Prince of Darkness (1987): written and directed by John Carpenter (writer's credit to 'Martin Quatermass'); starring Donald Pleasence (Priest), Jameson Parker (Brian Marsh), Victor Wong (Professor Birack), Lisa Blount (Catherine Danforth), and Dennis Dun (Walter):
John Carpenter's ode to cosmic horror also nods to Nigel Kneale's quintessential 1950's BBC Quatermass serials that became movies in the 1950's and 1960's, most specifically Quatermass and the Pit, aka Five Million Years to Earth. It's not just the subject matter of Prince of Darkness that cues us to the Quatermass connection. Carpenter adopts the pseudonym 'Martin Quatermass' for the screenplay.
The quantum physics is completely ludicrous if you've done any reading in the subject at all. Especially as we're shown what is supposed to be a graduate class in theoretical physics. But Carpenter is pitching his cosmic horror to a general audience, so we'll give him a pass. I'm not sure I can give him a pass on Jameson Parker's mustache, though, or his character's early, stalkery behaviour. Oh well. We don't always get Kurt Russell as the protagonist of a John Carpenter film. But we should!
Basically, there's a jar of liquid Satan in the basement of an old church in Los Angeles. The last keeper-priest of the church has died. Even the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy has forgotten about the church, the secret order named The Brotherhood of Sleep, and, you know, JAR OF SATAN.
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| JAR OF SATAN |
The great Donald Pleasence, named only 'Priest' in the credits, travels to meet with quantum physicist Victor Wong. The RCC wants scientific proof that the Jar of Satan is actually a Jar of Satan before they proceed with trying to avert the rapidly approaching apocalypse.
Why is the apocalypse coming? Well, the Satan Jar seems to be awake and trying to either escape the jar or reincarnate itself somehow.
Shenanigans ensue over the course of one bad weekend with the Jar of Satan. Certain things are underwhelming, but the underlying pseudo-scientific explanation for evil -- that it was an invading force for another universe -- is suitably cosmic and disturbing.
Kudos also to Carpenter for being here and in other films far ahead of the Hollywood curve in hiring Asian-Americans in non-traditional roles. It's an underlooked trait of his oeuvre. Also, Victor Wong is always hilarious, even when he's explaining Quantum Physics for Dummies. Highly recommended.
Hellraiser: Inferno [Hellraiser 5] (2000): written by Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson; directed by Scott Derrickson; starring Craig Sheffer (Det. Thorn), Nicholas Turturro (Det. Nenonen), James Remar (Dr. Gregory), and Doug Bradey (Pinhead):
Straight-to-video entry in the Hellraiser series is a competent bit of low-budget horror starring Craig Sheffer as a dirty, hard-boiled cop who runs afoul of Pinhead and the Cenobites, who are as akin to the three spirits of A Christmas Carol in this as they are to their normally fetishy, hyperviolent selves.
Writer-director Scott Derrickson would go on to helm Marvel's first Dr. Strange movie. Sheffer is competent. The movie itself was an original script into which Dimension Films (the genre offshoot of Miramax) inserted characters and situations from the Hellraiser universe. It's not terrible, and its dreamier/more nightmarish sections certainly do point towards the mystical shenanigans of Dr. Strange. Lightly recommended.
Hellraiser: Hellworld [Hellraiser 8](2005): written by Joel Soisson and Carl Dupre; directed by Rick Bota; starring Lance Henriksen (The Host), Katheryn Winnick (Chelsea), Christpher Jacot (Jake), Henry Cavill (Mike), and Doug Bradley (Pinhead): An original story into which Dimension Films (the genre offshoot of Miramax) inserted characters and situations from the Hellraiser universe. Katheryn Winnick (Vikings), Lance Henriksen (everything) and Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) headline the cast, though only Henriksen was a known quantity at the time.
This time around, the Hellraiser universe figures in a massively popular, massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Several years after their friend committed suicide 'because of' the game, five friends find themselves with invitations to the annual Hellworld convention, held at some creepy giant house in Los Angeles. Hellraiser is just a game in this movie. Or is it? So of course the remaining friends go to the convention. And everything goes fine!
Of course not. This is a relatively clever entry in the Hellraiser series, even if Henry Cavill's British accent seems to be present in the first scene and absent for the rest of the film. The movie isn't anti-video-games (smart move!). It also wisely, given its low budget, avoids actually showing footage of the fictional game.
Katheryn Winnick is fetching and competent as a character who is intermittently kick-ass. The other four gamers are pretty annoying, which is no fault of the actors. Lance Henriksen exudes morbid, sardonic menace throughout regardless of how goofy his lines get. Surprisingly enjoyable. The last Hellraiser with Doug Bradley as Pinhead. Recommended.
Happy Death Day (2017): written by Scott Lobdell; directed by Christopher Landon; starring Jessica Rothe (Theresa 'Tree' Gelbman), Israel Broussard (Carter Davis), Ruby Modine (Lori), Charles Aitken (Gregory Butler), and Rachel Matthews (Danielle):
Satiric slasher riff on Groundhog Day gradually loses steam towards the end of its eternally returning day of doom for a grumpy sorority girl.
Still, it's a fairly engaging piece of entertainment for most of its length. Part of the reason it bogs down is that it also wants to be a heart-warming tale of someone who learns better, riffing as much on A Christmas Carol as Groundhog Day in this regard. The funniest scene comes as the sorority girl and her new boyfriend discuss Groundhog Day and the films of Bill Murray.
Jessica Rothe does a decent job of making our time-shifted protagonist growingly sympathetic as she tries and fails again and again to avoid her fate. The identity of the killer seems sort of obvious to me, but your results may vary. There's a red herring that feels like it needed another two or three minutes of exposition, or some personal connection to the protagonist that never materializes. It's another Blumhouse horror movie. Are they trying to match the annual horror output of Hammer or AIP back in the 1950's and 1960's? Lightly recommended.
Seven in Heaven (2018): written and directed by Chris Eigeman; starring Travis Tope (Jude), Gary Cole (The Guidance Counselor), Haley Ramm (June), and Clark Backo (Nell): Filmed in Brampton, Ontario! Very slight Blumhouse Joint is less horror movie and more Mirror Universe episode by way of Narnia's magic closet and some risible playing cards. The cast is at least pleasant. Gary Cole wanders through as a Guidance Counselor with mysterious powers. An adequate time-waster for Netflix, but certainly avoidable if you've got something else to watch or do. Very lightly recommended.
Tales from the Miskatonic University Library (2016): edited by Darrell Schweitzer and Jon Ashmead, containing the following stories:
Slowly Ticking Time Bomb by Don Webb
The Third Movement by Adrian Cole
To Be in Ulthar on a Summer Afternoon by Dirk Flinthart
Interlibrary Loan by Harry Turtledove
A Trillion Young by Will Murray
The Paradox Collection by A. C. Wise
The Way to a Man's Heart by Marilyn 'Mattie' Brahen
The White Door by Douglas Wynne
One Small Change by P. D. Cacek
Recall Notice by Alex Shvartsman
The Children's Collection by James Van Pelt
Not in the Card Catalog by Darrell Schweitzer
The Bonfire of the Blasphemies by Robert M. Price
Solid, enjoyable anthology of stories either related to the demon-haunted Special Collection library at Miskatonic University or fictional, forbidden tomes and their dangerous presence on this Earth or any other. Some stories are comic: "Recall Notice" by Alex Shvartsman and "The Way to a Man's Heart" by Marilyn 'Mattie' Brahen are the two most comic-satiric of these.
Some take what initially seems like a comic premise (say, what if H.P. Lovecraft's forbidden uber-tome The Necronomicon were digitized and put on-line?) and exploit it for horrifying rather than comic consequences. The sancrosanct nature of the Interlibrary Loan comes into comic, horrific play; so, too, the problems of hanging onto volumes that don't always feel like being confined to one shelf or one library. And "The Children's Collection" by James Van Pelt strikes a strikingly poignant note about the responsibilities of a librarian in Lovecraft's unusual Massachusetts coastal town of Innsmouth. In all, a lot of fun. Recommended.
Annihilation (2018): adapted for the screen from the Jeff VanderMeer novel and directed by Alex Garland; starring Natalie Portman (Lena), Benedeict Wong (Lomax), Oscar Isaac (Kane), Gina Rodriguez (Anya), Tessa Thompson (Josie), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Dr. Ventress), and Tuva Novotny (Cass): The first half is a slog hallmarked by monotonal performances from the leads, punctuated by occasional bursts of yelling. The second half is better, with some nice creature and production design.
A mysterious alien 'zone' named the Shimmer has enveloped part of the Southern United States. And it's growing. A team of five scientists goes in, other teams having vanished in the year or two the Shimmer has been active. They find a strange zone of mutated and mutating plants and animals. It's very much like H.P. Lovecraft's seminal piece of eco-horror, 1928's "The Colour Out of Space." But with a lighthouse. Lightly recommended.
Mimic (1997): adapted by Matthew Robbins and Guillermo del Toro from the (very) short story by Donald A. Wollheim; directed by Guillermo del Toro; starring Mira Sorvino (Dr. Susan Tyler), Jeremy Northam (Dr. Peter Mann), Alexander Goodwin (Chuy), Giancarlo Giannini (Manny), Charles S. Dutton (Leonard), Josh Brolin (Josh), and F. Murray Abraham (Dr. Gates):
Donald A. Wollheim's very short story "Mimic" simply presented the idea that there were lifeforms humanity wasn't aware of because they'd adapted to hide in the urban landscape. The movie gives humanity the blame for creating these things, albeit for a good cause -- the elimination of a child-killing, cockroach-spread disease in New York through the use of genetically engineered 'Judas Bugs.'
Giving the mimics an origin saps the story of much of its mystery. Guillermo del Toro does a nice job of conjuring up murk and mayhem in the underground vaults and abandoned subway lines of Manhattan. Making the story yet another iteration of Frankenstein, albeit with human-sized insects that can mimic human appearance, eliminates any sense of mystery or the Sublime. It's still a pretty solid piece of action-horror movie-making.
And kudos to del Toro and co-screenwriter Matthew Robbins for addressing the simple fact that a man-sized insect would need lungs to even exist. Mira Sorvino and Jeremy Northam are solid but a little bland as the scientists who are the cause of, and solution to, the problem of man-sized bugs in Manhattan. Lightly recommended.
Ju-On (2002): written and directed by Takashi Shimuzo; starring Megumi Okina (Rika), Misaki Iyo (Hitomi), Misa Uehara (Izumi), and Yui Ichikawa (Chiharu): Itself a sequel to two (!) of the writer-director's similarly titled made-for-TV movies of 2000, Ju-On was remade as The Grudge, a so-so horror movie starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. 'Grudge' may be the least effective translation of a concept from Japanese to English in, like, ever.
The Grudge in this case involves ghosts that murder people over the course of years or even decades whenever those people have the misfortune to encounter these ghosts... or the misfortune to have a family member encounter these ghosts. That's some grudge!
The capricious nature of the supernatural attacks, and the presentation of them as being wholly inexplicable, make Ju-On a success. Some of its tropes have been recycled and parodied nigh onto exhaustion in the years since, but the source still contains the power to shock and disturb. On the other hand, there's a cute ghost cat! On the other other hand, these ghosts can materialize literally anywhere... and they can drag you off to some hellish netherworld! Highly recommended.
Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972): written by Don Houghton; directed by Alan Gibson; starring Peter Cushing (Lorrimer Van Helsing/ Laurence Van Helsing), Christopher Lee (Dracula), Stephanie Beacham (Jessica Van Helsing), Christopher Neame (Johnny Alucard), and Michael Coles (Inspector Murray): We start with an exciting pitched battle between Dracula and his arch-nemesis Van Helsing in 1872 Victorian England. Then we jump to the groovy times of 1972, where a dink with the unlikely name of Johnny Alucard has gotten his friends all hepped up to hold a magical ritual for, you know, kicks. Is Johnny Alucard trying to resurrect Dracula? What do you think?
Any Dracula movie with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in it is going to be watchable. Lee is only on-screen for about ten minutes, leaving the always capable Cushing to do the heavy lifting in a dual role as both the Van Helsing of 1872 and the grandson of Van Helsing in 1972. Stephanie Beacham overcomes the movie's focus on her ample, heaving bosom to deliver a solid performance as Van Helsing's grand-daughter.
As always, though, it's Cushing and Lee we come for, whether in a Dracula movie or some other horror or thriller. They deliver, as always. The opening battle, on top of a runaway carriage, is one of the high points of the series. The scene in which we discover that the running water from a shower head can incapacitate a vampire, not so much. Recommended.
That Is Not Dead: Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Through the Centuries (2015): edited by Darrell Schweitzer, containing the following stories:
- Herald of Chaos by Keith Taylor
- What a Girl Needs by Esther M. Friesner [as by Esther Friesner]
- The Horn of the World's Ending by John Langan
- Monsters in the Mountains at the Edge of the World by Jay Lake
- Come, Follow Me by Darrell Schweitzer
- Ophiuchus by Don Webb
- Of Queens and Pawns by Lois H. Gresh
- Smoking Mirror by Will Murray
- Incident at Ferney by S. T. Joshi
- Anno Domini Azathoth by John R. Fultz
- Slowness by Don Webb
- The Salamanca Encounter by Richard A. Lupoff
- Old Time Entombed by W. H. Pugmire
- Nine Drowned Churches by Harry Turtledove
Fun, often grim collection of Cthulhu Mythos tales spanning about 4500 years and many continents. Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi checks in with a rare piece of fiction, one in which Voltaire must face the Great Old Ones in rural 18th-century France. John Fultz crafts a chilling tale of Azathothian cultists in the Spanish West, Will Murray one of false gods in colonial Mexico, and editor Darrell Schweitzer a disturbing tale of the Pauper's Crusade.
There isn't a lot of comedy here -- really, only Harry Turtledove, Don Webb, and Esther Friesner offer even slightly light-hearted looks at the Cthulhu Mythos. A recurring theme is the destruction of a character's personal faith in the gods of men through exposure to the Truth about who really runs the universe. Dick Lupoff does take this in a different direction than the other tales, to a place more of cosmic wonder than terror. More typical is how an encounter with Azathoth destroys a devout Catholic's faith in John Fultz's story.
John Langan's tale of Roman-era Britain and a curious magical artifact is splendid as well, recalling some of the Roman-era-set dark fantasy of David Drake. "Monsters in the Mountains at the Edge of the World" by Jay Lake pits Romans and the fringes of the Chinese empire against the abominable Mi-Go, while "Herald of Chaos" by Keith Taylor sets Taylor's recurring, dynastic-Egyptian priest of Anubis against Lovecraft's Black Pharaoh, Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, with the fate of the world in the balance.
In all, a highly enjoyable anthology. I even felt like I learned something! Highly recommended.
The Bedlam Detective (2012) by Stephen Gallagher: The second of Stephen Gallagher's Sebastian Becker series, in which Becker investigates whether mentally unstable nobles in Edwardian England should be committed. That's for the Lord Chancellor's Visitor in Lunacy. Seriously. That was a thing.
In The Bedlam Detective, Becker has been sent to the coastal English countryside to investigate and fill a report on the sanity of Sir Owain Lancaster. Lancaster led a disastrous expedition into the Amazon Basin several years previous and then emerged claiming that nearly the entire party was killed by giant monsters. He's a pariah now, but is he crazy?
But as Becker arrives, two girls go missing. Becker, a former Pinkerton, gets involved in the search for the girls right off the train. And then, having proven himself useful to investigating detective Stephen Reed, Becker gets more and more involved in the mystery of the girls, the mystery of Owain Lancaster, the mystery of the monsters... well, a lot of mystery!
Gallagher spikes his novel with lots of intriguing historical details without overloading the reader or getting too far away from the mystery. There's a lot of modern psychology involved -- among other things, Becker's 18-year-old son is a high-functioning autistic savant in a world where the term 'autism' does not exist.
But the mystery of Lancaster is also probed from a psychological POV, often ranging into the possibility of a serial killer and his motivations though the term wouldn't be coined for another 60 years. Gallagher also touches upon Great Britain's Suffragette movement through another major character.
Telling details also include the utterly botched collection of evidence at a crime scene, infuriating Becker, and a marvelous sequence in London with a thick fog having rolled in. Becker's son is sensitively and believably drawn -- autism hasn't given him "super-powers" as is often portrayed in current TV and cinema, but it does allow him to help out on the case because of his intense powers of close analysis and organization.
Everything will dovetail together by the end. An early version of the personal movie camera will play a part. So, too, South American caterpillars and an odd early example of the automobile. There will be tragedy. And maybe even a pay raise for Becker, who desperately needs a new suit and whose office at Bethlehem Hospital is so squalid that he takes all his messages at a meat-pie stand. Highly recommended.
Malevolent (2018): adapted by Ben Ketai and Eva Konstanopoulos from the novel Hush by Eva Konstanopoulos; directed by Olaf de Fleur; starring Florence Pugh (Angela), Ben Lloyd-Hughes (Jackson), Scott Chambers (Elliot), Georgina Bevan (Beth), and Celia Imrie (Mrs. Green):
Solid straight-to-Netflix horror movie about fake paranormal investigators and real ghosts. Hey, didn't Supernatural do that bit years ago? And Stephen Volk's The Awakening? There are probably a few too many jump-scares and not enough set-up, but for the most part the movie plays fair with its ghosts and monsters and psychics real and imaginary.
It also makes surprisingly effective use of the 1958 novelty hit "Beep Beep" (aka "Little Nash Rambler"). Certainly better than most of the Insidious/Sinister/Conjuring movies, though bafflingly set in 1986. Because there weren't any cellphones? That's my best guess. Recommended.
The Craft (1996): written by Peter Filardi and Andrew Fleming; directed by Andrew Fleming; starring Robin Tunney (Sarah Bailey), Fairuza Balk (Nancy), Neve Campbell (Bonnie), Rachel True (Rochelle), Christine Taylor (Laura), and Skeet Ulrich (Chris):
One of those movies about teenagers in which the youngest actor is 21 at the time of filming and the oldest 29. Screenwriter Peter Filardi previously served up the hoohah that was Flatliners (1990). The Craft is better than that, though it's still mostly hoohah when it come to representing this sort of magic.
Well, we don't want the kids at home trying to practice REAL magic, do we? The god 'Manon' who keeps getting name-checked is an invention of Filardi's, possibly just after he saw Manon of the Spring at the local art-house theatre.
The Craft is hilariously afflicted with a terrible slate of cover songs of classic New Wave and 1980's material. This is the most horrifying thing about the movie.
The movie takes full advantage of Fairuza Balk's unusually broad and flexible face, sometimes to cruel extents that suggest she's auditioning to be the next Joker. Robin Tunney is too bland to make an engaging protagonist, but here she is. It's certainly interesting to see any Hollywood movie in which the few male characters are relegated to supporting parts, though. Lightly recommended.
The Dulwich Horror and Others (2015) by David Hambling, containing the following stories: "The Dulwich Horror of 1927," Two Fingers," "The Thing in the Vault," "The Monsters in the Park," "The Devils in the Deep Blue Sea," "The Norwood Builder," and "Shadows of the Witch House."
Excellent collection of innovative yet Old School tales in the Mighty H.P. Lovecraft Manner by way of August Derleth. Hambling sets many of his stories in and around Dulwich, a real suburb of London, England whose name resembles that of Lovecraft's fictional Dunwich, Massachusetts. The most Old School thing, I suppose, is Hambling's homage-oriented titling of his stories, as many play on HPL stories either specifically or in general syntax. Well, and a nod to Sherlock Holmes with "The Norwood Builder."
The stories range from the late 19th century (""The Devils in the Deep Blue Sea," a nod to William Hope Hodgson as well as HPL) to today (the bleakly satiric "Two Fingers," a story about the rich getting what they want regardless of the consequences for everyone else). Several stories share the idea of a secret society working against the Great Old Ones, while three stories form a connected narrative occurring over 11 years ("The Monsters in the Park," "The Dulwich Horror of 1927," and "Shadows of the Witch House"). The last of these also nods to Arthur Machen's seminal, pre-Lovecraftian work of cosmic horror, "The Great God Pan," incidentally one of Stephen King's favourites.
Hambling often spices up his speculations on cosmic horror with contemporary science and physics unavailable to Lovecraft in the 1920's and 1930's. Genetics, epigenetics, stem-cell therapy, quantum entanglement, and astrophysics rub shoulders with Deep Ones, shambling shoggoths, the rugose cones of the Great Race, the mysterious Others, and those lovable, space-faring, brain-collecting fungoid crustaceans the Mi-Go.
While there are deliberate invocations of specific Lovecraft stories in the titles and in the stories themselves (one story ends with a paraphrase of the ending of "The Dunwich Horror," for instance), these are very much Hambling's stories. They use the quasi-documentary narrative approach favoured by Lovecraft while expanding upon it in interesting ways, including a story which criticizes an earlier story in the volume for a lack of truthfulness at certain points.
There aren't any true misfires here. Hambling's greatest strengths lie in his creation of a malevolent, historically specific, British past. That simply means that the present-day stories ("Two Fingers" and "The Norwood Builder") are good but not as engaging as the historical tales. "The Thing In the Vault," playing with literary tropes associated with American hard-boiled detective fiction, also lacks the truthful sense of time and place of the other Britocentric historical stories, though it remains a fun piece of work.
The scientific explanations for certain events in certain stories sometimes gets in the way of the horror. The mysterious Others of HPL's "The Shadow Out of Time" are literalized into pesky sci-fi aliens in "The Monsters In the Park." The Mi-Go in "The Thing In the Vault" come across as a little too dumb to be cosmically menacing. These are minor points really, but they are more reminiscent of August Derleth's attempts to organize and codify Lovecraft's malign cosmos after HPL's death. To quote Ramsey Campbell, sometimes "explanation is the death of horror." But in all, highly recommended.
