Halloween Horror Marathon 2023

[AndyDursin]

THE HAUNTED MANSION (2023)
3/10

What an absolute trainwreck of a movie.

One of those films where you just know a film's original script had to have been far different than what ended up on-screen, this worked-over, completely unappealing second attempt by Disney to adapt the beloved Magic Kingdom ride to the big-screen ends up an even bigger bust than their first stab: a similarly charmless, but at least more coherent, Eddie Murphy vehicle from 20 years ago.

This "Mansion" is so fragmented there are numerous times in the film where scenes that had to have been shot establishing characters and their placement in the story were clearly excised, as several times my wife and I asked one another "how does this character even know this person". Also excised must've been the laughs from Katie Dippold's script, which thinks it's being "cute" (references to Costco and Amazon!) and is overstuffed with so many lead characters that you're never able to latch onto any of them. We get LaKeith Stanfield as a brooding former astrophysicist who misses his late wife; Rosario Dawson, for some reason dressed like it's the 1960s (and has no chemistry with anyone), and her scared little boy (who disappears for so long you forget he's in the film); Danny DeVito as a completely unfunny college professor; Tiffany Haddish as a completely unfunny incompetent/competent physic (the movie never seems sure which way to go); Owen Wilson as a shady priest; and Jamie Lee Curtis as the fan-favorite "Madame Leota" (Jennifer Tilly did it better back in the 2003 movie).

The movie's pacing is completely off, with scenes being condensed at times into obvious (and multiple!) montages to explain story elements that want to make this a comical variation on THE HAUNTING -- but it all ends up a mess with an ensemble so unmanageable that you can only surmise studio executives and focus groups presided over test screenings and reshoots (I neglected to mention Jared Leto's "contribution" as the big bad ghost at the center of the haunting, plus laugh-free cameos by Winona Ryder and Dan Levy).

Meanwhile, director Justin Simien's film even fumbles what should've been fun references to the ride itself, which in its 10 or so minutes of attraction time is infinitely more fun and memorable than this disaster.

[BobaMike]

I agree Andy, Haunted Mansion sucked. I actually preferred the Eddie Murphy one by a large margin. That one looked like some money was spent, this one just looked cheap. My son said he liked it, but to me it needed to either be a LOT funnier or a LOT scarier. And I noticed the same thing about how characters knew each other....the Danny DeVito character came out of nowhere. It was very similar to The Haunting (also starring Owen Wilson!), but the "rules" of the ghosts made no sense.

I did like how it utilized more aspects of the ride such as the hatbox ghost,and that it included the famous song in the score, but overall, a complete misfire.

[Monterey Jack]

Haunted Mansion also looked ugly as sin. I watched it the same day I saw Hocus Pocus on the big screen, and despite how silly the latter movie is, it looked like a Kubrick film in comparison. Was it the switchover to digital cameras that made cinematographers forget how to properly light nighttime scenes, or what?

[Paul MacLean]

Dracula (1979) -- German Blu-ray (8.5/10)

This is still the greatest adaptation of Bram Stoker's book -- and certainly the most uptown, with some of the all-time most talented people in cinema on hand to contribute. Frank Langella's remains the best and most believable interpretation of the Count Dracula, and he manages to render the title role understandable, charismatic -- even sympathetic -- yet all the same a monster whose comeuppance is ultimately deserved. It is this level of character nuance that is the most impressive aspect of the film.

I often find when commenting on a John Williams score I'm temped to say it "is one of his best" -- but he's written so many great scores, it's often hard to praise one at the expense of others. Dracula however is not only among the greatest John Williams scores, it is also one of his most unique. Williams has long-been the champion of optimistic heroism, but he had the opportunity to create something dark, macabre and gothic -- and he didn't disappoint. I only wish he'd had the chance to score more films of this type.

The German Blu-ray of this film is, so far, the best-looking if you ask me -- retaining the moody, expressionistic high-contrast quality of the "de-saturated" version of the film, but with enough color to liven things up. Here's hoping for a UHD release of this version!

[Monterey Jack]

-Girl Gone Bad (2023): 3/10



Alison Thornton plays Samantha, who, when her mother is set to travel out of town, sets up a tryst with her galpal Amanda (Mya Lowe) only to be violently attacked in her home by a masked intruder, Ron (Alex Zahara). Samantha manages to best the intruder and ties him to a chair...but when Samantha checks the last picture the absent Amanda texted to her -- and discovers Ron standing behind her, ax poised to strike -- any thought of simply handing Ron over to the police evaporates, as she digs deep into a wellspring of anger and looks to carve out a little frontier justice with her defiant captive.

A poor-man's Hard Candy, Girl Gone Bad is typical of the kind of low-budget horror stuff that floods streaming services every October, with indifferent acting, mediocre gore effects, a lack of tension and a story that seems padded even at 90 minutes.

[Monterey Jack]

-Night Of The Creeps (1986): 8/10



Jason Lively plays Chris Romero, a college student who falls hard for Cynthia Cronenberg (the incredibly lovely Jill Whitlow) and is goaded into pursuing her by wisecracking wingman James Carpenter-Hooper (Steve Marshall), but finds his pursuit of Cynthia foiled by alien slugs from outer space, who escape from a cadaver kept on ice since 1959 and start infecting the local fraternity populace, turning them into shambling zombies. It's up to the trio, along with hardboiled detective Ray Cameron (80s genre favorite Tom Atkins), to repel the slimy horde of slugs and save humanity.

Writer/director Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad) has a great deal of affection for the horror genre (as astute readers will glean from all of those familiar character surnames), and Night Of The Creeps is consistently fun, with ooky gross-outs, moldering cadavers and a surplus of humor making the film's bloodletting go down easily. Atkins, in particular, is a gas as the alcoholic Det. Cameron, who was there in '59 when the alien slugs inhabited their first serial-killer host and is looking for a little payback. Thrill me...!

[AndyDursin]

This is still the greatest adaptation of Bram Stoker's book -- and certainly the most uptown, with some of the all-time most talented people in cinema on hand to contribute. Frank Langella's remains the best and most believable interpretation of the Count Dracula, and he manages to render the title role understandable, charismatic -- even sympathetic -- yet all the same a monster whose comeuppance is ultimately deserved. It is this level of character nuance that is the most impressive aspect of the film.

The German Blu-ray of this film is, so far, the best-looking if you ask me -- retaining the moody, expressionistic high-contrast quality of the "de-saturated" version of the film, but with enough color to liven things up. Here's hoping for a UHD release of this version!

I love the description "uptown" -- because it is. And I love the performances and also the way W.D. Richter wrote the characters.

Lucy is very headstrong and teases Harker without being head over heels in love with him; one almost feels he's out to save her from her fate because he cares about her more than actually desires her. Either way it's a decidedly different, and more complicated, reading of these roles compared to the usual "damsel in distress" or the way Dracula's female victims typically fall for him. (The one thing it seems to miss is Lucy's acknowledgment of Mina's fate or a scene where she divulges some sense of loss for her. Turns out there was a deleted scene where Lucy finds Mina in the cave, a still of which is in the magazine I list below).

Langella's performance is sensual, sympathetic, but also forceful in its depiction that he's still a monster and will not be stopped. I wish I could've seen his stage portrayal that led to his casting and seemingly this movie's very existence.

2 things I have to recommend:

This 2016 magazine issue of "Little Shoppe of Horrors" is an in-depth, Cinefantastique-level behind the scenes production history of the 1979 DRACULA with LOADS of interviews and extensive coverage of the movie plus the play and Langella's association of it beforehand. John Williams was among the interviewees I believe. There will never be a more definitive look at the making of this movie -- IMO it's well worth the $20 (and it's on Amazon!).



There's a hardcover reissue coming at some point (they're doing another printing of it):



The German "Cinema Edition" Blu-Ray with the "adjusted" Badham re-coloring is still in-print also:

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Frank-Langel ... 134&sr=8-1

[Monterey Jack]

"Yes, dead, I love...dead..."

-Frankenstein (1931): 9/10

-Evil Dead Rise (2023): 8.5/10





Reanimated cadavers are the order of the day. 1931's Frankenstein remains the definitive adaptation of Mary Shelley's oft-adapted gothic horror novel, the tale of mad scientist Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his ultimately successful attempts to breathe life into a body stitched together from various sources. His woeful creation (played by Boris Karloff) -- with its iconic makeup design by Jack Pierce -- is an image that remains burned on the cornea of pop culture for the last 92 years, and understandable so. Karloff takes a role that could have been nothing more than "Makeup and grunting!" (to quote Martin Landau's dismissive Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's Ed Wood) and imbues it with real heft and soul, making Frankenstein's shambling creation at turns pitiable and frightening. Director James Whale gets a great deal of credit for establishing every cinematic cliche associated with the Frankenstein myth that's been in use for decades, everywhere from Kenneth Branagh's ambitious Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to boxes of Frankenberry cereal that infest supermarkets every October. It's still a marvelous film, despite all of the sequels and imitators over the years.

Meanwhile, Evil Dead Rise takes Sam Raimi's evergreen horror franchise and brings it out of the obligatory moldering cabin in the woods, replacing it with a...moldering, soon-to-be-razed L.A. apartment complex, where an earthquake unearths a bank vault hidden underneath the parking structure. Three siblings (Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols and Nell Fisher) explore it, find the obligatory book full of graphic illustrations and dire warnings, and a series of phonograph records that, when played, unleash foul spirits that possess the family (including mom Alyssa Sutherland) and aunt (Lily Sullivan) and other tenants and turn them into violent, rage-fueled demons.

While not quite on the level of Fede Alvarez's supercharged 2013 remake of Sam Raimi's trendsetting 1983 classic, Evil Dead Rise (scripted and directed by Lee Cronin) is nevertheless true to the series' antic, gory mission statement, flooding the senses with plentiful and inventive gore gags, immersive sound design and aggressive camera virtuosity. No polite "elevated horror" this...this is old-school, splatterific, and consistently gross, with performances that maintain a fever pitch of disbelieving intensity throughout. After five entries (and the surprisingly good TV series Ash vs. Evil Dead), the Evil Dead and its various sequels and remakes remain arguably the most consistent horror franchise of all time, and fans will eat this up.

[Monterey Jack]

-Alligator (1980): 8/10

-Crawl (2019): 8/10





Reptiles rampage through today's terroristic twofer. Alligator concerns a baby 'gator flushed down the toilet, who feasts upon the corpses of laboratory animals given experimental growth hormones and illegally dumped in the sewers. Soon, he's a 36-foot critter who's no longer content with leftovers, and starts to nosh on the terrified populace of Los Angeles, leading a detective (Robert Forster) and a reptile enthusiast of a scientist (Robin Riker) to put their heads together and a find a way to stop the scale reign of terror.

Director Lewis Teague makes good use of a mixture of a well-articulated animatronic 'gator and regular-sized ones on miniature sets to create some bloody horror sequences (including a beaut where the 'gator turns an outdoor wedding reception into a rolling buffet line), while screenwriter John Sayles (in his "schlock horror" phase, including the forthcoming Joe Dante werewolf flick The Howling) studs the movie with winking in-jokes (check that graffiti...) and amusing supporting turns from Sidney Lassick as a pet store owner who kidnaps dogs to sell to the lab and Henry Silva as a Great White Hunter who meets his match. Stephen King was impressed enough with the movie to suggest Teague replace Peter Medak on the adaptation of his novel Cujo after he was let go of the project just a few days into filming.

Meanwhile, in Crawl, Kaya Scodelario plays Haley Keller, who drives into the heart of a hurricane in order to check up on her father Dave (Barry Pepper), who's been renovating his for-sale Florida home following the failure of his marriage. Haley finds him in the basement, where he's unconscious after an animal bite, but soon both are trapped there by a pair of ravenous alligators (who escaped from a nearby 'gator farm when the flood waters overspilled their enclosures), and as the water keeps rising, they're forced into a direct confrontation with the aquatic predators or else face drowning by inches.

Director Alexandre Aja (who had so much fun with his sicko remake of Joe Dante's Piranha) generates palpable suspense with the film's damp, dimly-lit interiors as the storm continues to rage outside (with super sound design). Scodelario and Pepper make for a winning pair -- they're easy to root for as they frantically try to improvise a way out of the rapidly-contracting box they've been put into -- and the computer-generated 'gators are feral and scary (making lunch out of investigating police boats and unwary looters along the way) as they snap and growl and lash their tails around like serrated bullwhips. It's all capped off with an inspired choice for an end title song.

[Monterey Jack]

Poison, drowning, claw or knife. So many ways to take a life...

-Trick 'r Treat (2009): 9/10



Capping off another season's worth of ghouls 'n goblins with writer/director Michael Dougherty's delightful horror anthology, brimming over with prankish fun. A fun-sized selection of horror tales that overlap and intersect with Tarantino-style cleverness (it's the kind of movie that ends and you feel, "This is where I came in..."), it features such fiendish frights as a quartet of mean kids who play a nasty prank on the local "retard" only to find the town legend they utilize and embellish turns out to be far too real, a virginal young woman (Anna Paquin) who plays out a new riff on Little Red Riding Hood, a homicidal school principal (Dylan Baker) looking to carve out some fresh victims and a Halloween-hating curmudgeon (Brian Cox) who finds himself tormented by a nasty l'il imp named Sam, with a burlap-sack head with beady button eyes and sporting a serrated lollipop just right for slashing a few throats.

This is a movie that's deeply in love with the season, filling the frame with grimacing Jack 'O Lanterns, colorful leaves, elaborate costumes and dirty sacks stuffed with sweet treats, and Dougherty finds the right balance of mirth and menace, never tipping over too far in either direction (it earns its R rating without being unnecessarily gross or unpleasant) and giving each storyline a proper conclusion where those who go against the "rules" of Halloween get their just and ironic comeuppance. And it's brimming with terrific "old-school" makeup and creature F/X (and shot on gorgeously grainy celluloid). It's a shame it never received a wide theatrical release (getting dumped direct-to-DVD in 2009), yet this Trick is a real Treat for those who adore this time of year as I do. And remember...always check your candy.

[Monterey Jack]

*Sigh*, it's over...

[AndyDursin]

A job well done, as usual MJ.

Seemed like a short season. Certainly is a short run to Thanksgiving, just 3 weeks from tomorrow!

[AndyDursin]

Forgot HALLOWEEN II opened the day before Halloween back in 1981

Didn't hurt its box-office whatsoever either as it made most of its money afterwards.