The Spooky Season

Tis the spooky season again, and this October has been more fraught with genuine terrors than any in recent memory. We're still three days away from the middle of the month but, so far, the southeastern U.S. has been hit with two devastating hurricanes that have claimed hundreds of lives, left hundreds of others homeless and destroyed billions of dollars worth of property. Meanwhile, the savagery and misery of the war(s) in Gaza and the rest of the Middle East seems unending; it is at the top of every newsfeed and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems disinclined to consider a ceasefire, much less a peaceful resolution. Add to this, the horrific, ongoing spectacle of a glaringly mad DJT ramping up his lies and misinformation in the runup to the 2024 election, and the spooky season takes on a whole new meaning. I am even more worried about the future than I was during the 2020 election--at least there were brave Americans who set up roadblocks to thwart DJT's worst instincts. Now, he's surrounded himself with sycophants and cowardly enablers who only encourage his increasingly dangerous antics. What I don't understand is this: how can the 2024 election still be so close, given all that we have seen and heard from this vile motherfucker? Sorry, I'm not generally prone to using profanity of that kind but I think this wretched creature has more than earned the sobriquet. Oh, and while I'm being honest, I guess I better confess that, yes, I do use that kind of language, quite frequently, in fact, but I won't tell if you won't. At any rate, I will be on pins and needles--like most decent, patriotic Americans--until the election is over and, if there is a God, Kamala Harris is installed as the 47th President of the United States of America.

So, enough with the ranting, you say? Fine, let's dive into the movies we've been watching to escape the real-life carnage of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and DJT and the Neo-Fascist movement he is leading. The movie houses, per usual, aren't offering much in the way of escapist comfort this year. Art the Clown has returned in the third chapter of the Terrifier series, but I don't have the intestinal fortitude to watch him decorating Christmas trees with, well, intestines. From what I understand, the three Terrifier films have had audiences fainting, puking and running for the exits. Not for me, thanks ever so much. Although, to be fair, the films in this series have garnered high praise from film critics and gorehounds alike. Seriously, though, I have to wonder who goes to see shit like this? And what kind of mind comes up with it? Maybe I shouldn't be wondering why the world is going to hell in a handbasket. After all, if movies are a reflection of the times in which they're made, this pretty much nails it.

Personally, I don't see Terrifier as escapist entertainment, but then again, I did watch Saw X the other night, as part of my month-long Halloween mini-film festival. Saw X has also racked up some impressive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but the filmmakers have also amped up the gore. Yep, more intestines on display. Really, what the fuck? The Saw series, as a whole, is notorious for its graphic bloodletting and dismemberment of cast members: the gruesome traps John Kramer & Co. employ to torment their quarry are clever and fascinating in a complicated, Rube Goldberg-esque sort of way. Besides, the victims in the Saw series are depicted as cunning, amoral grifters deserving of their comeuppance. This outing tries to make John Kramer into an antihero to root for but that was a step too far for me, considering all the torture and whatnot he's dished out over the course of 10 movies. To be honest, I liked this series when it was more of a police procedural although I am loathe to admit that I ever liked it at all. 

Much better, I think, is The Abominable Dr. Phibes, a campy black comedy which stars Vincent Price as the horribly disfigured titular doctor who wreaks deadly vengeance on those he deems responsible for his beloved's early demise. And, just so you know, said beloved resides in Phibes's extravagant basement in a state of embalmed bliss. Aided and abetted by glamorous and silent henchwoman, Vulnavia (Virginia North), Phibes inventively dispatches his victims according to the biblical Ten Plagues of Egypt. I suppose Phibes must have been considered fairly grotesque at the time of its release. I remember seeing it at the drive-in when I was 15 or 16-years-old and not being unduly disturbed by it, but then, when you have a carload of teenage boys and two cases of beer, there's not much they're likely to find scary. Except maybe the flashing of red and blue lights in the rearview mirror as you're driving home and trying to stay between the lines. 

My film-festival treats have also included Carl Theodor Dryer's Vampyr, a surrealistic art film/vampire mystery that was made in Germany in 1932. Financed by its star--Julian West who was actually Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg--Vampyr was, initially, not well received by European audiences and wasn't even released in the U.S. until 1934. The movie follows a handsome young student of the occult (West) as he encounters ghosts, a mad doctor, spectral visions, damsels in distress, and a very elderly vampire who seems genderless but is, nonetheless, up to no good. Finally--possibly as late as the 21st century--Vampyr received a reappraisal and is now considered an eerie, elegant classic often commended for its striking visuals and dreamlike style. I like this film a lot although it is atmospheric rather than spooky, and does require a certain amount of patience on the part of the viewer. 

Along the same lines is the 1960 Hammer Films release, Brides of Dracula, which not only does not star Christopher Lee, but has no Dracula in it at all. But, fear not, there is a toothy male vampire wooing all the young ladies in the neighborhood and dispatching them to his lair. This vampire who is not Dracula (and also not Christopher Lee) is blonde and Troy Donahue-ish, which, somehow, lessens his bite, if you know what I mean. He looks like he'd be more at home surfing the waves off southern California. The movie casts Nicole Maurer as a French teacher enroute to her post in the Transylvanian countryside. When she stops at a village inn, she's advised by the superstitious owners to stay away from the forbidding castle on the mountaintop. Immediately, the castle's occupant, a fearsome Baroness, bursts through the door to rescue our heroine from the numb-nutted villagers, the caveat being that the young woman not go near her alluring son, who is, allegedly, mad and chained up in his bedroom. Of course, the first thing the teacher does is carry on a forbidden flirtation with the young man, and the next thing you know she locates a key and releases the vampire from his bondage. She really is a stupid heroine. So, the vampire goes about collecting his brides, while a completely demented housekeeper shrieks and cackles up and down the hallways, and Peter Cushing shows up, once again, as the heroic (and surprisingly athletic) Dr. Van Helsing. This entry into Hammer's Dracula series (there are 9 films) is not nearly as entertaining as its predecessor, Horror of Dracula (or, simply, Dracula in the U.K.) and Christopher Lee's powerful presence is sorely missed, but it was okay for my Halloweeniethon. 

Phantasm is a 1979 horror/sci-fi thriller that features orphaned siblings, a fortune teller, flying metal spheres with daggerlike appendages, killer dwarves, a murderously horny siren, portals to other dimensions, and one of the best movie villains ever to hit the silver screen. I'm talking about The Tall Man here, that baleful, inhuman undertaker who is ever ready to add the recently departed (and soon-to-be-departed) to the creepy collection in his mausoleum. The exquisitely named Angus Scrimm plays the Tall Man with such obvious relish that it's hard to be scared of the unsettling goings-on when he's onscreen; he has too much fun playing the gender-swapping, interdimensional badass with a dastardly plot to--well, I'm not sure what. I've seen this movie 4 times and I'm not exactly certain why the Tall Man does what he does. The whole film employs dream logic, anyway, so it doesn't really matter that Phantasm doesn't make much sense. I love it in spite of that. Or maybe because of it.

Much less beloved by me is Robert Egger's 2015 occult/folk-horror thriller, The Witch. I'd seen it before but all I remembered was the gorgeous, terrifying, Goya-esque imagery and the fact that I hadn't cared much for it. Set in 1600's Massachusetts, The Witch finds a puritan family being cast out of their community and forced to fend for themselves in a remote clearing next to a forest. First of all, fools, you never go near a forest if you're in a horror movie. There are things in the forest and they will visit all sorts of unholiness on you and your loved ones if you venture far from the house (in this case, a dilapidated, handmade shack that barely keeps the cold out of those long New England winters). The parents (Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie) are religious zealots and every bit as off-putting as Margaret White (you know, from Carrie) so its hard to root for them. The eldest child, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), is sly and rebellious, so you know that, eventually, the parents will turn on her and cast her as the witch. There are a brood of other children and sometimes it's hard to keep them straight. There's also an enormous black goat with weird eyes that lurks in the farmyard, waiting for nightfall. A few minutes into the movie, the family's newborn disappears from Thomasin's care as they play near the forest, and things get bleak. Quickly. The Witch's brooding, unnerving atmosphere of impending doom does an effective job keeping viewers on edge, and its imagery and relentlessly downbeat goings-on are deeply disturbing. I think maybe I don't like this film because it works too well. Like many viewers, I watch horror films for a cathartic experience, but The Witch offers no such thing. There is no humor, there is no warmth. It is, decidedly, not fun. 

And, finally, there is It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! What can I say about this seasonal classic? I love it more than I can put into words. Not at all a fright film, and, in fact, not a film at all, Great Pumpkin is 25 minutes of sheer nirvana! Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Sally, Pigpen, Schroeder are still instantly recognizable, 70+ years after cartoonist Charles Schulz first created Peanuts and sold the comic strip for syndication. Great Pumpkin, first broadcast on CBS in 1966, followed hot on the heels of A Charlie Brown Christmas, which was also directed by Bill Melendez, and released just one year earlier. Great Pumpkin finds the luckless Charlie Brown at his Charlie Browniest. The rest of the kids are equally endearing, and Snoopy almost steals the show pretending to be the Red Baron defending his doghouse in an imaginary battle. It's wonderfully funny but, like most moments in the Charlie Brown canon, underscored with philosophical musings and psychological insights that have a level of profundity (and maturity) lacking in most comics marketed to kids (especially in the 1960's). Of course, since kids will be kids, there is the excitement of childhood when Linus waits patiently in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin to magically appear, and Charlie Brown's joy when he receives an unexpected Halloween party invitation. There's also the blustering queen of this kingdom of kids, the loud and loquacious Lucy, who brags and bullies and is a force Charlie Brown constantly reckons with. And poor Charlie Brown, himself, gets rocks in his trick-or-treat bag instead of candy. Oh, the agonies and delights of childhood were never captured with such wit and charm. A few years ago, I purchased all the Charlie Brown specials on DVD because Apple-Fucking-+ acquired the rights to air them and now you have to pay in order to watch them. After being FREE for kids of all ages from 1966-2020! I watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! last night and it was all I could do to keep myself from watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, which I am trying to save until the appropriate season arrives. I drifted off to sleep with Vince Guaraldi's fabulous score playing in my head. 

There were other Halloween-themed films I've seen this month and there will be more to come, but I just don't have time to discuss them all here. Which does not mean that the subject of scary movies has ended for the month. It's the spooky season for the next 19 days so I'm sure there's lots more to talk about. And, of course, there's the blithering idiocy of DJT who, like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, never goes away. So, unfortunately, there's also that.