Halloween may not involve trick-or-treating this year, but there is still time to get some spooky and unsettling viewing and reading times in as the days darken earlier, the leaves turn and that old division between the spirit world and the material weakens on October 31 and November 1. Here’s what you could inspect in time for this Halloween season. The films I list below, in bold, are available for rent from the ever-industrious Pete, manager of Movies N’ Stuff in Ottawa.
Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree (animated)
After years of script and adaptation development, Ray Bradbury’s trip through Halloween history, originally a 1972 fantasy novel, finally hit the small screen in 1992, with Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, a mysterious figure voiced by Leonard Nimoy, leading a group of boys on a quest to save their friend Pipkin on Halloween night. The eight kids journey through ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, Celtic Druidism, the Notre Dame Cathedral in Medieval Paris, and The Day of the Dead in Mexico. The Halloween Tree carries that Bradburyian touch of wonderment, a poetic soul with an underlying macabre spirit, not to mention the sort of dark twists that readers know from his best horror work in the pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
Fun fact: Ray wrote The Halloween Tree as a response to the 1966 animated Halloween special, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!, which he was disappointed with because it circumvented the imaginative power of Halloween (and also, I believe, because the titular Great Pumpkin never actually appears). Chuck Jones, American filmmaker and cartoonist, challenged him to do a better version.
Monster Mash
Sea Fever
This is an Irish horror film, which is a genre I have a soft spot for. If the Rue Morgue review I read for this flick had emphasized that or if Pete at Movies N’ Stuff had told me from the outset that this was an Irish horror film, I would have seen it much sooner. This often beautifully shot tale of fatalism posits that young marine-biology student Siobhán sets out from port with a fishing trawler crew only to discover aquatic life that has yet been undocumented. It is a biologist survivalist or to us, a nearly incomprehensible horror. The production overcomes the budgetary constraints of the film with effective acting, exemplifying that sometimes, as in the best fiction, less is more. A word of warning: this is a quarantine film, however. I myself felt a little burned by Willem Daffoe-and-Robert Pattinson vehicle, The Lighthouse, which I mistakenly watched during the outset of the pandemic (and found claustrophobic and uneven). In Sea Fever, the range of Irish accents you might need to acclimatize to, but it’s worth this strange trip.
This is an Irish horror film, which is a genre I have a soft spot for. If the Rue Morgue review I read for this flick had emphasized that or if Pete at Movies N’ Stuff had told me from the outset that this was an Irish horror film, I would have seen it much sooner. This often beautifully shot tale of fatalism posits that young marine-biology student Siobhán sets out from port with a fishing trawler crew only to discover aquatic life that has yet been undocumented. It is a biologist survivalist or to us, a nearly incomprehensible horror. The production overcomes the budgetary constraints of the film with effective acting, exemplifying that sometimes, as in the best fiction, less is more. A word of warning: this is a quarantine film, however. I myself felt a little burned by Willem Daffoe-and-Robert Pattinson vehicle, The Lighthouse, which I mistakenly watched during the outset of the pandemic (and found claustrophobic and uneven). In Sea Fever, the range of Irish accents you might need to acclimatize to, but it’s worth this strange trip.
It Isn't Easy Being Green
The Immortal Hulk (Marvel Comics) Writer Al Ewing and Joe Bennett's all-out horror take on this title has a full head of steam as it careens toward the end of its third year. Ewing mines Hulk characters from decades of The Incredible Hulk comic mythos and from The Incredible Hulk T.V. show that ran for five seasons from the late 1970’s to the early 1980’s. Minor players return, taking on significant supporting roles including shrink Doc Samson and sidekick Rick Jones. Ewing and Joe Bennett riff off the monstrous vibe of the Hulk's beginnings, in Tales to Astonish # 60 published, appropriately in October, 1964 turned out by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. In Immortal, Ewing develops Bruce Banner's Dissociative Identity Disorder, a condition established by writer Peter David during his 12-year tenure on the book and drawing on the Roger Stern and Bill Mantlo depictions of young Bruce suffering abuse at the hands of his father. In his current incarnation, a different persona takes the wheel when Bruce wants to check out, the Devil Hulk, the World Breaker, Savage Hulk and Joe Fixit among them. The horror-rendering visuals by Bennett hugely elevate these concepts and together, this team makes it all work, disturbingly so, from body horror to gore to the hero doing heinous deeds. This Hulk can smell when someone's lying, he's smart, and he plays for keeps. Marvel may be going through tough times during the pandemic (as everyone else is in business across the board), but fans and critics alike seem to agree; the Hulk hasn’t been this good in years, or perhaps hasn’t ever been this good. Alex Ross' drop-dead gorgeous main covers don't hurt, either. Most of the series so far is collected in trade. You would need to start with the first, Immortal Hulk Vol. 1: Or is he Both?. The latest is Immortal Hulk Vol. 7: Hulk Is Hulk.
Lost Boys and Lost Girl Vamps
A funny, fast-moving, fantastic ode to vampire cinema, Vampires vs. the Bronx features a refreshing setting, good story beats, solid acting and is even a little sexy. It has a great cast (older and younger) and a fun meta-reference-laced script. Gregory Diaz IV, in particular, does a fantastic vamp expert Luis, an absolutely fun role in this romp of a film. Having Luis read a new edition of Stephen King’s Salem's Lot is a wonderful, if not subtle, nod. Vampires vs. Brooklyn is sort of a The Lost Boys or Salem's Lot for these times, with the menace of white supremacist monsters moving in and gentrifying the ‘hood, with hints of The Monster Squad and Attack the Block. Method Man, familiar from his turn as a fast-talking pimp from The Deuce, is well cast as tough-as-nails priest. But the sexiness comes from Coco Jones as videographer (Ed. note: do we still call them videographs if they use their touch phone? Just curious.), Judy Marte as mother Carmen Martinez and Zoe Saldana as salon owner, Becky.
The long-awaited hardcover is a lavishly visual, trippy exploitation-vibe riff on the vampire mythos set in 1974 Los-Angeles. Comics scribe Alex de Campi, who can writer across the board, from grindhouse to sci-fi to espionage (such as the superb Mayday, set in the early 1070's Cold War ear) teams up with artist Erica Henderson, best known for the zanily self-referential and meta The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. They deliver the goods in this off-the-wall and nicely feminist stab at Dracula lore. It's good fuel for this horror writer's October dreams as he revises his second horror novel in his favourite month of the year.
Knife + Heart (Un couteau dans le coeur)
The dream-like, phantasmagoric, dizzily trashy, exploitative, deeply queer-horror slasher flick that I found by way of queer horror author Christian Baines' most rewarding referral. Absolutely worth watching and maybe re-watching soon after.
While We Summon the Darkness is not predicated on a supernatural premise as I originally thought, I was surprised, wooed and delighted at many turns by the dynamite young cast and the subversive twists. They are mostly unknowns (to me) and look like they are from '88, when the film is set. Alexandra Daddario is a surprising revelation as Alexis and not just another pretty face in this dark number. Keean Johnson is particularly authentic, looking the part of a late 1980’s metal-head and nice guy, Mark. There is also solid late-1980's music, including some heavy metal, a clever script that gives the players chances to really move, all carried by a surprising and subversive premise. We Summon the Darkness carries a deep dark sensibility à la Heathers (one of my most favourite black-as-black comedies). Great fun!
The Hunt
Betty Gilpin of the T.V. show Glow soars (and kicks and bludgeons and punches) as the heroine in this marvelous, albeit controversial, dark satire. Why controversial? It concerns a group of conservatives who are kidnapped and hunted for sport by sadistic liberals. It's merciless, detonating Hollywood action flick tropes and giving characters the laissez-mourrir Hitchcock treatment. Gilpin shreds it up. But if you have ever watched Glow, you know she is capable of, both in terms of acting chops and wrestling ability. Absolutely a guilty-gorey pleasure.
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Shout-out to Christian Baines for also recommending the 1975 Picnic at Hanging Rock a ways back. Arguably this is the birth of Australian gothic, undeniably drenched in sexual hysteria, a study in weird horror, all packaged with great performances and an unsettling score. All the gothic trappings are there, from the foreboding and ominous school, even in broad daylight, the bizarre configurations of the boulders at Hanging Rock, and the fervor with which the schoolmaster tries to keep the girls in line. Everyone needs to loosen up at this private school, but in the meantime, what wonderful tension and underlying dread pervades this surprising, enchanting film.
Shout-out to Christian Baines for also recommending the 1975 Picnic at Hanging Rock a ways back. Arguably this is the birth of Australian gothic, undeniably drenched in sexual hysteria, a study in weird horror, all packaged with great performances and an unsettling score. All the gothic trappings are there, from the foreboding and ominous school, even in broad daylight, the bizarre configurations of the boulders at Hanging Rock, and the fervor with which the schoolmaster tries to keep the girls in line. Everyone needs to loosen up at this private school, but in the meantime, what wonderful tension and underlying dread pervades this surprising, enchanting film.
Trippy and Worth the Trip
Jesus and John: A Novel (Lethe Press)Adam McOmber
This weird-horror novel is a queer re-imagining of part of the New Testament. It is unsettling, and shot through with cosmic horror and, at times, a Biblical cadence and a scriptural allegorical quality.
This weird-horror novel is a queer re-imagining of part of the New Testament. It is unsettling, and shot through with cosmic horror and, at times, a Biblical cadence and a scriptural allegorical quality.
Outre, Lovecraftian and creepy, I found Jesus a very trippy and worthile read. As well, I did a full review of the novel for Plenitude: your queer literary magazine on December 20, 2020. I could really stretch my legs and even include excerpts, which was terrific.
You can read the full review here.
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