Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category
Tuesday, October 10th, 2023
At the turn of the century, as we discussed yesterday, Morgan Creek set out to make a prequel to THE EXORCIST, and wound up making two of them instead. We already took a look at Paul Schrader’s DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST, the first one made, but initially shelved by the studio. When they test screened it they were so unhappy they decided rather than trying to salvage it with reshoots and recuts they would build a church on top of it and bury the church, by which I mean hire Renny Harlin (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER) to start over.
The script was heavily rewritten by Alexi Hawley (a first timer who has since written for TV shows such as The Following, Castle and The Recruit), but it’s still about Father Merrin uncovering an early Christian church found mysteriously buried in the Turkana district of Kenya. Stellan Skarsgård continued, as he put it in an intro for the premiere of Schrader’s version, “carrying the cross for Merrin for another year.” And Julian Wadham and Ralph Brown will later show up as Major Granville and Sergeant Major. But Father Francis is now played by James D’Arcy (HITCHCOCK, OPPENHEIMER), and Clara Bellar’s Dr. Rachel Lesno has been replaced by Izabella Scorupco (GOLDENEYE) as Dr. Sarah Novak, so even when Skarsgård’s dialogue is the same he had to refilm. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Ford, Alexi Hawley, Ben Cross, demonic possession, Izabella Scorupco, James D'Arcy, Renny Harlin, Stellan Skarsgard, Vittorio Storaro
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 12 Comments »
Monday, October 9th, 2023
This is the first first-time-watch for me in this EXORCIST series viewing. There are so many horror franchises that I’m a completist about, but I never really thought of myself as an EXORCIST guy. But after revisiting I, II and III in quick succession, and knowing I’d be seeing the new one too, I figured… when in Rome (home of the Vatican), right? Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize the entire THE EXORCIST series in one moment…
I actually always meant to see the EXORCIST prequel, but it was intimidating, because there were two of them. Morgan Creek founder James G. Robinson started trying to develop the prequel in the late ‘90s, probly without very lofty ambitions, since the first director attached was Tom McLoughlin (FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES). But after McLoughlin didn’t like the script by William Wisher Jr. (TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY) and left the project, they picked up the great John Frankenheimer, who had most recently done REINDEER GAMES and the made-for-cable PATH TO WAR. He brought in novelist Caleb Carr for a page 1 rewrite, and Liam Neeson signed on to star as the younger version of Max von Sydow’s archaeologist/exorcist character, Father Lankester Merrin. But Frankenheimer had to leave due to illness (and died a month later), and his friend Paul Schrader (fresh off of AUTO FOCUS) agreed to take over if he could rework the script. (Only Wisher and Carr received credit, but Carr said it didn’t resemble what he wrote.) Neeson had to drop out to do LOVE ACTUALLY, but miraculously the studio let Schrader hire Stellan Skarsgård (IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE) to star. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angelo Badalamenti, Caleb Carr, Clara Bellar, demonic possession, Gabriel Mann, Israel Aduramo, Julian Wadham, Paul Schrader, prequels, Ralph Brown, Stellan Skarsgard, Vittorio Storaro, William Wisher Jr.
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 19 Comments »
Thursday, October 5th, 2023
My experience with THE EXORCIST III is different from the other ones. This one I actually saw in the theater as a teenager. In those days you would just go see the latest chapter in a horror series even if you hadn’t seen the earlier ones. I’m pretty sure I hadn’t seen part II at the time, and I’m not even sure I’d seen the first one. I definitely wasn’t familiar with it enough to realize that the protagonist, Lieutenant Kinderman (George C. Scott, Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue) was a character from the first one (the homicide detective played by Lee J. Cobb).
I think I saw it a second time on video at some point, but that would’ve been years ago, maybe decades. What I remembered: a creepy part with somebody crawling on a ceiling in the background. Brad Dourif ranting in a cell. Pretty scary. I liked it at the time, but I seem to remember people thinking it was bad. I feel like now it has an overall reputation for being underrated at the very least. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brad Dourif, demonic possession, Ed Flanders, George C. Scott, Jason Miller, Nicol Williamson, Scott Wilson, Viveca Lindfors, William Peter Blatty, Zohra Lampert
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 32 Comments »
Wednesday, October 4th, 2023
As we touched upon yesterday, William Friedkin’s THE EXORCIST is a great movie, a horror classic, the godfather of “elevated horror,” beloved by horror fans and non horror fans alike, making it a smash hit, box office record breaker, and cultural phenomenon. It was the first horror movie ever nominated for best picture, and received 10 Oscar nominations total, winning for adapted screenplay and sound. It caused mass freakouts and faintings and many still believe it’s the scariest film of all time. Its success launched an entire genre of demonic possession movies, pretty much all of which just rehash the last act but without a fraction of the directorial flair, and those movies still do well.
For all of these reasons, many people really weren’t (and still aren’t) open to the idea of somebody else making a sequel to THE EXORCIST. When EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC came along four years later, numerous major critics, even some of the ones who disliked the first one, called the sequel ludicrous, preposterous, incomprehensible, unjustifiable, the worst or stupidest movie ever made. And the late great Friedkin, who wanted no part in a sequel for both artistic and legal reasons, deemed the half hour of it he saw “a stupid mess made by a dumb guy… Scurrilous. A horrible picture” and “the worst piece of crap I’ve ever seen… a freaking disgrace… made by a demented mind.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Albert Whitlock, Ennio Morricone, exorcism, James Earl Jones, John Boorman, Kitty Winn, Linda Blair, Louise Fletcher, Max von Sydow, Paul Henreid, Richard Burton, Rospo Pallenberg, weird sequels, William Fraker, William Goodhart
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 28 Comments »
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023
William Friedkin’s THE EXORCIST. Pretty good. Pretty popular. Pazuzu possesses the young lady, she behaves inappropriately according to most forms of etiquette, the two priest guys of different generations say the magic words and die, hooray for everyone. Please note that it’s not called “THE EXORCISTS,” there is only one exorcist of record, so either Father Merrin or Father Karras is getting the shaft in that title. Whichever one you like least. Fuck that guy. Who does he think he’s fooling, trying to be The Exorcist by sacrificing his life for a little girl? Go away, loser, there’s no room for you in this title.
There’s a persistent myth that when she pukes up green stuff it looks like split pea soup. In fact it looks like Nickelodeon slime. If you read the book it’s very clear about that. Anyway – good movie.
There are a handful of beloved classics that are part of what I consider “the modern era” of horror and yet were made before I, a pretty old guy, was born. Of those I’m more attached to PSYCHO, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, but THE EXORCIST is a good one too. It’s been around long enough and been considered important enough that arguably one or two people have said one or two things about it, and there might not be much room for new points to be made. But I’m not looking to make a definitive review here. I’m just trying to make one a little less dumb than the first time I wrote about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: demonic possession, Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Titos Vandis, William Friedkin, William Peter Blatty
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 38 Comments »
Monday, October 2nd, 2023
Last week I revisited that 2004-2005 period of Tony Scott’s career, when MAN ON FIRE and then DOMINO went crazy with the hand-cranked visual chaos, and I talked about my impression at the time of Scott as a lifelong mainstream director suddenly showing up to work with a blue mohawk, cinematically speaking. You know what? That seems pretty off base now that I’ve seen where he started, his one movie before TOP GUN, the aggressively mood-and-style-over-narrative vampire tale THE HUNGER (1983).
It opens with a long sequence that’s almost experimental in its editing, the kind of thing people compare to MTV, but it’s much more underground, really. Bauhaus are performing “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” at some goth club, though the series of shots never show us the geography, or even the stage, just Peter Murphy behind a fence, bathed in smoke, mouthing the words, no microphone. Meanwhile, the most unapproachable goths you’ve ever seen are eyeing the dance floor from above, looking like Nagel prints who escaped into the real world and became European fashion models. They are the Blaylocks, Miriam (Catherine Deneuve, THE MUSKETEER) and John (David Bowie, LABYRINTH), dressed like they’re from different eras, stone faced and hiding behind sunglasses. On the floor below, people vaguely twitch to the music, and it doesn’t look like any of them are having any fun, but I get the sense that this is everything they wanted out of their evening, if they survive it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ann Magnuson, Bauhaus, Beth Ehlers, Carl Fullerton, Catherine Deneuve, Cliff De Young, Dan Hedaya, David Bowie, Dick Smith, goth, Howard Blake, James Aubrey, James Costigan, John Stephen Hill, Michael Thomas, Michel Rubini, Stephen Goldblatt, Susan Sarandon, Tony Scott, vampires, Whitley Strieber, Willem Dafoe
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 52 Comments »
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023
TALK TO ME is a new Australian horror movie that’s distributed by A24 in the United States, but it’s a more straight forward type of horror than what people generally associate with that company. Young people dealing with ghosty shit, closer to mainstream James Wan or Scott Derrickson type thrills than to an Ari Aster or Robert Eggers joint. It went over well at Sundance and some other film festivals and has been hyped up by some as the horror movie of the year, or a bold new voice or some shit, and to me that’s overselling it. It’s something more humble – a solid movie with a good cast and some fun ideas – and really that’s one of the things we’re looking for as horror fans.
Mia (Sophie Wilde) is a young woman trying to distract herself from the second anniversary of her mother’s death and the fact that she doesn’t like being around her dad (Marcus Johnson, INTERCEPTOR). She goes to stay with her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen), who has a little brother Riley (Joe Bird, RABBIT) and mother Sue (Miranda Otto, I, FRANKENSTEIN) who she’s also close with. Mia drags Jade and Jade’s straight-laced boyfriend Daniel (Otis Dhanji, “Young Arthur [Thirteen Years Old]” in AQUAMAN) to a party with some friends who have been spreading scary videos of a sort of seance they like to do. Jade thinks the whole thing is stupid, but Mia thinks it will be fun to be there and “see if it’s real.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A24, Alexandra Jensen, Australian cinema, Chris Alosio, Daley Pearson, Danny Philippou, Joe Bird, Marcus Johnson, Michael Philippou, Miranda Otto, Otis Dhanji, possession, Sophie Wilde, Zoe Terakes
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 18 Comments »
Thursday, August 10th, 2023
August 12, 1983
I’ve written about CUJO before, but that was 15 years ago. Since there aren’t that many horror movies in this summer of ’83, it seemed worth revisiting now. Cujo the book was formative to me because I read it when I was in third grade. It might’ve been my first Stephen King book, maybe even my first horror book besides Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Alfred Hitchcock short story collections. The part I remember vividly, of course, is something about Donna’s sex life with Steve. That seemed grown up and mysterious. The dog attacking people just seemed cool.
The movie wasn’t as important to me, and though I saw it on VHS at some point it wasn’t until rewatching it for that 2008 review that I realized it’s a real gem. It’s a movie everyone knows about but I’m not sure it’s held in as high of regard as I think it deserves. It’s a simple movie with very strong execution, and some of the elements involved (killer dog, tiny kid, limited location) are of a high enough degree of difficulty that there aren’t many other movies to directly compare it to. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy Jacoby, Charles Bernstein, Christopher Stone, Daniel Hugh-Kelly, Danny Pintauro, Dee Wallace, Ed Lauter, Jan de Bont, Kaiulani Lee, killer animals, killer dog, Lewis Teague, Robert Elross, Stephen King
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 21 Comments »
Monday, August 7th, 2023
Last week we discussed GET CRAZY, a movie about a bunch of bands putting on a concert that was just barely released in August of ’83. Today we’re going to take a look at a 1983 film also about a bunch of bands putting on a concert, but this one wasn’t released at all until 2020, because it was never finished. Technically the thing they released is considered finished, but I’d dispute that description.
GRIZZLY II: REVENGE is officially the sequel to William Girdler’s GRIZZLY (1976). Over the years I’ve stumbled across it occasionally on IMDb when looking up various filmographies – I believe it used to be listed as GRIZZLY II: THE CONCERT and GRIZZLY II: THE PREDATOR – but it said the production fell apart before they finished filming. Little did I know there was an executive producer out there still determined to release it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barbie Wilde, Charles Cyphers, Charlie Sheen, David Sheldon, Deborah Foreman, Deborah Raffin, Dick Anthony Williams, George Clooney, Jack Starrett, Joan McCall, John Rhys-Davies, Laura Dern, Louise Fletcher, Steve Inwood, Timothy Spall
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Music | 11 Comments »
Thursday, July 20th, 2023
July 22, 1983
JAWS 3-D (viewed by me in its shameful flat version) is another summer of ’83 movie that I’ve previously reviewed. But that was 13 years ago, and if I’m doing a summer movie series I can’t really skip over a sequel to the movie that kinda invented the summer blockbuster. I also thought it would be a good marker on the timeline, much like how RETURN OF THE JEDI and STAYING ALIVE indicate how much culture had changed in the six years since STAR WARS and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. In eight years we went from a popular beach read elevated by a knockout directorial vision to a gimmicky studio product sequel with twice the budget but a fraction of the style or substance.
It’s tempting to see sequels as emblematic of the ‘80s, but the truth is I counted almost as many released in 1975 as in 1983*. I suppose a difference is that 8 of the 10 in ’75 were part 2s, whereas 1983 gave us such part 3s as this, RETURN OF THE JEDI, SUPERMAN III, AMITYVILLE 3-D, and SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT PART 3. THE OMEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, HALLOWEEN and ROCKY series’ had also hit part three in 1981 or 1982. So maybe it really was a different movie landscape. The era of part threes, heading into part fours. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 3D, Bess Armstrong, Carl Gottlieb, Dennis Quaid, Guerdon Trueblood, Harry Grant, Joe Alves, John Putch, Lea Thompson, Louis Gossett Jr., Michael Kane, part 3-Ds, Richard Matheson, SeaWorld, Simon MacCorkindale
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 18 Comments »
