31 Days of Halloween 2018

The House That October Built 2 (2017) - A few years after the first trip where five friends Brandy, Zach, Bobby, Mikey and Jeff travels to haunted attractions. They are internet famous after there encounter with Blue Skeleton, a group of extreme haunters who made the friends internet sensations with the video streams of the scares they endured. Brandy Traumatized still initially bows out of going on the road again. This time though they are to be guests of the haunts, paid to make the appearances. So a lot of the plot centers around Brandy refusing to go. Of course without the now famous "Coffin Girl" the group can not pull in the larger appearance fees so there is an effort made to get her to come along. When she finally agrees we again follow them as they go to haunts. The plot is more complex this time and actually I liked it better than the first movie. Zack is making deals to get the scares the internet wants without telling Brandy who although there is clear she does not want to participate in any extreme scares. We get different kind of haunts from a zombie pub crawl in Minneapolis MN to a haunted hayride, and a zombie 5k where runners try to avoid zombies as they run a course. Zack is focused on Hell Bent another extreme haunt place insisting all the time that Brandy does not have to participate. There is more of a twist here though and we get to watch it all unfold as friends show their true colors and the Blue Skeleton wants new videos to drive traffic on the internet. So raise your hand if you have ever lost a friend because he put his needs ahead of your friendship.

Tales From the Hood 2 (2018) Anthologies are always hit or miss, some messages connect more than others, cliche sentence, cliche sentence. Then we get to this new straight to streaming film, an anthology with a purpose. Now as a viewer I have to say that it seems the intent of the film was to throw shade on an American society that has shown its ugly racist underbelly, not just the last two years but for 227. It is not subtle but it is satirical and hits the viewer over the head with stereotypes. It holds back nothing dissecting the all too common and ever more vocal racist attitudes in this country. Broken into four tales and a connecting story it brandishes hamfisted hands to get its points across. Not that it is bad by any means, well maybe the connecting story that swipes so hard at American racists that it would knock them into yesterday where they belong. The first story playing with the idea that if only rape culture had defenders to pay back the bad behavior is only mildly interesting. The next we see how fetishistic collecting of racist pop culture gets punished. Leave no doubt the stereotypes of the white witless collector and her equally banal black friend are funny and she should be at least educated but this film really is about punishment. In the third story thug life is pitted against community service exposing how greed and selfishness damage the black community. The fourth has the ghosts of black historical struggles coming around to teach a currently co-opted African American lessons about the interconnected threads of sacrifice for the greater good. Overall this film did what it should it made me uncomfortable. Writers / Directors Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott within the bounds of a horror film challenge people of all colors to check there privilege and pay attention to the attitude still pervasive in our society. Entertaining maybe a bit too on the nose the film is always honest and it still played really well for me.

31 Days of Halloweeen 2018

Grave Encounters (2011)  Found footage was all the rage when this litle film can about in 2011, not quite true found footage but a quick and dirty film about a haunted places television show called Grave Encounters. Written and Directed by "The Viscous Brothers" Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz it is a reasonably executed low budget horror film that uses CGI effects well. These are not expensive effect so you would be disappointed if looking for a really polished horror film. The dialog seems ab-libbed so there is a roughness that takes away from what is a sort of cool idea about a haunted asylum.
  The story is that what we are seeing are the last recordings of a team of ghost hunters who do a show called Grave Encounters. Lead by Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson), he with his sound and camera crew, Jerry Hartfield (Ben Wilkinson), Sasha Parker (Ashleigh Gryzko), T.C. Gibson (Merwin Mondesir), and Matt White (Juan Riedinger) are to be locked inside the old and closed Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital while filming their show. We the viewers get to see some of the behind the scenes of the show, where the crew stages some stuff to make a scary show. We also learn that five episodes in the crew has yet to really experience anything supernatural. Well episode six is going to be different because the hospital is really haunted and does not like visitors. Although the dialog is a drawback for this film the building of the dangers and the discoveries of haunting is well done. The story uses the ghosts to scare but also place and time displacement to freak the characters out and build a really nice sense of dread for their futures. The last act is really where some of the CGI stops are pulled out and sort of makes the earlier shouting and arguing of the characters worth it. Not a great film but certainly not the worst thing you could watch around Halloween.

The House That October Built (2014)  This is another film where the characters are doing the filming. Directed by Bobby Roe it is the story of five friends, Zach (Zach Andrews), Brandy (Brandy Schaefer), Bobby (Roe), Mikey (Mikey Roe) and Jeff (Jeff Larson)travelling the country looking for the most extreme haunted house experiences they can find. When they apply to the Blue Skeleton they get more than they bargained for and a haunting experience that will scar them for life. In the film the audience gets to see the scares as they film their adventures but also the strategic camera placement and use allows for us to see just how much trouble the group is in. Part documentary in style but also with some actual dread filled moments the film delivers on setting up the audience to think things will go to far. As the characters are enticed, then frightened and then terrified we see the Blue Skeleton group use the cameras to document the anxiety produced by their antics.  Followed and harassed there is a palpable dread built for the characters on the road trip particularly Brandy who is targeted as the only women. Terrorized and panics we watch as she is really pushed to the edge of sanity but the group of primarily men. Already in a world where women have to worry about the behavior of men the story ups that ante with a situation where intimidation and threats of violence are seen as acceptable. In the end the Blue Skeleton group after posting the fear of the victims online fades away leaving Brandy and her friends to cope with the experience they had.

31 Days of Halloween 2018

The Skeptic (2009)  What can you say? This is an example of expectation of a title being something that it turns out not to be. First off Writer Director Tennyson Bardwell, it is hard to believe that is a real name and if it is he really should be a playwright. Second what appeared to be a story about Bryan Becket (Tim Daly) as a skeptical lawyer forced to face his past and some ghosts when he inherits his Aunts house. Estranged from his wife Robin (Andrea Roth) he moves into the house and soon has what seem to be paranormal experiences. Being the hard nose realist he believes himself to be he looks for common explanations to the strange events. When that does not seem to work we get a abbreviated appearance by Zoe Saldana as Cassie a psychic who helps Bryan get in touch with the spirits in the house. Still the big turn in this film is the repressed memories he has about childhood abuse that all come spilling out in the final act. The film really feels like each act is a separate film. The horror is missing through most of it and when you do get some creepiness it is muted by the characters disbelief. The first act is the drama of his breakup of his wife and his moving into the creepy house. During this act Bryan is a disbeliever looking for answers to the house. The subplot that the house is being left to an institute doing ESP research allows for the inclusion of the Cassie character.  The second act is him coming to terms that maybe there is something more to the house outside of his rigid world view. The spirited Cassie allows him to open to the possibility that ghost may be involved and that maybe his memory of events from his past are just a wall built to protect his psyche. The third act bring the realization of repressed memories and his abuse in that very house by his Mother. So we pivot again to the real world and away from the supernatural only in the last scene to reverse course before the film comes to an end. Bland acting on Daly's part never quiet reflects the bubbling pressure of the character arc. Side characters seem contrivances who only each play a small role and then are never seen again. In the first act Roth, in the second coworker Sully (Tom Arnold) in the third family friend and doctor, Dr. Shepard (Edward Herrmann) and family minister Father Wymond (Robert Prosky). So in the end I just did not dig this movie too much. It was not quiet a ghost movie, not quite personal journey past abuse.

The Sentinel (1977)  It's a strange thing how there are some movies that despite all the negative reviews and comments that they are still your favorites. This film was panned when it came out, too slow, too derivative, religiously offensive. It may be that those things but I think it also is creepy and well written. The novel by Jeffrey Konvitz was adapted to a screenplay by he and Director Michael Winner about a portal from hell in Brooklyn that is guarded by a priest/nun to keep the evil where it belongs. Of course it is a bit more complex that that. The guardian must be a condemned soul who has then chosen God. So the Church, when a new guardian is needed, funnels a person who has attempted suicide to the building, they are the condemned for the attempt but can be redeemed if they become the new guardian. Demons in Hell knowing that a chance to break through haunt the apartment building attempting to make the chosen one choose death over God. This is where our story begins. The old priest Father Halliran (John Carradine) must pass on his duties. The Church through realtor Miss Logan (Ava Gardner) find a young model Alison Parker (Christina Raines) to the building making the amazing apartment too good to be true for $400 a month. She is a conflicted girl having attempted suicide twice. Traumatized by a horrid wealthy Father (Fred Stuthman), deceased but still haunting her with memories his sexual antics and events that precipitated her first suicide attempt. The seventies, and 80s for that matter seemed fixated on the idea of mental illness being caused by seeing your parents in sexual situations. So many slasher killers had this hang up and here it is again where finding your dad in bed with a couple naked ladies having a good time can make a teen try to take her own life.
  I like the writing in this film when it comes to that idea. It certainly informs the character Alison. She is noncommittal to her boyfriend Michael (Chris Sarandon) suggestion to live together or possibly marry. It comes directly from her living with her lecherous father and that his unfaithful marriage informs her sensibilities. She does not want to be like her Mother who when asked why she stayed in the relationship said that she had no place to go. Maybe also she senses something in Michael that may be like her father, for he is not all smiles and love. We learn his secrets before the end of the film and they are not small. So instead of moving in with him she takes the bottom floor of the apartment building where Father Halliran lives on the fifth. A dream come true for the price.
  She starts to meet the neighbors, Mr Chazen (Burgess Meredith) alight with energy and a bit nosy like the Castevets in Rosemary's Baby. Gerde Engstrom (Sylvia Miles) and her lover Sandra (Beverly D' Angelo), the Clotkins and the Stinnets as well as Mrs. Clark. You don't really get to know these characters mainly just Chazen who interacts the most with Alison. SPOILER: They are manifestations from hell sent to drive Alison to suicide, each a murderer condemned to hell for eternity. There is though a scene with Engstrom and Sandra that was most talked about at the time but fits with Alison's uncomfortable relationship with sexuality. She is visiting them and Engstrom leaves the room to get the coffee. Sandra then masturbates in front of  Alison never saying a word to her. When she cums she smells her hands which I thought was a great and strange choice by the actress. We get to see the shear uncomfortable reaction and the quick departure from the apartment, but more it is a trigger to Alison's teen years with her suicide attempt.
  Strange dreams, fainting spells, and noises upstairs are having an effect on Alison. In an attempt to ease her anxiety she asked the realtor about her neighbors and is told that she and Father Halliran are the only residents in the building. But she went to the other's apartments it is not possible. Miss Logan shows her the other apartments, not furnished as Alison remembers them and with cobwebs and different furniture. Her hold on reality starts to slip at this point. Michael tries to help her but he has his own secondary story involving the death of his wife, a private dick who works for him and some cops that don't want to leave her death a cold case suicide. Still he moves the plot along after Alison starts seeing only a latin phrase in a book in one of the abandoned apartments. "Tibi sortu cursus Tuum vigilia que severa munus"  which in Google translate is "The function of which is strict, the course of your watch, and you get lots of" but that could just be a poor translation, what the film gives us is
"To thee thy course, Thy lot is given charge and strict watch, To this happy place no evil thing approach or enter."  which is similar to the Milton from Paradise Lost, “Gabriel, to thee thy course by lot hath given Charge and strict watch that to this happy place No evil thing approach or enter in."
All of this to point the audience to the fact that there is a doorway to hell in the building and that Alison is chosen to be the next to defend it.
  What is a slow burn for most of the film really ramps up in the third act. Alison could go either way and on the day she is to decide the neighbors are back and with friends to try to drive her mad. The final scenes where she is being pursued through the apartment building filled with circus freaks, her father, her dead neighbors is just great. While most people probably don't dig this film I really do and think everyone should watch it. Alison is put in the position of either choosing death or receiving the mantle from Father Halliran and it is just great. I love the idea of this story, that there could be a gate to hell somewhere and that whatever church has to have a guardian to keep the world safe. I could totally get behind a remake of this film, like the idea in The Nun where perpetual prayer is needed to keep the demon in the convent. That could be the new version for a remake of this film. Where are you James Wan?!

31 Days of Halloween 2018

House on Haunted Hill (1999) The remake of the original Vincent Price story of a rich man who invites a bunch of strangers to a birthday party for his wife. The couple really don't like each other and it is clear that either the husband or the wife would be pleased to see the other dead. The catch with the strangers is that each has has a chance to win a share of 5 million dollars but in order to do so they must stay the whole night.  Now in the original the dollar amount were smaller and it looked like Vincent Price was trying to kill his wife but it was the same story. Give the guests guns and the incentive to kill each other off and see what happens.  The was a bit of added backstory to this newer version. The building rented for the night is a really haunted house. A giant asylum in which a sinister Dr. Vannacutt (Jeffrey Combs) did horrible experiments on his mentally patients. When the patients rose up the doctor just prior to being torn apart managed to trigger the fail safe on the building shuttering it with steel shutters so no one could escape. The fire that was started inside burned the whole lot of them so now the place is haunted.
  Leading the cast this time as Stephen Price is Geoffrey Rush an amusement park mogul who relishes scaring people. He is really over the top wonderful in the lead. His young wife Evelyn (Framke Janssen) is tired of her marriage of convenience and would sooner see Price die that have to live with him. It makes you wonder how these two ever came to be together. The level of hatred is so palpable. The invitees to this party are Eddie (Taye Diggs), Blackburn (Peter Gallagher), Melissa (Brigette Wilson-Sampras), and Sara (Ali Larter) with the two remaining characters being the owner of the house Pritchett (Chris Kattan) and Price's scare technician Schecter (Max Perlich) When the house shuts itself down they are all trapped inside together, so instead of who will stay the night it becomes who will survive the night. The film could have done more with Schecter and the tricks he setup in the house but very quickly the film becomes more of a story about the evil of the house seeking out and killing. Pritchett is used as a expository feature through his complete insistence that they all need to find a way out of the house. Sort of annoying he is really just there to awkwardly add background about the house. The scares with the ghosts of  Dr. Vannacutt and his nurses are indeed well done and the film could have used more of that.
  The best part of the film is the back and forth between Rush and Janssen who play to the max their disdain for each other. The guest are sort of after thoughts. Each has just enough back story so you know who they are but I think most people will figure out who is going to live through this film long before we ever come close to a climax. I somewhere in the back of my mind thought I liked this movie, or have a memory of liking this film, but I don't. Scarier than the corny original but also sort of predictable it stands as a entry into the remake category that probably did not need one.

The Gate (1987)  This film certainly has a place in that it really is a gateway movie for younger people and the horror genre. It is the story of Glen (Stephen Dorff) and his sister Al (Christa Denton) who for the very first time are being left at home alone for the weekend. The parents are trusting their teenage daughter to be responsible and look after Glen who maybe is twelve. It is a film about Glen's anxiety about his older sister starting  to seek her friendships outside the house. Where they had once been very close launching rocket kits together, now she would rather go to the mall with her friends. When a tree falls in the backyard and a hole is opened in the earth beneath it. Glen finds a geode and he and his friend Terry (Louis Tripp) dig the hole looking for another. Little do they know that the hole is a gateway to the underworld and they have unleashed events that could doom all of mankind.  As creepy events begin to unfold they kids work together to try to close the gate before the apocalypse is upon them. I did not remember this film being so kid screamy but boy that really is what it is. There are some really good horror elements but the claymation little monsters are quite dated. This is at its heart about the relationship between Glen and Al, at first she is all into her friends  the Lee sisters, Linda (Jennifer Irwin) and Lori (Kelly Rowan) coming over to party. When the effects of the gate start making shit hit the fan though she is by her brother's side and spurns her older friends in favor of family. The way too happy ending may be what puts this film firmly into the family friendly category. Although the kids will have to explain to there parents how the house got destroyed, and giant demon from hell will probably not fly with them. I am watching this as prep for the next Stream Queens podcast which is under the http://zombiegrrlz.com umbrella, Rachel and Erin do a great job chatting up films you can get on streaming services.  I look forward to it.

31 Days of Halloween 2018

The Descent (2005) - The year before this movie hit theaters in the USA my family and I were spending a couple weeks in Cuernavaca Mexico, at the Encuentros Spanish school, and living with a family when not in class. We were really tired of the nonstop Spanish and needed to find some way to hear English just for a little while, you can only watch so much TV in Spanish before tuning out. We decided to go to the big fancy mall in the city to see a film. In English with Spanish subtitles. While the girls went to see some romantic comedy or something I found the movie The Descent. I already knew the director Neil Marshall from his great Dog Soldiers so I was excited that I was going to get to see a new movie from him. It was just what I needed to see, a claustrophobic, exciting horror movie with lots of gore. I love this movie, I have seen it multiple times now and enjoy it each time. Smartly paced with excellent scares it build to an exciting action filled climax and then leaves you thinking with a ending that does not explain everything completely. This being the international ending, which is different than the US ending.
After loosing her family in a car wreck Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) rejoins her female adventure group for a caving expedition in the Appalachian mountains. Sarah is still feeling the effects of the deaths of her husband and daughter is taking medication and having horrifying dreams. Juno (Natalie Mendoza) who secretly had an affair with Sarah's late husband, struggling with the guilt of it wants to organize a special trip to bring the group closer together. She without telling the group leads them to a cave that has never been explored before. Things go horribly wrong when the way they just past collapses leaving the group stuck under the mountain. As they attempt to find a passage out they realize they are not alone in the cave. Living in the system is a group of humanoid creatures evolved for living in the dark. The bat people stalk and start killing the party and very quickly the women are in a fight for their lives.
Spoilers: The ending in the US version of this film has the main character escaping from the caves and pulling over on the side of the road. She sees her friend Juno (dead at this point) sitting next to her and screams, the movie ends. This is the happy ending, Sarah escapes being the only survivor of the expedition.
In the international version after Sarah screams in the truck she wakes up still in the tunnels. You hear the sounds of the creatures and see her hallucinating her daughter blowing out a birthday cake. In this ending you are brought back to some of the exposition dialog, where the effects of darkness can be hallucinations, paranoia, etc. It could be that the women were trapped and then Sarah broke and killed all her friends and the creatures and all were just her minds way of dealing with the craziness. Or that there was indeed creatures and although she fought then off and sacrificed Juno to them that she never found the way out of the caves and it ends with her still trapped.
Either way this movie kicks ass and I loved it. Even after seeing it multiple times I still sit enthralled with this one.

Mom and Dad (2017)   The idea that a signal could make people violent is not a new idea. I think of things like Stephen King's Cell and the film the Signal (2007) of examples. This story by writer director Brian Taylor is a great take on it though.  In the story some kind of signal when heard by people makes them need to kill their offspring. Brett (Nicolas Cage) and Kendell (Selma Blair) are a married couple with two children, teen Carly (Anne Winters) and 10 yr old Josh (Zachary Arthur). Neither is particularly happy in life having settled down for a life of middle class boredom. They are out when the signal gets them so the first part of the film focuses on the kids. Josh is home with the house keeper Sun-Yi (Sharon Gee) and her daughter. He witnesses the Sun-Yi kill the girl and fearing for his own safety locks himself in his bedroom. He does not understand that the only child Sun-Yi is driven to kill is her own. In fact she goes about cleaning up the mess she made like nothing happened when the act is over. Carly is at school and when all hell breaks loose she and her friend Riley (Olivia Crocicchia) make there way to their homes. Also coming to Carly's aide is her boyfriend Damon (Robert T Cunningham) who after surviving an attack by his father heads to Carly's to check up on her. Unfortunately Mom and Dad do arrive home and when they do the kids are in a tough spot. Eventually they lock themselves in the cellar and Mom and Dad then begin a cat and mouse game trying to kill their children. The film mixes horror elements, humor and drama to create a really enjoyable film. The turn in the third act is great when Brett's Father and Mother arrive at the house. There is no satisfactory ending to this film but it sure was a lot of fun.

Going to the Movies so far 2018.

The updated list of Movies in this Entry: Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Black Panther (2018), A Quiet Place (2018), Jurassic World : Fallen Kingdom (2018), The Nun (2018), The Predator (2018), Hell Fest (2018), BlacKkKlansman (2018), Overlord (2018), Susperia (1977), The House of the Devil (2009)


 I have a hard time with the movie going experience and wonder if this is the same for others. It is not that I don't like to watch films on the big screen, it is a great way to see them. It is everything else about the experience.  Start with the cost, a  theater experience in my area is about $13-$15 depending on the theater. That ticket price I am sure is driven by the distribution model in place. Theaters have to take the larger giant budget blockbuster type films and run them even after interest for them has waned. Filling 4-8 screens all day, and long after the film has made bank. Still i can afford the ticket price. Now the fifteen dollar price for a bottle of water and a medium popcorn is ridiculous and I often bring my own snacks in my pockets to avoid that leaching. Certainly complaining about price is a small piece of squabbling. I spend more on beer in a month drinking expensive micro-brews that I do on Movie going in a year.
  The second area to look at is kiddie time. Getting older I want to get into a film and have everyone keep there mouths shut during it. This seems particularly difficult to tweens and teens who come in the theater in packs and proceed to either not be able to handle the material in the film and squeal and yap at every tense moment or get bored and whisper throughout the film because they did not take their ADD medication. It my not be every time but a good number of viewing have been spoiled by these groups. Recently though I had a couple really good experiences where I thought for sure the kids coming in were going to be loud but they were not. So give credit when do, they don't always spoil the experience.
  When it is a good experience movie going is really worth the price of admission. When the sound is not too high, I get a nicely centered seat and everyone is settled in and into the film it is amazing. The group experience can enhance the film and hearing reactions and post film chatter can be a rounding of the film. I always hope for that and recently have had a few experiences just like that.  I have seen some really great films with solid movie going experiences and right now am feeling pretty good about the process, so complaint get laid aside and lets talk about what I have seen. This year I have gone to the theater to see film way more than I normally do. Here are some short reviews of what I have seen.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - Having read all the various comics that covered this story  I was seriously anticipating this film. I decided an afternoon show during the week would minimize the chance of children. When I walked into the theater I immediate saw my favorite position in the theater was taken, but it was a buddy of mine in the seat. He had the exact same idea as I and we got a great film and a decent crowd. That movie was everything I wanted, sure you could complain that there were so many characters that you don't get a enough of any. But I don't think that is really true. This was a story about Thanos and his arc was full and compelling. The action was great and the expected shocking ending was what I was looking forward to.

Black Panther (2018) -  This was one of the best Marvel films to date. A well rounded story with solid characters and story. My wife and I never seem to be able to agree on a film when we go to the theater. One of us ends up settling or even both of us at times. This was a film we agreed on and both enjoyed.It was a fine origin story that was uplifting and with defined rounded characters great actions sequences and what felt like real consequences. (which is often missing in comic movies) It was the story we needed before the Infinity War,  glad I saw it beforehand.

Annihilation (2018) - Such an interesting film, solid science fiction is hard to come by but that is what this is. Asking big questions about what it is to be human both in the characters drives to take part in the mission and in the affects of being on that mission this film was a real winner. It was also one of those times where a crowd member was a bit talkative. One of two guys just was not getting the plot and so the other kept whispering explanations to him. Ugh!

A Quiet Place (2018) - I have seen this film twice, the first in a theater as one of five audience members. I was blown away by how well constructed the film was. Sure any film can be picked apart because really getting the logic of a post apocalyptic monster movie correct is a hard thing to do. That said you can not come out of that film without appreciating the relationships of the family members in the film. You feel there pain and cheer for their triumphs. The monsters are great and the tension in the silence that is the film are really well done. The second time I saw this film was just this weekend, with my sister Lee. She will claim that she doesn't love horror movies so when I recommend something it better be good. She was also blown away by this film. We where is a full theater of recliner seating and there was not a sound in the place for most of the film.  I hope Hereditary is this good.

Jurassic World : Fallen Kingdom (2018) - It is the end of June and I return to the movies to see a summer blockbuster. This is actually a compromise film, my wife and I regularly can't agree to see a film but this one we could agree on.  So off to see it not in 3D since Elisa does not really like 3D. I am not overly excited but have hope that this film will at least be a bit of fun. It does have a bit of fun, some tense scenes and lots of  reminders of past Jurassic Park films. Really though this film was a mess, it was Lost World and with J park scenes thrown in containing none of the magic of the original. The story arc of  the character Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is suppose to be a way to redeem her after the first J World film but it is really just a gimmick never coming full circle. There is a replacement Hammond in Benjamin Lockwood but he too is just a ploy. All the ploys are to get to the really large number of bad guys in this film. There seems to be a lot of evil in this film. Rafe Small plays Eli Mills the man supposedly spending Lockwood's money on saving the dinosaurs of Jurassic World but instead is collecting them for sale and genetic engineering, for weaponizing them. The sad part is he succeeds and the film ending is a warning about how man's greed and desire for power is more dangerous than the dinos. A bit of a downer.

The Nun (2018) - Like most people who watch and wait for horror I was very excited for this one. There was good promotion and although "The Conjuring" universe is far from perfect it has been producing solid horror entries. Add to that the Director Corin Hardy was coming off a very good effort in The Hallow (2015) and I was good to go for a trip to the theater. In a theater with several really too young children (12-14yrs) I was worried about them talking through the film since they chattered all through the previews, but they were well behaved after the film started. Apparently the Solomon Pond Theater does not enforce the ratings system since this is a rated R film. Speaking of the rating system I really have to question what makes a film an R these days. This film had disturbing images and some violence but in general was pretty tame. There were scares but primarily of the jump scare type. It did build a bit of dread and knowing that this character, Valak a demon that appears in other films further along in the timeline of the universe there was some question whether the demon would be defeated. Overall though I think there was a bunch of not so compelling story. father Burke and Sister Irene are basically doing the exorcist without the exorcism. All good but not particularly new or innovative. The real castle they filmed in which is in Romania was too brightly lit, or the cameras were too sharp. It had a look of sets and the mood of a dark evil place was lost in the lighting. The story was okay and some of the themes like the idea of perpetual praying was interesting if not under utilized. Some of the logic of the demon was a bit askew in that the demon took Nun form to fit in at the cloister but at the time our characters arrive there are no nuns left. Not only that but the demon creates hallucinations of nuns as it looks for a vessel to leave the building in. The blood of Christ bit was a device but could probably be explored a bit more. It served it purpose here but that is a nugget of in film historical potential. So some pluses and minuses in this paragraph of first thoughts. We'll see how it stands up on a re-watch.

The Predator (2018) - How can one take a solid action movie from the height of the 80's action period and totally ruin it? This is the question answered by the latest edition to the franchise. The original film is about machismo, a special unit operating as a well oiled team is confronted with a bad ass alien that is tougher than they are. Who in the group will meet the challenge?  This film instead is a comedy, action, family drama that also has a special unit, unfortunately its purpose is to make us laugh not dread the coming of the seemingly unstoppable alien. Oh wait it is not unstoppable, in fact they just introduce a bigger and badder alien that stops the first one with ease. No one will survive this new one and its alien hunting dogs. Wait that is not true either, a scientist, (Olivia Munn) the military version of The Dream Team (1989) do it while balancing new relationships and old. I am not saying that this film did not have entertaining parts to it. Some of the jokes hit and the action is effective, particularly because the gore factor is pretty decent.  but in the end to have the film be about a father saving his Asperger son who is the key to some alien genetic experiment was just too much to swallow. It fails to capture any of the dread of the original where soldiers are in a life or death struggle. Instead it presents an inevitable shoot'em up where there there is no feeling of stakes.

Hell Fest (2018) Off to the theater for this one as I try to support horror before it gets on streaming. Hell Fest is a simple slasher film about six friends who head to Hell Fest, a stylish scare attraction. While there our lead Natalie (Amy Forsyth) and her friends are stalked by a masked serial killer. Being set in a haunted amusement means that the killer blends in well and victims could just be part of the show. The conceit is further solidified by amusement employees play acting chasing down victims, so everyone is convince the stalker is just another one of them. The thin relationship setup id that Natalie and Brooke (Reign Edwards) are best buddies who have sort of stopped being as close as when they lived together. Brooke invites Natalie back for a weekend with the planned event to visit Hell Fest. So Brooke and her boyfriend Quinn (Christian James), her current room mate Taylor (Bex Taylor-Klaus) with her boyfriend Asher (Matt Mercurio) are taking Natalie along to have a date with Gavin (Roby Attal). This is a straight up slasher and the setting is great because even when Natalie knows that she is being stalked there is so much evidence that she is just getting scared from the park that she is not believed. When her friends start vanishing she manages to convince Brooke what is happening and the two hide in a horror maze to try to escape the killer. Like all final girls you have to stand and fight at some point and Natalie does just that. Who will survive the night?  The ending which puts the idea out there that the killer can be just an average Joe is a bit disappointing. I don't really believe that serial killers live normal happy lives as this film suggests. There is nothing really unique about this film, it is solidly in the slasher genre and hits the beats it need to. With five writing credits it seems this film has been rewritten a bit but it still worked. Director Gregory Plotkin has no missteps but also does not distinguish himself in this film. Overall I thought it was okay.

BlacKkKlansman (2018) When my wife and I go to the movies to sit in the same theater we never see a horror film. It is something she can not tolerate, so there is a negotiation that takes place so that I don't have to see some dreadful relationship film either drama or comedy it does not matter I am trying to avoid that area. It's tough for us to get a film we may both want to see. I generally see horror and don't want anything that is too close to real life. She is all in on things that are real life and would never go to a horror film. So it is a pleasant night when we have a choice like BlacKkKlansman. It is a more exaggerated real life story but set far enough in the past so I am not annoyed. Mostly though we rarely miss a Spike Lee film and we both consider him someone with something to say.
  The film is based on actual events, about a black cop Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) in Colorado who manages to infiltrate the KKK via phone conversations. Then his Jewish cop, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) surrogate actually goes on events with the Klan to eventually become their leader. set in the 1970's the film deals with race relation, the white supremacist movement, with a insightful eye and a good deal of humor. Lee does some great film making here and everyone should see this film. His technique in building tension and smart editorial  and editing choices really take this film from good to great. Washington and Driver carry their parts well doing most of the serious acting in the film. But the collection of players around them gives them what they need to pull of the roles.

Overlord (2018)  I have to admit I was somewhat excited for this film and went into it with middle high expectations. A period piece horror movie is not original but they put together an exciting looking trailer so I was up to see this. The five surviving soldiers of a squad, dropped behind enemy lines hours before the D-Day invasion must destroy a radio jamming tower before the troops land. Helped by a french villager (Mathlide Ollivier) they discover the location is more it seems. Run by the maniacal SS soldier Wafner the location is a lab where the Nazi,s are attempting to make super soldiers from the dead. Our protagonist Boyce (Joven Adepo) is a private over his head new to the army and new war he is in over his head. With veteran Ford there to push him he must find a way past his fear and against all odds succeed in not only knocking out the tower but defeating Wafner (Pilou Asbæk) and his undead army. Rated R for I am going to guess violence and images of war it seems like a strange rating. I guess since there are consequences to the violence that is why it was rated that way but really this could have been a PG-13 film. It is an Army movie in its structure and the super soldier parts remind me of Wonder Woman more than anything. Not particularly played for scares it is action based, guys on a mission with a running clock. Director Julius Avery does a fine job with the action in particular. There has to be talk out there about how the film is purposefully color blind. An integrated army where blacks and whites are serving together without a whisper of racial intolerance. Where the film is so based in World War II, it seems a strange choice. The segregated army of WWII is part of history. You could argue the fantastical nature of the film means that such sensitivity is not needed but lets look at it a bit closer.  There are three black characters at the start of the film. The Sargent of the squad, or protagonist and another black soldier. They all make it to the ground from the amazing parachuting scene. The Sargent is seen being killed by the Nazi immediately defiant to the end. The second soldier is blown up by a mine well before the squad gets to the French village. Our protagonist is portrayed as inexperienced, soft and ill equipped for this mission. The Hard nosed vet Ford (Wyatt Russell) is in charge and the talkative NY soldier, a stereotype from every Army movie from my childhood and he are the competent guys. Even as we follow the character arc of Boyce to a place where he is a hero he does a lot of that growing by accident and not until the back third of the film does he have any real agency. Even with his arc it is Ford that sacrifices his life to complete the mission. Boyce is left to lie to his superior officers so they won't dig up the site and find the experimental serum that makes the zombie soldiers. So ignoring the race issue there is a weird design to the characters that sure seem to touch on it. Why not have the whole squad be black thus avoiding even this reading. It would make more sense historically and the same story could be told. Hell even the Wafner could have been more upset that people he considered inferior were beating him.

The House of the Devil (2009) -  Friday afternoon I headed to Salem MA to see the two movies that are the entries for these days. Salem Massachusetts, The Halloween capital of the world has a wonderful Salem Horrorfest most of the month of October. I purchases tickets to see the Original Suspiria on the big screen as well as this film and the podcast to follow it. I am going to use the Susperia film as my entry for the 13th even though I saw them both on the same night, Am I cheating? At the time of it's release it was a delightful surprise from writer director Ti West. The throwback to a period when horror movies built up to an overpowering dread is captured in this well done little film. The story is simple, in the 1980's a young college women, Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) has a need to earn some cash quickly. She calls for a sitter job at a house in the country that will solve her financial problems. Things are not quite how she envisioned them when she and her friend Megan arrive to meet the couple, Mr and Mrs Ulman (Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov) they are strange but not too scary. Instead of sitting for kids she will be minding the house with the old mother upstairs. Now we know she should bail here but the money. She need $300 on Monday for the apartment that will take her out of her dorm room and away from the messy and very inconsiderate room mate. She negotiates a price of $400 making the job more than she can pass up.  Megan (Greta Gerwig) is a smart and good friend.She senses the problem with the couple and is great at pointing out that they lied to Sam. she pleads with her friend to leave the job. Sam though sends her friend home until the end of the job and settles in for a night. What West does so well is create dread for the audience even though the character is unsuspecting of the danger she is in. Megan never arrives home and we see her fate and know from that point on that Sam is in deep trouble. This is only the end of the first act  Samantha is a bit creeped out by the house, it builds and the reveals are well done to keep the tension growing. When she hears a noise upstairs and listens outside a bedroom door, all is quiet for her but the reveal of the interior of the room is terrifying. The stakes for the audience are being raised but the main character is still none the wiser.  When the finale arrives the action is quick and well done. Sam is a fighter and manages fend off attackers at every turn. The ending is unexpected but follows the movie title well. Being a teenager in the 80s I had a real appreciation for the feel of the movie and the slow burn it is. The newer flash and cut method of film making sometimes gets on my nerves but West doesn't do that he brings us along on Samantha's ride without trying to shock us every two seconds. Donahue has to carry the film and does a great job of it. She is a 19 yr old character when she has to be and a fighter when that is needed, not that you can't be both. The McGuffin of the eclipse works well and Samantha realizes its significance when she has to, making for a really great climax. The post climax scene is a bit explanatory and probably was not needed. I got to see this film for the first time on the big screen last night as part of the Faculty of Horror section of the Salem Horror Fest.
Being at the Faculty of Horror Podcast Live was a real treat. I love the podcast, both Andrea Subisatti and Alex West not only do their homework on the film they are covering but they always add ideas that never occur to a hack reviewer like me. They add to my though about film which is the whole point of my writing here. I want to do a bit more than mindlessly watch. I want to force myself to think a bit more deeply about the films I enjoy.  In The House of the Devil there were several ideas that they brought to the conversation so credit these intelligent woman for what follows. Hopefully I can articulate as well as they did in their place. First the idea of the placard at the beginning of the film. The satanic panic and the idea by Walter Benjamin who when writing about how film changed the aura of art. Alex West went into detail concerning his ideas concerning how art is viewed through the lens of changing technologies. He was speaking at the time of film becoming predominant in the 1930's and how generations of people will have new ways to view art and how those new ways also change the art. Connecting these ideas to the nights feature was about the placard at the beginning of the film. Ti West chose to include information firmly placing the film as a film about the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. But more than just a setting he is implying through the film that there was something to the fear people of the time had about satanic abusive cults. The story itself is just that, it is not a story about the panic but is a story about a satanic cult. So even though the scare in the eighties was really more about conservative fear of a changing world, this film lends credence to the idea there was actually something to fear. Of course I can't explain quite as well as Alex West did in the podcast, so subscribe to the Faculty of Horror and listen for yourself.
  A less developed theme in the podcast was about Ti West's use of Mother figures in the film. In the beginning we see Samantha trying to rent an apartment. The older woman (Dee Wallace) owner takes the time as a mother to remember her own child renting a first apartment and she connects with that memory when interacting with Sam. Later when Sam in taking the job of babysitting it is revealed that she will be doing so for the Ullman's Mother, then again the leader in the satanic ritual is called Mother and the purpose of the ritual is to impregnate Samantha. All connecting threads in the film, a small theme running through it.
  Overall I found the experience of seeing the film again on the big screen and meeting and listening to the faculty of Horror a really enjoyable night. Salem is a bit of a drive for me but I left work early enough to skip the bulk of rush hour traffic. The town in the month of October is busy with tourist from all over the world who come to explorer the themes the town is famous for.

Suspiria (1977) - This is a strange fever dream of a film remarkable for its lighting and soundtrack that is a work of art  in the world of horror films. Written and Directed by the late great Dario Argento with shared writing credit with Daria Nicolodi. It is the story of Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) a dancer arriving at a prestigious German ballet academy at the same time that there is the murder of one of the students. The mystery of what happened to the student and the stranger mystery concerning the school unfold in the short 98 minute run time. Filled with colorful sets and lighting and a thumping score by the band Goblin it is a great film to experience in the theater.  So being up in Salem MA the home of the salem Witch trials and seeing it as part of the Salem Horror fest it certainly was a treat. At times a bit dated it still holds up as a unique piece of art and a classic of the genre. Just the way that Argento approached the death in the film, like each was a set piece, a piece of art of its own. He stages elaborately with everything just in place to leave the viewer with a lasting image.  It will be interesting to see how this film will be re-imagined in the remake coming out later this year. Part of the reason I came to see this was so I would have a fresh take on a classic, when I see the reimagining.

31 Days of Halloween 2018

October 18:

Pieces (1982)  Well having never seen this film and having heard so much about it over the years it was a real treat to finally lay eyes on it. Directed by Juan Piquer Simón the film is one of many from the time period where some form of sexual repression creates a male psycho killer who attacks women. In this case a young boy when confronted by his mother for having a puzzle of a naked woman chops her up with an ax. Years later we join the campus of a New England college where suddenly there is a murder. A coed is cut up by a maniac with a chainsaw. The incredible buffoonery of the local police makes this film a comedy. They have no urgency beyond Lt. Bracken's (Christopher George) wildly incoherent diatribes, they show no knowledge of any procedure. There is no adding a ton of police to the campus instead going to one female cop, Mary Riggs (Linda Day George) undercover with the excuse that we're all so busy. They are completely inept as a police force and Christopher George's over acting is way too comical to be taken seriously.
  The film does a great job in creating red herrings characters we have several suspects in the mix and the writers Dick Randell and Roberto Loyola do a great job of mixing in the possibility that the killer could be any of them. First there is the angry janitor Willard (Paul L. Smith) who we see with the chainsaw used in the killings. Then there is the awkward Professor Brown (Jack Taylor) whose suspicious behavior makes one question his motives. Student Kendall (Ian Sera) seems to be around whenever a body is found, and the writers make him a favorite of the police maybe throwing us off the trail that he is actually the killer. There is also the quiet unassuming but strange Dean of the school (Edmund Purdum) who does several odd things making him a suspect also.
  The murders are gruesome and the killer takes parts, at least the cops never find all the pieces. It is probably because they are the worst cops in the world.  Mary Riggs is the last victim drugged by the killer ready for a chopping. Then the ineptitude of the cops comes in as they arrive on the scene. They enter the room to find the immobilized Riggs. After standing there for a few seconds they all leave the room because it appears the killer is gone. Riggs though is moving her eyes towards the curtains trying to warn the killer is behind them. Yep they did not look behind the curtains and now there is a chance of another murder. The cops rush in at the last possible second killing the murderer with a shot to the head and saving Miss Riggs. As the film incoherently comes to a conclusion we learn where all the missing body pieces are, as well as having one last totally incomprehensible scare. Wow, a classic in the ridiculousness that was the 1980s slasher era. I can't say this is a good movie in any way, but I can say I really was entertained.

October 19:
Dagon (2001)  This Stuart Gordon gem is a wild ride of destiny. A H.P. Lovecraft adaptation where a group of people seek shelter from a storm in a little village in Spain, only to learn that the village inhabitants are more than they seem. This is a wonderful  story, newly wealthy tech genius  Paul Marsh (Ezra Godden) is sailing off the coast of Spain with his girlfriend Bárbara (Requel Moroño) and friends Vicki (Birgit Bofarull) and Howard (Brenden Price). His mother left this area of Spain many years before and we are setup with a man not too sure about who he is with his new found wealth. His story arch in this is starting as a guy not too sure of himself, we see him develop into a hero as he learns the fate that has brought him here.  A freak storm smashes there boat onto some rocks and Paul and Bárbara take the dinghy to get help, while Howard stays with the trapped and injured Vicki on the leaking boat.
  This starts a story about a village who took up a religion worshiping a creature from the sea who brought gold and life to the village but at a very steep price. Connect to dreams to the lovely Uxía Cambarro (Macarena Gómez Traseira) he is drawn to this village and its strange people. Helped along the way by an old man Ezequiel (Francisco Rabal) our hero has a fate he can not avoid.  I think that everyone should see this film. It is kinda great so I won't spoil too much here. The story primarily about Paul and his unknown connection to this his mother's homeland. About how that ties his destiny to the strange cult in the town and his inevitable confrontation with their god. 

31 Days of Halloween 2018

October 16:

The Legend of Hell House (1973)  This is a classic from my childhood coming out when I was about ten years old. I am sure I saw it many times on television in my teen years. Younger people may not know there was a giant boom of paranormal interest in the 1970's, everything from Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster to the Bermuda Triangle to possessions by demons to ghost and goblins, American society was ripe with stories and films and books. Being a young person in that time I could not get enough of this material. At least a few times in elementary and middle school I wrote essays on these subjects thinking all the time that they were real and the world was full of unexplained things that must be either undiscovered or supernatural. It was also a time of advancing science, well what time isn't?  The need to try to explain some of the beliefs running rampart during the time took on a scientific bent. In this film by John Hough from a story and screenplay by Richard Matheson we get both the supernatural and the scientific (ish) explanations to a haunted house. This film holds a place in my heart as an early influence on me and my love of horror.  So I may give this film more credit than it deserves. With a small cast of very establish actors it is a ghost story about the most haunted house in the world. A place so vile that eight people died trying to solve its mysteries. Now and old man Mr. Deutsch (Roland Culver)is willing to pay a physicist Dr. Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill), a psychic medium Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin) and the last survivor of "Hell House" a physical medium Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowall) a lot of money to have a go at the house. He wants to know if there is life after death and so a haunted house makes sense to him to find the answer. He is paying them a lot of money and they only have four days to accomplish the task.
  That sets the clock running and the group into motion. We get the exposition about the house and former owner and possibly current ghost. We get the story from Fischer of the injuries to the group he participated in in 1953 and how he shut down his abilities as a medium to survive. The film takes the approach that ghosts and psychics are real and that they are really trying to figure out what energy (entity) is so angry in the house and how to clear it. Now there are some good and bad parts to the plot. Pitting the skeptic Barrett against the true believer Tanner works in keeping the viewer from totally falling on the side of real ghosts. Of course that come at a cost. Tanner and Ann Barrett (Gayle Hunnicutt) are the only two woman in the cast and the majority of the ghostly incidents take place with them. The men thinking that maybe the women are a bit loony and imagining the occurrences is a tired patriarchal trope that really has not place in today's world but was as we see here still being exercised in film making in the seventies. In fact it would probably be infuriating to today's society to base a theme of a film in maybe the women are being hysterical. Problematic depictions aside when the plot is fully exercise it might be satisfying for woman to realized that all the haunting has more to do with an undying male ego more than any other reason.
  The science in this film is as fanciful as the ghostly incidents and is really there as a device to pull off a sleight of hand in the plot. So did the anti ghost device clear the energy from the house? It sure looked that way at first but then after barely registering as a character  of any use Fischer gets his big awakening scene where he confronts the massive ghostly ego of Belasco and apparently that confrontation is enough to end the haunting. What can we call this? A Napoleon complex haunting? The ending fell really flat with this viewer, leaving me laughing at the share simplicity of the haunting. I am not sure this film holds up well over the decades but even so it was one of the first horror movies I think I saw as a child so it still holds a place in my heart.

October 17:
The Lords of Salem (2012)  I have owned but not watched this film for a quite a few years now, I just don't seem to connect well to Rob Zombie films. It is not that they are particularly awful, but more that often I find the blackness of his ideas not very interesting. Often cruel and unforgiving with little hope of a character redeeming himself / herself his films are always a bit to bleak for this reviewer. Lords of Salem can probably be said to be the most complete plot of any of his films. It is the story of a curse put on the descendants of the original occupants of Salem MA by a coven of witches burned at the stake in the witch trials. The main character Heidi Hawethorne (Sheri Moon Zombie) is the pivotal descendant and bring the reckoning of the curse in modern Salem. The character a reformed druggie local radio personality is enticed to bring about the revenge on her kind through a vinyl record she receives at the station by "The Lords". Playing said record over the airwaves initiates a change in the descendants where they are then compelled to attend a show featuring the Lords?  The witches seem to possess some of the older women in Heidi's life moving her to the inevitable even where the curse can be fulfilled with the deaths of the founder's heirs. Crass, vulgar and oddly ugly this is yet another Rob Zombie film I had trouble connecting to. Although it tells a story that at least clear in its intent, how it gets to its conclusion becomes muddles in operatic flamboyance. Filmed in Salem it was cool to see the streets I recently walked but Zombie has a way of making everything look dirty. His aesthetic is grimy, his characters often unlikable and his outlook nihilistic.   

31 Days of Halloween 2018

The House of the Devil (2009) -  Friday afternoon I headed to Salem MA to see the two movies that are the entries for these days. Salem Massachusetts, The Halloween capital of the world has a wonderful Salem Horrorfest most of the month of October. I purchases tickets to see the Original Suspiria on the big screen as well as this film and the podcast to follow it. I am going to use the Susperia film as my entry for the 13th even though I saw them both on the same night, Am I cheating? At the time of it's release it was a delightful surprise from writer director Ti West. The throwback to a period when horror movies built up to an overpowering dread is captured in this well done little film. The story is simple, in the 1980's a young college women, Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) has a need to earn some cash quickly. She calls for a sitter job at a house in the country that will solve her financial problems. Things are not quite how she envisioned them when she and her friend Megan arrive to meet the couple, Mr and Mrs Ulman (Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov) they are strange but not too scary. Instead of sitting for kids she will be minding the house with the old mother upstairs. Now we know she should bail here but the money. She need $300 on Monday for the apartment that will take her out of her dorm room and away from the messy and very inconsiderate room mate. She negotiates a price of $400 making the job more than she can pass up.  Megan (Greta Gerwig) is a smart and good friend.She senses the problem with the couple and is great at pointing out that they lied to Sam. she pleads with her friend to leave the job. Sam though sends her friend home until the end of the job and settles in for a night. What West does so well is create dread for the audience even though the character is unsuspecting of the danger she is in. Megan never arrives home and we see her fate and know from that point on that Sam is in deep trouble. This is only the end of the first act  Samantha is a bit creeped out by the house, it builds and the reveals are well done to keep the tension growing. When she hears a noise upstairs and listens outside a bedroom door, all is quiet for her but the reveal of the interior of the room is terrifying. The stakes for the audience are being raised but the main character is still none the wiser.  When the finale arrives the action is quick and well done. Sam is a fighter and manages fend off attackers at every turn. The ending is unexpected but follows the movie title well. Being a teenager in the 80s I had a real appreciation for the feel of the movie and the slow burn it is. The newer flash and cut method of film making sometimes gets on my nerves but West doesn't do that he brings us along on Samantha's ride without trying to shock us every two seconds. Donahue has to carry the film and does a great job of it. She is a 19 yr old character when she has to be and a fighter when that is needed, not that you can't be both. The McGuffin of the eclipse works well and Samantha realizes its significance when she has to, making for a really great climax. The post climax scene is a bit explanatory and probably was not needed. I got to see this film for the first time on the big screen last night as part of the Faculty of Horror section of the Salem Horror Fest.
Being at the Faculty of Horror Podcast Live was a real treat. I love the podcast, both Andrea Subisatti and Alex West not only do their homework on the film they are covering but they always add ideas that never occur to a hack reviewer like me. They add to my though about film which is the whole point of my writing here. I want to do a bit more than mindlessly watch. I want to force myself to think a bit more deeply about the films I enjoy.  In The House of the Devil there were several ideas that they brought to the conversation so credit these intelligent woman for what follows. Hopefully I can articulate as well as they did in their place. First the idea of the placard at the beginning of the film. The satanic panic and the idea by Walter Benjamin who when writing about how film changed the aura of art. Alex West went into detail concerning his ideas concerning how art is viewed through the lens of changing technologies. He was speaking at the time of film becoming predominant in the 1930's and how generations of people will have new ways to view art and how those new ways also change the art. Connecting these ideas to the nights feature was about the placard at the beginning of the film. Ti West chose to include information firmly placing the film as a film about the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. But more than just a setting he is implying through the film that there was something to the fear people of the time had about satanic abusive cults. The story itself is just that, it is not a story about the panic but is a story about a satanic cult. So even though the scare in the eighties was really more about conservative fear of a changing world, this film lends credence to the idea there was actually something to fear. Of course I can't explain quite as well as Alex West did in the podcast, so subscribe to the Faculty of Horror and listen for yourself.
  A less developed theme in the podcast was about Ti West's use of Mother figures in the film. In the beginning we see Samantha trying to rent an apartment. The older woman (Dee Wallace) owner takes the time as a mother to remember her own child renting a first apartment and she connects with that memory when interacting with Sam. Later when Sam in taking the job of babysitting it is revealed that she will be doing so for the Ullman's Mother, then again the leader in the satanic ritual is called Mother and the purpose of the ritual is to impregnate Samantha. All connecting threads in the film, a small theme running through it.
  Overall I found the experience of seeing the film again on the big screen and meeting and listening to the faculty of Horror a really enjoyable night. Salem is a bit of a drive for me but I left work early enough to skip the bulk of rush hour traffic. The town in the month of October is busy with tourist from all over the world who come to explorer the themes the town is famous for.

October 14:
Suspiria (1977) - This is a strange fever dream of a film remarkable for its lighting and soundtrack that is a work of art  in the world of horror films. Written and Directed by the late great Dario Argento with shared writing credit with Daria Nicolodi. It is the story of Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) a dancer arriving at a prestigious German ballet academy at the same time that there is the murder of one of the students. The mystery of what happened to the student and the stranger mystery concerning the school unfold in the short 98 minute run time. Filled with colorful sets and lighting and a thumping score by the band Goblin it is a great film to experience in the theater. At times a bit dated it still holds up as a unique piece of art and a classic of the genre. It will be interesting to see how this film will be re-imagined in the remake coming out later this year.