An American Werewolf In London

1981 • Dir: John Landis • David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John Woodvine, small appearances from Frank Oz, Brian Glover and Rik Mayall

Premise: David Kessler and his friend Jack Goodman are hiking through wild and woolly rural England. Jack is set upon by what looks to be a wild wolf and killed, while David is merely scratched. Waking in hospital, David soon receives a visit from the ghost of his friend Jack, who tells him the horrible news - David has been injured but not killed by a werewolf and at the next full moon, he too will become become a werewolf and kill.

Analysis: This is John Landis in top form. Written and directed by him, this film is not only one of my favourite films, but also a classy werewolf flick, and one of the best examples of comedy horror around.

David's plight is a sublime mixture of black comedy and true fear for his sanity, and this is what makes this film a real joy - the perfect mixture of horror and comedy. While David's nightmares are horrible, while Jack's slowly rotting appearances are horrible, and the murders David commits while in Lupine form are bloody in the extreme, the moments of comedy are so deftly handled, and so seamlessly intertwined with the horror, that Landis hands you a perfect package.

Of course, David does not want to believe that Jack is really talking to him, or that he's going to sprout hair, run on all fours and eat people at the next full moon. He's much more interested in romancing his caring and considerate nurse (Alex Price, played by Agutter), who seems very archly English compared to the very American David. David's culture clash is bought hilariously to the fore when, after he has realised he HAS shapechanged and killed, he runs up to an English bobby and screams 'The Queen's a man', 'Prince Charles is a faggot!' in order to get arrested. Which, of course, fails.

While a little dated now, Rick Baker's effects are still solid and impressive. The nightmare Nazi demons, the rotten Jack Goodman, and the David/wolf itself are all brilliant pieces of SFX from an age where CGI simply wasn't used because it looked awful.

The customers of the English pub David and Jack visit just before Jack's death - The Slaughtered Lamb - are also a treat. Sullen rustics in almost a James Whale-ean bent. Brian Glover is especially sullen and local.

There's a lot in this film about Landis' obvious love for the Universal golden age of monster cinema, especially The Wolf Man, as the film frequently references The Wolf Man. Landis' frequent in-joke of 'See You Next Wednesday' also makes an appearance in the form of a slightly surreal English porn film, where David goes to meet Jack, and gets introduced to his other victims, who then launch into a plethora of suggestions on how to top himself.

SPOILER (in black type below-select to read)

Well if you haven't seen this film, and don't want the ending ruined, you have no excuse - it's been out since 1981! An American Werewolf In London shows Landis' love for The Wolf Man pretty clearly in the ending. David, having professed his love for Alex, is now in the porn cinema and begins to change. Discovered by a policeman in lupine form, having turned the rest of the cinema-goers into small piles of sticky gore, wolf-David escapes into the London streets, and is cornered down a dead end alleyway. Alex breaks through the police line, who are ready to shoot him dead the second they get a clean shot. She professes her love for David, and for a split second, you get the impression that even in bestial form, he understands, as the beast's expression softens. It is not to last however, and the wolf snarls, the police open fire and David dies, naked and bloody in a dirty London alleyway. Alex cries. The End.

The theme of this is of course, The Wolf Man's theme that only love can truly kill the werewolf. Alex's declaration of love for David foreshadows his death - suicide by cop perhaps? - by only a split second.

End Spoiler

An American Werewolf in London is a classic film, and if you haven't seen it by now, you should, before other people find out and mock you.

Stars: 4 out of 5

An American Haunting

2005 • Dir: Courtney Solomon • St: Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood

Premise: In the early 19th Century, the Bell family of Red River Tennessee begin to experience violent haunting phenomena in their home, seemingly centred on their daughter Betsy.

Analysis: This is based on one of America's most enduring haunting legends. The film, while a visual treat, and featuring some top shelf acting talent in the form of Sutherland (playing John Bell), Spacek (his wife Lucy) and radiant young actress Hurd-Wood (playing their daughter, and the focus of the film, Betsy), feels a little fragmented.

The film opens with a modern-day framing sequence, with a young woman pursued by some sort of spectral pursuer. Her mother discovers a letter written by Betsy Bell, which tells her story of the famous haunting. This then segues us neatly into the events that make up the primary narrative of the film.

Betsy lives with her family. Her father, John Bell, is a local community pillar, and she has a budding romance with her school teacher, Richard Powell (played by James D'Arcy). John Bell angers his neighbour, who curses him and his daughter - cue the supernatural phenomena.

The ghostly torment of Betsy takes up most of the film, with the family and their friends all witness to much of the phenomena. The lead cast all do a very good job - Spacek is good as the weary, caring mother, Sutherland convincing as the vaguely creepy father, and Hurd-Wood very good as the chief protagonist.

I guess the thing that got to me about this film is that it felt like it was being pulled in too many directions. The modern framing sequence, while having a parallel with the story beyond being a mere 'letter from the past' introduction technique, felt intrusive and a little pointless at first. The reveal of the cause of the haunting that comes at the end also felt tacked on. Don't get me wrong, I'm very skeptical of most haunting stories, and the reveal made a modicum of sense, BUT there was very little in the film to support the reveal, which I found to be a bit of a cheat.

SPOILER (in black type below-select to read)

As it turns out, the cause of the haunting is Betsy herself. Through some sort of telekinetic out of body astral thingummy, she has been tormenting herself and her family. The cause? She is revisiting trauma visited upon her by her father, who it is revealed has sexually assaulted her for at least a year. This makes no sense. Why did the phenomena only just start recently if the causal trauma has been underway for a year? Why was Besty bright and bubbly for a year beforehand if she had been abused by her father? The modern framing sequence hints to us that this sort of torment continues today, which though grim, is not really surprising, and seems to belabour a point that we do not need belaboured, as it already hits us hard enough.

There is a theory that poltergeist phenomena is prevalent when an adolescent is present, and moreso if the adolescent is undergoing some form of trauma or depression. This theory seems purpose made for the events of this film, but at the same time, the desire to play the film as supernatural and parapsychological and psychological all in one breath seems clumsy.

END SPOILER

I like this film, and I want to like it a lot more, but the confused direction holds me back.

Stars: 3 out of 5

A question...

This is a question for my thriving, teeming audience of 4. Should I throw in some horror/supernatural TV at the end of this project? Should I avoid horror/supernatural TV? Should I establish a parallel blog?

Stuff I COULD cover includes;
• Buffy The Vampire Slayer
• Angel
• Moonlight
• True Blood
• Unsolved Mysteries
• Kolchak
• X-Files/Millennium
• Forever Knight

It's a dilemma alright...

The Swag

A random selection from the swag of films I picked up recently - some DVD replacements for old VHS copies, a bit of giallo, some devil horror, Rollin vampirism, and The Cell - a good film to watch with the sound off and industrial music played over the top of it.

Alone In The Dark

1982 • Dir: Jack Sholder • St: Dwight Schultz, Donald Pleasance, Jack Palance, Martin Landau, cameo from NY punk band The Sick F*cks

Note: I had borrowed this recently, and this weekend I purchased a copy, so now it meets the criteria for me to review it (ie I own it and it sits on my horror movie shelf). This means it just manages to jump in before I get to An American Haunting.

Premise: Dr Dan Potter (Schultz) starts his new job at a mental asylum run by the eccentric Dr Leo Bain (Pleasance). He is introduced to the asylum's four maximum security patients - Frank Hawkes (Palance), 'Preacher' (Landau), 'Fatty' and 'The Bleeder'. A power blackout across the whole town frees the four lunatics, and sets them loose on their mission to kill the new doctor and his family.

Analysis: I really enjoyed this film when I borrowed it off a friend (a co-conspirator from the mad and deranged Cult of the Chainsaw), and when I saw it lurking on the shelf in one of my favourite haunts (nerd paradise Minotaur) I picked it up.

The plot revolves around the belief formed by the four loonies that Dr Potter has killed their previous head-shrinker, and now plans to kill them. When the power goes out in the town, the four loonies escape and stock up with guns, crossbows and garden tools to stalk, hunt and kill Dr Potter and his wife, sister and daughter.

There are such top shelf talents in this film - Donald Pleasance is wonderfully kooky as Dr Bain, Jack Palance his usual good self as the deeply insane Hawkes, and it was a treat seeing just what a deep level of crazy Martin Landau can achieve. I was truly spooked by him, which was a bit of a revelation, as I only had hazy memories of him from Space: 1999. Dwight Schultz, who usually plays the kooky, funny guy, played a sensitive, staid psych doctor quite well. It made me realise there may be depths to him I'd never recognised before.

The set up of the film is really quite simple, but is enriched by great performances from solid actors, and some nicely paced direction from Sholder (of homoerotic subtext Nightmare On Elm Street 2 fame).

After visiting a local punk band (cameo from NY band The Sick F*cks) at his sister's behest, Potter and his wife return home to find the plot to kill them underway. We know Hawkes, Preacher and Fatty are nearby, but The Bleeder (so named because he gets nosebleeds when he wants to kill) has split off from the group and disappeared. The loonies have already visited the house and killed the babysitter and her boyfriend in the archetypal 'they who screw first, die first' horror movie rule.

Meeting up with a stranger in prison, where Potter's wife and sister were taken after attending a protest, the family, the stranger and a cop concerned for their welfare all converge on the house. What follows is pretty standard fare, but no less engaging for that. Potter's sister, recovering from a bout of mental illness, starts to wig out, as the attack of the lunatics heats up.

SPOILER (in black type below-select to read)

Okay so I guessed this pretty early one, but the friendly stranger is in fact the Bleeder, whose face had been obscured through the film to date. He gets a nosebleed while holding Potter's sister which gives him away. There's a reasonable body count. The babysitter and her boyfriend are finally found dead, Preacher and Fatty both get done in, as does the cop and the Bleeder. Bain gets killed as well. Finally the power comes back on, and a TV new bulletin shows Hawkes' former doctor alive and well, taking the wind out of his sails.

Hawkes escapes to the punk club, where the power is back on as well. Watching The Sick F*cks sing 'Chop Up Your Mother' he beams and says how he feels right at home.

END SPOILER

This was a good film. It has some pretty run of the mill twists and turns, but all up it's a good solid effort.

To close, I will relate something from the interview with three of the leftover Sick F•cks which was a special feature on the disk. One of the band members ran into Jack Palance in New York some years after the film. He ran up to him "Jack! Hey, Jack! Remember me? We were in that film Alone In The Dark together. I was one of The Sick F*cks." And Jack replied in that characteristic voice of his "I think we were ALL sick fucks in that film." Classic.

Stars: 4 out of 5

Next

Next up we've got three little sweet gems;

• An American Haunting - Donald Sutherland meets the Bell Witch legend.
• An American Werewolf in London - John Landis does lycanthropy.
• And Now The Screaming Starts - Amicus ghostly revenge film.

And thus does the enthusiasm come flooding back...

Amityville Sequels

Amityville Horror II: The Possession
1982 • Dir: Damiano Damiani • Some folk, meh

Okay, so I'm going to keep the reviews short for each of the three Amityville sequels I've got.

Amityville II is (very) loosely based on the original DeFeo murders. Substitute DeFeo for Montelli and Ronnie for Sonny, add demonic possession, badda-bing badda-boom, you got Amityville II.

As supernatural horror, Amityville II is kind of silly. As a portrait of a brutally dysfunctional family, it's pretty much spot on. Some of the intra-family violence in the film is reputed to actually have occurred in the DeFeo family, which lends a very nasty frisson to the film. Ronnie's dad is supposed to have beaten up Ronnie, and Ronnie's mother quite often. Ronnie DID pull a rifle on his father at one stage. There the similarity pretty much ends. Amityville II was based on well-known parapsychologist Hans Holzer's book on the Amityville house and name-drops a few of the other 'theories' - indian burial ground, witch, etc - as to why the house on Ocean Avenue is 'haunted'. By the way, no Indian burial ground has ever been found under or near the Amityville house, no evidence that a witch ever lived on or near the site has likewise ever been found.

Amityville II is pretty much a battle of wills between the 'demon' that is 'possessing' Sonny, and the local priest Father Adamsky. The battle of wills is pretty much at the end of the third act, and is meh, okay.

Quite possibly the biggest ick in the film is the incest between Sonny and his younger sister Patricia. I feel oogy just thinking about it. The only thing that made it a meagre fraction more bearable was learning that Diane Franklin who plays Trish Montelli was 20 yrs old when she did the film, because boy howdy does she look about 15. Ick. Until today, I didn't piece together that she's the french chick in 'Better Off Dead' - one of my favourite 80's teen films. Cool.

As a devil film, Amityville II is highly derivative of The Exorcist. If you've seen both, you'll know what I mean. As a domestic abuse film, the supernatural content cheapens it. As a dramatisation of the DeFeo murders it's highly fanciful, and too saturated with Hans Holzer's peculiar theories.

The only thing that scared me in this film was the incest. The rest made me nearly go to sleep. When I have to go outside in the 5º cold to have a cigarette to wake up, I know the film is seriously boooooring.

Stars: 2 out of 5

Amityville III: The Demon aka Amityville 3-D
1983 • Dir: Richard Fleischer • St: Tony Roberts, small role w/ Meg Ryan

I'm well into hating Amityville by now. This film was the 3D entry into the series. In a nutshell, reporter for mysticism debunking magazine and friend unveil seance fraud at Amityville house. Reporter later buys house and moves in. House tries to kill him and family with standard Amityville hauntedness. Well/gateway to hell in basement. Flies. Spooky photos. Stuff. Drowned girl seen in house moments before reveal that she is dead. Oooooooooooh!

I felt lightly brain damaged after watching this fiasco. Tony Roberts looks like Frankenstein with jug ears and poodle hair.

No point, no meaning, lost, lost in world of Amityville shittiness. Please rescue me before I lose my mind. When I'm done with this project, I'm taking a hammer to this disc.

Stars: 1 out of 5

The Amityville Curse
1990 • Dir: Tom Berry • St: Kim Coates

This time we're still in Amityville, but not at the famous shack on Ocean Avenue. We're apparently drawing from a Hans Holzer book still. The set up for this, the SIXTH Amityville film (yeah, seriously, I know), is a bunch of yuppies invest in a house - you know, to clean it up and sell it on for more cash - before falling victim to the spoo-doo-dookiness of life in the quiet town of Amityville.

Two couples and a single have many spooky experiences - dreams, visions, sounds. Oh and one of them is going seriously bonkers.

The background is that their house was once a parochial house for the local dog-collar sky pilot. He gets killed in the confessional booth, and all the stuff from the local church, where he died, is now stored in the basement of his old house. This includes a haunted confessional. Yes, go back and read that again. Why would you be a priest in Amityville? It has to suck major dog's balls. "Well father, we're shifting you to Amityville." "What in the FECK!"

Murders happen, and the sins of the past are about to be exposed.

I'm not going to reveal the ending, but what I will say is simply this: This one wasn't that bad. It suffers from having the Amityville tag attached, and could easily be set anywhere else, and be a mildly pleasant little horror film.

I may spare this one the hammer of filmic justice.

Stars: 2 out of 5

Another Amityville Addendum

So I made a mistake, the Amityville house is not for sale for 1.5M USD. Still, check it out, now renumbered as 108 Ocean Avenue, and without the weird quarter circle windows: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/108-Ocean-Ave-Amityville-NY-11701/32596605_zpid/

Amityville addendum

Something I should have added to the wrap-up on Amityville. In one of the doco special features, Margot Kidder talked about meeting horror fans because of the film. She said that she liked meeting horror fans because, unlike a lot of other movie fans, horror fans were actually quite intelligent and seemed generally quite knowledgeable about cinema.

That's really nice isn't it? Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Margot Kidder, I salute you.

And now, shower me with your pity...

For next I must contend with not one, not two but THREE, THREE Amityville sequels.

(from the ever-helpful Wikipedia)
• Amityville II: The Possession (1982) based on the DeFeo story, and with some fascinatingly repulsive incest thrown in.
• Amityville 3D (1983) (made in 3-D, and has also been released as Amityville III: The Demon) Meg Ryan in trouble again.
• The Amityville Curse (1990). Where someone buys a haunted LAMP or some shit from an Amityville garage sale. EDIT: It's not a lamp, I just had no recollection of what happened in this film since I saw it 5 years ago.

Wikipedia also reliably informs me that nine Amityville movies have been made in total. NINE. The mind boggles.

The Amityville Horror

1979 • Dir: Stuart Rosenberg • St: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger

Premise: George and Kathy Lutz move into their new home, but no sooner than they do, than the usual raft of 'my house is possessed by satan' phenomena begins occurring. This is based on a true story. Though the truth of the story is more than a little dubious...

Analysis: The Amityville Horror is the scariest movie in the world... about mortgage fraud. Like Altered States, I saw this film when it first came out when I was a kid. I was 8 when I first saw The Amityville Horror at a drive in, and at the time it scared the living shit out of me.

But I'm 30 years older and wiser now, and The Amityville Horror just seems kind of... hokey to me now. Let me first say, that I don't get 'house haunted by satan' films. Why? If you're the 10,000-odd year old rebel Lucifer, why in the name of all that's shitty would you want to haunt a house and scare the bejeezus out of a surveyor, his wife and her 3 kids by a previous marriage? Why would you appear to the little girl as a walking on two legs pig motherfucker called Jody? Why would you manifest to a priest as the strong scent of feces? I would credit the Devil with a little more integrity than that.

Of course, the house was never haunted. Yes Ronnie DeFeo did kill his family. Yes, he did say he heard voices in the house telling him to kill. But snorting all that coke, like 'Butch' DeFeo did provides an alternate reason. Satan or drug psychosis? Why not let Occam's Razor decide kids!

The families who've lived in the Amityville house since have never had a problem, apart from incessant armies of gawkers and amateur exorcists and ghost hunters wanting to 'investigate' the house. It's up for sale now if you're curious, at the sweet price if 1.5M US$.

Here's what many believe to be the true story of the Amityville house. Drugfucked, bullied son Ronnie DeFeo decides to kill his mum and dad one night, with help from the older sister. She kill their younger siblings as well. Ronnie cracks, kills his sister as well. Ronnie gets dragged off to the booby hatch. Here's a hint kids, don't push for an insanity plea if you're actually crazy. Someone might believe you and sling you in a rubber room for the rest of forever.

Sometime later, George and Kathy Lutz move in to the Amityville house, now with a nice price reduction due to the 'a multiple murder happened here' discount. George, whose business is doing poorly, and has just taken on the expense of a new wife and family, ever so wisely massively over-extends his finances with a crippling mortgage as well.

George and Kathy want to default and bail after a month, but Mr Bank Kill-Joy says 'No'. With the help of their lawyer and several rattan-covered bottles of 1970's chianti, they concoct the 'my house is haunted, so, er... by the way, I shouldn't have to pay off the mortgage' story.

The end.

There's really a lot that's terrible about this film. James Brolin's limp attempt at crazyeyes, Rod Steiger's ferocious, hammy scenery-chewing acting, and just the sheer nonsense of most of the phenomena - 'Hey there's a glowy eyed pig standing in the window waving at me, better axe it to death! Who wants bacon?' - makes The Amityville Horror a film that massively suffers from a nostalgic re-viewing. Do yourself a favour and watch instead the documentary that comes with most versions of the original film, the documentary that makes out what big-ass LIARS George and Kathy were.

Stars: 1 out of 5

Altered States

1980 • Dir: Ken Russell • St: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Charles Haid

Premise: Eddie Jessup begins experimenting with isolation tanks and hallucinogenics to see if there is some underlying common race memory of mankind that explains spiritual phenomena. Or something.

Analysis: I can't really call this film horror, but then again it's also called science fiction, which I don't think fits either. In the end, I keep it on the horror shelf because it scared the piss out of me when I saw it as a kid.

This is William Hurt's first feature film, and also quietly features the first film appearance of a wee Drew Barrymore. Adapted from Paddy Chayefsky's first, last and only novel (Chayefsky himself adapted the screen play) and directed by the renegade director Ken Russell, Altered States is one incredibly messed-up crazy movie.

The central plot of the film revolves around Prof Eddie Jessup's experiments in a sensory deprivation tank while knocking back shooters of a hallucinogen that may be intended to be ayahuasca.

Eddie's first trip is a cue for the usual gaudy visual madness of director Russell, including a trip to the Garden of Eden, and the occasional side trip into a flaming Hell. Not much of a one for drugs myself, I watch Altered States so I don't have to take peyote or acid. To my dying days I will probably imagine that acid trips must be like a Ken Russell film.

The film really does feel pulled in two directions - the intelligent dialogue, original John Lilly research, and search for purpose in man's evolutionary history is Chayefsky's, while the lurid, gaudy and religious overtones are undeniably Russell's. The two are said to have argued quite a bit during filming, causing Chayefsky to have his screenplay credited as 'Sidney Aaron'. To be honest, while Russell's satanic, crucified goat-head figure is what I mainly remember seeing from when I was a kid, it is Jessup's obsessive drive to find this shared genetic memory of humanity, and the idea of physical regression that I find most intriguing.

With an adult viewing, Ken Russell's Garden of Eden and devilish/hellish imagery look, well, a bit silly. One moment everyone's talking soberly about DNA, anthropology and evolution, and the next a snake/Edenic serpent is choking Jessup/Adam to death under an umbrella. You've got to give credit where credit's due - Ken Russell's an amazing lunatic.

The film still leaves me pondering: the notion of storing a genetic memory of the entirety of physical and mental evolution in all of us, is a heady idea. It makes even the humblest person feel like an incredible repository of the tragedies and successes of the human species. The idea of accessing this heritage is a staggering one. If Altered States teaches us anything it's how much more amazing it would have been if not helmed by the sexy nun/heaven and hell obsessed Russell.

Is it horror? Change, mutation, murder, fundamental questions about human existence, an underlying nothingness to existence that could swallow you whole - sounds sufficiently horrific to me.

Stars: 3.5 out of 5