31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014-Day 14: THE GRUESOME TWOSOME (1967)

Rodney goes to work.

Was there ever a more unashamedly pure exponent of the horror movie as gross-out forum than Herschell Gordon Lewis? As a director, Lewis blazed the trail of graphic cinematic gore beginning in the early 1960's with such genre-codifying "classics" as BLOOD FEAST (1963) and TWO THOUSAND MANIACS! (1964), followed by subsequent lesser efforts, and without such an intention Lewis kicked down the doors of what was allowable to be depicted on-screen. In many ways, Lewis's works can be seen as the horror equivalent to hardcore pornography; every bit as visually shoddy and cheap, only with its visceral punch derived was swaths of goopy red rather than glistening pink. The man's movies wielded budgets that wouldn't buy a decent lunch from McDonald's, coupled with amateur hour acting, sound quality that brought to mind the acoustics of a junior high school play, and the most rudimentary of scripts, so the end product was always something of a mess. In short, Lewis's movies were never good, suspenseful, or even the slightest bit scary, but being good or presenting their horrors with artistry or subtlety was never their point. Their goal was to turn grindhouse and drive-in screens into charnel houses, bringing audiences the kind of up-close-and-personal blood and guts that Hollywood simply would not tarnish itself by providing (or rather at least not at that point in cinema history), and in that respect they were a resounding success. As long as the audience was happy to shell out their hard-earned cash to see drippy, glistening gore by the bucketful, artistry could go fuck itself in the ear.

Clocking in at a relatively brief/merciful seventy-two minutes (four of which come from a ludicrous opening bit in which two wigs have a conversation that amounts to nothing but padding) THE GRUESOME TWOSOME can succinctly be summed up as "Nancy Drew meets Jack the Ripper," only with the murderer's signature schtick being the forcible removal of young women's scalps as opposed to their viscera (though we do get treated to an ultra-fake evisceration). There's really nothing to it other than a college coed (Gretchen Wells) doing some sub-SCOOBY-DOO investigating of the disappearances of some of her fellow female students, all of whom have fallen victim to the demented Mrs. Pringle (Elizabeth Davis) and her simpleton son, Rodney (Chris Martell), who kills the young women and re-purposes their fresh scalps as stock for his mom's wig business. The celluloid equivalent to one of the lesser E.C. Comics efforts, all this movie cares about is the camera lingering in loving closeup upon the gory goings-on, with nary a thought in its mind for anything that could fairly be called a story, and when the nasty stuff isn't going on the audience is subjected to long stretches of un-interesting and surprisingly tame moments in collegiate life.

Though the film is never boring, per se, it does test the viewer's patience with its overall mediocrity and a lengthy sequence in which our daring amateur sleuth trails the college's janitor while incorrectly assuming he's the murderer, a plot contrivance made more annoying because we know for a fact that he's not the killer. There's also yet more padding with a ridiculous drive-in movie sequence in which a couple shares a romantic meal of potato chips, fruit, and beer while spouting insipid stock soap opera dialogue that has to be seen to be believed. All of this is accented with stock music, bad editing, and that queasy look that marks Lewis's body of work, and all save for the most ravenous of gorehounds will feel gypped since all we end up with is a scalping, a beheading, an ultra-fake evisceration, and a stabbing to the eye, all of which look like the effects could have been achieved in your mom's kitchen. But when all is said and done, an undeniable sense of self-aware humor is involved here, one that knows in no uncertain terms that this is the horror movie at its most base level and it aspires to be nothing more than that. It may not be pretty, but at least it's honest.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014-Day 13: THE BROOD (1979)

Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) becomes concerned that his deeply-disturbed and institutionalized wife, Nola (Samantha Eggar), has been abusing their five-year-old daughter, and his investigation into the situation unexpectedly takes him down a path of family dysfunction rendered utterly nightmarish. While under the care of radical psychotherapist Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed), Nola has been encouraged to work out her rage over her abused childhood via a new technique called "Psychoplasmics," by which the negative emotions are exorcised in the form of physical manifestations such as lesions or polyps, and in Nola's case the process has worked in unforeseen ways. To say much more would be to blow a truly disturbing reveal, so let it suffice to say that if you think your family is fucked-up and dysfunctional, you really need to shut your pie hole...

Canadian director David Cronenberg has built himself a signature niche in the annals of scary cinema by focusing on "body horror," and THE BROOD may just be the prime example of that specific flavor in the auteur's works. I find body horror to be a particularly interesting area of dark cinema because although man has mapped the human mind and body to a considerable degree, there is still much that we do not know or understand, and from there one can derive a wellspring of sheer horror that all members of the audience can relate to. In the case of THE BROOD, we are handed dire ruminations upon the trust we impart to our doctors (whether they have truly earned it or not), emotional and physical abuse within the family unit, anger management, the fragility of marriage and home life when stacked against mental illness, and the gory and revulsive aspects of the all-too-animal act of birth, so there is much to absorb and ponder in what some might dismiss as a simple shocker from the cold and sometimes remote Great White North.

Don't ask. No, seriously. Just don't.

It's a slow-build but THE BROOD is tense, uncomfortable, and creepy as a motherfucker, so don't approach it looking for a simple "BOO!" of a horror film. Cronenberg swims in very dark and personal waters here, so be prepared for its serious downer vibe.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014-Day 12: THE CITY OF THE DEAD 1960)

A note of clarification: That "X" rating seen on this poster is the long-standing British equivalent to our homegrown "R" and should not be taken as an indicator of pornographic content. Back in the days the British censors slapped an X onto anything that could be considered even remotely objectionable, so it was not a surefire guarantee of graphic sex, nudity, violence, or gore. In fact, there is nothing in this film that would have garnered it anything more severe than a "PG" at worst.

Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson), a young student of occult history, makes the grave error of taking the advice of her rather sinister professor, Alan Driscoll (Christopher Lee), and traveling to Whitewood, Massachusetts to study its history of witchcraft that dates back by three centuries. Upon her arrival in Whitewood, which happens to be one of the eeriest places imaginable, Nan encounters a population of creepy, odd-acting locals and ends up in the crosshairs of innkeeper Mrs. Newless (Patricia Jessel). Newless is in actuality the current incarnation of Elizabeth Selwyn, an immortal, in-league-with-Satan witch who heads the local coven (which consists of damned near everyone in town), and with a virgin sacrifice required to keep her eternal life going, Newless has earmarked Nan as the sacrificial lamb of choice. When weeks pass and Nan does not return from her research trip, her disappearance is investigated by a number of concerned parties who all flock straight to Whitewood for a confrontation with the literally diabolical.

The totally non-creepy streets of Whitewood.

Released in the States as HORROR HOTEL — a lame title that does not in any way suggest what a gem this semi-forgotten effort is — this is one of the earliest horror movies I remember seeing on TV when I was very little (maybe four or five years old) and was also my very first movie about sinister modern-day witches, which resulted in them numbering among my favorite villainous horror archetypes. Newless and her coven are all of the witchery tropes that one can name, transplanted to a mundane 20th century setting, which brings their evil magickal doings into direct conflict with the skepticism of a supposedly more enlightened age.

Newless and Driscoll: In league with Satan!!!

While ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) is perhaps the codifying example of the modern-day witchcraft movie, THE CITY OF THE DEAD is totally worth checking out for its dark doings at the dawn of the 1960's, a soon-to-be-turbulent period that made one forget the previous decade's squeaky-clean fantasies of a suburban America defined by LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and FATHER KNOWS BEST. It should also be noted that THE CITY OF THE DEAD bears similarities to PSYCHO (which came out the same year), specifically the presumed protagonist meeting a nasty demise at the wrong end of a knife less than halfway through the movie and a number of people who go to the scene of the crime to investigate and find a very fucked up situation. PSYCHO and THE CITY OF THE DEAD could not be more different in approach, but it's neat to see two horror flicks produced in different countries and cultures tap into the same vein of "wrong place, wrong time" fear.

Poster for the original U.S. release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014-Day 11: BLACULA (1972)

Transylvania, 1780: African prince Mamuwalde (William Marshall) and his wife, Luva (Vonetta McGee), pay a visit to Count Dracula in a bid to entice him to help put an end to the slave trade, but the pair are apparently unaware that their host is the infamous lord of vampires and things predictably turn out quite badly for them. As the Count proclaims his lust for Luva's fine chocolate beauty while also refusing to lend his aid against slavery, Mamuwalde is cursed by Dracula to become a ravening vampire who will forevermore be known as "Blacula," thus arrogantly robbing the prince of his name along with his humanity. 

"...And not only do I curse you for eternity with vampirism, I also rename you after myself, so you are now 'Blacula!' Fuck you, nigger!!! Haw-Haw!!!" (NOTE: This is basically what actually happens.)

While his wife is taken prisoner to presumably become one of the Count's undead brides, Mamuwalde is sealed inside a coffin for nearly 200 years — during which time his wife dies and Count Dracula meets his end in a much more well-known story — only to find the coffin (and thus himself) sold as part of an estate sale that lands his prison in Los Angeles of 1972. Once the coffin is opened, Blacula wastes zero time and launches upon a spree of murder that results in a wave of ancillary undead suckfaces that comes to the attention of the local authorities, who slowly, unbelievingly come to realize that vampires are not merely a legend. As the vampire population explodes, Mamuwalde encounters Tina Williams (Vonetta McGee again), a ringer for his dead wife, so he figures it's a case of reincarnation and sets about trying to win her affections. As the 20th century collides head-on with European nosferatu tropes as flavored with blaxploitation badassery, will it all end well for any of those involved?

It all sure as hell ended well for American International Pictures, which wound up with one of the highest grossing films of 1972. Unlikely as it may have seemed, BLACULA was pretty much destined to be a hit thanks to being the right kind of movie at the right time, plus it was a much better than average example of the early blaxploitation wave. It had a good script, solid direction from William Crain (who was only 24 when the film was released), and, the true key to its success, the indelible performance of William Marshall in the title role. Marshall was simultaneously regal, sinister and terrifying, and downright sympathetic in Mamuwalde's non-sanguinary moments. His classy bearing lent Mamuwalde the perfect Shakespearean gravitas that served as an intriguing counterpoint to the era's funky tropes and SOUL TRAIN aesthetic. Though his widow's peak Afro and stylish cape may have suggested "the Mack meets Barnabas Collins," Blacula was an aristocratic stone-cold monster to the bone and, finally, a lord of the undead that black kids could portray on Halloween without having to resort to pancake foundation.

William Marshall as Mamuwalde, giving new meaning to the term "Lord of Darkness."

I was only seven when BLACULA opened and I remember myself and my family being highly amused by the idea and name. "Blacula" sounded like a character that Flip Wilson or Richard Pryor would have come up with, a comedic template upon which to hang gags like the vampire being warded off by brandishing a Pat Boone LP at him or having him sucking life-sustaining fluids from watermelons with his fangs, but the filmmakers instead wisely chose to eschew such obvious silliness (though Pryor could have worked magic with it, and kind of did with his later standup bit about Dracula) and instead brought the audience a new take on the vampire. It's not easy to pull off the gothic appeal of the vampire in a modern setting but BLACULA (and its exceptional made-for-TV contemporary, THE NIGHT STALKER) did it to quality effect that holds up quite well and was followed a year later by SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM, but that's a subject for another day...

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014-Day 10: BLACK ZOO (1963)

Eccentric private zoo owner Michael Conrad (Michael Gough) wants nothing more from life than to show off his menagerie of beautiful jungle animals and to care for them with more love than he shows to his own flesh and blood, but when his zoo is threatened by a developer who seeks to buy him out, it's time to open the cages and unleash a pack of loyal, well-trained killers...

Conrad's idea of what's acceptable in the living room.

There's just something that's so much fun about urbane British folks when they go stark raving mad, and Michael Gough really brings down the house as the homicidally-looney, animal-fancying Conrad. And as if it weren't enough that the guy has a decent number of big cats and other critters that are all too happy to maul and devour his enemies on command while being scenery-chewingly-abusive to his long-suffering wife and also to Carl, a mute teen who serves as his assistant, he's also a member in good standing of a secret cult of animal-worshippers!

The Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes this ain't.

BLACK ZOO is not a great movie by any means, but it definitely delivers when it comes to lurid, sleazy thrills that seem even more tacky and offensive due to their vintage and Britishness. It's a fun way to kill some viewing time, plus it just might traumatize the shit out of your younger kids if you opt to sit them through it. Hey, if you, their parents, aren;t going to take an active hand in the ruination of your own wee ones, who the hell else would you entrust with that vital developmental task?

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014-Day 9: THE SHINING (1980)

Okay, I'm about to commit what amounts to horror movie fan heresy, so I'd better stop pussying around and just come right out with it.

I don't like THE SHINING.

Well, actually, if I'm being fully honest here, it's not as simple as a case of cut-and-dried dislike. THE SHINING confuses my feelings about it like few other films, and it's not for lack of me trying to "get" why it's considered such a big deal. I love a large number of Stephen King's novels, especially those from his first decade of output (THE SHINING was King's third published novel and first hardcover best-seller), and I also enjoy the majority of films by Stanley Kubrick, so one would think that Kubrick's adaptation of one of King's most well-regarded early works would yield an embarrassment of riches for me. Instead, what I got was too much of Kubrick and not enough of what made King's novel such an indelible work.

The story deals with the dire events that transpire when the Torrence family takes up residence at the remote Overlook hotel during the off-season, so recovering abusive alcoholic patriarch Jack (Jack Nicholson) can serve as paid caretaker while getting some writing done. With wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and psychic son Danny (Danny Lloyd) along for the months-long seclusion, things gradually build to a slow, supernatural boil as the dark spirits that infest the Overlook become visible to young Danny and work an insidious influence upon Jack. Before things turn grim, Jack is told of Grady, a previous caretaker who went stir crazy while snowbound in the hotel and horribly axe-murdered his wife and daughters before committing suicide, and young Danny is given some serious warnings about the Overlook by Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), the hotel's cook, who is himself psychic/telepathic and lets Danny know that there are others like them in the world, people who possess a gift called "the Shine." However, once everyone else clears out, it's just the Torrences and a hotel full of evil and disturbing spooks. Couple those elements with Jack's increasing instability and anger, plus his periodic trips back in time to a lavish party held in the hotel back in 1921 where he is steered by the spectre of Grady (Phillip Stone) down an inexorable path toward homicide.

Just two of the spirits that haunt the Overlook.

As experienced on the written page, THE SHINING may not really be filmable in a way that would preserve the book's palpable eeriness. It's a major work of unsettling mood, a good deal of which Kubrick manages to capture, but there's a certain undefinable...something to it that got lost in the translation to the big screen. Part of the problem may also be in Kubrick's patented approach, which stresses visual aesthetics over emotion that allows the audience to connect with the characters, and in the case of THE SHINING damned near all of the characters tend to come of as bland ciphers. Either that, or they're simply buried beneath Jack Nicholson's slow-building eventual full-tilt into madness. Up to this point in his career, Nicholson proved himself a compelling and believable screen presence who managed a finely-tuned balancing act that walked the tightrope between the everyman and the barking lunatic, and it was with THE SHINING that his madman tropes were carved in stone for all time. Once Torrence loses his mind, Nicholson's performance becomes a study in waaaaay over-the-top cartoonish insanity that goes so overboard that it comes back around to being creepily realistic. However, once the movie is over and the performance is given time to be fully considered and absorbed, what is terrifying in the moment morphs into burlesque caricature. More than three decades after the fact, Nicholson's "Here's Johnny" and other histrionics as Jack Torrence have entered the popular lexicon as punchlines or half-baked, annoying imitations hauled out by hack comedians or one's drunk uncle at a family get-together. It's fucking legendary, but no longer for the reasons that it should be considered as such. Jack Torrence might be where Nicholson stopped really bothering to act and from there on pretty much rehashed that character for most of the rest of his career, no matter how inappropriate such an approach may be.

Nicholson as Jack Torrence. 

But allow me to say some positive things about this film. It is undeniably high on the creep factor, with the silence of the empty hotel bordering on deafening, and the snowbound location's desolation and the havoc it can wreak lending weight to what can be read as a study of a marriage's disintegration, spurred by a husband's alcohol-fueled anger and the diabolical influence of the haints that infest the Overlook. And whatever else one may have to say about THE SHINING, there's no denying its visual beauty. Its signature Kubrickian sterility, that pristineness of aesthetic that marks nearly all of the director's work, is in full force, and its innovative Steadicam sequences help place the audience deep within its simultaneously spacious and claustrophobic cinematic nightmare-scape.

THE SHINING is a classic of the horror genre that divides audiences like few others, with some hailing it as "the greatest horror film ever made" while others, myself among them, consider it somewhat overlong, soulless, and dull, with the majority of the performances seeming like they're coming from animatronic manikins, but at least the story goes somewhere. Individual mileage may vary, but it's a film that definitely should be seen by all serious horror fans at least once, if for no reason other than to consider the craftsmanship that went into it and to be able to join the discussion from an informed point of view.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014-Day 8: THEATRE OF BLOOD (1973)

In 1970, veteran Shakespearean thespian Edward Lionheart (Vincent Price) is denied the Critic's Circle award in favor of "a twitching, mumbling boy who can barely grunt his way through an incomprehensible performance." That un-endurable humiliation leads Lionheart to throw himself from the balcony of the penthouse where his detractors, the smug and assholish elite of London's theater critic glitterati, have gathered to celebrate their own self-perceived excellence in the wake of the awards ceremony. Believed dead after his fall to the river below, Lionheart returns two years later, aided by the alcoholic and mentally ill pack of derelicts who hauled him from the drink, along with a mysterious young man who sports a white man's 'fro, hippie 'stache and shades, and launches on a campaign of vengeance against the critics who brought him low. With nine arbiters of taste to dispose of, Lionheart works his way down his hit list by subjecting his targets to gruesome deaths culled from the classic works of the Bard (though one of the murders would technically count as a rewrite), a strategy that grants him the opportunity to display his formidable thespic skills while simultaneously forcing his critics to realize too late just how wrong they were in their merciless assessments of his contributions to the craft. As the authorities investigate, involving Lionheart's daughter Edwina (Diana Rigg) in the process, Lionheart proves in no uncertain terms just how brilliant of an actor he is, but his excellence as an interpreter of Shakespeare pales in comparison to his genius as a classically-themed serial murderer.

THEATRE OF BLOOD is a superlative showcase for the considerable talents of my man Vincent Price, an actor whose work has delighted and enthralled me since I was a child, and a man who it is my eternal regret that I never had the opportunity to meet and personally express my high regard for what he brought to the screen. Equally at home in sinister or comedic roles, Price was given a rare opportunity to cut loose with THEATER OF BLOOD, a jet black comedy that one could be forgiven for failing to notice its played-straight sense of levity. The role of Lionheart allows Price a macabre "gravest hits" repertoire of some of Shakespeare's most gruesome and cruel highlights with which to show off his considerable range, while also conveying the protagonist's deep sense of hurt and non-appreciation from those who were too caught up in their own arrogant self-perceptions to see genius when it was so clearly presented.

Lionheart (Vincent Price) affects the role of "Butch," a tres camp hairdresser with lethal intent.

An across-the-board triumph, THEATRE OF BLOOD is not to be missed, especially by those who revel in Price's signature style of scenery-chewing. If you come away from this year's 31 DAYS OF HORROR overview with only one or two rock-solid suggestions for films you absolutely must sit through, I strongly urge you to place THEATRE OF BLOOD at the top of the must-see list. HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

Poster from the original theatrical release.