checking in

I'm in a horror mood for October and have run through many films that are sufficiently covered quickly.

The Devil Rides Out 1968 - A well-made & lurid Hammer film about Satanists starring Christopher Lee and a film-stealing performance by the underrated Charles Gray (Blofeld! The Criminologist from Rocky Horror!). Its based on some pulp novel so it has good plot structure & some surprisingly accurate descriptions of magick, but its quaintly dated and a tad racist & dogmatic in its Protestant message of Christianity. This is kind of a running theme with Hammer films unfortunately.

The Witches/ The Devil's Own 1966 - This is the 2nd film I've reviewed named "The Devil's Own" and this one is probably better. A middle-age Joan Fontaine is spellbinding as always as a classy, lovable nymph being driven mad by conspiracy. These are the only roles I've seen her play and I could watch more. This time the antagonists are a coven of voodoo witches. This too is based on a novel that Joan bought the rights to and I guess it led to Hammer adapting Devil Rides Out two years later. This is better structured, better acted and a bit more radical (and much less racist though it could have been). Its essentially the same story about virgin sacrifice by bored English bourgeoisie, but the clever way in which its played for shock & psychological torture had to be an inspiration on a tiny 1967 novel called Rosemary's Baby.

20 Million Miles To Earth & Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers - Two rewarding, influential & deeply flawed sci-fi films from the post-War era. Very tempered, conservative, paranoid, military-worshiping pieces of pulp. Both are saved by the gorgeous vulnerability of Italian-American actress "Joan Taylor" and the genius FX work of Ray Harryhausen. I'd say "20 Million" is the more entertaining film as its a great showcase for Ray's marriage of animation & live-action that would eventually lead to modern digital effects, but "20 Million" also reeks because of its open eugenicist attack on Italians, stemming from some backwards post-War disgust. It reduces Taylor's part to a token bit of sexist nationalism. Speaking of which...

All 3 Creature from the Black Lagoon films - Another case of a cheap exploitative scifi monster movie built around McCarthyism, awesome FX and a beautifully glamorous young actress. Julie Adams is really about the most beautiful young woman of this genre and she does a great job being flirty, adorable & vulnerable as the next Fay Wray. But like King Kong, the film exists to question the humanity of some "lesser" minority & train white youth to see past their genetic monstrosity. Maybe I'm cynical and these films are equating the rights of animals with humans, but it draws a clear parallel between the Gill Man and the utilitarian use of the bumbling, animalistic Hispanic actors (and white men in brownface).

Interestingly, Creature is different from Kong & 20 Million Miles in that the male protagonist is a bit more liberal and the antagonist is a blond Nazi-shaded imperialist. The film has mixed messages, morals and politics, but its not the worst of its kind. The atmospheric and totally artificial Amazon set is quite surreal cinema too. The sequels are similar but much worse.

Dead Alive - I don't know why, but I accidentally picked another "ironic" racist piece of conservative genre filmmaking. This film is from the early 1990s but its even more profoundly Far Right, coming from New Zealand and the future director of the Lord of The Rings films (the troubling morals of that franchise is a "whole other beast"). I loved this film as a youth. Its a lot of Hitchcock and Sam Raimi emulation with more lowbrow slapstick, innuendo and pointlessly kinetic visuals. But it rings hollow now. Unfunny, mean, boring and extremely cynical. But still creative and well-read cinematically.

Get this: the film starts as a tie-in to King Kong (which Jackson would remake), drawing a simile between putting monkeys in the zoo & putting Africans in slavery. I hope this is some postmodern critique of Kong and not a coded agreement. The plot revolves around a Latin woman falling in love with a wimpy white hero (thanks to Tarot magick, feminists) and his avoiding her because his mother is an evil racist, classist bourgeois Freudian case. Jackson is trying to deconstruct a lot of disparate influences and separate the problematic themes from the credible aesthetics. I appreciate that he's one of the brave filmmakers to call Hitchock's mommy fetish what it is (so many docs sidestep this even though Hitchcock flat out gave us Norman Bates!) and he highlights the glaring, gross racism of "creature features", but I'm just not a fan of Jackson's screwball comedy because its so sympathetic to the conservative modernism its reflecting and really only playing to those who know it intimately. So its personal but not especially good, though ambitious.Too ambiguous. Blacks are moronic monkeys but Latins are poor mutts that are adorable in their ineptitude? White male egomania examined but decontructed with kiddie gloves, like... a racist white mother!

The Bad Seed 1956 - This is a film that made my childhood. A story about the guilt of a mother who suspects her child is a psychopath. Its played as implausible camp but it still manages to be as disturbing and emotional as it is entertaining. I totally see John Waters using this film to make Serial Mom, but its a no contest comparison. Bad Seed is so wickedly full of ideas. Many ideas are dumb or laughable, but that only enhances the experience as mid-20th century kitsch. It toys with Nature vs Nurture in the most childish of terms, but it was novel then. Its also a fine example of those kind of cheap theatre adaptations the major studios were making at the time. This lends it a very worked out sense of staging, acting and lighting. I still love this one as much as I did 20 years ago. Shoutout to Patty McCormack for playing the most believably spoiled child in cinema history. Her sense of innocence and fun makes this one of the truly evil performances in film, even if the film is light.

A Policewoman in New York 1981 - I took a break from the chills & thrills to enjoy some Italian slapstick. I've been dying to explore this genre. This kinda sucked, but it delivered as promised. Its a string of jokes about the female buttocks, penises, farts, ugly men, black people being scary/subservient and... people falling down. Its so primitive and thats the aim, to hark back to Roman clowns. There's an ancient quality to this kind of theatre, no matter how bad it is. And underneath it all, a joyous sense of community and play. These kinds of exploitative, rightwing films are opposed to the liberal Neorealists who saved Italian world cinema, but they are somewhat exploiting and conversing with them too. The nationalism, racism & sexism is sold as ironic. It pretends to be Blazing Saddles or Animal House. But there is way less shame in its bad behavior and tons of intellect missing in its self-reflection. Its purely a work of style over substance and turning off the brain. This kind of lowbrow art was explored by artists like Fellini & Argento because it is so moronic and evil, yet accepted, ingrained in the low-end of Italian cultural identity & inspirational in a Dadaist sense. I will accept that this is a middle-of-the-road kind of best of both worlds. A piece of "Naked Gun" style commercial trash with a bit of arthouse taste/guilt.

The Ring 2002 - Um... I'm floored at how influential this film has become. Mainly in its production-cinematography, but it also ushered in the current wave of female horror heroines. There's like a subgenre of Single Moms vs Supernatural Metaphors for Her Own Parental Insecurities (Fuck you, "The Babadook"). The Ring is severely watchable. The plot is still engaging, the pace is comfortable, the cast fits perfectly and the understated ending still satisfies. I'm amazed at how little action and horror is actually in this. Its a lot of stunning visuals and actors shoegazing, but nothing profound ever being said. And this was a massive hit globally! Its essentially what fanboys masturbate to with "Blade Runner 2049", but this is a much more balanced affair. But a lot of that has to do with the marketing and brilliant Japanese story concept. I have to say this is probably the best version of The Ring story even if its a bit too polished, stage-y and mild on chills. The director gave us 2017's similarly shallow but goofy "A Cure For Wellness" which is probably the best non-Ring Ring movie.

P.S. "Woman opens Pandora's Box and must save herself from vengeful demons, an ex-lover and help a psychic little girl"? The Ring totally feels like any of the Hellraiser movies. I'm not joking.