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

I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE

(September 2016)

"I have heard myself say that a house with a death in it can never again be bought or sold by the living.
"It can only be borrowed from the ghosts that have stayed behind.”

After carving out an entire slot for himself in the ¡Qué horror! 2016 rundown--for co-writing the screenplay of The Girl in the Photographs, and for his feature debut, The Blackcoat’s Daughter--Osgood Perkins is back, with his sophomore effort, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House.

Here, we see 28-year-old hospice nurse Lily Saylor (Ruth Wilson), move in with the elderly Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss), a writer of horror novels (“… [t]he kinds of thick, frightening books that people buy at airports and supermarkets,” Lily observes).

Novels with titles like The Dark Moon Flower, Underwater Housewife, She Wore Her Hair Around Her Neck, and--of particular interest to the film’s plot--The Lady in the Walls.

True to ¡Qué horror! form, things do not go well.

At all.

Nothing more need be said, save that I Am the Pretty Thing… is the kind of horror film that advances with a languid, stealthy tread, trailing its horror behind it in a train of rotting lace.

If you enjoy the exquisite, lingering dread of slow burn horror, then you definitely need to check this one out…

“… [b]ut left alone, with only your own eyes looking back at you… and even the prettiest things rot.

“You fall apart like flowers…”

Parting Shot 1:

It’s interesting to note that there’s another prominent ghost in this film: Osgood’s father, the one and only Anthony Perkins.

From the prominent use of “You Keep Coming Back Like A Song” (by Tony Perkins with Urbie Green and His Orchestra, contained in From My Heart from 1958), to a scene from 1956’s Friendly Persuasion (for which Perkins was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), to the film’s dedication (“for A.P.” which I can only assume stands for “Anthony Perkins”), the late Perkins’ presence is very much felt in I Am the Pretty Thing…

Parting Shot 2:

There also another Perkins with a prominent role here as well, Osgood’s brother, Elvis, who provides the film’s soundtrack, as he did on The Blackcoat’s Daughter.

(I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House OS courtesy of werstreamt.es.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

Candidate #5

I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE

(September 2016)

"I have heard myself say that a house with a death in it can never again be bought or sold by the living.
"It can only be borrowed from the ghosts that have stayed behind.”

After carving out an entire slot for himself in the ¡Qué horror! 2016 rundown--for co-writing the screenplay of The Girl in the Photographs, and for his feature debut, The Blackcoat’s Daughter--Osgood Perkins is back, with his sophomore effort, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House.

Here, we see 28-year-old hospice nurse Lily Saylor (Ruth Wilson), move in with the elderly Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss), a writer of horror novels (“… [t]he kinds of thick, frightening books that people buy at airports and supermarkets,” Lily observes).

Novels with titles like The Dark Moon Flower, Underwater Housewife, She Wore Her Hair Around Her Neck, and--of particular interest to the film’s plot--The Lady in the Walls.

True to ¡Qué horror! form, things do not go well.

At all.

Nothing more need be said, save that I Am the Pretty Thing… is the kind of horror film that advances with a languid, stealthy tread, trailing its horror behind it in a train of rotting lace.

If you enjoy the exquisite, lingering dread of slow burn horror, then you definitely need to check this one out…

“… [b]ut left alone, with only your own eyes looking back at you… and even the prettiest things rot.

“You fall apart like flowers…”

Parting Shot 1:

It’s interesting to note that there’s another prominent ghost in this film: Osgood’s father, the one and only Anthony Perkins.

From the prominent use of “You Keep Coming Back Like A Song” (by Tony Perkins with Urbie Green and His Orchestra, contained in From My Heart from 1958), to a scene from 1956’s Friendly Persuasion (for which Perkins was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), to the film’s dedication (“for A.P.” which I can only assume stands for “Anthony Perkins”), the late Perkins’ presence is very much felt in I Am the Pretty Thing…

Parting Shot 2:

There also another Perkins with a prominent role here as well, Osgood’s brother, Elvis, who provides the film’s soundtrack, as he did on The Blackcoat’s Daughter.

(I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House OS courtesy of werstreamt.es.)

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

[6 of 13]
The Osgood Perkins Slot

Tie number 2...

THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER

(September 2015)

Osgood Perkins (son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins) gets a slot all to himself this year, and we kick off with his feature debut, The Blackcoat’s Daughter.

Originally titled February, the film follows Kat, Rose and Joan, the former two left largely alone and unattended at their virtually empty boarding school. Both are in a delicate condition (one, emotional, the other, physical), and soon, the quiet in the halls and rooms is shattered by the undeniable fact that this is, after all, a horror movie.

Under Perkins’ assured directorial hand, the off-kilter air that is in evidence very early on quickly settles into an unease that pervades the rest of the film’s running time, helped in no small part by Perkins’ younger brother, Elvis (himself a musician with 3 albums under his belt), who scores the proceedings with a jangly, atonal touch.

With Bryan Bertino (whose The Strangers nabbed itself a ¡Qué horror! 2008 slot) as one of its producers, and genre faces James Remar, Emma Roberts, and a nearly unrecognizable Lauren Holly along for the darkly disquieting ride, The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a must-see for anyone who treasures horror that doesn’t feel the need to over-explain itself.

THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS

(September 2015)

"I'll tell you what it is, kids.
"It’s that every f*cker in the country thinks they’re a photographer now, okay? And everyone can share an image, and it’s awful. It’s awful because it makes everything just like watery piss.

“Then you have this guy who creates an image that you actually can’t f*ck with, that you actually can’t ignore…”

Serial killers are like zombies and vampires; you need to look really long and really hard to find films about them that are actually worth your time and your attention.

Nick Simon’s The Girl in the Photographs is definitely worth your time, not just because it’s an excellent (and at times, frankly brutal) serial killer thriller, but it’s also one of the last things the late, great, and sorely missed Wes Craven worked on. (At the very top of the end credits roll, the dedication, “For Wes.”)

So if you feel any allegiance at all to the late Mr. Craven, then the least you can do is check out the film that he believed in enough to Executive Produce, before he had to so abruptly leave us…

And while that should be enough reason, if you find that you still need some more motivation, then Kal Penn’s total douchebag fashion photog Peter Hemmings is one of the definite draws of the film.

There’s also Mitch Pileggi, effectively de-Skinner-izing himself as the ineffectual Sheriff Porter, and Katharine Isabelle--late of the equally sorely missed Hannibal--in a brief role.

Plus, the D.P is Dean Cundey! Halloween! The Thing! And if your cinematic tastes lean more towards big-a$$ Hollywood productions, Jurassic Park! The Back to the Future trilogy! Cundey also shot the brilliant Psycho II, which leads us to one other notable…

The film’s screenplay is credited to Osgood Perkins, Rob Morast, and Simon.

So, yeah. Psycho. Perkins. (Osgood also actually played “Young Norman” in Psycho II.)
This double whammy is a promising sign for Perkins’ sophomore directorial effort, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, which already garnered some good notices from its TIFF premiere last month. (Incidentally, the double whammy we're looking at right now also premiered at TIFF, last year, just 2 days apart.)

So, yes, The Girl in the Photographs.

If you want a bit of brutality in your ¡Qué horror! viewing…

“This guy knows I’m from Spearfish. He’s doing this… this photography thing with his victims as… as… as an homage, as a… as a nod, a nod to me, Spearfish’s most famous citizen and only known living artist.

“Frankly, I’m flattered.”

(The Blackcoat’s Daughter, February, and The Girl in the Photographs OS' courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2016

Candidate #15

THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER

(September 2015)

Osgood Perkins (son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins) first landed in ¡Qué horror! territory earlier this year as co-writer on Nick Simon’s The Girl in the Photographs.
Now he’s back, joining Simon’s effort as a 2016 Candidate, with his feature debut, The Blackcoat’s Daughter.

Originally titled February, the film follows Kat, Rose and Joan, the former two left largely alone and unattended at their virtually empty boarding school. Both are in a delicate condition (one, emotional, the other, physical), and soon, the quiet in the halls and rooms is shattered by the undeniable fact that this is, after all, a horror movie.

Under Perkins’ assured directorial hand, the off-kilter air that is in evidence very early on quickly settles into an unease that pervades the rest of the film’s running time, helped in no small part by Perkins’ younger brother, Elvis (himself a musician with 3 albums under his belt), who scores the proceedings with a jangly, atonal touch.

With Bryan Bertino (whose The Strangers nabbed itself a ¡Qué horror! 2008 slot) as one of its producers, and genre faces James Remar, Emma Roberts, and a nearly unrecognizable Lauren Holly along for the darkly disquieting ride, The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a must-see for anyone who treasures horror that doesn’t feel the need to over-explain itself.

It’s also a promising sign for Perkins’ follow-up, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, which has already gotten some good notices from its TIFF premiere a week ago.

(The Blackcoat’s Daughter & February OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2016

Candidate #7

THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS

(September 2015)

"I'll tell you what it is, kids.

“It’s that every f*cker in the country thinks they’re a photographer now, okay? And everyone can share an image, and it’s awful. It’s awful because it makes everything just like watery piss.

“Then you have this guy who creates an image that you actually can’t f*ck with, that you actually can’t ignore…”

Serial killers are like zombies and vampires; you need to look really long and really hard to find films about them that are actually worth your time and your attention.

Nick Simon’s The Girl in the Photographs is definitely worth your time, not just because it’s an excellent (and at times, frankly brutal) serial killer thriller, but it’s also one of the last things the late, great, and sorely missed Wes Craven worked on. (At the very top of the end credits roll, the dedication, “For Wes.”)

So if you feel any allegiance at all to the late Mr. Craven, then the least you can do is check out the film that he believed in enough to Executive Produce, before he had to so abruptly leave us…

And while that should be enough reason, if you find that you still need some more motivation, then Kal Penn’s total douchebag fashion photog Peter Hemmings is one of the definite draws of the film.

There’s also Mitch Pileggi, effectively de-Skinner-izing himself as the ineffectual Sheriff Porter, and Katharine Isabelle--late of the equally sorely missed Hannibal--in a brief role.

Plus, the D.P is Dean Cundey! Halloween! The Thing! And if your cinematic tastes lean more towards big-a$$ Hollywood productions, Jurassic Park! The Back to the Future trilogy! Cundey also shot the brilliant Psycho II, which leads us to one other notable…

The film’s screenplay is credited to Osgood Perkins, Rob Morast, and Simon.

So, yeah. Psycho. Perkins.

Osgood happens to be the son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins. (And he actually played “Young Norman” in Psycho II.) Osgood also happens to be making a name for himself as a director as well, and I’ve been chomping at the bit to see his directorial debut, February (reportedly retitled The Blackcoat’s Daughter).

If this film’s screenplay is anything to go by, then I’m even more pumped to see February-or-whatever-it’s-being-called-now.

So, yes, The Girl in the Photographs.

If you want a bit of brutality in your ¡Qué horror! viewing…

“This guy knows I’m from Spearfish. He’s doing this… this photography thing with his victims as… as… as an homage, as a… as a nod, a nod to me, Spearfish’s most famous citizen and only known living artist.

“Frankly, I’m flattered.”

(The Girl in the Photographs OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

SHADOWS
ON THE
SHOWER
CURTAIN
(A Psycho
Retrospective)

Dedicated to the memory of Janet Leigh, whose final film role was, appropriately enough, opposite real-life daughter (and fellow Scream Queen) Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween: H20.

Note: This retrospective assumes that the reader has seen either version of Psycho, or is at least familiar with its plot.

“Mother! Oh God! Mother! Blood! Blood!”

From the opening title sequence designed by Saul Bass, orchestrated to the screeching violins of Bernard Herrmann, all the way to the final shot of the car being pulled from the swamp, Psycho is a riveting and unforgettable cinematic experience.
By now, nearly 50 years after its initial release, many are aware of it, even if they’ve never actually seen the 1960 original. Some may have seen the color remake by Gus Van Sant, starring Anne Heche, Vince Vaughn, and Viggo Mortensen in his pre-Aragorn days. There may even be some film students out there who’ve studied the editing of the famous shower stabbing frame by frame, and never bothered to watch the entire film. Their loss.
And, barring all of that, you may have just heard Janet Leigh’s immortal shower scream from a nearby cellphone. Ah, the wonders of modern technology.

“We have twelve vacancies. Twelve cabins, twelve vacancies.”

There are very few individuals who may wish to refute, or even debate, the genius of Alfred Hitchcock as a film director. And in handling the suspense thriller, there are even fewer who can come close to his masterful technique and his uncanny ability to keep the audience at the edge of their proverbial seats.
Consider that in the nearly half-century since its release, Psycho has become known as the granddaddy of the slasher film; the daddy, being John Carpenter’s Halloween. But note that Psycho lacks one of the by-now traditional staples of the slasher film: the chase sequence. Nowhere in the film do we see Norman Bates in a cheap wig and his mother’s clothes stalking either of the Crane sisters down the halls and rooms of the Bates house. Think about it, a suspense thriller without a single chase scene.
Instead, what we have is the spectre of pursuit, the feeling of being on the run, as Marion Crane drives down stretches of the American Interstate with nothing for company except the imagined voices of lovers, co-workers, policemen, and used car salesmen, with Bernard Herrmann’s hauntingly insistent string section for musical accompaniment.
Another of Psycho’s brilliant achievements is that it is successful in making the audience identify with a less-than-sterling individual as the apparent main protagonist of the tale. Yes, Marion Crane is no murderer; she is simply a person placed in the barreling way of temptation, and who succumbs, mistakenly thinking that $40,000 can buy off her unhappiness (and her lover’s debts).
Still, this was no Jimmy Stewart, the good man unwittingly pulled into mystery and intrigue and danger (as in Hitchcock’s brilliant Rear Window, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2004). This was not even Tippi Hedren in The Birds. This was a woman who stole $40,000. And she was our heroine.
Until the shower scene.

“It’s not as if she were a maniac. A raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes.”

And here, again, Hitchcock subverts, because, the instant we recover from the shock of Marion Crane’s sudden demise, we realize we are without anyone to identify with.
Then, bizarrely, we find ourselves identifying with Norman, who, after all, is only cleaning up. Only doing what a loving, dutiful son would to protect his mother, regardless of how psychotic she may be. Our breath even hitches, as Norman’s does, when Marion’s car stops sinking into the swamp for a second or two.
It is only once the film is over that we realize, for a certain window of Psycho’s running time, before we are introduced to Lila Crane, that we actually identified with the killer. That, in the end, Hitchcock actually did get us to identify, even if only briefly, with a murderer.

“My mother, uh, what is the phrase? She isn’t quite herself today.”

And of course, there’s the cross-dressing.
Keep in mind, this was 1960. Reportedly, the on-screen toilet flushing was already a big deal. Here, not only did we have a loony stabbing women in the shower, but we had a loony stabbing women in the shower while he was dressed up as his mother!
Thankfully, the psychosexual basis for Norman’s pathology is neatly mapped out in the film’s denouement; in the history of serial killer films, Norman Bates is one of the few whose pathology we are actually privy to.
Additionally, Anthony Perkins’ performance affords Norman Bates a very lonely and fragile vulnerability. We understand the trap he was born in, we sympathize with his predicament, at least until we realize just how disturbed the poor man really is.

“Well, a… a boy’s best friend is his mother.”

It is in Hitchcock’s skilled manipulation and subversion of audience expectations that Psycho finds one of its main strengths, and its influence can be seen in the early giallo of Dario Argento—who, in turn, according to writer Douglas E. Winter, has influenced “more directors of horror films since Hitchcock himself”—as well as more recent works like Satoshi Kon’s razor-edged anime, Perfect Blue, and Takashi Miike’s wildly disturbing Audition (both films also clearly influenced by Argento).
Psycho is a film that holds up well for its age—which is, I suppose, the true definition of the term “classic”—the sort of suspense thriller you can watch repeatedly, even if you already know exactly how it all turns out. According to Steven H. Scheuer’s Movies on TV and Videocassette, it “… broke all of the existing rules for horror films and filmmakers,” and “… set the standard for a generation of new ones,” claims that I can only agree with without reservation.

Author’s note: giallo – moody and violent suspense thriller from the Italian school of horror

(Psycho Italian OS courtesy of movieposterclassics.com and Psycho DVD cover art courtesy of ropeofsilicon.com.)