Keep Calm and Carrie On.

Carrie White breaks my heart every single time. I wish just once she'd get to enjoy her prom.

There's no such luck for her in the 2013 remake of course.

Indeed nothing much has changed from the 1976 version other than the fashions and the protagonist looking younger and prettier. There are mobile phones and some nods to cyber bullying but this update doesn't really have any desire to do anything new with the material. There's still a wealth of material to be mined from Stephen King's book if you know it well.  Post Columbine we know what real teen rage looks like. We know all too well how religious zeal and high school pressures make monsters out of good people. I can barely imagine what demons of teen angst the children of the internet age have to fight. It would have been interesting to allude to some of that a bit more. 'Carrie' could also have been a real powerhouse 'found footage' movie. But this version just tells the story again. Shot for shot in some places. I'm fine with that. It is a good story and each generation deserves an update for the kids who would otherwise just laugh at the funny fashions in the Brian DePalma version.

But next time Hollywood, let me remake it and/or let Carrie go to the ball and enjoy it.

Day 30- Your Favorite All Time Horror Movie

I'm a purist.

Day 29- Worst Horror Movie

'Don't Go In The Woods' (1981) is inept on every level. I swear that if I gave my cat a camera and a bag of treats she'd come up with something better than this turd about a madman/giant Ewok in the woods. How is it possible then that it was remade in 2010 as a slasher musical and it still manages to be worse than the original? Not cult. Not so bad it's good. Not camp. Just the worst. Both of them!

Day 28- Horror Film You'd Like To See Remade/ Rebooted

Instead of desecrating acknowledged classics why not take a movie where there’s lots of room for improvement and actually help fulfill its promise. Demons is a mid-eighties crap-a-thon but the idea of people trapped in a cinema whilst demonic forces come to life is full of possibilities. Go on Hollywood, give me a call and I'll tell you how to do this thing right.

Day 27-Your Guilty Pleasure Horror Movie

House of 1000 Corpses is a turgid piece of crap that needs flushing away. I can't defend it on any level. But I quite like it.

Day 26- Horror Movie For A Chicken

If you want to see a PG-13 rated movie that has a child lead, no gore, no monsters and yet still manages to be really scary...seek out 'Paperhouse'

Day 25- Favourite Christmas/ Holiday Horror Movie

There's a whole sub-genre of Xmas related horror movies but 'Black Christmas' is the only one you need bother with.

After 'Halloween' I think all the calendar dates have been exploited in one way or another. Except for Pancake Day. I reckon it could work:

Day 24- Horror Movie Character That Describes You

Is there a character that lives in a groundhog day nightmare where he takes on a 30 day horror challenge and then ends up thinking about horror movies in every waking moment to the point where it starts to rot his brain? Because I’d be him.

No? Well, if not I’d be Randy Meeks who knows all the rules but still dies in the sequel.

Day 23- A Great Quote From A Horror Movie

"I'll bet my badge that we haven't seen the last of those weirdies."

Just about every line from Plan 9 is quotable.

As a bonus here's my favourite horror related quote, from Italian director Lucio Fulci:

"I find a lot of what I film repugnant to me, but it has to be done. The scene where the girl vomits out all her intestines and guts was very important - and was insisted upon by my co-writer - as it is the first time we see the evil priest and what he can do."

Day 22 - Best Death Scene

You know the one.

Day 21 - Favourite Horror Franchise.

Phantasm. The law of diminishing returns applies with all horror franchises. A classic film generates sequels which become a brand which becomes merchandising which becomes a tedious array of parodies, rip offs, spin offs, tv series and reboots to the point where the original has no power any more. Phantasm is the exception that proves the rule. It starts off as a load of rubbish (or surreal vision depending on your taste) and stays there for the whole series. It doesn't really matter where you come in it's always going to be the same film: it's not going to make any sense, but you will have a fun time. It's a load of balls but consistently enjoyable.

Day 20 - Favourite Horror Character

You can keep your Freddys and your Jasons and your Michaels and other assorted psychos. They do not understand the poetry of life. Not like Dr. Anton Phibes.

Day 19- best use of gore

Best use of gore. Perhaps that's a category that they should introduce to the Academy Awards now that even the most mainstream of films contain things once considered extreme. Personally I'm no gore hound. I don't have a problem with it when I see it but I don't want to spend my days chasing it down. Nobody used gore better than Cronenberg and most of his films still hold up. Have Videodrome. Long live the new flesh.

Day 18- Favourite Horror Movie Filmed In Black And White

"Black and white takes you kind of far away. Some things are said better in it, some feelings come across better." - David Lynch

Day 17- Favourite 80's Horror

80s horror: slashers, sequels, body horror and bad synths. Not much has dated well. My favourite is still probably Hellraiser 2, just because I can remember chain-smoking my way through it, in those distant days when you could do such a thing in the cinema.

Day 16- Horror Film With A Great Soundtrack

John Carpenter or Goblin? Goblin or John Carpenter? Oh...call it a tie and have both.

In the recent (admittedly brilliant) series about soundtracks on BBC4 there wasn't one mention of John Carpenter. Let's put that right now...the Halloween theme is relentless, disorientating, unforgettable and just plain....evil: 

Goblin's soundtrack for Suspiria wasn't so much created in the studio as boiled up in a coven. Inventive, exciting and at times utterly terrifying in its sonic assault:

 

Day 15 - Favourite Monster Movie

 

The Creature From The Black Lagoon. I love this guy. He's so cool.

Day 14- Favorite Indie Horror Movie

 
Kill List. I know lots of people 'don't get it' and get all worked up about the ending but I think it's expertly pitched and controlled. For me the film is about the violence that dwells just below the surface. Every scene simmers with it. The end just hammers it home (pun intended). Intense, brilliant and filmed on my doorstep in Sheffield which makes it all the more terrifying.

Stop Hitting Me On The Head With Metaphors.

By the end of the film you will understand that Salmon Fishing In The Yemen is a metaphor.

It is a metaphor for faith making dreams come true. It is a metaphor for life, where we must all swim against the current to find our spiritual home. It is a metaphor for politics and business: through mutual exchange we might just all learn to get along. It's a metaphor that says: in a funny sort of way we all have to swim uphill to get what we really want - but if we don't know which way the river runs will we just be swimming the wrong way. It's a metaphor for...yes! yes! I get it! Stop hitting me on the head with your bloody metaphors!

I've not read the book but I imagine it's a pretty interesting and enjoyable read that mixes political satire with a human story and weaves those metaphors into a subtle and effective mix.

The film however is a piece of fluff that has nothing much to say beyond the usual rom-com cliches. Ewan Mcgregor doesn't like girl, then quite likes girl, then loses girl to another man, then gets girl back when girl decides she likes fish more than soldier boys. I felt sorry for soldier boy. He survived all that time in the desert thinking about her but then gets dumped when he says one little offhand thing about golf courses. Men! They just don't understand anything about salmon fishing in the Yemen. Anyhow, the moral of this tale seems to be this:  dump your wife if you're not getting enough sex and then shack up with a younger, prettier, more interesting model in an exciting foreign locale. Not only will you get more sex, be happier and have an interesting life, you will also be helping bring people together on a global scale. If you still haven't got it - here's a shot of a salmon doing a U-turn!

There's no chemistry at all between the leads and all the acting seems stiff and forced. We're supposed to care about Ewan Mcgregor's character because he's autistic - autism here clearly equates to boring. We're supposed to care about Emily Blunt's character because she's grieving over someone who may not even be dead and who she has only known for three weeks. We're supposed to care about the Sheikh because he's like really wise and deep and stuff. I didn't like any of the characters at all, in fact I think I just prefered it when you were hitting me on the head with metaphors.

Day 13- Favourite Zombie Movie

Dawn Of The Dead (1978)

I worked in a mall for 10 years. I'd think of this movie every day.

Day 12- Your Most Disturbing Horror Film

After I saw 'Surveillance' I didn't even want the DVD hanging around in the house. I've seen much more extreme films but nothing has got under my skin as much as this. It may not even technically be a 'horror' movie but if true horror comes from other people and what they might do then it absolutley is.

Day 11- Favorite Horror/ Comedy

 
An American Werewolf In London. It's like comfort food to me.

Day 10- Horror Movie Everyone Loves But You Don't

The Exorcist. Famously Mark Kermode's favourite film, always in top ten lists, a classic... blah, blah, blah. 

It's slow, mostly dull, badly dated and it's very, very silly. I understand it's impact and historical significance but I just don't get it.

 D'you hear me Pazuzu? I'm calling you out you big potty mouthed demon you.

Day 9- Favorite Supernatural Horror Movie

Ringu (1998)

Day 8 - Favourite Foreign Horror

Here's what you need to know about foreign horror: Italians like it stylish and extreme, the French like it realistic and extreme, the Spanish like it psychological and extreme and the Japanese like it crazy batshit and extreme.

Nothing, however, tops Suspiria.

Day 7- A Horror Movie You Think No One Has Seen

Day 6 - Favourite Vampire Movie

I've already posted Nosferatu , so I'll choose Daughters of Darkness (1971 )instead.

It's everything a vampire film should be: European, classy, creepy, kinky, weird, gloomy, bloody and it hasabsolutely nothing to do with the dating problems of high school girls.

Day 5 - Favorite Horror Remake

John Carpenter's remake of 'The Thing'.

Pingu's version is pretty good too:

Day 4- A Horror Movie You Thought You'd Love And Didn't

It pains me to say it but it has to be 'In The Mouth Of Madness'. I'm a big John Carpenter fan, I used to read Stephen King, I like Lovecraftian weirdness, I like Sam Neil. It has a great premise: the nightmarish events depicted in a writer's best-selling horror novels coming true. It sounds great. But. But...I felt let down when it came out and I've never been able to get into it since. It's too hammy, too meandering and just too badly executed. Not funny enough, not scary enough, not weird enough. It's where the rot set in for JC's career but to be honest I'd even take 'Ghosts of Mars' over this any day.

Day 3- Favorite Classic Horror Movie

Nosferatu (1922)

Day 2- The Last Horror Movie You Saw In The Theatre?

Day 1- Your First Horror Movie

You might call it a comedy but try telling that to my six year old self hiding behind the sofa.

Thor in a Car

Rush is built like a formula one racing car. There's no room for error and every nut and bolt is tweaked to optimize performance. I enjoyed it a lot but I'm not nearly as impressed with it as I feel I should be. I'm not a racing fan and I don't on the whole like sports movies but that's not the problem here. There's something missing. All of the well-crafted elements didn't quite cohere into a satisfying whole for me. I thought it was weighed down by biopic cliches, some clunky lines and there was too much exposition disguised as race commentary. Thinking in terms of the film's own metaphors it needs a little more of Hunt's roguish cavalier hedonism, a little less of Lauda's precision, calculation and risk management. It needs poetry between the pistons because ultimately it's nothing more than the story of two unlikeable men trying to better each other. The result is a solid film, but interesting rather than intense.  It becomes much more fascinating if you imagine it to be an alternative version of 'Thor,' in which the God with the big hammer is exiled to Britain in the 1970s and falls naturally into the role of a playboy racing driver.

Zero To Thirty In Two And A Half Hours

Remember when Kathryn Bigelow made really exciting genre pieces about machismo and obsession? I do. Now she's the go-to Hollywood director for politically charged, controversial, Oscar-baiting docu-dramas. I wish she'd just make another Point Break, or Blue Steel, or Near Dark. I hated The Hurt Locker; thought it was really overrated but Zero Dark Thirty is much better, more interesting and provocative. It's also a draining two and a half hours of your time and a difficult watch because it is deliberately ambiguous. You can read it as militaristic propaganda. You can read it as the end not justifying the means. The film doesn't commit one way or the other. You'll see in it what you  want  to see in it. That's either masterful direction or sitting on the fence depending on your viewpoint. For the most part I think it has it's cake and eats it too. It disguises itself as a detailed forensic-level political thriller but when you break it down into three acts it is basically a torture bit, an explosions bit and a running around a compound bit. It should be unbearably suspenseful and build to strong dramatic payoffs. Instead, it is unremittingly dull, peculiarly lacking in tension and labored. To be honest I'd just rather watch an informed documentary. It does improve the longer you stay with it but not enough. The final act has special forces soldiers moving through the compound in the dark. Like the rest of the film it's  technically impressive but surprisingly hollow and as detached as Jessica Chastain's expression. Her character is hard to engage with over the length of the film. She has no back-story, no life, just a single minded resolve to get the job done. I know that's sort of the point but then don't expect me to get emotional about her crying at the end when you  haven't let me invest in her as a person.

Insidious Too

Insidious was one of the better mainstream horrors of recent years. It's a creepy little film that has a strong nightmarish quality to it that genuinely unnerved me when I saw it. It has a strong third act and a nihilistic 'game over' ending. It's a strong self contained film. It was also a hit -  so here's a sequel that nobody needs.

It makes no concessions to anyone who hasn't seen the original. It's more of a continuation of a story than a horror film. Every character is retained but less time is given to the Lambert family this time out which makes it less engaging. Instead the focus is on explaining  the back story of the 'old lady in black'.  I hate this film's obsession with explaining everything. I liked it better when I knew nothing other than she was the spirit of a  malicious crone. The revelation when it comes is quite mundane. Turns out it's the ghost of a cross dressing serial killer. Boring seen-it-before ordinary horrors. What scared me about the first film anyway was 'the man with fire on his face'. That freaked me out and seemed to belong in a David Lynch movie. There's nothing to rival that this time out and no surreal touches.

It seems reluctant to deliver any really big scares. There's a long sequence pre-credits which is apropos of nothing, the payoff being nothing more than the title of the film filling your vision whilst there's a big blast of noise. Is that scary? The filmmakers must think so because they do it again for the  cliffhanger ending. In between there's lots of long quiet stretches punctuated by sudden jolts of noise and movement.  All horror films are a bit like this to a degree. There's always a funfair ride element, but this seemed particularly lazy and contrived. I think that's ultimately why I took a dislike to it.

It is what it is: a quick sequel making a quick buck off a superior film and trying to draw in the largest possible audience. These are template movies aimed at the teen market who will react to almost anything.  The experience is strangely inert and oddly safe. Mark Kermode calls them 'horror movies for people who don't like horror movies'. Nigel Floyd call it 'cattle prod cinema'. We're all being snooty about it but it's clear that these films just aren't for us. Shouting 'Boo!' at someone will always get a reaction, but so what? That's how this left me feeling: so what?

Miller Lite

It’s fitting that We’re The Millers begins with some YouTube clips because the whole film feels lazy and plays out exactly like a teenager showing you all the stuff they think is really cool. In this case ‘really cool’ translates as pot dealers, strippers, sex jokes, spiders and giant testicles. We learn that crime pays if you’re a  deadpan snarker and ‘basically a good guy’ and that Jennifer Aniston can resuscitate her career by taking her clothes off, having her breasts felt and snogging a teen. All the best jokes were in the trailer and the gag reel. In between the clips at the beginning and the outtakes at the end it’s join the dots plotting in which the dysfunctional ‘family’ learns to be a proper family. It makes a show of being subversive but delivers so-so laughs in a very conservative bundle. It will be a massive hit and spawn many sequels but it’s reduced in content and lacks flavour. It’s piss poor lager. It’s Miller Lite

Wish You Were Here?

Thank fuck for Ben Wheatley; the director causing frissons of excitement in an otherwise dull British film industry. Sightseers picks at the scabs of a very particular English psyche and then flicks them at you. It’s not for everyone. Lord knows what the casual Netflix viewer is going to make of this as part of their comedy selection. It finds laughs in the mundane and the murderous and pulls you into that narrow pitch black trench between humour and horror. It’s like an edgier version of Mike Leigh’s Nuts In May with added splatter; uncomfortable but compelling to watch. This is banal Britain and beautiful Britain and brutal Britain where the pagan and the petty coexist. It’s a postcard from the edge of madness. Wish you were here?

Riddickulous

Remember Pitch Black? It was a terrific little pulpy sci-fi film that seemed to set Vin Diesel up as the next big thing and announced David Twohy as a director to watch. It never quite worked out that way for either of them. A misfire sequel seemed to stall both their careers and Vin seemed resigned to his fate, driving endless loops around the Fast and Furious race track. “Somewhere along the way I lost a step,” says Vin Diesel, in that trademarked gravelly voice. “I went and got sloppy.” He could be talking about a decade of bad choices.

It’s no wonder that after a decade both have returned to their roots with a Riddick character reboot. But this is where it all gets a bit meta. Where Pitch Black was a a pretty decent Alien rip off Riddick turns out to be a pretty lame Pitch Black rip off. There’s a hellish planet with some forgettable monsters that come out in the rain and some forgettable bounty hunters with forgettable dialogue apart from some horribly memorable misogyny.

Katee Sackhoff’s character Dahl seems to exist only to be called doll or whore, to be leered at, to be the butt of rape jokes and as a lesbian presents just another challenge for all this unbound masculinity in space. Yes she may end up on top of the outlaw in the end and may get to rescue him out of choice but it’s an unnecessary and distasteful misstep in this disappointing film that ultimately serves only to put the dick back in Riddick.

You're Next. To Waste Your Money.

The trailer promised so much: a home invasion movie that suggested a return to the savage cinema of the seventies, the slashers of the eighties and the knowing sensibilities of Funny Games. It looked like a hardcore horror film but it’s actually little more than Home Alone with machetes and crossbows. As a horror fan you get used to forgiving characters doing stupid things to move the plot forwards but when every character in the film makes you want to scream at their idiocy it begins to test your patience. The main characters are dumb enough but the bad guys are even worse. As a result the setup soon becomes farcical and tension soon descends into slapstick. Once people start swinging frying pans around you expect to see someone step on a rake or slip on a banana skin. The animal masks the attackers wear are a good metaphor for what’s wrong with this film. At first they’re creepy and disturbing but then you begin wondering how anyone can see out of them and start questioning the practicality of wearing them until eventually they become laughable, especially when filmed from behind and all you can see is the ears. It’s like Jason from Friday the 13th was into Mickey Mouse instead of hockey.

An adolescent weaned on Agatha Christie could construct a better plot. I expected the villains would be some sort of anti-vivisection group or violent anti-capitalists or something that at least would give this effort some sort of contemporary relevance, but no, it’s about murdering to claim an inheritance. So it’s basically nothing more than a creaky old The Cat and the Canary variant in which the twists are telegraphed well in advance.

Our final girl is a more than capable ass kicker but we never really care about her because all we really know about her is that she grew up on a survivalist camp. Aside from being highly convenient it denies any true character development. She is capable from the offset so we never properly fear for her.

It has the worst horror soundtrack in years, plot holes that you could drive a truck through and some scraping-the-barrel splatter set pieces (death by blender anyone?) but still somehow manages to just about hold your attention and entertain for it’s running time. It just feels that with a bit more thought this could have aspired to something so much better.

In Elysian Fields.

I have almost nothing to say about Elysium. It came and it went and I’ve not thought about it much since, which is a shame because it has a visionary director, a strong cast, big money, superior effects and an interesting premise. So what went wrong? Well, it sets itself up as a film about class war and then does nothing with it. The rich will abandon us, the poor will get poorer, life will get cheaper. Yeah, and? The film doesn’t really know. It pats itself on the back for having pointed inequality out and then gets on with the business of showing people in robot suits hitting each other….because we haven’t had enough films like that recently. We’re supposed to care about Matt Damon’s character because he had a childhood sweetheart who now has a sick child, he’s a nice guy in the ghetto, a hard worker who talks back to robots. There’s a villain called Kruger who’s a kind of Terminator throwback. He has an impenetrable South African accent, almost as impenetrable as Jodie Foster’s performance. What film did she think she was making? She has the worst lines in the film, pushes buttons and walks down corridors in a power suit. She should be doing better work than this. Everything stays at a very simplistic level except the violence which is taken to excess and that in the end is the problem; too much reliance on brawn rather than brains.

Goodbye Ted Post.

Ted Post is not a name you see often in the index of film books. He’s not a director people know or one that critics talk about. He doesn’t have a cult following or devoted fan base. His passing yesterday will be acknowledged and then forgotten. He did however make not one, but four of my all-time favourite films from the seventies. His moment in the sun may have been brief and the rest of his career may have been unremarkable but I thank him and raise a toast to this weird and wonderful quartet.

Beneath The Planet Of The Apes (1970)

A sequel as good as the original film. Some would say better.



The Baby (1973)

Bizarre, camp and shocking. One of the strangest exploitation films ever made.



The Harrad Experiment  (1973)

"Exploring ourselves through others" or,  sex on campus. Controversial at the time. A time capsule hoot now.



Magnum Force (1973)

A sequel that turns up the heat on Dirty Harry. Iconic.