House (1986)

So. I could swear that at least one person recommended House to me as “really really scary.” It had also been languishing in my Netflix streaming queue for quite some time so I figured I’d give it a shot. About halfway through the movie, I started to feel like maybe I had missed something. I paused it and did a quick IMDB search, turning up a 1977 Japanese film by the same name which I think was probably the actual recommendation I received. Guys, when you recommend me something, please make sure I write it down. I’m the worst.

 Actually, I really don’t care that this was likely the wrong movie because I LOVED IT. First, let me tell you this: I feel that it would be a lie by omission if I did not tell you that I watched this movie while under the influence of barbiturates. It sounds like a fun recreational thing—or does it? I’m unsure—but it’s really just a migraine med that also has caffeine in it, presumably to counteract the barbiturate effect. Like all good Italian babies, I used to be given coffee in a sippy cup (it’s seriously stunning that I am a solid 5’8”) so I am pretty immune to caffeine at this point in my life and so this particular med still slightly messes me up in an “I’ve never seen ‘em fing” kind of way.

Oh wait, there they go.

So this may have possibly influenced my enjoyment of the film, just a little bit. As an added result, my initial notes about the movie are just bizarre scattered observations. Among them:

- This grocery delivery boy has a big butt and I’m pretty into it (I WROTE THAT ON A PIECE OF PAPER)
- Did Roger really just put something into the microwave for 30 minutes? Is he trying to grow a giant tumor?
- Roger is sort of studly even though he wears an excessively low V-neck sweater that is tucked into slacks to hang out and take out the garbage. I know it’s 1986 but c’mon.

Do you like how I always use the same clouds to indicate that someone is outside? I’m such a great artist, I really am.

There are also a few references to my excitement that both Norm from 'Cheers' and Bull from 'Night Court' feature prominently in this film. This is my real life in 2014. On barbiturates.

Roger, our protagonist, is a horror writer for whom things are going terribly wrong. His son mysteriously disappeared, his marriage fell apart and the aunt who raised him has recently committed suicide by hanging. Roger inherits her giant old house (where he grew up, and where his son went missing) and moves back in to work on his next book, which is a memoir of his experiences in Vietnam (which no one seems to want to read). Weird stuff starts happening, there is a giant monster thing in the bedroom closet and Norm lives next door and just wants to hang out and drink High Life.

I had gone into this with the expectation that it would be “really really scary” so I was surprised to find that this was, in fact, a horror comedy. I did not realize it was such until the scene in which Roger’s ex-wife Sandy turns up at his front door and then shapeshifts into a rubbery, jowly, grotesque yet feminine monster and it’s goddamn hilarious.

To defeat this monster, Roger cuts her into pieces and buries her all over the backyard only to have her hand dug up by Norm’s golden retriever. The hand sticks around until Roger flushes it down the toilet which, as the owner of a very old house, made me extremely nervous about the plumbing but made for an excellent visual.

Ultimately Roger realizes that the house has taken his son—a fact that his aunt told him at the time of the disappearance but everyone wrote off as being crazy—and is able to find him by smashing the bathroom mirror and crawling into this insane pit in the house. Here he realizes that his son was kidnapped by the undead entity of his old army buddy from Vietnam (Bull!) who begrudges Roger for not being able to mercy-kill him when he was wounded in action and instead allowing him to be captured and tortured by enemy forces. He appears as a crazy undead skeleton soldier D&D looking thing and I absolutely love him.

Good news though, Roger is able to defeat him and the house by no longer being afraid, a theme that has JUST NOW arisen in the 88^th minute of the film, and his son is rescued from the clutches of undead army Bull. This house is clean.

You’d think this would pretty much wrap up the movie but I have several unanswered questions. 1) Why was the aunt being haunted into killing herself? She didn’t leave Bull out to die. 2) Who were the other monsters in the house? There was the Sandy monster and the closet monster that I referenced earlier, and also a couple smaller monsters that tried to kidnap a neighbor’s young child that Roger is weirdly babysitting and BATHING, which is so upsetting that I won’t even get into it. 3) Why is being unafraid all it takes to defeat these monsters? That seems like a cop out.

Regardless of the loose ends and fairly chintzy special effects, and the fact that I was expecting a different movie entirely, House was super fun. I really loved this and would definitely watch it again.

Insidious (2011)

It’s taken me awhile to write this review of Insidious (2011) because I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. Actually, I’m still not sure. It’s a generic concept—a happy family moves into new home and all hell breaks loose (optional: something baaad has happened in the past that they are trying to escape) with a particular focus around the mother who is far too svelte for having birthed three children in seemingly six years. Okay, I guess I can get behind that, plus I really like the word ‘insidious.’

The central plot of the film is that one of the three aforementioned children falls into an unexplained coma and does not wake up for months upon months. Doctors, naturally, are stumped. Then strange things begin to happen in the house because why wouldn’t they? Time to call in the psychics! This particular set of psychics and ghosthunters inform the family that their son has astral projected into a place called “the Further”—which, let’s be honest, is a terrible name for another realm of scary shit—and someone has to go get him back. What lives in the darkness that is “the Further”? If you guessed (spoiler alert) pinup girls with shotguns…well, 10 horror movie points for you.

You know, the great philosopher of our time Harvey Danger once said, “well, if you’re bored then you’re boring.” I decided that since I am bored just writing this up, this movie must have been boring. There were some good jump scares in it and the twist at the end is okay, though it’s a really obvious plot device to set up a sequel (see also: Friday the 13^th, Halloween, and every other horror movie that has ever existed in series form). I can’t even get excited about drawing it because I can hardly remember a memorable scene. 

Well uh, I guess that's that. I feel like I've barely had any horror-watching this month and the day after tomorrow is Halloween. I'm thinking I'll review a couple classics over the next week or two instead of venturing into Netflix territory, particularly because my friend Mike argued SO PASSIONATELY that I need to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 that he stepped off a curb directly into traffic and nearly lost his life. So, you know, I guess I owe him that much!

The Haunting (1963)

It was originally my intention to start off this blog with Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which, as far as I am concerned, is the supreme ruler of all horror movies and the namesake of this blog.  

However, I am in the early stages of a screenplay project with my husband Rob and good friend Allen, so we have been doing some ‘research’ (ie, drinking all the beers and talking about movies) and last night we watched the super creepy atmospheric ghost movie, The Haunting (1963).

The movie is based on the Shirley Jackson novel “The Haunting of Hill House,” which I just read this summer. It was part of a collection of Jackson’s short stories and two novels that I bought at Half-Price Books. When the cashier rang me up, he complimented my stellar taste (obviously) and added, “Wait until you read the opening paragraph of ‘The Haunting of Hill House.’ It’s gonna blow your mind.”

And it did:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

So good! It also sets the stage for a creepy, eerie tale in which you never actually meet the ghost but are completely terrified nonetheless. The movie follows suit, which is awesome—the story could so easily be ruined by ghosties and ghoulies popping out all over the place but it is absolutely tastefully done. The biggest special effect (minor spoiler alert) is a bulging door and everything else is left completely to the imagination.

The story itself is 50% haunted house, 50% descent into madness, and it prominently features one of my favorite horror movie clichés, “the contemplative doctor has a mustache.”

Clearly the entire budget of the film was spent on the lavish set, which is full of insanely creepy shit like veiled statues and statues of eyeless, blank-faced cherubs and dark wallpaper, and this crazy spiral staircase that actually gave me vertigo just to look at it onscreen. I was going to try to MS paint the staircase but 1) I clearly do not have the skills to do it justice and 2) c'mon guy, I have a job! I got stuff to do!

I think the greatness of this film is not only in Jackson's story, but it's also rooted in the use of camera angles, lighting and sound that are presented in such a way that you are totally creeped throughout without ever laying eyes on a villain. I had legitimate goosebumps through a large portion of my viewing experience.

(Don’t let my companions' happy faces fool you, they were creeped too. Except Glenn the cat, he’s only into nunsploitation and torture films, and thought this shit was weak. Glenn has really poor taste; I don't know what to say about that.)

I honestly do hate to start this blog with a review that borders on calling its subject a masterpiece because I am by nature a person who loves (loves!) to make fun of stuff, but I have not a single bad thing to say about this film. Go watch it.