"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Dark Harvest (2023)

DARK HARVEST is a crazy new Halloween movie I rented for six bucks on VOD. I think they kinda fumbled in marketing it because they made me think it was about a corny looking killer in a skeleton mask, when in fact it’s about a cool monster and that’s just a guy in a Halloween costume. But I’m glad I knew nothing, because it was interesting to see the movie’s weird premise unfold and realize yeah, this is obviously based on a book (same title, written by Norman Partridge, published in 2006). Hard to make a movie with a world and concept this odd these days unless it’s based on a book.

The most succinct way I can describe it is THE OUTSIDERS meets THE PURGE + HUNGER GAMES but also PUMPKINHEAD. A gory monster movie wrapped in a novel gimmick. It takes place in an I-believe-unnamed small town surrounded by cornfields, and it opens on Halloween night, 1962. Mobs of teenage boys comb through the fields, strutting like droogs with various blunt weapons slung over their shoulders, many wearing letterman jackets, all wearing plastic masks of monsters, The Lone Ranger, etc. They’re looking for something called Sawtooth Jack (Dustin Ceithamer, THE NEW MUTANTS), and they find him, but only after he spews fire from his head and burns a kid in a JFK mask into a fuckin skeleton. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 16th, 2023 | 11 Comments »

The Guardian (1990)

William Friedkin often said that he didn’t think of THE EXORCIST as a horror movie. It was a drama “based on a real case.” If that claim grew out of any kind of anti-genre snobbery it must’ve melted away by 1990 when the director gave us THE GUARDIAN. It also has magic and monsters, but it’s definitely not based on a real case. It’s just a straight up horror movie in the ‘90s mold – a story about grown ups trying to be grown ups but running into some gore, some weirdness, some wild trashiness.

Friedkin’s way of talking it up was calling it “a contemporary Grimm’s fairy tale,” and that’s pretty accurate. It’s the ‘90s but there’s a druid wood nymph that carries babies off into the forest. And there’s wolves and shit. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 13th, 2023 | 5 Comments »

The Pope’s Exorcist

Okay, I successfully reviewed all of the THE EXORCIST movies, I’m ready to move past the topic of exorcising. But first I wanted to check out this year’s release THE POPE’S EXORCIST. I know what you’re thinking – The Pope gets to do his own version of THE EXORCIST? But in this case the title does not represent authorship, instead it refers to the title character being the official go-to exorcist for The Pope. Father Gabriele Amorth (1925-2016) was a real Catholic priest who was appointed an exorcist of the Diocese of Rome in 1986. In 2017 William Friedkin did a documentary about him called THE DEVIL AND FATHER AMORTH. I’ll save my views on the real guy for the end and say for now that I find him very entertaining as a jolly pulp hero played by Russell Crowe (THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS).

Crowe basically depicts him as a lovable Italian grandpa – generous with his chuckles, good with kids, full of corny humor (I never quite figured out why he likes to make a cuckoo clock sound at people?). He greets humans, statues and at least one desiccated corpse as “my friend.” Also his girth comically dwarfs the Ferrari scooter that is his preferred mode of transportation. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 12th, 2023 | 13 Comments »

The Exorcist: Believer

THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER is the new Blumhouse-produced EXORCIST sequel directed by David Gordon Green (YOUR HIGHNESS), who also co-wrote it with Peter Sattler (CAMP X-RAY). It tells the story of two 13-year old girls in Percy, Georgia who mysteriously disappear and return in a state we watchers of these movies will recognize as “demonically-possessed.” I’ve seen people making fun of that premise – “Oh wow, there’s not one, but TWO of them!?” – but I think they’re missing the point. It’s not about one-upping, it’s about creating a scenario where two families with different beliefs and backgrounds have to deal with this at the same time.

It immediately feels more like a true EXORCIST followup than the trailer had me worrying it would, because it does open in an exotic locale. Photographer Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr., RED TAILS, ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI…) and his pregnant wife (I thought girlfriend but I read wife) Sorenne (Tracey Graves, THE WEDDING RINGER) are vacationing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (filmed in the Dominican Republic), and it’s shot very naturalistically, full of vivid color, texture and people. They talk to nice locals, some give Sorrene a traditional Haitian blessing to protect her baby, they visit the inside of a beautiful church. The differences between Victor and Sorrene are illustrated by Sorrene’s exclamations about “Jesus is in this place!” while Victor is more excited to get a photo of the city from the bell tower. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 11th, 2023 | 26 Comments »

Exorcist: The Beginning

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…)

October 10th, 2023 | 12 Comments »

Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist

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…)

October 9th, 2023 | 19 Comments »

The Exorcist III

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…)

October 5th, 2023 | 41 Comments »

Exorcist II: The Heretic

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…)

October 4th, 2023 | 28 Comments »

The Exorcist

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…)

October 3rd, 2023 | 38 Comments »

The Hunger

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…)

October 2nd, 2023 | 52 Comments »

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