Month: October 2011 Page 1 of 3

Classic Horror: The Cat and the Canary (1927)

On October 31, 2011

A few weeks ago, I saw the silent horror/thriller film The Bat (see capsule review on Row Three, or soon here in my monthly recap) and liked it, but didn’t feel like it quite lived up to its potential, falling prey to some poor pacing. Then I saw The Cat and the Canary, and there’s a reason why this film is often name-checked as the “old dark house” movie to beat. It’s pretty similar to The Bat (made a year later, but both based on existing stage plays in a popular genre at the time), but it’s pretty much delightful from start to finish, with no lulls and consistently evocative art direction and photography.

In the prologue, an old man on his deathbed writes some complicated instructions to accompany his will and testament, which isn’t to be opened and read until twenty years after his death. He and his relatives don’t get along so well, you see – they all think he’s crazy and have been hovering over him, waiting for him to die so they could inherit his fortune (like cats hovering over a canary). Twenty years after his death, his family reconvene at his long-deserted mansion – crotchety aunts and glamorous nieces, sweet cousins and earnest nephews. (I have no idea how they’re actually related, but the adjectives are accurate.)

When the will is unsealed, the sweet Annabelle West is the one who gets the inheritance, but only if she’s deemed sane – if not, the fortune will go to another whose name is in a sealed envelope. But wait! Someone broke into the house earlier and peeked in the envelope, and as the family lawyer warns Annabelle, whoever’s name is in the envelope has a reason to want her out of the way. (The logic on some of this is suspect, to be sure, but it’s all delivered with such sincerity and gusto that it’s hard to want to nitpick it.) Soon after, the lawyer disappears, the other relatives are trying to catch Annabelle acting crazy and thus forfeiting the inheritance, and whoever read the name in the envelope is apparently swooping in and confusing/scaring the hell out of everyone.

A lot of this is played for comedy, and most of it works, as it swaps quickly between characters, all of whom are types, to be sure, but well-played and endearing ones. There are a lot of creepy moments, many involving a grotesque hand reaching out to grab an unsuspecting victim, and often with really nice throwbacks to Expressionism, including some very cool title card layouts. Though you suspect that the person instigating all the ruckus is one of the people we’ve already met, the film actually leaves the question open for a long while, thanks to the intrusion of a man who says he’s a guard from a nearby asylum looking for an escaped mental patient that he thinks entered the mansion. With that threat PLUS the potential treachery of the post-Annabelle inheritor PLUS the glowering of the genuinely creepy maid PLUS the general wish on the part of everyone that Annabelle would be insane and lose her rights, there’s a lot of distrust to go around. And it’s extremely fun to watch, with a few quite suspenseful (I won’t quite say scary) moments.

I’ve been a little disheartened most of the month that I haven’t come across any films I outright LOVED this October. Figures that when I do, it’s a silent film. The tone and style here captures a lot of the exuberance that I’ve come to love about silent film in general, plus it has lovely cinematography that in some scenes puts it almost up there with Sunrise and Metropolis. I’ll certainly be back to this one next October.

Director: Paul Leni
Adaptation: Robert F. Hill & Alfred A. Cohn
Titles: Walter Anthony
Based on the play by: John Willard
Producer: Paul Kohner
Cinematography: Gilbert Warrenton
Editing: Martin G. Cohn
Starring: Laura LaPlante, Creighton Hale, Forrest Stanley, Tully Marshall, Gertrude Astor, Flora Finch, Arthur Edmond Carew, Martha Mattox, George Siegmann, Lucien Littlefield

Classic Horror: Dead of Night (1945)

By Jandy

On October 30, 2011

In Film

Omnibus films have a long and distinguished history, especially in the horror genre, and it’s possible that this quiet British film from Ealing Studios is one of the first. It’s certainly one of my favorites. I’ve seen it several times before, but when TCM played it recently, I couldn’t resist watching it again. The first time I saw it, many years ago, it was one of the first legitimate horror films that I actually liked (I didn’t start venturing into horror much until a couple of years ago), partially because, well, it isn’t that scary, but also because I love the way the frame story works. Most of the time, frame stories in omnibus films are pretty throwaway, just a string to hang the other stories on. But in Dead of Night, it’s essential, and possibly even the most intriguing/scariest of the stories.

This frame story has provincial architect Walter (played by Mervyn Johns) arriving at a country house to meet with the owner about potential renovations, but his demeanor reveals that something’s not quite right – he’s off-balance, and soon tells his host and the various other guests at the house that he’s met them all and experienced this situation before, even though he hasn’t. He’s convinced that certain things will happen throughout the evening (and they do), and that eventually something truly terrible that he can’t quite remember will happen, filling him with dread. The others laugh it off as a weird coincidence, but each of them also has a strange story to relay, and those stories, told in turn, take up the bulk of the film.

A few of the stories are relatively unmemorable, and none of particularly scary, but they’re all entertaining and a couple of them are quite well-done and chilling. One story of a wounded soldier seeing a vision of a dark hearse waiting for him is pretty routine and doesn’t go much of anywhere, and the Charles Crichton-directed golfing ghost episode is played for broad laughs rather than scares (which is fitting, since Crichton was responsible for some of Ealing’s most uproarious comedies, from The Lavender Hill Mob to A Fish Called Wanda). But the young girl’s tale of going through a door while playing hide and seek in a supposedly haunted mansion and meeting a little boy who doesn’t seem to belong with the party she’s at has one of those nice chills right at the end that Twilight Zone episodes do so well. Really, that’s the best comparison for these stories – they get just barely to the weird and unexplained part, just enough to suggest to you something odd and then stop just when your imagination can take over. It’s one of my favorite horror techniques.

There’s also a finely done creepy story of a mirror that shows another room in it, a room that turns out to hold its own horrific secrets that threaten to bleed into our character’s life. This one evokes a bit of Dorian Gray for me, where an image ends up affecting the owner’s life in a far deeper way than initially expected, and though it plays out more like a thriller than horror, it’s quite a nice little entry. It’s got kind of a Victorian feel to it (as do most of the shorts, actually, but this one and the haunted mansion one do most strongly) that appeals to my horror sensibilities.

But the segment that most people remember from this film and definitely the most creepy one is the last one before the frame story kicks back in, bringing us full circle in more ways than one. The last segment, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti (an Italian expatriot who also did several other excellent moody British films during this time, and also directed the haunted mansion segment here), has to do with a ventriloquist played by Michael Redgrave and his dummy, who seems to have a strange control over his master – in fact, who indeed IS the master? I’m always creeped out by ventriloquist’s dummies, and I have a pretty strong feeling that this movie started that.

When the frame story comes back, the last of Walter’s predictions comes true, and he soon falls into a surreal nightmare world that’s worthy of Dali or almost David Lynch – most of the movie isn’t scary, but this part is genuinely frightening, I think, and elements from all the other stories turn up again, distorted into an Expressionist mishmash of terror. It’s pretty short, but there are some wonderful and terrible images in there, and then the last little coda, which I won’t spoil, is fantastic and the thing that really sold me all those years ago on loving this film. I loved it all over again this time.

Directors: Robert Hamer (“The Haunted Mirror”), Basil Deardon (“Hearse Driver” and “Linking Narrative”), Alberto Cavalcanti (“Christmas Party” and “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy”)
Screenplay: John Baines and Angus MacPhail
Original Stories by: H.G. Wells, E.F. Benson, John Baines, Angus MacPhail
Producer: Michael Balcon
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe, Stanley Pavey
Editing: Charles Hasse
Score: Georges Auric
Starring: Mervyn Johns, Roland Culver, Mary Merrall, Googie Withers, Frederick Valk, Sally Ann Howes, Robert Wyndam, Michael Redgrave

50DMC #38: Movie World You’d Like to Live In

By Jandy

On October 29, 2011

In Film

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What movie world would you most like to live in?

This answer is certainly Paris, because I am utterly in love with cinematic Paris. I like real Paris, too, but the Paris that’s in the movies is magical. Tip for screenwriters: set your film in Paris, and I am 95% guaranteed to like it. But I’m probably supposed to choose just one film for this question, and I’m not sure I can do that. From B&W French New Wave films with intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual) youths wandering in and out of coffeeshops to Americans in Paris like Funny Face or, well, An American in Paris to more recent depictions like Amelie or Paris, je t’aime or Avenue Montaigne and even Ratatouille, cinematic Paris is heavenly. I want to go to there.

This is the final short in the compilation Paris, je t’aime (directed by Alexander Payne), about a middle-aged American woman traveling alone to Paris for the first time. She narrates her experiences in voiceover as an essay for her French class, in a very American accent. Though you don’t see too much of Paris in this short, and it’s a bit on the sad side, it’s a perfect capper to the film and expresses the way foreigners (like me) fall in love with Paris.

50DMC #37: Couldn’t Watch With Parents

By Jandy

On October 29, 2011

In Film

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What’s a movie that you could never watch with your parents?

Going with another sexually explicit film here, with John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus. The film is largely set in a free love type establishment, with a sex therapist going there to try to figure out why she’s never had an orgasm (and to, well, have one). Meanwhile, a gay couple struggle with their relationship and one partner’s thoughts of suicide. Mostly, they’re all seeking a human connection. Roger Ebert says, accurately I think, that “itâ€™s not about sex but about sexuality, not about scoring but about living,” but yeah. I could never watch it with my parents. Although, they wouldn’t watch it anyway, so it’s not really a concern.

Here’s the trailer, including an intro from director John Cameron Mitchell:

Classic Horror: Carrie

By Jandy

On October 28, 2011

In Film

It’s taken me a few years, but I finally got around to seeing Carrie this year, a classic horror film that’s been on many of my to-watch lists, including both my yearly horror watch lists AND the New Hollywood marathon list I went through last year (but never made it to Carrie). With all that build-up, I was really hoping it would live up to my expectations, and I can pretty well say it did, and even that it had a few surprises in store for me.

Carrie is an outsider at school, the kid that’s ridiculed in PE for being bad at volleyball, and generally shunned for her mousy looks and intensely shy persona. While the other girls cavort around the girl’s locker room freely and joyously, Carrie is content to hover alone in the showers, letting the soothing water wash over her loneliness. Until the soothing water is mixed with blood, and a confused Carrie screams for the help of her classmates, who helpfully explain the menstrual cycle and hand her a sanitary pad. Er, that’s not right. They mercilessly tease her and pelt her with sanitary pads and tampons, trapping the poor girl in the corner of the shower until the kind gym teacher comes to her rescue.

My only thought at this point was “does she not have a mother to tell her about this stuff, or what?” As it turns out, she does, but her mother is C-R-A-Z-Y. As soon as Carrie gets home from school and tells her what’s going on, her mother goes ballistic on her, telling her that the bleeding only comes after a woman has sinned. When we first see the mother (a scenery-chewing over-the-top performance from Piper Laurie), she’s earnestly evangelizing the neighbors, and I was about ready to write her off as just another lame attempt at a Christian character from writers who don’t know what they’re talking about, but she is far beyond that. I don’t know where she got her theology, but it is MESSED UP. Never you mind when she finds out that Carrie intends to go to the prom WITH A BOY and, oh right, has also gained telekinetic capabilities.

Anyway. The coach chastizes the rest of the kids for their behavior toward Carrie, and one of them, Chris, plots revenge on Carrie with her boyfriend (a super-young John Travolta) while another, Sue, sends her boyfriend to ask Carrie to the prom as a gesture of kindness – I wasn’t sure at first if Sue was sincere, and I kind of liked how that played out. The prom scene is pretty famous, and I knew essentially what was going to happen. What I didn’t know was how long and how well-played the prom scene is before Chris’s plot swings into action and Carrie takes her bloody revenge. There are some over-done parts that nevertheless end up being effective, like the constantly circling camera while Carrie and Bobby are dancing, a scene that’s both beautiful and ominous, since we know something’s going to go down but desperately wish for Carrie to have her moment in peace.

And that’s really the strength of the film. Sissy Spacek is able to get us on Carrie’s side really quickly, and make us ache for the acceptance she seems to be gaining at the prom. Everything is going so right for her, Bobby is genuinely kind to her, and she’s coming out of her shell into a beautiful young woman able to stand up for herself. The fact that we know it’s all going to go wrong makes it all the more painful. Well-drawn characters like this should be at the heart of every horror film – otherwise, they’re mindless exercises in jump scares and gore. Granted, no one else here is as well-written as Carrie (most of them are types to fill a specific role, and most of them play over the top), and De Palma doesn’t trust her solidity quite enough, resorting to camera tricks and flamboyant stylistics when they’re not really needed. But Spacek grounds things enough to stop all that from being too distracting.

The prom isn’t the end, though, as I always thought it was. There’s a whole other section after Carrie goes home and tries to seek comfort from her mother (“you were right, they did laugh at me!”), but there’s none to be found. Thre are some great visual moments in this secton, especially when Carrie climbs the steps to her attic bedroom and we slowly become aware of her mother’s presence in the shadows – an incredibly eerie moment that’s chilling to the bone without being a jump scare. But I’m not entirely sure what to make of this part. I’m going to spoil the ending, since I want to talk about it, so if you haven’t seen it, stop reading now.

Carrie’s mother thinks she’s been possessed by a demon, which is giving her the telekinetic powers. And to be fair, the film doesn’t explain that power at all (I haven’t read the Stephen King book it’s based on, so I don’t know if it’s explained in there or not). After Carrie returns from the prom, her mother stabs her, believing that Carrie is now evil due to the demon possession and needs to be killed. Instead, Carrie uses her telekinetic ability to throw knives at her mother, and immediately after that, the entire house starts imploding – perhaps due to her inability to control her telekineses, I’m not sure. She and her now-dead mother end up in the little cubbyhole where her mother made her pray and do penance before a crucifix which – get this – has wounds in exactly the same places as the knives made on her mother. So there’s a visual connection between Jesus and the mother. The house eventually disappears entirely into a charred plot of ground, and Sue later visits the site, which has been marked with a sign saying “Carrie is in hell.” After the empowerment of the prom scene, I have no idea what this ending means. She WAS possessed by a demon and has returned to them in hell, after symbolically killing Christ through her mother (which would indicate that her mother was a valid representation of a Christian, which I think is categorically untrue)? I kind of have a problem with that.

So I didn’t really care for the ending except for its visceral intensity, which was quite good, and the last few moments did have a solid scare, albeit the shift to Sue’s point of view is a little odd since we’ve been so closely tied to Carrie’s throughout the film. But so much of the rest of it was so good, especially the entire prom scene, that I’d still say I quite enjoyed it. As a character-driven horror film it’s quite effective, I just thought its overall message was muddied a lot by the ending.