Shocktober 2023 Week 4

 

22. Halloween (2018)

Like The Force Awakens, David Gordon's Green's reboot of the Halloween franchise is heavy on nostalgia. It is competently directed and, unlike many of the earlier sequels, its central story is, at least, character driven. With that said, it is terribly unfocused and tonally inconsistent. It also suffers from an excess of meta-commentary surrounding the character of Micheal Myers. Despite these issues it remains one of the better sequels, though it feels completely unnecessary and adds nothing of value to the original. 

6/10 

23. Halloween Kills (2021)

If the 2018 reboot felt unnecessary this sequel was even more so. At the very least the former brought the series to a semi-satisfying conclusion. Here, once again, Myers' death is retconned in an incredibly contrived fashion and the rest of the film struggles to justify its own existence. The writers are trying to say something about mob mentality and collective trauma, but its all so muddled and confusing that it never really lands. What's worse, these admittedly weighty themes are dealt with amidst some of the most unintentionally (I think) hilarious scenes I've ever seen in a slasher film (and that's saying something). 

4.8/10

24. Halloween Ends (2022)

It would seem that the series had no where to go but up after Halloween Kills. This, the final chapter in Green's reboot trilogy is, at the very least, better then its immediate predecessor. Its also, certainly, one of the more daring of the Halloween sequels. Like Rob Zombie's Halloween II it attempts to explore mental trauma and mental disease. However, unlike Zombie, Green is not willing to let Micheal take a back seat, and the film devolves into a contrived final showdown between Micheal and Laurie that is neither as satisfying as what the 2018 film had to offer nor as audacious as Zombie's more interesting (if equally flawed) pair of films. 

5.8/10

25. The Babadook (2014)

Anchored by a strong central performance from Essie Davis, The Babadook relies on symbolism to tell its story. This is both the directors greatest strength and the films greatest liability, as the subtext often overwhelms the text of the story. Nonetheless, the film remains an interesting, if somewhat heavy-handed exploration of grief and anger and an impressive debut for Australian director Jennifer Kent. 

8.4/10

26. The Exorcist (1973)

This year I decided to watch the theatrical cut of Friedkin's masterpiece, and I was pleasantly surprised to find some of the more over-the-top antics "removed." Regardless, I found the film improved with a second viewing. Horror, especially supernatural horror, is most effective when the evil is suggested rather than seen, and Friedkin is a master at this. The ending, though theologically ambiguous at first glance, seems to me a powerful testament to God's ability to "write straight with crooked lines," to bring good out of terrible evil. Hence Fr. Karras, who is in danger of losing his faith, finds redemption in the most unlikeliest of ways, and Regan's seemingly meaningless suffering is imbued with a salvific purpose.

8.8/10

27. The Exorcist III (1990)

A better film then it has any right to be, the third Exorcist film sees writer/producer William Peter Blatty step behind the camera to set the series back on course after the disaster that was Exorcist II (which, to be fair, I have never seen). Blatty lacks Friedkin's visual flair, and, if the original is at its best in its most silent moments, Exorcist III works best when people are having conversations. Fortunately, it's a very dialogue driven film, focused on Lieutenant Kinderman's (George C. Scott replacing the deceased Lee J. Cobb) interrogation of a man who appears to be the long-departed Karras. The film plays fast and loose with continuity. Kinderman and Karras, who barely speak to each other in the original film, are portrayed here as having been good friends. It also plays fast and loose with its theology, both morally and cosmologically. 

7.4/10

28. Clue (1985)

To take a break from all the doom and gloom, we watched this film with our younger siblings. Clue is a wonderful little screwball comedy, somehow managing to capture the spirit of the boardgame that inspired it, while retaining a spark of originality. The manic energy, which mounts as the film goes on, is largely aided by Tim Curry's hilarious turn as the butler, Wadsworth, but he is ably supported by an all around great cast and a sharp script from writer/director Jonathan Lynn. Its not a horror film but it features enough spooky/macabre imagery to qualify for wholesome seasonal viewing. 

8.2/10

Shocktober 2023, Week 3

This week, we focused on the films of M. Night Shyamalan... 

15. Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Joss Whedon's deconstruction of the horror genre is interesting and, at times entertaining, but in the end it falls flat. Whedon raises an interesting question: Is horror, in so far as it satisfies the human desire for violence in a 'safe' sanitized manner, something positive and beneficial, or is it simply an excuse to indulge in our lowest urges? I would argue (and have) that the genre can and should fulfill a loftier purpose and speak to higher spiritual realities, and dangers, that threaten the human person both from without and within. In any case, films like this, which seem content to be about art rather then about life, tend to come across as insular and elitist, tackling questions that are removed from the day-to-day lives of ordinary people. 

6.8/10 

16. The Sixth Sense (1990)

Shyamalan's masterpiece came out of nowhere in 1999. In some ways, an interesting companion piece to his earlier (underrated) Wide Awake, The Sixth Sense explores grief, domestic strife and spiritual terror and does it so brilliantly and effortlessly that it puts similar efforts (Jacob's Ladder for example) to shame. Perhaps inadvertently, Shyamalan illustrates the basic reasoning behind the doctrine of purgatory. The dead people who haunt young Cole (Harry Joel Osment) do so because they have unresolved business and hence attachment to this earthly plane. It is through Cole's intercession, as it were, that they are allowed to pass on. The now famous twist ending holds up not because it is shocking but because, in retrospect, the whole film makes more sense in light of it. 

9.4/10

17. Unbreakable (2000)

Though he could, perhaps, never live up to the expectations set by The Sixth Sense Shyamalan gave it a heck of a try in this, his second major effort behind the camera. He continues to prove himself a master of mixing drama and suspense, the scene involving Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) and his father's gun being a brilliant case-in-point. The director is always at his best when exploring the family unit, and David's relationship with his wife and son anchor what might otherwise be a dreary, existential piece exploring ideas about destiny, heroism and ambition. 

8.6/10

18. Signs (2002)

Though the weakest of Shyamalan's three great successes, Signs is, perhaps, the one that speaks to me the most. Not unlike Hitchcock's The Birds it uses the structure of a disaster movie to explore a family unit, one struggling, as in so many of the director's films, to keep it together. Graham's loss and regaining of faith, even if hackneyed at times, gets at something fundamental to religious belief: whether we see order and purpose in the sufferings and challenges of life or, seeing only meaningless chaos, despair and rage against God. 

8.4/10

19. The Village (2004)

The director's first critical failure, The Village is a much better film then its reputation would suggest. Featuring great performances from Bryce Dallas Howard and Joaquin Phoenix and beautiful cinematography from the great Roger Deakins, the film explores some really interesting ideas about the relationship between truth and morality and the struggle to maintain both in an increasingly immoral world. What is missing, notably in comparison with the director's earlier work, is an idea of the transcendent, which makes the film less satisfying than the director's best. But, given the ambiguities the The Village deals with. perhaps that was point. 

8.2/10

20. Lady in the Water (2006)

Lady in the Water is Shyamalan's first real failure. Though its admirable that he had the integrity to tell stick to his guns and tell his story his way (supposedly it is based on stories he told to his own kids) it seems more than likely that his previous successes may have gotten to his head. The result is confusing and, oftentimes, bizarre. In contrast to all of his earlier films, Shyamalan makes no effort to make us believe in the whimsical world he presents. He also relies, far too often, on lengthy exposition to communicate both story and theme. 

5.8/10

21. The Happening (2007)

A vastly underrated movie, and a refreshing one after the tedious and pretentious Lady in the Water, The Happening a wonderfully stripped done disaster movie. Is it cheesy? Of course! Shyamalan was clearly trying to make a throwback to corny old b-movies like the blob and, even if he is less successful the Hitchcock was with The Birds, he still manages to craft an incredibly entertaining movie whilst injecting his own sense quirkiness. Mark Wahlberg's line delivery, while admittedly bizarre and not good acting from an objective standpoint, only serves to make the film that much more enjoyable. 

7.4/10

My Favorite Films: Halloween (1978)

It has become something of a tradition between my brother and I to watch Halloween once a year, usually on October 31st. This might seem odd coming from a conservative Catholic. After all Halloween is, essentially, a movie about promiscuous teens being brutally murdered (this was essentially producer Moustapha Akkad's pitch for the film). Yet the film is remarkably restrained in regard to the sex and violence. It leaves much to the imagination that lesser horror films actively indulge in. 

John Carpenter once described Halloween as a film he "would love to have seen as a kid, full of cheap tricks like a haunted house at a fair where you walk down the corridor and things jump out at you." Though he may be selling himself short, Halloween is certainly all that. His direction of the film, aided in no small measure by Dean Cundey's cinematography, is nothing short of brilliant. The use of tracking shots and atmospheric lightning gives the film a palpable sense of dread, which is the essential quality of horror. One gets the feeling that danger is constantly stalking our main characters. Carpenter's iconic, minimalistic score for the film goes greatly aids this. Somehow, despite being shot in Southern California in the middle of the summer, perfectly evokes the feeling of being a young kid on Halloween. 

In many ways, Halloween is the perfect distillation, not only of the slasher genre it helped to create but of horror films more broadly. The genre had gone through dramatic changes since the 1960's. Whereas, before this, horror films tended to focus on fictional monsters like werewolves, vampires and aliens, Psycho had popularized films about serial killers while films like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist led to something of a renaissance for supernatural horror. More and more, Hollywood seemed to focus on real-life horrors rather than fictional ones. Carpenter was able to distill both trends in this picture, and in doing so set the trajectory of the genre would take for the next decade. Micheal is a flesh and blood killer and, in the films iconic openig scene, a seemingly ordinary seven-year-old boy. Yet, unlike say Norman Bates who has a clearly defined physcology, Micheal has no discernible motive for his crimes. They are passionless and, seemingly, random. Without ever explicitly saying it, the film implies that there is something unnatural about him. It is this ambiguity that gives the character his menacing, preternatural presence. 

Many have remarked how, in slasher films, the protagonist (or final girl) tends to be a virgin. The origin of this idea can be traced back to Nosferatu, where the virtuous Ellen brings about the vampire's defeat through her selfless sacrifice. The idea can be traced back even farther to Bram Stoker's Dracula or even to the vestal virgins of ancient Rome, whose chastity was believed to have a direct connection to the health of the Roman state. For the slasher film however, it was John Carpenter's Halloween that set the pattern for all to follow. Carpenter and his fellow screenwriter Debra Hill, whether consciously or subconsciously, drew a connection between Laurie Strode's virtue and her survival at the end of the film and, conversely, between the vices of Micheal's victims and their ultimate demise.

This becomes apparent right from the start. Micheal's first murder, of his sister, occurs when he comes home from trick-or-treating and finds her fooling around with her boyfriend. Similarly, Annie Brackett's death occurs immediately after she receives a call from her boyfriend and prepares to leave for a rendezvous with him, saddling Laurie with Lindsey, who she is supposed to be babysitting. Lynda and Bob too, meet their end after a sleeping together. By contrast Laurie is a responsible, studious teenage girl who can't get a date because guys think she is "too smart." She displays the virtues of prudence and temperance throughout the film. When walking home with Annie and Lynda she contemplates returning to school for her missing chemistry book. She feels guilty for smoking pot in Annie's car. When she agrees to watch Lindsey for Annie she remarks "the old girl-scout comes through again." She also, unlike her friends, seems to sense that something is off. This is something she shares with Dr. Loomis (memorably potrayed by Donald Pleasence), whose conviction that something is uniquely wrong with Micheal is ignored by his collogues at the mental institution. In his dogged, almost maniacal determination to stop Micheal he displays the virtue of fortitude.  

I am not suggesting that Carpenter intended Halloween as some sort of morality play, but rather that his script recognizes, implicitly, that there is something disordered about fornication, and something noble about matronly virtue. This is something later sequels and imitators would lose sight of as the genre descended into sadism and exploitation. In my article on Nosferatu, I contrasted it with Halloween insofar as the former portrays an ultimate defeat of evil, while the latter offers only a momentary escape from it. This reveals a deeper truth: the practice of natural virtue can repel the demonic but only through supernatural means can we overcome them entirely. In an increasingly secular age, the horror genre, at its best, continues to witness to these truths. 

Shocktober 2023, Week 2

8. Psycho (1960)

Hitchcock's influential classic is still impactful all these years later. Anthony Perkins's subtle, unnerving portrayal of Norman Bates is bolstered by solid performances from the veteran supporting cast and by Bernard Herman's iconic, unsettling score. Hitchcock draws from his nearly 40 years of directing experience to craft a film that plays with many conventions that he himself had helped to establish. The film's final, exposition-filled scene is its only sore spot, largely because the director had done such an expert job subtlely communicating the character's motives to the audience throughout the film that it feels unnecessary. Though the film has admittedly had a negative impact on the wider culture, helping to create an unhealthy obsession with serial killers, for the discerning viewer it contains some powerful commentary on the dangers of indulging in one's fantasies, a lesson many today would be wise to heed.

8.6/10 

9. Psycho II (1983)

A completely unnecessary sequel, the second film in the series serves mostly the unenviable task of making Norman Bates a viable antagonist for a slasher movie series. The results are about as lazy and contrived as you might expect, although Perkin's tries his best in a thankless role. Dean Cundey's talent is wasted on the rather flat made-for-TV looking visuals. Jerry Goldsmith's score is good, but fails to capture Bernard Hermann's dissonant, minimalistic work for the original. 

5.8/10

10. Psycho III (1986)

Having gotten the tiresome retconning out of the way, the producers were now free to make the third entry into a full-on slasher film. The result is a less dull but considerably more sadistic film than Psycho II. The visuals are a good deal trippier this time around and Bruce Surtees' talents are much better utilized here then were Cundey's. A young Carter Burwell contributes a unique, disturbing score, utilizing a unusual blend of electronic music and choir. Perkin's feels more at home here as well. It's too bad such talents weren't utilized on a more worthy effort... 

5.6/10

11. Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)

Shockingly, Psycho IV manages to pull off a rare feat: it's a slasher sequel that not only doesn't suck but also adds something to the original film and manages to bring the series to a satisfying conclusion. What's even more surprising is that this conclusion is actually cathartic and hopeful without becoming maudlin. It also, for the most part, avoids exploitive material. Cinematically, it's not a patch on the original but, unlike it immediate predecessors, I'm not sorry I watched it. 

Score: 7.8/10

12. Friday the 13th (1981)

As the 13th of October this year just so happened to occur on a Friday, we could not help but revisit this campy classic. Its perhaps surprising, given the number of sequels, spin-offs and imitators it has spawned, that the original Friday the 13th is a rather unremarkable film. Not only is the script laughable and the acting amateurish (no surprise there for anyone familiar with slashers), but the camerawork and editing are rather pedestrian, especially when to compared with the first film of the other famous slasher series, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street. The film's saving grace (if you can call it that) is the twist at the end with Jason's mom. It also has a certain cheesy, low-budget charm that makes up, in part, for the erratic pacing and sloppy filmmaking, and Tom Savini's make-up work is justly well remembered. 

6.2/10

13. Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Silence of the Lambs is one of those horror movies for people who don't like horror movies. It's often labelled as a "psychological thriller" which is true but though the horrors might be more "real" (for a faithless infidel) then other horror films but it is horror nonetheless. It has also somewhat politically incorrect given the way it portrays certain kinds of deviant behavior. Like Psycho, the film exploits our modern fascination with serial killers in a way I'm not completely comfortable with, yet it does this so effectively and features so much talent both behind and in front of the camera, that it is hard to complain. 

8.8/10

14. Jacob's Ladder (1990)

Jacob's Ladder is a unique horror film to be sure. It's also a bit of a mixed bag. While its exploration of death contains some genuine insights it also, sadly, lapses into universalist territory. The director Adrian Lyne maintains a surreal atmosphere throughout the film, as Jacob (Tim Robbins) drifts from one reality to another; and there is a lot of genuinely disturbing imagery. On the other hand, the film is sometimes lacking in subtlety, the psychology of the protagonist and the meaning of his journey becoming rather unmistakably clear by the end of the picture, leaving little room for mystery or ambiguity.  

8/10