Category: Reviews

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Halloween Day Four: Final Prayer

A late addition to my list, Final Prayer also goes by the title of The Borderlands. This movie is another recommendation of British horror writer Adam Nevill. The article in question is here, and well worth reading. Final Prayer is a British found-footage movie, available to rent on Amazon Prime for $3.99 (cheap!).

The plot: a priest records a paranormal experience in his church during a baptism (which turns out to be important). The Vatican’s spook squad gets called in, so I guess the priest isn’t Anglican. The boys from Rome send in an investigative team to debunk the video. They’re the anti-miracle squad, I guess.

The team consists of Deacon, a Scottish priest; Gray, the tech guy; and Father Amidon, who hates Deacon. The priests are skeptics, which makes sense considering that 99% of the cases they investigate are utter bullshit. Unfortunately, this case is the other 1%.

The town is in the middle of nowhere, a place where the local kids light sheep on fire for fun. The investigators must wear head cameras for the duration of the investigation to establish a timeline. The priests think their fellow priest is making the whole thing up; Gray, who isn’t religious, believes him.

Gray puts video cameras and microphones all over the church. Most of the phenomena he records is auditory, creaks and groans and bumps and crying children. We learn that the church is built over a pagan worship site, where the locals worshipped things that came to Britain before Christ.

Is Final Prayer scary? I got through it without too much of a problem, although I did let out a few shrieks that startled my cat. There are jump scares. The acting is good. We come to know and like Deacon and Gray, although neither is all that likable at the movie’s start.

I got confused a little at Final Prayer’s climax, because two of the characters wear glasses and I got them mixed up. Apparently, the ending is controversial. I’m not sure how I feel about it, myself. I guess I’d need to see the movie again.

Final Prayer is worth a view, especially if you like found-footage. The best line of the movie comes during a pub conversation between Gray and Deacon, where Gray says (paraphrasing) – ‘the pagans worshipped things that were there. You worship something that’s not there. If your god and their god fought, I know who I’d put my money on.’

Not as scary as Across the River, but still good. Recommended!

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Helloween Day Two: Across the River

Adam Nevill, one of my favorite horror writers, recommended Across the River. The link to the article is here. The movie’s in Italian with English subtitles, but that doesn’t matter because there’s almost no dialogue. I watched it for free on Amazon Prime.

The plot: Marco catches, tags and then releases animals back into the wild. I don’t know why he does this because I’m not an ethologist myself, but driving around in an RV, trapping beasties and mounting cameras on their backs so he can watch videotape of them skulking around in the dark seems pretty cool.

Marco sees something odd on video that makes him follow one of his ‘charges.’ He drives his RV across the river, which is dangerously high because of the flooding, and ends up in a deserted village in the middle of the woods. Except the village isn’t really deserted. There are the animals…it must be the animals that scream in the night. Then he sees a thing that’s not an animal, but by then it’s too late. The river has risen.

He’s trapped. But he’s not alone…

Set in Italy, Across the River features beautiful scenery and an atmospheric soundtrack. The abandoned village is creepy as hell, and the director knows how to milk the dread from a scene. The first half is better than the second. I didn’t find Marco’s actions unrealistic; he makes a mistake, but he’s just a guy doing his job, which makes what he goes through that much worse.

There’s a lot to like about Across The River. Depending on your temperament, this will either be unbearably boring or a brown underwear movie. The Blair Witch Project comes to mind, although this isn’t a found footage movie. The first part of the movie also reminded me of “The Ritual,” the Adam Nevill novel.

Did Across The River scare me? Yes. It made me abandon my ‘no remote’ resolution. If you like your horror movies atmospheric and scary, check this one out; if you prefer lots of action and gore, skip it.

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Helloween Day One: Lips of Blood

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Lips of Blood is a 1975 movie directed by Jean Rollin. The first time I heard of Jean Rollin was on Neil Gaiman’s blog. Gaiman used the phrase ‘Euro Trash,’ which made my ears prick up. I didn’t know what Euro Trash meant, but there’s no denying I liked the sound of it. After watching a few of Rollin’s movies I decided Euro Trash meant sleaze, violence, gore and gratuitous sex & nudity. You know, the good stuff.

Lips of Blood is set in Paris, although the Eiffel Tower is nowhere to be seen. It’s in French with English subtitles. I saw it for free on YouTube, and the picture quality wasn’t great. Anyone familiar with Jean Rollin’s work will be unsurprised to learn that this movie features lots of female vampires.

The plot: 32 year-old Frederic sees a photo of a castle at a wine & cheese party, a photo that triggers a repressed memory of a twelve year old Frederic meeting a beautiful young girl at that selfsame castle. Frederic decides that he must return to the mysterious castle because he’s still in love with the girl, but dark forces – led by his Mom! – are hell-bent on stopping him.

At one point the ghost/projection/vision of the beautiful young girl leads Frederic to a tomb, where he accidentally frees four female vampires. These fetching creatures of the night wear fake-looking fangs and not much else. At one point they drink the blood of the night watchman while the camera focuses on their bloody lips. Thus, the title!

Is Lips of Blood scary? No. There are lots of naked women, though, which means this flick would probably earn an X rating if it were shown today. The creepiest scene occurs when Frederic enters a tomb to find a life-sized mannequin of a praying Virgin Mary, which I kept expecting to reanimate and leap into the air.

Lips of Blood is like all the other Jean Rollin movies I’ve seen. No budget, but eye-catching imagery and an interesting premise kept me watching until the end. Rollin directed over fifty movies, and my favorites – made in the late 60’s, early 70’s – all have the word ‘vampire’ in the title. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him on a best-of horror list, which is a shame because I like his movies. They’re cheaply made, badly acted with awful effects, but I can never shake the feeling that he’s better than the material he’s working with.

Or maybe it’s all those female vampires with fake fangs.

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Helloween: 31 Nights, 31 Movies

I love horror movies, even though I have trouble watching them. So why am I planning to watch thirty-one horror flicks I’ve never seen for Halloween? I do watch horror movies around Halloween, but it’s always stuff I’ve seen before. Halloween, The Exorcist, Dracula, The Wolf Man, Dawn of the Dead. All the old stand-byes…

((BTW, Jaws is one of my favorite horror movies, but you have to watch it during the summer. There’s a rule about that.))

As the years have rolled by, I feel like I’ve gotten stodgy and staid. I’ve seen these movies so many times they aren’t even scary anymore. So this year I’m trying a different approach. This year I’m challenging myself!

Here’s the details: I have a list of thirty-six movies, below, and I’m using a Random Number Generator to determine what movie I’ll watch. This adds uncertainty to the mix. Also, if I can’t finish a movie, I have five alternates. I’m also going to lose the remote control. No fast forwarding or pausing. I will be watching the movies between September 28th and October 25th. I’m traveling towards the end of October, so I won’t be watching anything at that point.

((I will be live-tweeting some or all of the movies, using the following hashtags: #nameofthemovie and #helloween))

How did I choose? Recommendations from friends, best-of lists, stuff like that. I don’t think there are any sequels, and I’m limiting myself to one movie per director. I’m trying to be eclectic, although these flicks do conform to my tastes. I don’t like torture porn, although I think at least one of the movies on the list might qualify (Cannibal Holocaust). There’s also a shaky cam flick (REC), even though they make me dizzy. I spent most of The Blair Witch Project nauseous and annoyed at the characters bickering about that stupid map.

I’m sure most of these movies have jump scares. I have an unfortunate history of shrieking in movie theaters. There’s a scene in Night Breed, hardly a horror classic, where one of the characters opens the fridge, whereupon I gave out a great shriek. The resulting laughter from my fellow audience members defused the actual jump scare. Luckily, the walls of my apartment are thick enough so that nobody will hear me scream…

I think I’m up for this! Thanks to Pokémon Go, I’ve lost twenty pounds so I think my heart can deal with the strain. I’ll post an article the next day detailing my reactions, any bad dreams, seizures when the cat jumps me in the dark, taps on the windows, chest pains, whether I slept with the lights on, etc. Oh, also whether I liked the movie.

Just so you know…my favorite horror movie is The Exorcist. I saw it at my local theater when it was re-released a few years ago. Sitting in a darkened theater with a bunch of teenagers, I was shocked that they spent most of the movie laughing.

Did they think this was funny?

Was I getting old?

Anyway, here’s the list:

  1. Babadook (2015)
  2. Berberian Sound Stage (2012)
  3. Beyond (1981)
  4. Brood (1979)
  5. Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
  6. Changeling (1980)
  7. Conjuring (2013)
  8. Dead Snow (2010)
  9. Devil’s Backbone (2002)
  10. Don’t Look Now (1973)
  11. Event Horizon (1997)
  12. Ghostwatch (1992)
  13. Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2015)
  14. House of the Devil (2009)
  15. Hunger (1983)
  16. Innocents (1961)
  17. Insidious (2011)
  18. It Follows (2014)
  19. Ju-On: The Grudge (2002)
  20. Let the Right One In (2008)
  21. Lips of Blood (1975)
  22. M (1931)
  23. Mulholland Drive (2001)
  24. Near Dark (1987)
  25. Others (2001)
  26. Possession (1981)
  27. REC (2009)
  28. Salem’s Lot (1979)
  29. Silence of the Lambs (1991)
  30. Sinister (2013)
  31. Spring (2014)
  32. Suspiria (1977)
  33. We Are What We Are (2013)
  34. The Witch (2016)
  35. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)
  36. Wolfen (1981)
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Summer of Culture! A Song At Twilight

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This review contains minor SPOILERS, so be warned.

I saw A Song at Twilight on a Saturday night at the New Jersey Shakespeare Theatre. I sat in the front row, close to the action. During the dinner scene it felt like I could have reached out and grabbed the salt-shaker.

The plot: famed author Sir Hugo Latymer meets his former mistress, Carlotta Gray, who wants to publish his love letters for her impending autobiography. That Sir Hugo refuses is no surprise, as Coward does a good job of quickly establishing his character. The plot turns when we discover that Carlotta has another set of Sir Hugo love letters, addressed to another person and far more damaging.

Blackmail, I thought, but the truth is more complex. Carlotta is still ‘irritated’ (her word) about the way she was treated. As Sir Hugo points out, thirty plus years is a long time to carry a grudge. Carlotta then calls Sir Hugo a heartless prick (I’m paraphrasing), which is certainly true, but doesn’t solve anything. They’re at an impasse. Sir Hugo won’t apologize or equivocate – which is what I THINK she wants – even though the second set of letters will ruin his career.

One of the things I liked about A Song at Twilight is that I couldn’t guess the ending. To Coward’s credit, he spurns the predictable. There are red herrings: the liquor cabinet, the medicine chest, even the butler. In the end two of the characters (neither of them Sir Hugo) act like grown-ups to resolve the situation.

The writing is excellent, the characters well-drawn. I thought the female characters were a bit more developed.  Sir Hugo isn’t likeable. He treats his wife, Hilde, like a secretary. This makes sense, since she is his secretary. With the exception of the piano-playing butler, none of the characters are likeable, but they are interesting, and by the play’s end I felt sympathy for Sir Hugo. This might have been due to the actor’s interpretation of the final scene.

My only quibble is that the publication of the first set of Sir Hugo’s love letters would serve the purpose of reinforcing his desired persona, so I wondered why he refused. But since he’s an ornery bastard who gives away nothing, it made sense. Even his ‘generous’ gesture at the play’s end felt like a transaction.

I enjoyed A Song At Twilight very much. The sets at the New Jersey Shakespeare Theatre are always first-rate, and this was no exception. Parts of the play are witty, but the atmosphere of the production is too melancholy to be funny. The characters stay true to themselves, and the ending packs a punch.

An enjoyable night of culture!