with who chuckled at every curse word thrown (philistines!). Happily too, I can say that a part of me relates to young Regan’s plight now more than ever before. I don’t know what it’s like to have my head turn three hundred and sixty five degrees but due to recent disappointments, I do understand the urge to stay in bed, use foul language and throw furniture at anyone who dares enter my immediate space. Even if you strip away the film’s blaring religious garments, there still stands a universal clash between the powers of darkness and light, positivity and negativity, and optimism and hopelessness to consider. No one religion owns this eternal struggle that we all participate in every day whether we’re conscious of it or not and you certainly don’t have to be religious to have faith in the power of good and the value of life. In this area, Blatty’s profound, surprisingly sanguine book is more adamantly persuasive than the film in relaying the idea that for as much evil as there is in the world, there is also clear, identifiable goodness as well. I always try to keep that in mind when the pea soup begins to gurgle inside me, waiting to spring forth.
Traumafession:: E.G. on Open Season 2
First off: I am a very sensitive person, and this was especially true when I was a kid. Second: I do not enjoy animals being hurt for any reason. I worry constantly about the safety of my cats and dear god, if anything were to happen to them I’d lose my goddamn mind.So with that in mind, let’s get to the most unlikely source of nightmare fuel: Open Season 2!
I had no problem with the first one. But see, the second one introduces this evil poodle named Fifi who wants revenge on the wild animals…..because one made him back into an electric light that we see the effect of. At that time I had a dog who had all sorts of weird but benign bumps, so a doggie with a big bump wasn’t too big a deal. Then we get to the electrocution proper. So this poodle, who is clearly traumatized, gets zapped by an electric fence. I wish I could say it was a silly thing where his fur pooped up and he got ash all over his face. Just cartoon ridiculousness. It was NOT.
You can see this stuff that’s supposed to be fire but looks more like pink-orange acid blazing a hole in this poodle’s floofy head fur. I was legit concerned at the time that his brain would burn. The burning and the fear of brain roasting was bad enough. A few scenes later we see the effects of the damage…complete with a burn blister and scorched fur.
I very nearly died at seeing all that horror. It upset me so bad I had to finish my lunch later (this was at a school, and the movie was supposed to be a reward for the class-it was not for me!). Thankfully we never finished it, but I read on the internet that by the end of the movie, the poodle’s fur is all burned off. I wouldn’t have survived that, I just know I wouldn’t. This memory still causes me pain to this day and even writing a creepypasta about it didn’t help (though I did wind up with a YouTube reading my pasta, and that was super exciting!). Add in the fact that my best friend at this time had a very sweet bichon named Sugar, who of course was also a white fluffy dog, and this was the worst nightmare fuel I’ve ever had. I don’t know what poodle-hating psychopathic decided to inflict this on innocent kids, but I hope karma bites them right in the-well, you know.
I can’t escape this damn memory. I hope by the time you receive this, I’ll be doing something else and not thinking about this. I’m so sorry if any images accompany this post, folks. I’m so very, very sorry. But yeah, this is definitely trauma so I thought I’d share. I hope none of you have to go through what I did!-E.G.
High Rise Horror
EVIL DEAD RISE has gotten me thinking about all the great horror movies set in skyscrapers and buildings so it seemed like a good time to compile a good old fashioned horror list. These are the flicks that immediately sprung to my mind but as always I’m sure to have missed a few so please add any I missed in the comments section!
ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968)
We may as well start off with one of the most famous filming locations in horror history, ROSEMARY’S BABY’s gothic ground zero New York’s Bramford building! I’m not above using the cliche that this oppressive structure operates as its own character in Roman Polanski’s satanic classic based on the equally stunning Ira Levin novel.
DEMONS 2 (1986)
A year earlier, Lamberto Bava’s DEMONS (1985) displayed the horrifying results of demonic entities infesting a cinema, this time out, the horde of possessed creatures take over an entire building and turn a birthday party into a living nightmare.
GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990)
Billy (Zach Galligan) & Kate (Phoebe Cates) find employment working for corporate blowhard Daniel Clamp (frequent baddie John Glover) in a spectacular skyscraper in New York City. Fate insures they’re soon joined by their adorable pal Gizmo who inadvertently spawns trouble in a multitude of new ways.
POLTERGEIST III (1988)
They’re baaaack again. Little Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O’Rourke) is ghosted by her parents and sent to live with her Aunt and Uncle (horror royalty Nancy Allen & Tom Skerritt) in a Chicago skyscraper (John Hancock center). Of course, the pre-teen brings heavy baggage in the form of vengeful spirit Reverend Kane and pint-sized well-meaning psychic Tangina (the great Zelda Rubinstein). What more could be said about this underrated sequel that wasn’t mentioned in THIS epic post from years ago?
SHIVERS (1975)
Starliner Towers is a luxury high-rise that has everything! I’m talking a restaurant, a variety store, an olympic-size swimming pool AND an outbreak of parasitic pickle-sized creatures that turn people into crazed orgy loving perverts with violent tendencies. This extravaganza of non-stop body horror could only be an early calling card from Canadian creep-meister David Cronenberg.
THE FACE OF FEAR (1990) I read the book this made for TV movie is based on as a teenager when it was credited to author Brian Coffey. Turns out Coffey was really Dean Koontz who went on to take credit for his work and even co-write the screenplay for this production. Get this: Lee Horsley plays a psychic, former mountain climber with a fear of heights who is stalked by a killer in a high rise with his fiancé Pam Dawber. Where is Mork from Ork when you need him?
CANDYMAN (1992) & (2021)
Supernatural revenge phantom Candyman (The great Tony Todd) is certainly scary but is he as terrifying as Chicago housing project Cabrini-Green? My love for this film is best expressed HERE but in the interest of saving space let’s just say if your bathroom mirror can be removed for access to the apartment next door it’s time to look for some new digs. Note: Don't sleep on this flick's impressive 2021 re-boot sequel which feature's one of cinema's greatest long shot into a building's window death scenes.
DARK TOWER (1987)
Directed by horror legends Freddie Francis (THE SKULL, THE PSYCHOPATH, TORTURE GARDEN et. al.) & Ken Wiederhorn (SHOCK WAVES, EYES OF A STRANGER), 1987’s DARK TOWER has nothing to do with Stephen King and everything to do with a Building in Barcelona with a Bad attitude. As if window washing wasn’t a challenging enough job, this petulant premises promises to push you down to the pavement! Don’t believe me? Just ask Jenny Agutter (AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON), Larry Cohen muse Michael Moriarty ( Q, THE STUFF, IT’S ALIVE III: ISLAND OF THE ALIVE, RETURN TO SALEM'S LOT) or Anne Lockhart (John Carpenter’s first choice to play Laurie Strode in HALLOWEEN)
SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME! (1978)
Speaking of HALLOWEEN, this made for television thriller was written and directed by John Carpenter and filmed immediately prior to his trick or treat masterpiece. Originally titled HIGH RISE, this suspense tale features Lauren Hutton being terrorized by an unknown pursuer in her luxury LA apartment building. Playing a supportive co-worker and neighbor is future Carpenter wife, MAUDE alumni and irrefutable horror royalty, Adrienne Barbeau.
CANNIBAL MAN (1972) This surprisingly moving horror character study (and notorious video nasty) directed by Eloy de la Iglesis features zero cannibalism and is sometimes known as the more appropriate title APARTMENT ON THE 13TH FLOOR. Professional butcher Marcos (Vicente Parra) accidentally kills a taxi driver (it happens) and soon finds himself offing anyone who enters his orbit to cover his earlier crime.
THE LIFT (1983) & THE SHAFT (aka DOWN, 2001)
Dick Maas is your go-to guy if you’re looking for a movie about an elevator who becomes sentient and decides to kill people. He directed both the 1983 Dutch science fiction horror film THE LIFT and its 2001 American remake starring Aussie THE RING survivor Naomi Watts!
DEVIL (2001)
Speaking of elevators on the fritz, how you like to be stuck in one (in Philadelphia no less) with infamous nogoodnik Satan himself? Would it make you even more unnerved to know what happens next is based on a story by renown brain-twister M. Night Shyamalan?
LAND OF THE DEAD (2005)
Well, the whole country has been overtaken by murderous corpses but don’t worry, the wealthy are living it up in a luxury high rise known as Fiddler’s Green. And who better to be in control of what’s left of society than wild-eyed live-wire Dennis Hopper? Comeuppance ensues.
CITADEL (2012)
This highly underrated psychological thriller taps into your every urban paranoia while also triggering the parental fear of protecting the vulnerable. Aneurin Barnard stars as agoraphobic Tommy who grieves his wife who died due to a violent gang assault and must protect his infant daughter from hoodie heathens that surround his rundown building. If you’ve ever been mugged this flick is an incessant fountain of nerve-jangling stress.
ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011)
Monstrous aliens with super cool glowing teeth take on a gang of young street thugs (including John Boyega) in a Council estate in south London. There’s more action, humor and pure awesomeness on display here than you can shake a stick at!
HIGH RISE (2015)
It’s not exactly a horror movie but this opulent adaptation of the novel by J.G. Ballard novel sports a whirlwind DAY OF THE LOCUST scorched earth conclusion that distresses to the core. Featuring a stacked cast that includes Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans, Elizabeth Moss, Sienna Miller and directed by Ben Wheatley (KILL LIST), this visually stunning, seventies-set, apartment complex as ant farm look at society’s self destructive nature has one too many dog endangerment scenes to become a favorite but is a highly memorable experience all the same.
Skinamarink
When I was little, me and my younger brother would play a game where we'd stare at each other's faces in the dark until we transformed into hideous monsters. The darkness, combined with our imaginations, would produce horrific hallucinatory results and we'd usually end up tapping out amidst screams while scrambling toward the light switch. Writer/director Kyle Edward Ball's experimental feature debut SKINAMARINK is just such a mind screw and viewer satisfaction with it will likely rely on whatever personal bugaboos they bring to the table. I've written before (HERE) about my traumatic experience of being "accidentally" abandoned at a beach house when I was a mere four years old so Ball's film felt uncomfortably tailor-made for exhuming my core neuorosis. The nightmare tale involves two young siblings who wake up in the middle of the night only to find their familiar home has turned into a HOUSE OF LEAVES-style ambiguous maze complete with disappearing windows and doors, Lego minefields,public domain cartoons and finally, a plastic telephone with a goofy smile that suggests it's somehow responsible.
SKINAMARINK was not playing nearby so I had to go far outside my comfort zone to see it on a rainy night in a funky theater that seemed to have closed decades ago. It was quite the memorable experience, but I would probably decline undergoing it again. This is a film that feels more like a spell than anything else; it's esoteric as all get out and cryptic on a level that seems more at home in an art gallery than a multiplex. I'm going to assume that many viewers will find this sneaky jaunt excruciatingly boring as the lion's share of the flick consists of vague, off-kilter shots of the ceiling and long dives into a squirmy, grainy amorphous darkness. It's quite like being hypnotized into a trance-like state and then being periodically slapped into sobriety by cymbal crashes. Again, it's most definitely not for everyone and even though it certainly had my number, I'm not sure it was even for me. On the other hand, there are a couple of moments that rattled my psyche in ways that a more conventional horror film could never dream of and I can't have anything but respect for that. Ultimately, SKINAMARINK is an original, singular horror experience but whether that experience is fascinating and frightening or absolutely aggravating may depend entirely on the beholder. I personally rather dug it as a challenging and uncomfortable walk down creepy memory lane.
My Kindertrauma:: Seth S. on The Twilight Zone
It's been more than a week since the ball dropped, and I think I've finally heard the last of the muffled marching band that's traipsed its way through my skull since Ryan Seacrest and a skin full of liquor ushered in the new year. In lieu of Tylenol and bottled water, I medicated myself with the annual cable TV marathon of The Twilight Zone, which didn't allow me to get the rest that I needed because I was glued to those supernatural, suspenseful, and otherwise unsettling stories. And perhaps because of the new year, I'm reflecting on the first episode I'd ever seen of the classic television series: "Probe 7, Over and Out," thinking about how it changed my understanding of Storytelling forever.
My first journey into the Twilight Zone was through the 1983 anthology film, but that particular venture – which I took too many times to count – was frequently in broad daylight. The movie frequently screened on cable in the middle of the day, when its frights couldn't find me watching from the family room floor. But one Saturday night at the age of 10, I stayed up later than I should have, having been assured that I didn't have to attend Sunday school the following morning. It was a rare treat. The Bible stories seemed both limited in quantity and endless in their telling, and a reprieve would be a relief. Without Sunday school to whisk me to bed early, that night would be special. The house was dark. Everyone had gone to bed for the night. As I flipped channels, the TV suddenly flickered with tones of black and white – that door performing somersaults in the cosmos, that house window inexplicably shattering, that slowly blinking staring eye. I'd been transported to a Twilight Zone the likes of which I'd never seen before, seduced by the show's musical introduction and the inimitable voice of Rod Serling.
In comparison to many others, this episode isn't the perfect representation of what the weekly TV could accomplish, but this particular installment tells the story of Adam Cook (Richard Basehart), an astronaut who crash lands on a lush alien planet. While he nurses his wounds, which include a broken arm and a bruised rib, radio transmissions alert him that his home planet will soon be destroyed by its two governing bodies, long entrenched in war. Without a home to return to and with a foreign land to call home, Cook discovers only one other living creature, a woman who calls herself Eve (Antoinette Bower). After some initial suspicion of one another, the two settle upon calling this otherworldly planet "Earth" and determine to build a life there together.
The religious subtext wasn't lost on me, even if I didn't come from a religious family. The irony that I was watching a creation story late on a Saturday night and that I would be absent from Sunday school the next morning, however, would take time for me to understand. And what made the program itself frightening was not its dramatic action. Aside from some moody atmosphere, the possibility of nuclear annihilation, and a brief physical confrontation, "Probe 7, Over and Out" possesses little of the terror synonymous with The Twilight Zone.
What made the episode so compelling to me as a child was how it seemed to address the human condition on such a unique stage of science fiction and suspense. "He's a frightened breed," Cook tells himself of humanity, after the terrified Eve has fled the comfort of his company. "He's a very frightened breed." At that age, I understood the evil of racism and the terror of growing old and even more from the full color anthology film of the same name, but perhaps the more ancient black and white presentation of this television show made its messaging more disarming to me. Perhaps it was the absence of color on the screen and the absence of light in the family room. And it may have had everything to do with the program's bravery in taking a story so hallowed on Sunday mornings and turning it into a contemporary narrative infused with trepidation, distrust, and fear, all of which the world felt daily in some measure. I didn't understand at that age that stories could do something like that: so irreverent, so manipulative, so revolutionary. What would be next, I asked myself: beloved fairy tales infused with moral compasses? Famous children's story characters entertaining dark urges? Origin stories that humanized the great villains of literature? Those questions were as invigorating to me as they were frightening, because their answers lie somewhere in the unknown.
But as a young viewer, I was a little more than intrigued by the potential future of storytelling after that night, not only because I was such a lover of storytelling but also because I suddenly saw my contribution to storytelling rather unleashed, unbridled – like Adam on a distant planet: born anew to create a story that no one's quite heard like that before. And for a 10-year-old just then learning to understand the natural rules of narrative, The Twilight Zone represented a passport by which to bypass a number of the layovers that I would have felt obligated to make before venturing into this new world of story on my own.
And, of course, I'd see more episodes of The Twilight Zone that would be more terrifying than this one, certainly more inspirational to the young creator lurking within me.
And some of them wouldn't let me get the rest that I needed.
And none of them were meant to.
My Kindertrauma:: Seth S. on Dracula ('31)
He lived down the street from me, and we weren't really friends. We were merely familiar faces on the bus ride to school and in the classroom, the two kids who periodically discovered each other at the local jungle gym. Perhaps he lived too close for comfort for me as I navigated the 5th grade – he was a bully at school who hadn't yet targeted me, and I sensed it was always a matter of time – but Bryan (is what we'll call him) announced to no one in particular as we played at the playground that Friday afternoon that Bela Lugosi's Dracula would air on a local network at midnight that night. I didn't know what Bela Lugosi's Dracula was any more than I knew what TV looked like at midnight. As we took that cyclical ride on the merry-go-round, he asked me if I would be tuning in.
My vocabulary with horror was, then, very limited. I knew Lon Chaney, Jr.'s Wolf Man, and I felt sorry for him. Despite his appearance, Talbot was a victim of circumstance, hardly the monster that would inspire nightmares. But Dracula – even with no knowledge of the character, the novel, or the film – was intrinsically haunting. Had you never seen the 1931 film, you were at least familiar with the cloaked figure bidding you welcome into his castle, eerily celebrating the howling wolves in the distance. None of us have seen the Devil in person either, but we still fear him. I felt the same way about Dracula.
I told Bryan I would be watching, and as I headed for home, I heard him yell that I was probably too scared to see it. I also heard him yell to me that my parents probably wouldn't let me stay up that late anyway. Mind you: we weren't friends. And he was wrong on both counts. I wasn't too scared to tune in; I was, however, incapable of staying awake in front of the TV. I'd fallen asleep before the movie aired that night; luckily, the same station would air the movie again at 11 a.m. on Saturday. I was relieved that I could return to school on Monday, ready to tell Bryan that I'd faced those fears, even if I'd done so in broad daylight. But a family event would keep me away from the television that day, so my dad's solution was to commit the screening to a VHS tape – that way, I could watch it whenever, even with him. And, consequently, after the sun had gone down. And, as everyone knows, you're only the potential victim of a vampire once the sun has gone down.
But again I went to bed that night without having seen the movie. I claimed to be too tired, despite my dad's insistence that we stay up and watch it. Like a silver bullet, the screening was dodged once more. I knew I couldn't avoid it forever. Bryan was certain to quiz me on Monday morning, so I couldn't run from the film forever.
Instead, I watched Dracula a little after noon that Sunday. I didn't procrastinate, wanting to see the picture as early as possible so that it was as far removed from my bedtime as it could be, so I didn't wait for the company of my father. I was on a mortal mission for my soul, and I couldn't have this film following me into my dreams. Unfortunately, I'd find that the matinee screening wouldn't help. It turns out that Lugosi's Dracula isn't dependent upon trivialities such as darkness or ambient night sounds to inspire fear. As the Count, Dracula is far more menacing, staring back in silence than we sometimes recall, and director Tod Browning isn't frightened of allowing the film to take shape in absolute quiet, whether for a few seconds or for entire minutes. Raised on the films of Lucas and Spielberg and Saturday morning cartoons, I knew the value of color: the bright lights and the darkest blacks, but Dracula seemed reared on a different palette altogether, robbing its black and white scenes of any color, of any possibility for hope. There was only dark and "darker." Tonally, Dracula possesses two moods: "dangerous" and "deadly," and if the "dangerous" doesn't terrify you, the "deadly" is in close pursuit at all times. The film, economically paced at a little more than an hour, engorges the production with more atmosphere than one sees in most horror films today, and a day with Dracula was turning into a precarious venture at the very least. But it was Dracula's unrelenting stare – coupled with that silence and those shadows from before – that I would need to shove into the catacombs of my mind before bedtime, no later than nine that night. His stare seemed to discover me, watching from the safety of my home, in those cinematic close-ups. His stares promised that Dracula knew where to find me at all times.
And yet I felt pretty good as I brushed my teeth that night, ready to share with Bryan how I'd stared into the face of the Prince of Darkness and returned to school on Monday anyway, no worse for the wear. I'd filled the rest of my day with Fleischer Superman cartoons and some G.I. Joe battles on my bedroom floor to erase Dracula from my memory, and I would have enjoyed a peaceful rest that night had it not been for my dad's fateful reminder.
"Did you watch Dracula today?" he'd asked me. "What did you think of it?"
I can't really recall the nature of my review before I went to bed – alone, in the dark – that night. All I could think about was Dracula's ominous stare, its ability to find me in the family TV room, its assurance that it knew where to find me at any time from behind the television set glass.
And perhaps that was still a little too close for comfort for me.