December 2007 - Horrorphile

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Horrorphile - December 2007

THE ART LAIR - III

December 31st 2007 03:32

It’s my last post for the year. So I thought I’d end with the next exhibition of The Art Lair. These are dark and confronting illustrations from artists from all over the world. Linger and ogle.

And have a bloody good new year!

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: the art lair

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Based on the true story of Billy Hayes, a twenty-year old American who in 1970 foolishly tried to smuggle a large amount of hashish (two dozen or so thin blocks taped to his torso) out of Turkey, but was caught at the airport and subsequently spent several years in a Hellish prison before finally managing to catch the infamous “midnight express”.

Midnight Express (1978) was only director Alan Parker’s second feature after his cult debut, the gangster spoof Bugsy Malone. But it would be Midnight Express, along with the nightmarish Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982) and his horror-noir masterstroke Angel Heart (1987), which he would be most remembered for.

Malta doubling as Turkey

Midnight Express is a harrowing story. There have been plenty of great prison movies made, but none which was set amidst such dissolute and morally corrupt surroundings. The film caused a fair amount of controversy upon its release with the Turkey government condemning the film as racism and lies. It wasn’t until many years later that the real Billy Hayes returned to the country he’d escaped from to apologise to Turkey officials and explain that the movie had been unfair in its depiction of Turkey incarceration.

The bars of hash that will do Billy no good

The screenplay was written by a young Oliver Stone, several years before he’d pen the remake of Scarface or direct Salvador. Stone was an angry, coke-addled Vietnam veteran, and he had bones to pick. He took out his xenophobic frustration and rage on the Turkish people, portraying them as conniving thugs and sexual deviants. It made for an exhilarating and tense movie, but it was not true to life.

Brad Davis as cocky Billy Hayes

Only half of Billy Hayes’ story is told in Midnight Express, but it’s the most compelling part: his incarceration and his eventual escape (the book tells of his further escape traveling across the Turkish border). With brilliant use of sound (laboured breathing and accelerated heartbeat) the audience watches anxiously as Billy tries to pass without hassle through Turkish customs, onto the airport shuttle, and onto the plane. We know he’s guilty because in the movie’s opening sequence we witnessed Billy methodically wrapping large chocolate bar-sized blocks of hash in tin foil and then taping them to his body. Can a person really be that stupid? Oh yes indeed. Billy was, and he paid a dear price for it.

A dark, stinkin' customs office ain't the airplane comfort Billy was aiming for

With a pulsating score from Giorgio Moroder, sensational cinematography from Alan Parker regular Michael Seresin, and great production design (the entire film was shot on location in Malta), Midnight Express is expertly handled by director Parker. Brad Davis (who died of AIDS in the early 90s) is solid in the role of Billy, but there’s great support work from a young Randy Quaid as hotheaded Jimmy, John Hurt as junkie Max, Mike Kellin as Billy’s tortured father, Paolo Bonocelli as repulsive Rifki, and Paul Smith as the nasty prison head honcho Hamidou (Smith would go on to play Bluto two years later in Popeye). Irene Miracle actually won the Golden Globe for her role as Billy’s girlfriend Susan, despite the fact that she’s absent for a good portion of the movie (the nod probably had something to do with her teary despair and going topless in a pivotal, but rather tenuous, scene later in the movie).

Midnight Express Mike Kellin and Brad Davis

Mike Kellin as Billy's papa with his distraught son

Billy contemplates his cramped future

Nominated for countless awards Midnight Express won many of the major ones including two Oscars (Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay), the Palme d’Or at Cannes, three Baftas and six Golden Globes. Although not strictly a horror movie, it is the movie with the highest accolades that I’ve included a review of in my Pleasure of Nightmares blog (only just beating The Exorcist 1973).

Paul Smith as Hamidou the prison boss

Billy's wrath is fixed upon Rifki (Paolo Bonocelli)

Midnight Express was one of my early adult movie experiences (on VHS) and I’ve seen it several times along the way. It has aged curiously well. There's an undeniable sense of visual poetry at work. Although the violence isn’t as shocking as it was when it first came out, it is still a confronting movie. But it is also, undoubtedly, a troublesome and ill-conceived portrait of the Turkish prison system. Both original author Hayes and screenwriter Stone admit to this now; they were two men who were bitter and sought their own justice and the purging of anger through the irresponsible illustration of another country’s legalities.

John Hurt as the stoned, genteel Max

Midnight Express Irene Miracle and Brad Davis

Billy's girlfriend Susan (Irene Miracle) visits Billy and finds him at the end of his tether

On the other hand, if you take away the “based on a true story” tagline, then the movie is no more reprehensible than Hostel and its depiction of Slovakian hospitality. In the annals of horror moviemaking there’s a simple motto; if it works, flog it, and if it bleeds, flog it harder.

The face of a man who lived through Hell

Midnight Express Brad Davis and William Hayes

On set, Brad Davis and the real Billy Hayes

Here is the superbly constructed airport sequence:

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Black Christmas

December 24th 2007 06:14

Halloween (1978) may have made the stalk and slash flick the legendary sub-genre that it is, but there were two movies before it which hold claim to inventing that particular type of horror movie; one is Mario Bava’s Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971) and the other is Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974).

Black Christmas, which was also known as Silent Night, Evil Night, is a strange little film. It’s also a genuinely scary movie, and it’s never been ruined by a sequel despite its blatantly open ended conclusion. Director Clark insisted on the ambiguity even though the studio wanted him to change the ending and have a more conclusive reveal and finish.

It is this character ambiguity, that the killer is never revealed, which makes the movie so interesting. You only ever see the killer’s eye and a sliver of his face, but boy, it’s a scary enough glimpse at pure psychopathic evil! And that voice, or to be more precise those voices, yikes! The multiple personalities of so-called Billy, the moaner, and his vulgar and vitriolic outbursts over the phone are brilliantly written pieces of crazed dialogue.

The moaner is on the line

So, what’s going on I hear you ask? Okay, it’s Christmas time. And a private school house of sorority girls are looking forward to the holiday break. There’s prissy Jessica (Olivia Hussey), loud and drunken Barbara (Margot Kidder) and virginal Phyllis (Andrea Martin). But a prowler manages to scale the outside of the three-storey house and climbs in a top window, hiding in a bedroom.

Olivia Hussey as Jessica

Shy Clare goes upstairs to pack and is asphyxiated by the prowler who then carries her body up into the attic. The killer then proceeds to terrorise the rest of the household by making these weird phone calls from within the house which the girls initially think is a crude sexual prank, referring to him as the moaner. But it becomes apparent there is something much more sinister going on.

John Saxon as Lt. Fuller

Black Christmas was the first horror movie to utilise the point of view of the killer and the killer’s laboured breathing as part of a distinct visual motif. Wes Craven’s Scream (1996) borrows heavily from Black Christmas, in particular the phone calling.

Margot Kidder as Barbara

Despite a low budget Black Christmas is inventive and stylish, with very dark, but still vivid cinematography (great colour palette). There's a neat streak of black comedy running through roy Moore's screenplay. The acting is a little uneven though, with Olivia Hussey’s deer-caught-in-the-headlights look wearing thin after ten minutes. It’s Margot Kidder’s brash Barbara that threatens to steal Hussey’s thunder, and in fact, Barbara is a much more interesting character. John Saxon plays the local lieutenant and he fits the role like a glove.

The attic has a secret or two

The movie is also unusual in that it uses the c-word expletive several times (one of Billy’s sexual taunts over the phone). For 1974 this would have been considered quite a bold and confronting bit of dialogue. It’s a Canadian movie, and I picked that out quite early on when two of the characters pronounced “out” as “oat”. The Canadians make good horror movies I’ve decided.

The killer's eye

Black Christmas isn’t graphic (certain dialogue aside) or gory at all, or even that violent, but it does possess a striking and resonant sense of fear and apprehension. Just who is this Billy freak and what is his damn motive?! The lead up to the first kill from behind the plastic I found decidedly unnerving. I haven’t actually been as genuinely creeped out from a horror movie as I was whilst watching Black Christmas.

I haven’t seen the remake, but apparently it’s not too bad. I’ll let you know.

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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My BIRTHDAY and the STREET OF CROCODILES

December 20th 2007 01:11

Yes indeed, resident Orble Lord of the Darkness, the horrorphile, gorehound and terrorfreak, yours truly, Bryn, has turned another year older, one small step closer to the grave. But I ain’t no where near ready to give up the ghost just yet! No sirree! I’m here to paaaarrrrty! (cue: cheesy 80s synth-pop soundtrack from The Return of the Living Dead)

I’m Sagittarian with a love of the lurid, mischievous and dangerous side of the Dionysian excesses. I’m the centaur with a deadly crossbow. Pan of the Macabre. But enough of my bad boy birthday behaviour, I’ll leave that for the weekend

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CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH: Stephen King vs. J.K. Rowling

December 19th 2007 01:09

Celebrity Deathmatch, a comedy claymation show from the MTV cable channel began in 1998. It pits well-known celebrities against each other in a wrestling ring in a no-holds-barred contest of graphic, and often ingeniously orchestrated, violence.

I’ve been hoping someone, somewhere, will upload one of my favourite matches onto youtube, but so far to no avail. I’m talking about Michael Myers vs. Leatherface. Or was it Michael Myers vs. Jason Voorhees? Hmmm, I can’t remember, it’s been that long

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: set-pieces

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Punishment Park

December 17th 2007 22:07

“Punishment Park takes place tomorrow, yesterday, or five years from now. It is also happening today.” This statement is from the original 1971 press kit. Directed by UK filmmaker Peter Watkins who made the controversial docudrama The War Game (1965) about the effects of a nuclear attack and its aftermath, Punishment Park is an incendiary indictment about the cause and effect of repression and violence set in the Californian desert.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971, but has never been released in America. In fact, it never received proper theatrical distribution until 1980 where it played in West Germany. It was then re-released two years ago and played in the United Kingdom and France

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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LIVING DEAD DOLLS

December 14th 2007 01:23

I’m back … did you miss me?

Return of the living dead … or something like that

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: set-pieces

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OLDE SAINT NICK

December 7th 2007 02:06

I was mulling over what to write for my blog this morning, clutching my ritualistic latte, slowly awakening from a hot sleep. I was thinking about Christmas, and about all those dreadful Christmas movies that every year there seem to be more of. They’re nearly all comedies aimed at the lowest common denominator, with the odd exception, like say, Bad Santa.

Having reviewed Gremlins (1984) yesterday I was curious about children’s horror movies. The concept is a bit of an anomaly, but I couldn’t help concocting my own vision of one. Something inspired from the likes of Roald Dahl, fused with Stephen King. A short film synopsis began to take shape quickly and succinctly, one that plays with the concept of childhood beliefs and fears, but also ones that adults can relate to. So here it is; my Christmas children’s horror flick

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: set-pieces

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Gremlins

December 5th 2007 11:48

A rip-roaring success on its initial release Gremlins (1984) has also garnered a small cult following among those who were the right age when it came out to be suitably wowed by the movie’s originality and blackly comedic verve. It was never my cup of green tea when it was released, and I only watched it for the very first time last night.

This is slightly odd, as the director Joe Dante directed one of the best werewolf movies ever made, The Howling (1981). Gremlins is his were-teddybear version; the lycanthrope movie for kids. Well kind of. It’s probably too frightening for the real young ‘uns, and it was way too silly and cute looking for me as a 16-year-old. I was more interested in The Evil Dead (1982

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Event Horizon

December 4th 2007 23:34

I first saw Event Horizon back when it came out in 1997. I was impressed by a number of things; the mood, the atmosphere, and the special effects. Director Paul W.S. Anderson was at the time a 31-year-old British with uber-Hollywood aspirations who had already made Mortal Kombat, would helm the Kurt Russell train wreck Soldier, the successful Resident Evil (1999), the stupid Alien vs. Predator (2003), and is currently in post-production on the highly anticipated remake of 70s B-movie Death Race 2000.

It is 2047. A rescue vessel, Lewis and Clark, has been sent into the outer reaches of the solar system (the orbit of Neptune to be exact) to investigate the inexplicable re-appearance of a state-of-the-art research ship called Event Horizon. On board the rescue craft, along side the salvage team, is the designer of the Event Horizon, who reveals the ship was designed to successfully achieve light speed travel and vanished on its maiden voyage

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