UNK SEZ: Nathan W. was kind enough to solve a Name That Trauma and now he has one of his own!
I remembered seeing it on the ABC Afterschool Special (I think…). All I remember is a boy is running down a boat dock being chased by an animated weird bat. The boy trips and tries to fight it off. I'm sorry if it is too vague but that is all I remember…
Traveling to the movie theater this aftern0on I said to myself "Lancey" — that's what I call myself – "if you're going to jump ship the first time a rotten looking CGI ghost appears, then turn right around and don't bother." Guess what though? I didn't have to worry, THE WOMAN IN BLACK is not as CGI-heavy as the commercials might have you believe. I'm thinking some of the TV spots have been tinkered with and exaggerated because on the big screen, everything looks mostly kosher and solid. In fact, this is a great looking film. Even if there was no story or sound, I could probably watch this thing as a slide show. It's very Goth-centric and chilly with fog, rain and marshy mildew all over the place. In other words, this is that dusty-doily type of spook show that I love and am always in the mood for. As far as I'm concerned, the world can keep its torture and rape and I'll take all the wind up monkeys that come to life for no reason.
This movie terrified me from the onset with the notion that DANIEL RADCLIFFE was old enough to be the father of a four year old. Wasn't he a kid two days ago? Talk about chilling. I'm really getting old! I'm going to be dead soon! After drilling that horrific idea into my head, the movie shoved a funnel in the open wound and began to pour all of my favorite depressing things inside: death, loss, suicide, hangings, the idea that a person could be so destroyed by an event that they never recover or so trapped in the molasses of grief that they end up haunting themselves, etc. This is my jam and I'm doing the twist in my head and I'm doing that twist to early records by THE CURE.
I was very lucky that a gaggle of young girls who I suspect were RADCLIFFE fans sat a couple rows behind me. The only other people in the theater were an older couple to my right. The teenagers had a blast screaming at every loud noise or appearance of the title apparition. One of them was fake crying through the heavier scares. I kept thinking, "Thank God it's not a group of boys behind me because they would have to prove how unscarable they are to each other and ruin the whole thing." I'm not going to tell you anymore. It's a movie about a guy and a ghost, a ghost who has a hard time forgiving. It takes place in a small town where only one person has a newfangled car. There are beautiful houses in it covered in vines and there are a couple scenes that are pretty flipping creepy.
If you are a fan of THE OTHERS or THE CHANGELING, you'll probably like this. There are a couple of great moments that might remind you of THE INNOCENTS and a couple of weak spots that may remind you of hokier more modern fare like DARNESS FALLS. Those lesser moments are brief, so who cares! Sorry if this review is lame but I wanted to get it done quick so that if anyone was on the fence about seeing it, I could push him or her off and say, "Go ahead!" This review could also be lame because I am now having a beer and yes, definitely listening to THE CURE! (Not doing the twist though.)
P.S.: This movie was directed by the same guy (JAMES WATKINS) who did EDEN LAKE which I approve of. He also wrote THE DESCENT 2 which I didn't care for but maybe the director of that one screwed it up. The screenplay was written by JANE GOLDMAN (KICK ASS) based on the novel by SUSAN HILL. There, now I feel better.
UNK SEZ: How many horror sequels can you identify in the poster below???
Folks are always so crabby about sequels but the darn things have given me more than they have taken away and therefore I will always defend them. In fact, any time somebody says they hate a person, place or thing, I always wish I could send them into an alternate "It's a Wonderful Life!" type dimension where the source of their scorn does not exist and see how well they fare there. No, sequels are not always good but that bath water you just dumped out? There was a baby in there! Holy crap! You just killed a baby. As for me, if a magic meteor hit the planet and erased all sequels, here are the ten things that I would miss the most and immediately. Feel free to add what you would miss in the comments section!
THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)
I'm not alone in thinking I might like this sequel better than the film it sprung from. Doctor Preterious is a real hoot and if sequels didn't exist, I'm afraid UNA O'CONNOR as Minnie would disappear too! That's no good. And by the by, if you hate gay people then I must send you to a dimension where neither of the first two FRANKENSTEINs exist (as we know them) and guess what- there's no HELLRAISER, CHUCKY or KRISTY MCNICHOL there either. It's basically the lamest dimension ever.
PSYCHO II (1983)
PSYCHO is just the type of movie that nobody should be brave enough to wish a sequel for and yet sequels for it do exist and I think Part 2 is absolutely excellent. Some people think the less you know about a killer the more potent the horror but I, again, say hogwash to that. I'm grateful I got to see another side of Norman Bates (ANTHONY PERKINS). His relationship with Mary (MEG TILLY) who learns to have sympathy for the man she was raised to hate is one of my favorites in all of horror.
ALIENS (1986)
Everybody knows ALIENS is white-hot awesome but think of it this way; what if the character of Bishop never existed to prove that not all androids want to shove magazines down your throat? What if we never got to see Ripley's maternal instinct make the lateral jump from cat lover to child saver? Yikes, I could have possibly ended up a PAUL REISER fan if this movie didn't thoroughly convince me that he was a wretched person!
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS (1987)
I'm sorry but the original ELM STREET only has its originality to boast over Part 3. Really can we just use this movie as a permanent template for what a sequel could and should be? What a great idea to get talented people with imaginations that actually like horror films to helm this project rather than just any available schlub! Hollywood write that concept down on a post-it and put it on your fridge. Say it after me, "There are no bad sequels, only bad filmmakers."
HALLOWEEN II (2009)
Back up townspeople! I can wave a torch too! Allow me to momentarily pretend that I have respect for those who don't get this movie. If you want to see the most tragic death ever presented in a slasher film, it's here. I guess not everybody is comfortable with a director pushing the boundaries of what a slasher film can convey and that's their prerogative. I've watched this every Halloween since it has come out and this year I found out- so does my niece! Hmmm, maybe you have to come from a weird family to fully appreciate this movie. I say that as a joke but I may be on to something. As long as I'm talking HALLOWEEN sequels, I should also add that HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982) is a vital part of my world.
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981)
Thank God the Internet as it is presently was not around when this came out! I can hear the gripes now, "How could they kill Alice?" "Jason can't be alive!" "How come what I imagined in my head is not what is on the screen?!" If FRIDAY neglected to stomp forward into Part 2, I'd have never known Ginny Field! And if it didn't go on even further, I would have lost my pals Shelly, Tommy Jarvis and Maddy! Good God, Tina's mom would be dust in the wind! What a horrible concept! Why am I torturing myself with these nightmare visions!
EXORCIST III (1990)
This title surely produced instant snickers after EXORCIST II: THE HYSTERICAL but surprise it has one of the scariest scenes ever and it employed both BRAD DOURIF and VIVECA LINDFORS of CREEPSHOW, so that's enough for me.
8 EVIL DEAD 2/DAWN OF THE DEAD (1987/1978)
Well this should hit the stock horror fan right where they live. Can you imagine a world where these two didn't exist? T-shirt, poster and DVD companies would go belly up and countless basement bedrooms would flood with tears! Hell, if these two horror gateway drugs didn't exist you could probably say goodbye to half the horror fans out there! Me, I'd miss the flying eyeball and that guy whose head gets shortened by a helicopter blade.
CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944)
Aw, this is one of my favorite movies from my youth and it's a perfect example that a sequel can be its own beast and doesn't necessarily have to be a weak rehash of the original. This is another one that I like just as much as the first and it routinely gets short changed just for being inspired by something that previously existed. I ask you what movie out there can really claim to be wholly fresh and not influenced by anything that existed before it? I don't know what sun you live under but there's nothing new under the one above me. Although I have to say springtime in February is novel.
FINAL DESTINATION 5 (2011)
I think the most fun I had in an actual movie theater this year was seeing FINAL DESTINATION 5. For pure enjoyment value alone, it left most of the better-reviewed horror flicks looking pretty damn dingy to me. I have to give this movie some accolades for not only injecting pure adrenaline into a faultering franchise, but also for proving that the cynical ceiling built by negative naysayers is all in their minds. Truth is, it's never too late to make something worthwhile and not everybody has to love something to validate its existence. Just one fan blindly smitten or one afternoon spent contentedly lost inside the movie screen is worth it. I'm not exaggerating when I say I think it's a valuable life lesson to realize that even after the crappiest installment a stellar one can still follow.
So I say hug a sequel today and the next time you decide to rag on something imagine the poor world without it instead. Also don't choke people with rolled up magazines…ever.
Hello there, long-time reader here.
Perhaps the readers can help me with this; unfortunately 20+ years have left me wondering how much of this actually happened in what I saw and how much was assumption on my part.
Sometime in the late '80s I walked into the rec room while my father was watching something on TV. I believe the scene involved a group of people that survived a crash in some form of space ship, though it could have easily been a plane. One of the group convinces the others to leave the ship/plane and explore. The next thing that I remember is one of the group, having stayed behind, is crouching down or sitting near some sort of vent or other slim opening and sees what looks like sliced or ground-up meat coming through. He freaks out as he thinks that it is one of the other group members having been murdered or otherwise killed in gruesome fashion. I think the film heavily implied or flat out showed that he was wrong and that whatever was coming through the vent was not the result of someone's gruesome death. It's possible that I decided that on my own, though, I can't remember. I do have this image in my head of someone standing on the other side and may have intentionally been pranking the guy into thinking someone had died by stuffing something through that vent.
Not really a traumatic memory, but it was somewhat unsettling at the time. Does this sound familiar?
— Brad R.
Okay, so it's zero o'clock in the nothingness and I want to watch a movie but my brain is begging for a low impact workout and not to be needlessly jerked around. I can't afford another highly praised slab of nonsense that leaves me feeling like I'm the last bitter survivor of a dead world. Hey now, what's that crusty object I see hidden and tucked away beneath a pile of army blankets in the HBO On Demand drawer? Why it's 1997's THE RELIC and in HD no less! Hmmm, I have not seen this one in ages and my previous experiences with it teetered on semi ho-hum and yet…it's perfect for right now.
See, this is why I'm never too hard on semi-successful monster flicks with dubious plots; I know one day, sooner or later, I'll need it more than it will need me. I want to see some heads roll, some doors banged in. I want a creature feature mashed up with a disaster flick. I want the monster to time his attack during a posh museum gala that the mayor has an invitation to! The Mayor of Chicago no less! Somebody somewhere at some time had the bright idea of casting a 60 million dollar production with PENELOPE ANN MILLER, TOM SIZEMORE and LINDA HUNT and that person owns a piece of my heart forever. No time for popcorn. Where's that half eaten bag of goldfish crackers?
I know I'd struck gold when I saw that four people wrote the screenplay. THE RELIC is about a box of contaminated leaves that gets sent to a museum and the monster that wants to eat those leaves but will eat people's brains instead if he can't. I'm sure the book it's based on is more complicated than that but that's of no concern to me now. SIZEMORE is a cop with hokey cop dialogue, MILLER is a evolutionary biologist who takes her heels off when necessary and LINDA HUNT is the no nonsense head of the museum who gets laughs by cursing and firing people when shit goes down. There's even a nemesis character of MILLER'S who acts all snidely throughout until he's chomped on and, as if God really does love me, AUDRA LINDLEY shows up as a coroner in need of a drummer to punctuate her observations with rimshots. I pray that some day I stumble across a decapitated corpse so that I can steal her joke, "Don't you hate people who take head and don't give it?" If only there was a way to know which of writers involved was responsible for that! That's just too rich!
THE RELIC comes courtesy of director PETER HYAMS who somehow directed both OUTLAND and STAY TUNED. It's got a unique look to it as there are a zillion light flares hitting the camera and it could actually be the darkest movie ever made this side of HUMONGOUS. I found that resisting the darkness got me nowhere, so I decided to embrace it and then ended up pleased. People's faces just dissolve into the scenery and sometimes you get the sense that you are either going blind or your T.V. is on the fritz. Still, not being able to quite make everything out adds a kind of nightmare quality too. VHS and standard DVD probably did this joint little favors but this shit's slick in HD. I recall thinking that the creature effects were too vague when I first saw this in the theater but they seem much more solid now. Ironically, but not surprisingly, the more showy CGI work holds up less well than STAN WINSTON's practical interpretations. There's a show-stoppy galloping beast on fire bit that looks borderline terrible now but it's hard for me to care when the movie is so much fun.
THE RELIC is a wonderfully flawed disaster movie throwback, a drive-in monster on the loose flick hiding in the trunk of a big budget epic. The disaster elements, which include panicked folks trampling over each other to escape the mayhem and a group trudge through a dank subterranean tunnel that recalls THE POSIEDON ADVENTURE are hysterically engaging even as the film pushes a near two-hour running time. Whatever borderline ludicrousness curbed this films reputation back in the day only serves to make it that much more entertaining now. This is exactly how cheese should age my friends and I'm kinda surprised that a film released in the wiseacre late nineties is this level of puppy dog eighties adorable. I'm very happy I woke up and found it waiting for me. You don't have to turn off your entire brain to enjoy it, just the part of your brain that ruins everything!
Hi guys! Love the site!
I'm wondering if somebody could help me with this. For as long as I can remember everytime I hear the song "Rapture" by Blondie I think of blood. When I was a kid it really freaked me out. Does anyone know if that song was ever used in a horror movie or tv show in a bloody scene? It's always bugged me that I can't remember what caused me to think this when I hear that song!
UNK SEZ: If you happen to be a slasher fan or a comics fan or a fan of people who get creative and make stuff, I need to point out something special to you! Stacie Ponder of the perennial hot spot FINAL GIRL has gone and made a mini-comic called SLASHERS 101 and it is a hysterically informative primer on, let's face it, the best movies ever made.
Ponder knows her stuff after racking up years in the VHS salt mines and her illustrations are wonderfully expressive. For one Abe Lincoln (five bucks) you get the comic alone and for two Abes (ten bucks), Ponder will illustrate the back for you with an original drawing of your request (within reason)! For more details on how you can get your hands on this little treasure just jump on over HERE!
A long time ago I had a "Name That Trauma!" of my own solved in our comments section. I can't find the thread but thanks again to the kind person who identified "We The Animals Squeak!" as the cartoon I was trying to recall. I've decided I must give this animated short a spotlight post of its own because it's always reappearing in my brain for some reason. "We the animals…" is not scary or creepy but it does capture an awful feeling that I wish there was a catchall word for. What is the opposite of Schadenfreude? "Sympathy" and "pity" are too passive to cut it. I'm talking about an aggressive anguish when witnessing the misfortune of another, a weird nausea of some sort. You know that video of the news lady falling down while stomping on grapes? I know I'm meant to find that amusing but I can't make myself do it. It only makes me wince and grit my teeth and recoil. What's wrong with me? I want to have fun at the expense of others too! It's not because I'm a nice person! I don't feel any remorse for Miss Collins collateral damage death in CARRIE and I only recycle begrudgingly.
"We The Animals squeak" is a radio show hosted by Porky Pig and what a good fit radio is for a guy who refuses to wear pants. After a fluffy bunny finishes reminiscing about killing a hunter with his own gun to unanimous applause, we are introduced to Kansas City Kitty, a mother cat with an Irish brogue and a tale of woe. Kansas tells us briefly about her childhood and her rise to notoriety as an unstoppable mouser. Of course, for every successful person there are dozens of vermin plotting to take them down and in this case, it is a clandestine Mafioso mouse clique that devises a despicable plan. They kidnap KCK's newborn and threaten to slice its throat and shoot it with a machine gun if she raises a paw to thwart their nightly fridge raids. I know mice gotta eat too and there's a possibility that the threats of infanticide were of the empty kind, but what happens next is an atrocity. Not content with their new carte blanche privileges, the mice torment, psychologically torture and openly mock KCK's pain in an orgy of depravity. To the tune of "playmate" the frenzied mob even have the audacity to use their prisoners tail as a make shift jump rope knowing that she must yield as her child's life hangs in the balance.
I guess I was not exactly a happy-go-lucky kid because I took this scene clearly intended for comedy literally and it disturbed me. I must have associated Kansas City Kitty with my own mother (or cat) because it also made me angry. Is there anything grosser than exploiting somebody's concern for those whom they care about? I hate these mice. They're gluttons and clearly racist and how dare they. By the end of the cartoon, Kansas City is presented with a mouse gift (wha?) and I think we're meant to think she made the whole thing up when she jumps on the chair and screams, but my take is that she is simply having a well earned psychotic episode triggered by the creature. Do you blame her after what appears to be hours of humiliating torture while her child's life was at stake? I know I sound ridiculous but the truth is I can't watch a home invasion flick, the kidnapping of the baby in THE HILLS HAVE EYES, or any kind of torture/prisoner schtick without flashing back to the scene described in my head. Really, this is the same dynamic that made Jack Ketchum's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR so appalling. Brutality is one thing, but using your victim's humanity as leverage is a whole other level of sadism.
In other words, I love this cartoon. It may sound like I don't like the things that strike me as horrendous but I absolutely do. Negative behavior enforces my appreciation for positive behavior and this cartoon represents one of my earliest memories of being outraged and disgusted by the deeds of others; mice though they may be. Plus like any revenge flick worth its salt "We The Animals…" provides a nice slice of comeuppance for its miniature terrorists. It's not exactly a high school in flames, but it will do.
