Halloween: Film Round-Up 1

As part of my month-long celebration of Halloween, I've decided to do a series of short reviews of horror/sci-fi movies. These won't be as involved and thoughtful as my Cloverfield review but they also won't be nearly as long. Maybe that's a good thing?? Anyway, here we go!!Psycho (1960)

Though I'm sure most film historians and critics will disagree vehemently with me, Psycho is one of those "you had to be there" kind of films. Certainly as a piece of horror cinema it is essential from a historical perspective, and it manages to do the two things horror movies strive for in the scary department--a creepy atmosphere that puts you on edge as well as the "jump out of your seat" scares--but watching it today, with almost 50 years gone, it isn't quite as affecting. Psycho is clearly the work of a master filmmaker, from the editing to the cinematography to the sound and music to the camera angles and mise en scène, but you really have to keep in the back of your mind the time period this came out in. Twist endings and "creepy loner guy" characters have become stock parts for films since 1960, but for its time Psycho was incredible. I suppose my point is that, in 2008, it works better as a film, period, than it does as a horror film.

Slither (2006)

Though at the time of its release it received a lukewarm box office reception, Slither has since become one of those movies that seems destined for cult love. But then, most good horror movies are that way, so this one is par for the bloody course. Slither falls somewhere between the 'body horror' films of David Cronenberg (and John Carpenter's The Thing), horror/comedy like the Evil Dead trilogy, and the gross-out/bloody B-movies of the 1980s. The best thing about Slither is the way it manages to be a stupid, fun horror movie that doesn't take itself seriously yet isn't outright silly. This is largely due to the brilliant performances of the cast, including Nathan Fillion (of Firefly fame, who is increasingly looking like this generation's Bruce Campbell), Michael Rooker, and Elizabeth Banks. I highly recommend this movie if you're having a Halloween marathon or just want to see a gross-but-fun horror flick.

Pet Sematary (1989)

I've never read a Stephen King novel but I've seen a lot of the movies based on them. That embarrasses me as proponent of both readin' and writin' (no 'rithmetic, though), but whatever. Pet Sematary is one of those movies I've always meant to get around to, since it usually ends up on other lists of horror movies and is considered a cult/horror classic. And while it is indeed a good watch, it's no masterpiece. Since King himself adapted it for film, I have to assume he's responsible for the sometime-awkwardness of the dialogue and action, since the ability to write a good novel doesn't always translate to a good screenplay. At any rate, Pet Sematary has a bad ending which is always a plus in my book. If you can forgive the fact that main villains of this film are an evil cat and toddler (both of whom somehow get the better of full grown adults even though the average full grown adult could fight at least a dozen cats and half as many toddlers) then you'll enjoy yourself.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

To me, the worst thing about horror movies is the way they try to make us instantly associate and root for the main characters. Since you can't get into much background about people in horror movies without spending too much time away from the scares and violence, there's a kind of assumption that the audience will always relate to the non-monster, non-killing-things characters. The Hills Have Eyes presents us with a family unit devoid of much character other than the fact that they're all kind of jerks or are annoying, personality-less children. There are many, many problems with this movie, but the worst are from the stance of logic. As you continue watching you begin to hope that the humans will all get killed; that probably would have made for a better movie in my opinion, but I think that about most movies. All of the standard horror tropes seem to be played at some point during the course of The Hills Have Eyes, from "evil guy returns from the dead for one last attack!!" to "main character is incapacitated but not outright killed, and is then easily able to escape while not alerting anyone to his presence" to "that's pretty freakin' convenient" deus ex machina crap. The creepiest part of the movie is the opening title sequence, where footage of atomic bomb tests are interspliced with what I assume are real photos of birth defects and deformed babies. I think that says a lot about the movie as a whole.

The ending is an insulting cherry on top, zooming out from our surviving heroes to the view of a mutant's binoculars, suggesting that they're all going to be killed anyway. Never mind something brilliant and subtle like I had hoped for, like the final lines being "we'll probably starve to death if we don't die of dehydration first because we're totally lost in the desert and we're just a bunch of cityfolk who don't know anything...and hey, why haven't we been sweating profusely for the entire movie??" But I digress. The Hills Have Eyes is a lame, infuriating piece of crap.