WARNING! Do no proceed beyond this poster!

While the film itself appears to reek of franchisitis (that being the disease of film sequels created not to organically advance a cinematic mythology but to perpetuate a series for financial exploitation), Fox's advance poster for 28 Weeks Later is without a doubt the best horror theatrical poster so far this year. The striking image both generates curiosity and unease in the viewer and a places one within the context of the film.

Not to mention a subtle similarity to one of the many unofficial graphic designs for the original Dawn of the Dead.

Which Witch?

I don't have much tonight, but I thought it worth noting that I took a walk to the library this evening and happened to breeze by the video section and see Suspiria sitting on the shelf. I don't know why I grabbed it, really; I did't anticipate having much time to watch it in the near future. But I was ecstatic on the walk home. With the sun down and the wind blowing, I felt like Suzy Banyon on my approach to a prestigious German dance academy. Some people get spring fever. I get Suspiria fever.

The experience unexpectedly reawakened interest in Argento's Three Mothers Trilogy, a saga I'd only loosely followed in the past. The first time I saw Suspiria, I fell asleep within the first five minutes, a fact I attribute more to my physical state at the time and less to the power of the movie. The second time I saw it, I was sufficiently blown away and freaked out for its entire 100-minute runtime, swept up in the sheer visceral pummeling of it. I didn't come away from the film loving it, but I definitely respected it. It was one of those wonderful horror movies that I didn't particularly care to ever watch again.

So what happened tonight? I'm not sure, but I threw the tape in when I got home and have been kind of glancing at it every now and then as if I were baby-sitting it, and in the process of doing so I'm really finally beginning to appreciate it for its overt artistry. Having Suspiria playing in the background makes me feel like I'm sitting in an art gallery with a television in place of a painting. I've long thought of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, another movie about a witch, as my pick for the most beautiful horror film (or at least the most beautiful modern horror film; it's hard to compare anything to some of the Universal classics from the '30s and have it rank well), but tonight I'm inclined to at least accept Suspiria as a worthy contender, if not a new champion.

A Taste of Sleaze to Come?

I haven’t seen Grindhouse yet, but the fact that box-office analysts are already calling it a failure is more irritating than it is discouraging. Though it may have performed below financial hopes or expectations, the film’s lackluster popularity among the weekend moviegoing crowd is not going to dissuade me or most other horror fans from seeing it – or appreciating and enjoying it, if predominant reviews are to be trusted. Grindhouse is a movie that was made for and marketed to what is essentially a niche audience, albeit a comparatively large niche, of cultish genre and Tarantino/Rodriguez fans, and success by those standards is difficult to gauge in terms of gross profits. Plus, I’m betting the thing makes serious bank when it opens overseas and on video.

What bothers me is the industry perception of success, or lack thereof, because it is that perception that more often than not dictates the future. Grindhouse was funded on the Weinsteins’ faith in Tarantino and Rodriguez, which itself was based on the financial accomplishments of their previous movies (which cost little to produce and yielded high returns). Kill Bill proved to the suits that calculatedly “cult” movies could make money, so there was little reservation in throwing $53 million at Tarantino and Rodriguez so they could spend a summer in Austin with a bunch of strippers and a truck full of fake blood. The perception, however misguided or incomplete, that this experiment is a failure is bad news for people who dig this stuff. People like, oh, me.



The idea of a double-feature of sleazy “vintage” horror films with fake trailers for other sleazy vintage horror films sandwiched in-between is the kind of thing that gets me excited. I’m pretty sure I’ve watched Eli Roth’s fake Thanksgiving trailer 14 times since it was posted online last week, and it’s not because I was in a holiday mood. There’s a palpable sense of heart and enthusiasm behind an atypical project like this. In an interview conducted for a MySpace promo clip, Tarantino says he feels compelled to make movies for audiences of a particular persuasion because he’s lucky enough to be able to do so, that it’s his duty, and I think that’s a genuine statement. I want to see more movies made this way, and not just horror films. I want to see more people taking risks and making movies that they’re excited about from a perspective of appreciation, even if the object of that passion is just something as relatively inconsequential as the glory days of the grind house. At one time there was talk of direct-to-video “spinoffs” of Grindhouse based potentially on the fake trailers shown between the features (plans which might be in jeopardy with Grindhouse now branded a “failure”). I want to see more film franchises handled in a similar fashion, not with sequels and remakes but with fresh ideas inspired by a compelling concept.

I want to flip the cinematic finger at the box-office nay-sayers and make Grindhouse a success in whatever terms necessary to make more horror happen this way.

And most of all, intead of another lame torture movie, I want Roth to make Thanksgiving and release it on video in one of those old giant VHS boxes the size of Hungry Man frozen dinners. For that kind of holiday feast, I’d save room for seconds.

Silent Night

An unexpected but fond farewell to Bob Clark, who died last night in an automobile accident with a drunk driver, and whose limited but highly respected and influential work in the horror genre endeared him to many and will likely one day put his name among that of Tod Browning, James Whale, and the like.

About three years ago I had the opportunity to interview Bob for Fright Media, the site I was writing for. At the time this was something of an honor, not only because I really enjoyed his horror films (Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Deathdream/Dead of Night, and, most noteworthy of all, the original Black Christmas -- one of the few movies that always seem capable of scaring me all these jaded years later), but also because interviews with Bob weren't very common. His was a name that everyone in the genre knew, but would always prompt an "Oh yeah" response, always an afterthought in a discussion about great horror directors.

As we talked, it became clear to me that Bob was not really much of a "horror fan," though he knew the genre and its signature films, as well as his place in it. He pointed to A Christmas Story as the most important film in his career, as it was the one that made him a "Hollywood director," as he put it. I was a little disheartened to hear that the man primarily responsible for what I've long considered to be some top-tier horror films looked to his "mainstream" work as the watermark for his success in film, but after all, John Carpenter's admitted he's only after the money, and we still continue to fawn over him. Besides, Clark's work remains just as effective for those who know what his motivations were as it does for those blissfully unaware.

At the time we spoke Bob was in the negotiation process of getting Black Christmas remade, and was writing the script for a remake of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. Neither one seemed like a good idea to me, and I've yet to see the James Wong-helmed Christmas redo, but I remember being satisfied just knowing that Clark was willing to come back to the genre, even if it was only for the potential money involved. Perhaps, I thought, the remakes would be successful and would encourage him to make new horror movies based on new ideas.

Perhaps the most tragic aspect of Bob's death, for horror fans, is that now we'll never know.

Goodnight, Bob.

You Could Learn a Lot From a Dummy

If stupid truly is as stupid does, modern horror rides the short bus.

Sure, there are films out there that at least have their GEDs, but by and large, these days the genre seems more than content to loiter in the tenth grade.

Still, there’s an inherent value in certain kinds of stupidity, the somewhat calculated kind that may be self-aware but is not transcendent, the kind that’s the cinematic equivalent of the really smart kid who could have impressive grades and be on student council but prefers to sit in the back of the room setting guys’ hair on fire; the kind of value that’s only evident when you see a movie like Dead Silence.

Here is an example of the rare Stupid Horror Movie (SHM) that is both cumulative and quantitative in its idiocy and is yet miraculously effective in most if not all ways. One can catalog its numerous affronts to viewer intelligence, but is not compelled to do so unless it is for the purposes of enhancing by way of contrast the sense of irrational, inexplicable satisfaction one gets from such an obviously dumb movie; as if to say with awe, “This movie is utterly retarded and quite enjoyable because of it.” Of course the notion of a man driving vast distances with the ventriloquist doll he suspects may have murdered his wife sitting behind him in the back seat is absurd, but in the case of Dead Silence, that kind of thing is like another grain of sugar on a bowl of Frosted Flakes.

I admit that pleasurable stupidity in horror is a fine line to walk. James Wan and Leigh Whannel, the writer/director duo behind Dead Silence toed this line before in their first film, Saw, with a gravelly, cackling doll on a tricycle and Cary Elwes’ bombastic yelping. And they failed. Oh, Saw was stupid, but only endearingly so to a certain point, after which the film became feeble and lame, an eye-roller. In Dead Silence, though, Wan and Whannel go the absurd distance, their contrived plot yanking the huffing and puffing leading man from one ridiculous set-piece to another, tailed ever-closely by electric razor-toting Donnie Whalberg as the least believable police detective in America. Tongues are severed, dolls come to life, and preposterous climaxes beget preposterous climaxes beget preposterous climaxes in a manner not seen in horror cinema since the Scooby-Doo schenanegans in Happy Birthday to Me.

But at each ludicrous turn, the film also layers on lush cinematography, vibrant, terrifying make-up, and a charmingly juvenile backstory involving a murdered ventriloquist-turned-ghostly doll on decades-old quest for vengeance. Careening along at a spastic pace through a glorious pastiche of "old dark house" movie elements, it becomes something that popular film critics often refer to as an “enjoyable romp.” This isn’t a movie that carelessly, winkingly opens with the old classic Universal logo that adorned decades of horror classics; this is a movie that earns the right to bear that symbol; a relatively safe, surprisingly reserved (at least compared to the indulgent brutality of movies like Saw) spooky ghost movie.

The Sci-Fi Channel only wishes it could come up with something this entertainingly stupid.