Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.
When finding films to watch this October, I scoured some friends' collections (as well as my own - a former habit of buying stuff sight unseen finally comes in handy!) and public libraries for some doozy titles. Along the way I became frightfully disappointed in myself that it had taken me so long to see some of these films (one upcoming title, however, I have deliberately been putting off, but I think maybe the time has come for it). In the case of The Fog I was triply upset with myself since a) I love Halloween, b) I've heard a lot of great things about it, and c) while I'd never seen the original I had in fact seen the dreadful remake from a few years back. I don't remember anything from it other that its complete awfulness and that it starred... I'm going to say Tom Welling, but I may be wrong.
Okay, a quick bit of research informs me that it was indeed Tom Welling. More research informs me that it was a disappointingly shirt-covered Tom Welling at that. What a jip.
So when I discovered my friend and neighbour had a copy of John Carpenter's 1980 original on Blu-ray, I jumped on it. Not literally, but you get the picture. Watching it right after the lacklustre French import, Livid (more on that on later in the week), I was so pleased. It's the best of the horror films I've watched this month so far and a very under-appreciated gem. Perhaps it's not spoken of much because Carpenter himself isn't overly pleased with it. The back story to this film is rather fascinating - a movie doing so many reshoots in today's day and age and the memory would haunt it, but did anybody going to see this effective horror thriller know anything of all that? Apparently a third of the finished product was reshot footage, amazingly, and Carpenter still thinks the film suffers from its low budget. I wonder if his opinion changed once he saw the remake he allowed to be made as a result. Yikes.
The story is particularly silly, but novel. Coming on the heals of the streamlined Halloween, The Fog actually does still feel like it's come from the mind of the same man. His way with a widescreen camera at the time for this genre was rather genius and gives the film such a grand scope when it otherwise mightn't have really warranted it. As a result, the beachside locals are gloriously filmed and I particularly adored that one shot of the lighthouse that I like to call a "Reverse Psycho" (below). Those opening shots - that seemingly go on for minutes - of the Californian coastal town of Antonio Bay look fabulous and do a wonderful job of setting up the story of a town that would justifiably be terrified of a rolling fog and who would spend their evenings listening to music that is best described as "smooth jazz muzak".
The original trailer doesn't make anything of a fuss about the film starring both Jamie Lee Curtis and Janet Leigh (something receated nearly 20 years later in Halloween H20), but I think it's pretty nifty. Curtis doesn't particularly do much, although hearing that famous scream again is wild, but Leigh is actually very impressive as a townslady intent on honouring a pack of murderous "patriots". Most impressive of all though is certainly Adrienne Barbeau as Stevie Wayne, Antonio Bay's answer to Rick Dees. She's a single mother (unexplained, thankfully, apart from a very minor reference to Antonio Bay being "better than Chicago") who uses her cosy radio-station-in-a-lighthouse set up to help her adopted town and especially her son. Although she foolishly sends the principal characters right up to the church on the edge of town where the fog is quite obviously heading. Silly Stevie!
Who would've thought that casting your wife in the plum role of your shoulda-been shlocky horror movie would pay such dividends. Barbeau, Carpenter's wife at the time, gives the role her all and gives the character such warmth and depth, without ever forgetting her place in a movie about a supernatural mist. I found myself watching this movie and wishing I lived in Antonio Bay where I could ask her to be on her radio program and play all the latest hits from 1980. She'd hire me, of course, because despite her preference for easy listening shite, she'd also be entirely hip and cool. Yes, these are the places my brain goes to. Also: I love how matter of factly Jamie Lee Curtis' hitchhiker falls into bed with Tom Atkins, the man who picked her up on the side of the road. That's love. And by "I love how..." I mean "I'm somewhat troubled by..." of course.
The Fog is certainly fun, and it has a fairly constant chilly vibe, although it is rarely SCARY in the way that, say, Halloween was and is, despite how many times I watch it. Several scenes have a palpable sense of dread, and the leprous ghost pirates look nifty so I consider it a big win. B+
In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!
SCENE 31 Length: 13min 13secs Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott, Billy Loomis, Stu Macher, Gale Weathers, Randy Meeks and Mr Prescott Pop Culture References:
Psycho (Billy quotes it)
Carrie (Billy mentions it when describing his faked death)
Hannibal Lecter (Billy mentions him during his motive)
Sharon Stone (Sidney's mum is "no Sharon Stone")
Halloween (it continues to play on the TV)
Terror Train (Sidney bites Stu's hand in identical fashion to this film)
And so we come, as we inevitably must, to the big final showdown. I'd be getting misty-eyed if I didn't know we still had two films to cover yet. Alas, we still have a few scenes to go in Scream so let's get straight to it.
This was supposed to be Dewey's swan song, but the makers changed their minds when they decided he was a great character (and that Arquette was great at portaying him). Imagining if they had killed him off can lead you down a rabbit hole of various plot strands, theories and alternate takes on the franchise. What would the other films have been like? Hmmm....
Of course, this is another really poor moment of audio dubbing where Sidney's voice screams "Dewey!", but her mouth says "No!" Bless cheap horror flicks.
The Sidney-in-the-car bit is really quite silly, but I enjoy it nonetheless. I like how Ghostface clearly thinks he has the upper hand. There are so many things he could have done to get Sidney, but instead he (it's Stu again, obviously) acts quite nonchalant about the whole situation, knowing she can't get away and knowing that she needs to be alive for "the big reveal.
That knife tap on the window and the jangle of the keys is so perversely cruel.
And, can I just say, having watched just this small sequence in the cop car over and over in slow motion, I actually think it might be Neve Campbell's best acting moment in the entire trilogy. The looks she expresses on her face are incredible, like when she realises there's no keys in the ignition or when the killer dangles the keys in front of her. Very fine work, Neve!
Of course, that silliness I mentioned is the very reason it works. The way the killer is somehow able to produce phantom like abilities and movie about unnoticed and, my particular favourite, the way lot of horror movie characters seem to have absolutely no peripheral vision. As Sidney reaches over to lock drivers side door, it seems quite obvious that Sidney would notice the big back boot door swinging open and yet, like most horror movie characters who can never notice someone until they are tapping them on the shoulder Sidney doesn't see it. Makes me laugh.
I'd be suspicious, too!
I love this moment of Randy and Stu trying to place the blame on the other. I mean, at this point it's fairly obvious that it's at least one of them and, let's face it, Stu is as obvious a candidate as you can get since we saw Ghostface very nearly kill Randy. But, then, you never could tell since some things defy explanation (like how Billy/Stu knew about Gale's accident... more on that in a little bit).
Now that's some dedication right there! Billy would've been kicking himself if he had injured himself whilst performing this last act of pretending to be innocent.
Now to prove my naivete, when I first saw Scream I thought this was just a really bad gaff on the filmmakers behalf by not having Billy's shirt be slashed. I hadn't noticed it when Billy got stabbed upstairs, but I noticed it this time. Of course, now it's all quite obvious and so instead of thinking I am stupid for not noticing I deflect my stupidity towards Sidney for also not noticing it. Silly woman.
"Stu's flipped out, he's gone mad!"
"We all go a little mad sometimes."
"Oh fuck!"
Oh fuck, indeed, Randy! Also, I hadn't realised how identical the two shots of Randy were until I added them. Oh well.
Love this moment, doesn't everyone? Such a great little moment, made even more perfect by...
"Anthony Perkins, Psycho."
It's the scratching the itch with a gun that makes it. Like, he really has gone mad that he doesn't even care about, perhaps, accidentally shooting himself in the head.
That shot right there is Sidney realising "Oh shit, I just bonked a mad man." Serves her right for having that hair cut, don't you think? Still, if you're going to root around with a serial killing crazy person you might as well make it Skeet Ulrich, don't you think? I mean, isn't it kind of weird how he only gets hot once he's "gone mad"? Perhaps that says something about me...?
"Mmmm, corn syrup. Same stuff they use for pig's blood in Carrie."
Well duh!
No, but seriously, I'm not going to sit here typing away and pretend that I figured it out. I really didn't. Mostly because I had no idea what the fuck I was watching, in all honesty, but I'm sure I was all "no way!" at the big reveal of who the killers were. I mean, as I've kept saying, it seems so obvious watching it now and someone new to the film, but who has had a steady diet of horror films, may be able to pick it, but as one of the first major horror films I ever saw (and probably one of the first where we didn't already know who the killer was, like "Michael Myers" or "Jason Voorhees", my memory is a little fuzzy on the issue) it blew me away.
Of course, Stu (nor Billy) sound anything like the voice on the phone, but what can you do?
Don't they make a nice couple? It's amazing that some people can't see the overt homoeroticism in this movie between Billy and Stu.
"Why? WHY? Did you hear that Stu, I think she wants a motive. I don't really believe in motives, Sid. I mean, did Norman Bates have a motive?" "No." "Did they ever really decide why Hannibal Lecter liked to eat people? DON'T THINK SO!"
I actually think this is one of the best line readings in the whole movie. Skeet Ulrich never really did much for me performance wise through the film, but once he was able to go fully insane it totally clicked. I like this bit, however, because it merges the casualness that he and Stu brought to the proceedings with moments of insanity tearing through as he screams, until he very soon just lets the floodgates open.
"We did your mom a favour, Sid. That woman was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or somethin'." "Yeah, we put her out of her misery because, let's face it Sidney, your mother no Sharon Stone!"
That line is so hilarious and offensive in so many ways, but that's the entire point. And, of course, there's Kevin Williamson's crush on Sharon Stone emerging its head again. It's a shame they didn't carry that joke on through the other movies, actually. I wonder what Billy and Stu would think of Sharon Stone these days. You know, if they were alive.
He's such a nutjob, but that's why we like him! Of course, he telling Sidney that she "gave it up" means that all three of Randy's rules get broken since Randy and Sidney probably drank, Sidney had sex and Gale said "I'll be right back". And yet, at the same time, they were all adhered too.
"It's a scream baby! Hold on, I'll be right back!"
Oh Stu.
There's always been this belief that the end of Scream, this kitchen sequence is excessively violent. Even a lot of the positive reviews at the time mentioned how it got too violent at the climax, and yet this is these are the only direct shots of someone being stabbed by that knife in this sequence. The rest are all off screen. Oh sure, there's a lot of blood - and a lot of that is the fake blood all over Billy - and sounds, but not so much actual on screen violence.
"These days ya gotta have a sequel"? These days? It's pretty much always been like that, especially in the horror genre. I'm glad though that they held off the "sequels suck" discussion until the actual sequel instead of having Billy and Stu muse on what they'll do to make a sequel that doesn't suck.
"You sick fucks, you've seen one to many movies." "Now Sid, don't you blame the movies. Movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative."
This quote, I think, actually ties in to the entry I posted yesterday about the relatively weak rating of local horror film The Loved Ones, in which I discussed how - at least in America - violence is seen as a weaker cinematic device than sex. Movies surely make people more creative when it comes to violence and sex! Who could watch something like Lust Caution and not have the thoughts run through their mind of what it would be like to be that creative in the bedroom.
But this line truly speaks to the theory that all violent criminals were already going to be violent criminals and that, say, the kids in the Bolger murder case didn't need Child's Play to set them off. Or the much ballyhooed idea that kids playing violent computer games is going to set them up for a life of gutless thuggery and brutal violence. Would Billy have been a violent person if Sidney's mother hadn't slept his Billy's father, making his mother leave? The dormant violent person in him clearly snapped, but it wasn't because of the movies. So many people try and put film and television and games as the catalyst, but outside of maybe a few isolated cases I think it's very much as Billy put it.
I was always surprised Scream wasn't rated R18+ since the film isn't as polished as other horror films, including Scream 2, and it can be that real grunginess that lends itself to harsher ratings. If a film is seen as "smaller" then harsher ratings are possible. Of course, we've come a long way from the days of horror movies getting slapped with R18+ ratings willy nilly. How about John Carpenter's 1978 original Halloween being rated R18+ when, if released today, it would probably be a much less restrictive M15+ (equivalent, sorta, to PG13). Aah, the many ins and outs of film classifications. Where would we be without them? Probably resting far easier knowing we don't have that silly system to mock all the time.
The sound work of this sequence is really solid. The slashes and the stabs, obviously, but I love this little closeup of Stu's hand covered in blood and you can actually hear the drops of blood dripping from his fingers and landing on the flood.
Gale, you crazy, amazing, badass broad! "Right here, asshole!"
Now, here is what we discussed last time. Billy says "I thought she was dead" and Stu goes "she looked dead, man. Still does." No one in the comments of 30 seemed to be able to explain how Stu was able to not only know Gale had been in an accident with her van crashing into a tree, but also knowing that she looked dead. The positions of Billy and Stu can be pretty well plotted: After Stu killed Kenny the Cameraman, Sidney escaped trying to run away from the house. At this time Stu must've gone back inside the house, at which time Dewey and Gale split up, she going to her van and he inside the Macher house. As Gale drives away Sidney tries to get her attention, she drives off the road and Sidney runs back to the house wherein she discovers Dewey stabbed by Stu. She then hides in the car and is attacked, mere moments later Stu is standing in front of her in plain clothes. At no point would Stu have been able to run down the road, discover Gale's van and check on her, then running back to the house for the whole big reveal shenanigans.
It makes no sense.
Each film in the trilogy has one moment that defies logic, sense, time and space. Scream 2 has the baffling killer-in-the-car-accident-who-disappears-then-reappears-to-stab-Hallie-yet-somehow-neither-she-nor-Sidney-noticed moment and Scream 3 has the scene where Gale check's Roman's pulse only to have him return later very much alive. For the original it is this scene that makes no sense and it bugs me to this very day.
Dewey is meant to be dead in this shot because they hadn't yet decided to keep him alive, but I like that even in supposed death Gale and Dewey would have ended up in each other's arms (well, she in his lap, technically).
You know what I said just before about the sound of blood dripping from Stu's hand? I reiterate it for this moment. That neck crack is just... aagh. Like nails on a chalkboard.
I like that they incorporated the telephone back into the scene since it all started with it. That's always been my one beef with Scream 2, neither the opening nor the closing utilise the phone, which is something that is so ingrained in the DNA of the film.
"Peer pressure. I'm far too sensitive."
Matthew Lillard's improvisation of "you fuckin' hit me with the phone, DICK!" is surely one of the best moments in the entire trilogy, yes? So funny and insane and so indicative of the way their plans are unravelling and how Billy was, quite obviously, far more insane than Stu had probably thought.
I don't think Sidney and her father are hiding in the couch cushions, Billy!
"Did you really call the police?" "You bet your sorry ass I did." "My mom and dad and gonna be so mad at me!"
Without a doubt, Matthew Lillard owns this big scene, doesn't he? He has so many great lines and reads them all with such relish and energy.
Yet again the incorporation of the Halloween soundtrack works perfectly. The way it makes us think "oh the sound was just the TV" and then BOOM out flies another Ghostface.
I'd always found it silly that Sidney decided to wear a Ghostface costume for this moment, but then it dawned on me that Stu must've just had one hanging up in the downstairs coat closet of his house and now I smile and chuckle at the thought of Stu coming home from butchering his principal or his ex girlfriend and then hanging the costume up in the closet. Can't have it creased now, can we?
This punch moment is, strangely, the most uneasy moment of the whole scene. You just don't see movies very often where the heroine gets punched in the face? Although, I recently rewatched David Fincher's Panic Room (which I love) and, again, the scene in which Kristen Stewart gets punched in the face is the most shocking out of everything. Perhaps that says something about me? I'm not too sure.
As an aside, I was never aware that Sidney's hand bite was actually a reference to another movie. Just a couple of weeks ago I actually saw Roger Spotiswoode's Terror Train on DVD. It's one of the videos that Randy brought along to the party and it stars Jamie Lee Curtis who takes a staggeringly odd graduation celebratory train ride through the Canadian mountainside. As she and all her friends are on the train someone starts murdering them all. And then there's David Copperfield, who doesn't really make any sense, but I guess he needed to exposure at the time? I quite liked it as those sort of films go and it has a great twist ending (albeit one that I predicted). Take a peak at the trailer if you've never seen it - I love that opening bit with the train emerging in the night with the steam looking like a blue fog.
"I always had a thing for ya, Sid!" another great line from Stu. RIP Stu, you were a blast! Let's be thankful that you never returned.
