Bump in the Night : September - October Theme
“Do you like scary movies?”
Did you hear that? There was… a noise… a murmur emerging from across the house. Probably nothing you tell yourself. A sharp sound though, it demands your attention, cutting through the walls to reach you. The tenor of a calm night pierced by this uneasy note now sinking into your ear. Some phantom whisper? No, surely just the nascent autumnal wind, its bracing draft coming indoors through an open shudder. The house must be stretching, adjusting itself to the new season. For the long Summer that precedes Fall is near its end and changes are coming. Yes, breathe, breathe deeply with assurance. Everything is going to be fine. You must have forgotten how different the dark can be.
It comes again. There is no shaking the sound now, it assumes presence in the shadows at your back. Any ready explanation slips from you now. The fear is at your throat. Is someone there? Who could it be? What could it be? All the horror of your life fills your eyes as you leave your room. Peering down a dimly lit hallway in your house and the dark stretches infinitely on. Your slow tip-toe jolted as you catch a ghost in your own reflection. And behind every corner, impossible ruin, waiting to embrace you. Once that sound finds you there is no escaping the pull towards it, you need to know what it was, because you can never be sure of a BUMP IN THE NIGHT.
Whether it’s how they birth new terrors that fester in our subconscious, or plaster our private fears on screen, or torment us so our very bodies are subject to their whim — we jump, we fidget, we become paralyzed, we cover our eyes — there’s something compelling about horror films that has us coming back for more. The primordial fear of survival is the underlying concern of the genre, and through the varied perspectives and approaches of the genre and its artists the scope of survival has expanded, resulting in equally stunning and startling outcomes that send shivers down our spine and live out our worst nightmares.
For our September & October theme, we’re picking a selection of some of our favorite horror films. Slashers, creature features, home invasions, 80s camp, Cronenberg body horror, final girls, and the like find their way on this list, and while we could make this list a hundred times over with an unending supply of our favorites, we managed to select just eight for your consideration. The haunting season is here, so it’s time to confront our fears and find out what those bumps in the night really are.
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Scream
(Wes Craven, 1996)
“Careful. This is the moment when the supposedly dead killer comes back to life, for one last scare.”
“Not in my movie.”
A simple phone call begins this tale. At the house of Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) no less, all alone in the middle of nowhere, getting getting ready to watch a horror film on a Friday night. On the other end a mysterious caller who sparks conversation from small banter and mild flirtations. “What’s your name?” he asks. “Why would you need to know that?” she responds. “Because I need to know who I’m staring at.” And in typically slasher fashion, the cat and mouse game is off to the races.
But there’s something different this time. Somewhere between, “What’s your favorite scary movie?” and the live-or-die question, “What’s the name of the killer in Friday the 13th?” you quickly come to understand that this film is conscious to its own existence. We know slashers have a set of rules so pervasive that you and I know like the back of our hand, but what if the film knows them too? And what if the film spells them out right to your face? Could a film be so audacious to expose its inner workings every step of the way or does it know something we don’t? By the time the pitch perfect, 13-minute opening prologue concludes with a rapid push-in on a strung up Casey Becker, you know Wes Craven’s Scream will be just like and unlike any slasher you’ve ever seen.
After John Carpenter formulated the defining slasher blueprint in 1978 with Halloween, a decade-long fixation with scream queens, horny teenagers, and masked serial killers kicked off. The deluge of 80s horror films that followed iterated on a winning formula, producing a number of horror icons and cult classics in the process, but by decade’s end, hundreds of carbon copies, cheap derivatives, and numbered sequels flooded the market and tainted audience’s appetites. One could confidently plot a slasher film before even taking their seat at the theater, and the subgenre became more or less a punchline for TV sitcoms’ Halloween episodes. It appeared as if it was time to hang up the knife and put the mask away.
Then Wes Craven came along and reigned in the new ‘post-modern slasher’ by turning the genre in on itself with Scream. From the director who helped refine and define horror with A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Last House on the Left came a start to finish takedown of the slasher subgenre that both adheres to the conventional blueprint while simultaneously deconstructing every trope therein. As the teens of Woodsboro become the targets of the Ghostface killer, they make reference to films being mimicked before their very eyes, and within their line reads, Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson weave a satirical critique so befitting that you wonder if this slasher will abide by those conventions or break from them.
Local video store clerk and bookworm cinephile Randy Meeks will be the first to tell you that teens can’t have sex unless you’re looking for guaranteed death, and protagonist and final girl Sydney Prescott encapsulates years of slasher eye-rolls by saying “[Horror movies are] all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It's insulting.” Terse as these may be, they are true.
Scene by scene, Scream amasses to an all encompassing textbook for horror, condensing years of mythos into one hour and fifty-one minutes. In fact, if you had a copy of Carol Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws to pair with Scream you’d know 90% there is about the inner workings of the horror genre. Reflexive cinema is particularly prone to intolerable smugness, but in this instance, where the generic formula is so entrenched and diluted by years of recycled plots, Scream’s presentation feels like a righteous and earned attraction. In my humble opinion, it’s a real scream.
-Greg Arietta
Videodrome
(David Cronenberg, 1983)
“The television screen has become the retina of the mind's eye.”
I first saw Videodrome in the middle of a film festival, exhausted after a long day of back-to-back films. It was the midnighter, and I was practically falling asleep by the time it started. As it turned out, my delirium brought about by starting at screens all day was the perfect match for a film about . . . well, about the delirium brought about by staring at screens all day.
James Woods stars as Max Renn, the controversial president of the sensationalist CIVIC TV who seeks something new to shock viewers with. When he comes across a pirated broadcast of Videodrome, a plotless show depicting non-stop torture and murder, he becomes convinced this is what viewers are craving. But as he delves deeper into the dark world of Videodrome, Renn finds himself at the centre of an increasingly nightmarish conspiracy, which turns out to be nothing less than a “battle for the mind of North America” itself.
Videodrome’s philosophising owes a lot to media theorists Marshall McLuhan and Jean Baudrillard, but what writer-director David Cronenberg adds is his obsession with the body in all its most grotesque, fleshy forms. The result is a series of surreal images of technology made flesh and vice versa, unforgettably realised by special effects maestro Rick Baker who crafts television sets that breathe and torsos that open up into gaping orifices primed to swallow videotapes. Is this Cronenberg’s warning about the disturbing destruction of our bodies and minds at the hands of a screen-obsessed culture bent on excess, or a perverse celebration of a new technological postmodern sublime? “Long live the new flesh,” as they say.
-Theo Rollason
The Strangers
(Bryan Bertino, 2008)
“Why are you doing this to us?”
“Because you were home.”
If love is roses then heartbreak is a knife. First is love, but in 2008’s home invasion horror hit The Strangers, it is the dissolution of love, as the lead couple Kristen and James (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) retreat to spend a single solitary night in the remote house in the immediate fallout of an unexpected turn in their relationship. They must now pass the night restless, together but coming apart. Then there are roses. Rose petals drape the house’s interior, deep red speckles across the bathroom floor and the bedroom. A romantic gesture now with all its breath let out. The heartbreak is the aforementioned, yes, but it is not only that. The heartbreak is twofold by the end of the night. There is the what the couple has done to each other, and then what will be done to them. Which brings us to the knife. It is a slow blade held menacingly and drawing blood patiently over the course of 86 minutes by silent masked assailants. The blade will be what binds the two lead lovers close one last time, but it might not leave any room in their hearts by the end.
The circumstances of the The Strangers find all of those separate elements locked under the same roof, set like tinder waiting to catch fire at the strike of a match, or in this case, a knock at the door. Writer-director Bryan Bertino’s debut feature benefits from a deep bag of domestic scares and autumnal detail as a brilliant color palette of the wooden house’s interior evokes a comfort and warmth, paired with the cool pan of the camera revealing new terrors hidden away in darkened corners and negative space. The palpable sense of uncertainty that exists both around the couple and between them is exacerbated by domestic terrors; the home — a place thought safe by locked doors and blinded windows — is breached by terrors of the exterior, terrors conceivable when you step outside, but not here… not in your own home. The night is made to feel as if it might never end for these two unlucky lovers, but the time watching their struggle flies fast. The pacing is cruel and captivating, and the sadistic appeal is in the watching and the waiting. Sit down for a viewing of The Strangers and you’ll be sure to never to answer that knock at your door after dark again…
-Dante Hay
Night of the Comet
(ThomEberhardt, 1984)
“See? This is the problem with these things. Daddy would have gotten us Uzis.”
In the days leading up to Christmas, a comet passes over Earth for the first time in 65 million years. In its wake, millions of people around the globe disintegrate into red dust, and anyone exposed to its radiating energy is transformed into a violent ghoul. If you were one of the lucky few who managed to spend the night in a metal lined shelter, your morning was greeted with empty streets and clothes outlining where human beings used to be. Reggie and Sam Belmont, two sisters living in Los Angelos, just so happen to have both survived right as the world ends. With no parents, no rules, and no curfew, the sisters take to the streets to find anyone left in their ghost town city and rekindle what’s left of society.
Highlighted by an atmospheric red glow, MAC 10 submachine guns, and an end of the world shopping spree set to Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” Night of the Comet is a cult classic like no other. Thom Eberhardt’s 1984 film pulls from all kinds of 80s cinema to construct a sci-fi, action, horror, and teen-comedy cocktail that’s blissfully aware of its own camp and smart enough to lean into it. Uninhibited by a complex plot and chalk full of 80s jams that bring levity to the apocalypse, you’ll be hard pressed to have anything less than a bitchin’ time with this one.
-Greg Arietta
The Vanishing
(George Sluizer, 1988)
“Sometimes I imagine she's alive. Somewhere far away. She's very happy. And then, I have to make a choice. Either I let her go on living and never know, or I let her die and find out what happened. So... I let her die.”
The most insidious thing about director George Sluizer’s 1988 Dutch classic The Vanishing is that it lulls the viewer into believing it’s not going to scare them. Thrilling? Sure. Suspenseful? You bet. Emotional? Intriguing? Mysterious? The film checks all of those boxes and more. But there’s nothing about it that could be described as particularly scary, and for a motion picture with the terrifying reputation this one has that could be construed by some as a bit of a surprise.
That’s all part of the game Sluizer and screenwriter Tim Krabbé (based on his novel) are playing. They lull you into a false sense of security. Convince you that this cat-and-mouse potboiler will ultimately lead to a conventional resolution to its central mystery, that the two men on this macabre road trip of truth will learn how one another tick and discover some semblance of mutual understanding before their requisite climactic standoff can commence.
Yet, that’s not what happens. The Vanishing is so much more than its elegantly simple parts. Man’s girlfriend disappears at a roadside rest stop. He obsesses over finding her. Another man contacts him saying he’ll show him what happened to her, if only he’ll experience what she did each step of the journey. But the true horror is the inability to grieve, a refusal to move on with one’s life and instead give into an obsessive damnation that’s life-shattering. It’s how one digs their own grave, and because of this, Sluzier’s gem becomes a masterpiece of all-consuming terror that's impossible to forget.
-Sara Michelle Fetters
A spooky thank you to Sara (@MoviefreakSara) for guest selecting this week’s film. You can find her work on Seattle Gay News and MovieFreak.com.
Lifeforce
(Tobe Hooper, 1985)
“The web of destiny carries your blood and soul back to the genesis of my lifeform.”
Haunting our dreams since the 18th century, codified by Bram Stoker in 1897, and taking shape across mediums ever since, the vampire is a legend of Eastern European folklore that remains a constant fixture of horror. For decades, our cultural obsession with these creatures of the night have yielded numerous incarnations, of which cinema has been now shy contributor. From F.W. Murnau’s 1922 German expressionistic classic Nosferatu, to Bela Lugosi’s iconic portrayal in Universal’s Dracula, to the neighbor-next-door seduction of Fright Night, to Francis Ford Coppola’s super stylized and faithfully adapted Bram Stoker’s Dracula, to the sparkling tween fantasies of Edward and Bella in Twilight, there are an unending supply of vampire films that stimulate titillating nightmares, but for this list, we thought it best to opt for an unorthodox selection: the space vampires of Tobe Hooper’s LIFEFORCE.
On a mission headed for Halley’s Comet, the crew of the Churchill encounter an abandoned, 150 mile long space craft of unknown origin. Inside, three humanoids encased in crystalized energy fields, seized by the crew for scientific examination. But as is common in these narratives, the extra-terrestrial beings prove … deadly.
When mission control eventually finds the abandoned remains of the Churchill weeks later, the entire crew is burned to a crisp except for the three humanoids, perfectly preserved in their translucent vessels. They are subsequently brought to Earth where they are awakened by the radiating energy of an active civilization, ready to start sucking the life-force out of anyone caught in their hypnotic gaze. One by one, these space vampires consume the energy of living beings, causing their victims by effect to consume the forces of another in order to survive. With exponential transmission taking place on the population of London, it’s up to a heroic few to stop this cosmic plight from draining all the life from Earth before its too late.
Written for the screen by Dan O’Bannon, the screenwriter for Alien, and directed by the person responsible for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Lifeforce is a relentless sci-fi horror action film that’s 100% committed to its spectacle. The idea of a space vampire is admittedly quite goofy, but Hooper takes the $25 million budget granted to him by Cannon Films and wrings out every last dollar to create one of the most dazzling displays of practical and digital VFX to ever come out of the 1980s. Exploding dust-bodies of a dehydrated humans. Frenzied chaos in the streets of downtown London. The electric transmission of life between victim and vampire. All of it, remarkable in its visceral nature and grand execution.
Plus it helps that this scale is supported by Lifeforce’s faithful adaptation of vampire lore, retaining the core tenants of vampire identity — lustful attraction, foreign otherness, supernatural powers — and graphing it naturally to its science fiction premise. It may have been a commercial failure upon release, but Hooper’s differential take on the vampire is hardly forgettable, making it a welcomed (and explosive) addition to the legend’s long and storied history.
-Greg Arietta
Angst
(Gerald Kargl, 1983)
“I can't feel sorry for the victims. I need to keep on killing.”
Shh… don’t you want to hear the killer speak? For the entire length of Gerald Kargl’s macabre vision, Angst, the voice of an unnamed psychopath talks you. While unreliable narrators are known to get work, the narrator employed here is an unfamiliar one, totally murderous and mad and the lone voice in control of the narrative. Haunting in its chilling, confessional nature, the voice-over deepens the already disturbing horror depicted onscreen by providing the interior mind of a psychopath killer and the frenzied compulsion to murder, both of which have surely never been given such voice nor found a committed and cinematic rendering as they do here. It is not hyperbole to assert that as rare as the true psychopath out stalking the street is, the hypnotic horror that is Angst is equally rare among films.
Kargl and the film’s intimate band of collaborators deserve credit as one of the all-time great one-and-done crews in cinematic history. That should not be a distinction limited strictly to horror, but it is undeniable that their single feature-length accomplishment is a masterwork of the genre. It innovates new methods of anxiety inducing fear, most notably with its camerawork which is used to dizzying effect, employing rope systems, mirrors, and even a body harness to transform the camera into an entranced and unnerved specter. And the score is an eerie reverie clouding the world in a state of unease and dread with dark minimal synths that permeate the film’s atmosphere in an essential, indelible way, practically anticipating the contemporary synthwave trend seen in scoring modern art-horror today.
Ultimately, this is no simple sharing of a psychopath’s story, but Angst convincingly occupies the mental state of one. Different from other more popular filmic portrayals of psychopaths, its intent is not to show its protagonist / antagonist as a killer with personality, but rather a wild force of a personal disorder. It is an undeniably harrowing experience sitting through the film. Living even 75 minutes inside the head of a man who must keep killing is enough to make your skin crawl and your stomach turn, but it eventually takes hold. You might even be shocked when you find yourself listening close to the words of a killer…
-Dante Hay
Braindead (Dead Alive)
(Peter Jackson, 1992)
“I kick ass for the Lord!”
You would not expect Peter Jackson’s name to helm one of the bloodiest films ever made, and yet 1992’s Braindead (aka Dead Alive in the USA) exists to take that sanguine crown. At least, depending on where you live. Many countries released their own edited versions of Braindead, slashing runtime so the gore met theater-appropriate levels. Even still, complimentary vomit bags were provided just in case your viewing experience landed on the wrong side of stomach-churning. It is hard to believe this film is from the same man who later brought us The Shire and Gandalf in such signature cinematic forms, but that is just another reason why Braindead seems like a small miracle.
In it, Lionel Cosgrove’s mother is infected with a virus that transforms her into a delicate and decaying zombie. Initially trying to cordon off the infected in his basement, Lionel sees it spread quickly through a party in the Cosgrove’s mansion in 1950s Wellington, New Zealand. Cornered with his newfound crush, Paquita María Sánchez, they both take on the ever-growing hoard with increasingly creative methods of mutilation and murder to mow-down and eradicate the proliferation. It’s a sight to behold, though maybe through the slits of your fingers because the bloodshed is just that unrelenting.
You see, just before Jurassic Park solidified the turn to computer-generated effects the following year, Braindead graces us with a grisly gore-fest of guffaws through practical means. Countless body parts are dismembered, decapitated, severed, or pulverized in Lionel’s quest for survival. Through it all, the film almost entirely rests on the technical proficiency of its special effects and its inventive kills, only elevated further by Jackson’s homage to camera tricks and effects used in classic horror films and his inclusion of the gratuitous slasher archetype seen in the year’s leading up to the film’s release.
It is hard to understate how unflinching the camera is to these acts but Jackson does not set out to chill you to your bone or deliver a cinematic defibrillator by way of a jump scare. Braindead is eccentric, ludicrous even. It’s designed for scoffs and awe, not shock and terror. Its schlock is doused in buckets of blood—the film purportedly boasts the most amount ever used — and if Evil Dead 2 and The Fly were blended together via lawnmower, it might be half as squeamish as Braindead. And isn’t that something to celebrate? Bring your own vomit bags!
-Kevin Conner