THE VIGIL (September 2019)

THE VIGIL

(September 2019)

For thousands of years, religious Jews have practiced the ritual of “the vigil”.

When a member of the community dies, the body is watched round the clock in shifts by a Shomer, or watchman, who recites the Psalms to comfort the deceased’s soul and protect it from unseen evil.

This watchman is typically a family member or friend, but there are paid Shomers.

Hired to sit the vigil when no one else can.

And this is exactly the situation Yakov Ronen (Dave Davis) finds himself in.

Struggling with the rent, finding himself “… having to choose between medication and meals,” Yakov expects a vigil like those he’s sat before.

Which, of course, is so not what happens to poor Yakov…

The Vigil is writer/director Keith Thomas’ feature debut* and it’s a tight, expertly crafted film, as cramped and oppressive as the Litvak home, in whose dim rooms and shadowed halls Yakov must face the terrible weight of his guilt.

“He was broken by memories. Hmm! Those kind of memories that you saw. They bite. They bite and the biting never stops.”

* Which he’s following up with not just the Firestarter remake, but an episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities anthology as well…

(The Vigil OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

13 Slots for the Best Horror I've Seen in the Past Year
[12 of 13]

PET SEMATARY

(March 2019)

“There are places in this world... that are older than either of us. Places that a rational doctor brain like yours will never understand.

“Nobody knows what that place is, what happens in that stony ground.

“But the soil of a man’s heart is stonier, Louis.”

For the record, I’ve never read the original Stephen King novel.

My only exposure to a complete narrative of Pet Sematary was the 1989 film adaptation directed by Mary Lambert.

At least, until now.

Now that I’ve also been exposed to the new adaptation from Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, who broke onto the ¡Qué horror! 2015 main list with Starry Eyes. (While I would have probably checked out a Pet Sematary remake anyway, based on my familiarity with the 1989 film, Kölsch and Widmyer’s presence at the director’s chair(s) sealed the deal.)

Clearly, there are marked deviations from Lambert’s version, though given that, again, I’ve never read the novel, maybe these deviations bring the narrative closer to the original source material. (I was always under the impression that Lambert’s adaptation made changes to the original text, as is par for the course with any adaptation, really.)

 

All I know is, with death as a major theme and reality of Pet Sematary, it’s a bleakly harsh vision of a parent’s perhaps vain struggle to protect a child from the brutal truths of existence.

And another thing… what I am sure I miss from Mary Lambert’s adaptation?

The original Ramones title track.

Sorry, Starcrawler…

“Yeah, they knew the power of that place. They felt its pull.

“They came to believe that those woods belonged to something else. That the ground was bad.”

(Pet Sematary OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #21

PET SEMATARY

(March 2019)

“There are places in this world... that are older than either of us. Places that a rational doctor brain like yours will never understand.

“Nobody knows what that place is, what happens in that stony ground.

“But the soil of a man’s heart is stonier, Louis.”

For the record, I’ve never read the original Stephen King novel.

My only exposure to a complete narrative of Pet Sematary was the 1989 film adaptation directed by Mary Lambert.

At least, until now.

Now that I’ve also been exposed to the new adaptation from Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, who broke onto the ¡Qué horror! 2015 main list with Starry Eyes. (While I would have probably checked out a Pet Sematary remake anyway, based on my familiarity with the 1989 film, Kölsch and Widmyer’s presence at the director’s chair(s) sealed the deal.)

Clearly, there are marked deviations from Lambert’s version, though given that, again, I’ve never read the novel, maybe these deviations bring the narrative closer to the original source material. (I was always under the impression that Lambert’s adaptation made changes to the original text, as is par for the course with any adaptation, really.)

 

All I know is, with death as a major theme and reality of Pet Sematary, it’s a bleakly harsh vision of a parent’s perhaps vain struggle to protect a child from the brutal truths of existence.

And another thing… what I am sure I miss from Mary Lambert’s adaptation?

The original Ramones title track.

Sorry, Starcrawler…

“Yeah, they knew the power of that place. They felt its pull.

“They came to believe that those woods belonged to something else. That the ground was bad.”

(Pet Sematary OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year
[6 of 13]

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE

(September 2016)

"Mommy told me something a little girl should know.
It’s all about the Devil and I’ve learned to hate him so.

She said he causes trouble when you let him in the room.

He will never ever leave you if your heart is filled with gloom.”

--“Open Up Your Heart”

The body of an unidentified young woman found under strange circumstances is brought in to the Tilden Morgue & Crematorium, where father and son Tildens, Tommy (Brian Cox) and Austin (Emile Hirsch) set about to uncover cause of death.

But this is far from a cut and dried post mortem, as the Tildens soon discover…

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a rousing “Welcome Back!” for director André Øvredal (who was last seen ‘round these parts in the 2011 ¡Qué horror! rundown, with Trolljegeren).

This time though, there are no amusing, humorous chuckles to be had. This is dark and disturbing stuff, courtesy of a script by Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing, which is, honestly, a welcome surprise.

Familiar with some of Goldberg’s work on Once Upon a Time and Dead of Summer (for which Naing also wrote an episode), I hadn’t expected him capable of horror of this grimness. I’m glad to be divested of that impression.

So effective is the film that no less than Guillermo del Toro (“A fun, stylish, beautifully built funhouse of horror!”) and Stephen King (“Visceral horror to rival ALIEN and early Cronenberg. Watch it, but not alone.”) have sung its praises.

¡Qué horror! can do naught but agree…

“Whatever the hell happened in here… we are way past possible.”

(The Autopsy of Jane Doe OS’ courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com & mondotees.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

Candidate #13

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE

(September 2016)

"Mommy told me something a little girl should know.
It’s all about the Devil and I’ve learned to hate him so.

She said he causes trouble when you let him in the room.

He will never ever leave you if your heart is filled with gloom.”

--“Open Up Your Heart”

The body of an unidentified young woman found under strange circumstances is brought in to the Tilden Morgue & Crematorium, where father and son Tildens, Tommy (Brian Cox) and Austin (Emile Hirsch) set about to uncover cause of death.

But this is far from a cut and dried post mortem, as the Tildens soon discover…

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a rousing “Welcome Back!” for director André Øvredal (who was last seen ‘round these parts in the 2011 ¡Qué horror! rundown, with Trolljegeren).

This time though, there are no amusing, humorous chuckles to be had. This is dark and disturbing stuff, courtesy of a script by Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing, which is, honestly, a welcome surprise.

Familiar with some of Goldberg’s work on Once Upon a Time and Dead of Summer (for which Naing also wrote an episode), I hadn’t expected him capable of horror of this grimness. I’m glad to be divested of that impression.

So effective is the film that no less than Guillermo del Toro (“A fun, stylish, beautifully built funhouse of horror!”) and Stephen King (“Visceral horror to rival ALIEN and early Cronenberg. Watch it, but not alone.”) have sung its praises.

¡Qué horror! can do naught but agree…

“Whatever the hell happened in here… we are way past possible.”

(The Autopsy of Jane Doe OS’ courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com & mondotees.com.)

STRANGER THINGS
(July 2016)

"And you know it, and he knows it, but no one ever says anything until you both start punching and yelling at each other like goblins with Intelligence scores of zero.
"Now everything’s weird.”

For anyone who knows me, it should come as absolutely no surprise that Netflix’s Stranger Things had me by the second scene of its first episode/Chapter.

The scene in question: a D&D session that’s been 10 hours running, threatened by the intrusion of… dun-dun-dun-duuuun… parental concern that tomorrow is a school day.

Set in 1983, Stranger Things is the kind of show that resonates on a very specific frequency, and should appeal greatly to Geeks of a Certain Age, those who know exactly what that scene feels like, those who’ve lived that scene, in one variation or another.

“The bad men are comiiing!”

“Mad hen. Does that mean anything to you? Like a code name or something.”

Stranger Things’ 8-Chapter narrative kicks off with the disappearance of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), last seen headed home after that marathon gaming session. The search for Will draws in not just his gaming buddies, but also a bunch of adults, a bunch of teenagers, and a few other characters besides.

With Stranger Things, the show’s creators--the Duffer brothers, twins Matt and Ross--have given us a love letter to that very specific ‘80’s Amblin strain of entertainment that Steven Spielberg spearheaded. Taking that as their template, they’ve infused it heavily with dollops of Stephen King, some smidgens of John Carpenter, and then sprinkled on many of the pop culture markers of that era, from the music (Joy Division! Echo and the Bunnymen! The Clash!) to the films (The Evil Dead! The Thing! The Empire Strikes Back!).

It’s a heady (and sometimes, emotionally-wrenching) rush of geek nostalgia, Stranger Things is. (And, speaking of geek nostalgia, look! Winona Ryder!!)

Of course, the thing about nostalgia is, it works on our emotional attachments to the familiar, to the things we grew up with. As such, there are a whole slew of visuals and story beats in Stranger Things that will recall, to varying degrees, those benchmarks of our past.*

But, given the way the show takes those elements and weaves them into the narrative whole, we still end up with something new. Reminiscent of something(s) old, oh yeah, definitely. But still, in the end, something new. (Or, new-ish, at the very least.)

To a certain extent, Stranger Things does the same thing The Force Awakens does, work from the template of something old and established, and dress it up with some new elements.

In point of fact, there’s something more pure and honest about the way Stranger Things uses that particular approach.

Let’s be honest: no matter how good it is, The Force Awakens, is after all, still constructed to be a franchise re-starter, while Stranger Things appears to be simply, a new story that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve. (Of course, should Stranger Things suddenly explode into a multimedia juggernaut, then we can reexamine that assessment.)**

“You always say we should never stop being curious, to always open any curiosity door we find.”

“Dustin…”

“Why are you keeping this curiosity door locked?”

Now, while the contingent of young actors on the show are across the board excellent, Millie Bobby Brown (who was also one of the noteworthy elements of BBC’s Intruders) and Broadway vet Gaten Matarazzo (Gavroche on Les Misérables) must be commended for their performances; Matarazzo’s Dustin Henderson is officially the latest entry on my personal Awesomest TV Characters Ever! list.

Oh, and Amy Seimetz’s got a single ep guest spot here, too! (Just thought I’d throw that out there.)

So, if you happen to be a Geek of a Certain Age, you’d be doing yourself a mighty disservice if you didn’t check out Stranger Things.

And you know what? Even if you aren’t, check the show out anyway.

Look! Even Stephen King likes it!

My only question about the Netflix series STRANGER THINGS is whether or not it will be popular enough to crash their servers. It might be.

--Tweet from Stephen King

* For the record, there are also some visuals that recall more recent titles, like Silent Hill and Under the Skin. (You’ll know them when you see them.)

** Having said that, I will still freely go on the record to say, given the way they opted to close the 8^th Chapter, please please please let there be a second season…

(Stranger Things OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best, Most Recent Horror Movies I’ve Seen
[9 of 13]
THE MIST (November 2007)


More so than being a monster movie—and it is that, a rather exceptional one, to boot—The Mist is really about the desperation and insanity that can grab hold of people who are suddenly faced with the disastrous and the inexplicable.

Read the entire review here.

(The Mist OS courtesy of impawards.com [design by BLT & Associates].)

THE CINEMATIC (UN)LIFE OF COUNT DRACULA
1922-1979
Part I: “A Symphony of Shudders”

July 13 1929
The Film Society has finally caved in to reason and handed the copy of that blasted film to me.
Just when I begin to think that everything Abraham worked so hard for is safe and out of the hands of profiteering criminals, yet another copy surfaces. Irritable piece of filth.
Blast Murnau and his colleagues!
I have consigned this particular copy to the furnace and even now am watching it burn. Seeing the tiny sparks floating up from the flames is doing me a world of good. The smoke though, reminds me of how that cadaverous thing met its demise.
I still recall how that monster looked. A repulsive, man-sized rodent! Revolting.
And the Society had the gall… the unabashed audacity, to invite me to its screening, even after all the fuss and bother of my legal entanglements with Prana-Film.
The film isn’t even any good at all. They changed the ending, for pity’s sake!
Sunlight, indeed.
What would have been so difficult about a Bowie knife?
Ridiculous.


1922.
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s classic silent film, Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens, is released.
For the purposes of this article, three important points to take note of.

One: the film is a thinly-veiled (and unauthorized) reworking of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, merely changing character names (Dracula becomes Graf Orlock; Lucy Westenra becomes Annie Harding; Van Helsing becomes Bulwar), locales (London becomes Bremen), and time periods (1893 winds back to 1838).
Florence Stoker’s campaign to have every single copy of the film destroyed is legendary.
Several times, beginning in July 1925, when all the copies owned by the Deutsch-Amerikansch Film Union were reportedly destroyed, Stoker’s widow came close to her goal.
But always, when it seemed that the film had finally been obliterated, the existence of another copy would come to her attention, and her protests would begin anew. This crusade was to continue till her death in 1937.
In the end though, what managed to escape her attention was a talkie that surfaced in 1930. Entitled Die Zwolfte Stunde (The Twelfth Hour), it was later discovered to be none other than Murnau’s Nosferatu, with a music-and-effects track added onto it.
Of this particular turn of events, writer Denis Gifford has said, “Nosferatu is the classic example of art saved from destruction by piracy.”


Two: visually, Graf Orlock’s bald, rat-like countenance has served as inspiration for everything from Tobe Hooper’s TV adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, to a whole clan of vampires in White Wolf’s role playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade, to the Reapers in Guillermo del Toro’s Blade II.

Three: Orlock’s death—disintegrated by the rays of the rising sun—appears nowhere in Stoker’s novel; neither does traditional folklore say that a vampire is affected by the sun in this manner.
Death by sunlight is a purely cinematic invention that has since filtered into vampiric lore, becoming an invaluable (and to some, indispensable) addition to the body of myth that has accreted around the nocturnal creature.
Think how different vampires would be today, if Florence Stoker had succeeded in her campaign.
No “death by disco” climax in Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn; no FX-laden Chris Sarandon death scene in Tom Holland’s Fright Night; no fiery ends for the down-and-dirty deadheads of Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark; and the entire premise of David Slade’s 30 Days of Night would be meaningless.
Which just goes to prove that film is a powerful medium, rearranging the public’s perception of facts, fallacies, and fables.


Nosferatu was to be merely the first of a whole slew of films that would be based on Stoker’s novel, the stage adaptation, or simply feature a character named Dracula, whether or not he resembled Stoker’s character.
And just to illustrate the depths that crass exploitation can go, there have also been films that have had “Dracula” in their titles, but did not even have a character with that name appearing in the film itself.
Case in point: Blood of Dracula, which was about a hypnotized girl developing a taste for blood. No Count whatsoever.

Parting shot: Reviews of Blade II, 30 Days of Night, and Shadow of the Vampire (which presents a fictionalized look at the filming of Nosferatu) can be found in the Archive.

In Part II of “The Cinematic (Un)Life of Count Dracula” (also to be found elsewhere in the Archive), we take a look at the stage adaptation of Stoker’s Dracula, to get a better understanding of the film adaptations from 1931 onwards.
The article above is a slightly altered portion of the second part of the previously published Blood, Love and Rhetoric series of articles written in 1997, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
The opening diary entry is of course, a fiction of mine.
Much love and thanx to Karen, for inviting me into the sandbox where this piece of writing (and so many others) first got to play.

(Nosferatu OS’s courtesy of impawards.com; image courtesy of greencine.com; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.co.uk.)

THE MIST
(Review)

Before I get into this, one thing: Frank Darabont has balls of steel. Nay, adamantium.
Balls of adamantium.
Indeed, he does.


I was first swallowed by Stephen King’s The Mist way back in 1981, in the truly exceptional and in many ways, groundbreaking, horror anthology, Dark Forces.
Mr. King’s The Mist left an impression for a number of reasons.
One: at 130 pages, it was the longest story in Dark Forces, and it introduced me to the literary form known as the novella, something too long to be called a short story, yet too short to be called a novel.
Two: it had an ending that was definitely not a happy one, and unlike, say, The Omen’s ending, where we see the main character bite the dust in his vain effort to slay the AntiChrist, The Mist’s ending was more open-ended. It presented a vague sliver of hope, but allowed the reader to decide the remaining characters’ fates; King basically left you to decide what shade you preferred for that downer ending. (Though a part of me was irked since King opted not to present a firm resolution to the story, I eventually came to understand that this was simply another way in which to end a story.)
As far as King’s novella was concerned, it ended with a choice: optimists could choose the greyer-shaded ending; pessimists, the blacker-.
In writing the screenplay for his film adaptation though, Darabont gives us a definite ending all right, and it’s certainly not a gentle one…


The day after a sudden, violent storm, David Drayton (a fantastic Thomas Jane) and his son Billy (Babel’s Nathan Gamble, soon to be seen as Jim Gordon’s son in The Dark Knight), along with a host of other townsfolk buying emergency supplies, get trapped in the local grocery when the strange titular mist comes rolling in.
People want to get home, of course. To loved ones left alone to clear up the post-storm mess, like David’s wife, Stephanie (Kelly Collins Lintz, from TV’s Surface and One Tree Hill). But no one can leave the Food House though.
There are things in the mist, see. Hungry things.


More so than being a monster movie—and it is that, a rather exceptional one, to boot—The Mist is really about the desperation and insanity that can grab hold of people who are suddenly faced with the disastrous and the inexplicable.
People get scared, irrational, unpredictable. Dangerous.
Throw in Mrs. Carmody, an unstable, religious fanatic (played by the supremely awesome Marcia Gay Harden), and an already dire situation quickly escalates into a vicious exercise in staying alive and sane.
This poor collective may have barricaded themselves in, but not all the monsters are out there in the mist…


King’s characters are brought to celluloid life by an across-the-board amazing cast which also includes Infamous’ Toby Jones, The X-Files’ Laurie Holden, Homicide‘s Andre Braugher, frequent Darabont collaborator William Sadler, and veteran actors Frances Sternhagen and Jeffrey DeMunn. Also in roles pumped up a tad from the novella, Reunion’s Alexa Davalos and Battlestar Galactica’s Sam Witwer.
The exceptional performances are then magnificently supported by some wicked creature design and effects by genre stalwarts, the KNB EFX Group.


But this is all brought together by the Man with the Adamantium Balls himself, Mr. Frank Darabont, who captures that sense of bubbling tension trapped in the confines of the grocery like some toxic gas, inexorably building up to some horrible apex where the worst in the human condition either simply deteriorates into a rank hopelessness, or combusts into raw, savage violence.
Then, of course, there’s that ending.
Hoo-boy, that ending!
Save for a handful of bits either excised from the original source material (an adulterous liaison) or added on (as per some characters getting their roles expanded from the novella, or new scenes to further flesh out plot or character dynamics), Darabont’s The Mist is pretty much the novella skillfully transfigured for the silver screen. The story’s major beats are virtually intact: Norm the bag boy, the pharmacy, what Ollie Weeks does right before they attempt their great escape, dot dot dot.
Those familiar with the novella’s generally bleak climax though, will still be chilled at the uncompromising coda Darabont chooses to close the film with. It’s brutal, people, and his The Mist is one of those emotionally potent and wrenching horror films that doesn’t hold back on its gut punches.


Coming out of a field where any weak link isn’t readily apparent, the MVP is still most definitely Darabont, who, in hijacking a substantial portion of The Shield crew during their hiatus (camera operators, D.P., editor, script supervisor, all of whom Darabont enjoyed working with when he directed an episode of the TV show) and making what he describes as a “very direct, muscular kind of film,” he’s crafted what I feel is, alongside Bryan Singer’s Apt Pupil, the best Stephen King film adaptation I’ve ever seen.
Yes, I love (to varying degrees) Stand By Me, Carrie, Pet Sematary, and Misery, but The Mist is something else entirely, and so unlike Darabont’s previous King adaptations, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, it’s astounding.
I was hoping this would be good, but I certainly didn’t expect Darabont would kick me in the a$$ quite so convincingly; he took a 27-year old story and made a riveting horror film rife with tension and emotion, that is startlingly relevant to our post-9/11 world. (He also gets to sneak some Dead Can Dance and Drew Struzan in there, so, really, what’s not to like?)


Is it terrifying? Yes.
Is it comforting? Frak, no.
But does it say something?
Yes, it does, and anyone watching The Mist will hopefully see beyond the otherworldly beasties to learn something about the very ugly, and very real monsters that live under our own, very human, skins.

“On the one level, it’s meant to be a really cool, intense, scary creature feature. But if it were just that, I wouldn’t have wanted to adapt that story. What it does give is something somewhat subversive, which I think all the best horror is.
“Really, it’s an examination of people in a pressure cooker. What does a climate of fear make you do? What mistakes does it compel? How far off the precipice do we sail? Which speaks to the ending as well.
“I just find that absolutely fascinating, because we’ve been nothing if not living in a pressure cooker of fear and the exploitation of fear, the fear of fear, so far in the 21st century. That seems to be defining our behavior, so that makes it really fantastic material to dive into.”
-- Frank Darabont on The Mist

(The Mist OS courtesy of impawards.com [design by BLT & Associates]; images courtesy of aintitcool.com, filmz.ru, and shocktillyoudrop.com.)

(Frank Darabont quote from an aintitcool.com interview.)

1408
(Review)

Good Stephen King film adaptations are hard to come by, kind of like ghosts, if you think about it.
Michael Enslin (John Cusack) is a jaded soul, who believes in nothing, not even God. He is also the author of a series of “Ghost Survival Guides” (with titles like 10 Haunted Hotels, 10 Haunted Lighthouses, and yes, 10 Haunted Graveyards), a job which entails spending the night at purportedly spectre-plagued establishments and writing cheesy guide books about them.
The dreary routine of his so-called life is thrown into disarray however, when, along with pamphlets of establishments hoping to be written up by Enslin in his next Ghost Survival Guide, he receives a postcard in the mail, which warns him not to stay in Room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel in New York.
He does, of course, kicking off the disturbing goings-on in Mikael Hafstrom‘s 1408.

Based on a short story by King, 1408 is largely set in the eponymous hotel room, as we watch Cusack attempt to weather the paranormal attack the room wages on him. Duly warned by Dolphin Hotel manager Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson), Enslin doggedly insists on staying the night, thus paying the price for his cynical arrogance.
With a set-up of this sort, the majority of the film’s running time is spent with Enslin in 1408, in real time, as he is assaulted by the sinister force that lives in the room. It’s to the credit of Hafstrom and cinematographer Benoit Delhomme (Anthony Minghella’s Breaking and Entering and John Hillcoat’s The Proposition) that a hotel room that looks perfectly innocuous seems to exude a malevolent air, once the disturbances go into full swing.
And it’s to Cusack’s credit, that Mike Enslin comes across as a protagonist we can empathize with. Cusack submits a tired, wounded man for our close inspection, a man bereft of hope, who comes face to face with the irrational, forcing him to come to grips with his personal demons, or die trying.

Swedish director Hafstrom made his mark on global cinema with notable films like the Oscar-nominated Ondskan (Evil) and Strandvaskaren (Drowning Ghost), before entering the Hollywood mainstream with the Clive Owen/Jennifer Aniston-starrer, Derailed.
In 1408, he presents us with a cinematic experience that plays like a particularly effective funhouse ride: by turns creepy and disturbing, yet ultimately, entertaining.
There are no deep truths to be found in 1408, just good old fashioned scares. This may not be a stand-out, potential modern classic in the annals of cinematic horror, but it does have a number of sequences that get the job done (the CSI moment is memorably chilling).
This also does for The Carpenters what Final Destination did for John Denver, and any film that can turn an overplayed oldie into a total creepfest really should be seen solely on principle.

(1408 OS courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)