La maschera del demonio / Black Sunday (1960)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  Mario Bava
Studios:  Galatea Film, Jolly Film, Alta Vista Productions
Starring:  Barbara Steele, John Richardson
Tagline:  Stare Into These Eyes…discover deep within them the unspeakable terrifying secret of BLACK SUNDAY… it will paralyze you with fright!
MPAA Rating:  Unrated
Genre:  foreign film, black and white, horror, terror, thriller, mystery, drama, witch, vampire, curse
Scare score:  C-
Rating:  B+

Plot overview:  In the year 1630, the witch princess Asa (Steele) and her evil lover Javuto (Arturo Dominici) are being putting to death by having satan's mask nailed to their face and then being burnt at the stake.  Moments before her death, Asa vows that her evil will live on through the centuries as she haunts and kills the descendants of her pious brother.  Two hundred years later, Dr. Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi) and his young assistant Dr. Andre Gorobec (Richardson) are passing through the Moldavian countryside when their carriage loses a wheel.  As their driver - who is frightened by the supposedly haunted area - makes repairs, the two good doctors enter an old chapel where they find Asa's grave: her face is still covered by satan's mask and a large cross on her tomb is said to keep her evil at bay.  As they leave the crypt, Dr. Kruvajan accidentally disturbs Asa's tomb; meanwhile, Andre encounters the beautiful yet distant Princess Katia (Steele) and is immediately smitten.  As the ghost of Javuto returns to haunt the castle and Katia's brother (Enrico Olivieri) and father (Ivo Garrani), Andre becomes resolute to rescue Katia from her cursed fate.

There was something oddly charming about this movie.  While the American version was almost bewildering at times with the English-dubbed-over-English bit, the mismatched speech and dingy atmosphere of the film became easy to overlook as a beautiful storyline and passionate although melodramatic acting took its course.

I watched this movie over the course of two nights before bed.  The black and white filming gave the whole film a sense of subtle fright with obvious allusions to a classic era of Hollywood horror.  The truth is I didn't take this movie entirely seriously - cheesy script, schmaltzy music, a few bad props, and I can't stress the word 'melodramatic' any more - until I found myself halfway through it and really invested in what was going to happen.  This was quite unlike most horror movies I have seen, with the main antagonist remaining physically dormant for the most part while spiritually and psychologically active.  Beforehand I had read that this movie was banned in the UK for about 8 years, that it was so frightening at its release because of its gore, yadda yadda yadda, so of course in watching this heavily edited American cut I was confused as to how (a) anyone would find this so scary (b) anyone would think this 'too gory.'  Mind you, the American cut did remove several scenes and sequences involving blood and gore.

Speaking of which, I think the whole mask of satan (think mini iron maiden) was a cool prop, but even cooler/ grosser was the mark it left (literally) on Asa's face.  Horror Buff admits he has an irrational fear of fleshy/ gory holes such as those we saw covering Asa's pretty face (as well as on innocent things like  orange navels or pomegranate membranes… yuck), so needless to say that hit close to home.  The whole motif of eyes (big and bright and moist and pierce-able) made Asa's face that much creepier.

I was not familiar with Barbara Steele before this movie (bad Horror Buff!), but she really was an intriguing actress.  I've been staring at pictures of her face now trying to understand why it's oddly beautiful somewhere beyond the full head of dark hair, the wide-set eyes, the delicate features.  While Princess Katia is supposed to be somewhat emo, I still liked her.  I actually liked all the actors in this film, regardless of how silly they were running around castles and whatnot.  Perhaps even scarier than masks and gashes-on-the-face was Javuto as he just strolled around the castle with his pasty face and piercing stare.  Like that was really creepy.

What didn't work for me: I'm pretty sure that they mentioned vampires like a thousand times, but that the whole concept of being a vampire was very different/ nonexistent in this movie.  I have read that originally Asa and Javoots McGoots had fangs when they started filming, but that they were later scrapped.  What I take from this is that Asa got to be a princess, a witch, AND a vampire.  Some people have all the luck.

I hate to say it, but this movie reminded me of The Terror.  As this film from the yesteryears of the Horror Blog is 3 years the senior of Black Sunday, Horror Buff has to wonder if whatever dull team brought us The Terror drew some inspiration from this Italian piece.  I mean, two horror protagonists named Andre within three years?

Lastly, a quick fun thought: is this the first movie to ever take place is Moldavia?  It's so nice to take a break from Transylvania for once, you know?

Final critique:  This is a pleasant watch with few scares but a good amount of scary thrills, if you catch my drift.  It was perfect as a late night movie, one I would love to catch on TV in the early hours of the morning when curled up on a couch.  The American cut really isn't too gory, and it's funny to think that at one time people were afraid of this movie.  Of course this falls under the 'too old to be scary' category, but hey, Black Sunday has got a lot of heart and some artistry in the sets and score (changed in the American cut.. mama mia).  This movie rightfully earns its spot as a cult classic.

American Horror Story - S3, E4, E5, and E6 (2013)

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the first three-for-one entry of the Horror Blog.

"Fearful Pranks Ensue" - "Burn, Witch, Burn!" - "The Axeman Cometh"

GENERAL INFO:
Creators:  Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk
Producers:  20th Century Fox
Channel:  FX
Starring:  Jessica Lange, Taissa Farmiga, Sara Paulson, Angela Bassett, Evan Peters, Frances Conroy, Lily Rabe, Gabourey Sidibe, Jamie Brewer, Kathy Bates, Dennis O'Hare, Josh Hamilton; ft. Emma Roberts, Alexander Dreymon, Danny Huston
TV Rating:  MA LSV
Genre:  television, horror, thriller, drama, witches, magic, Voodoo, zombies, serial killer
Scare score:  D-
Rating:  A

Plot overview: Madison's (Roberts) disappearance causing a strong sense of discomfort in the witching community, culminating in Nan's (Brewer) summoning of the Council of Witchcraft, headed by the always-suspicious-of-Fiona (Lange) Myrtle Snow (Conroy), to investigate the suspected murder.  The investigation, however, does not go in the pious Myrtle's favor.  Queenie (Sidibe) recovers from her minotaur attack under the care of her schoolmates as well as the socialite-turned-servant Madame LaLaurie (Bates), even as they are plagued by an army of Marie Laveau's (Bassett) zombies on none other than Halloween night.  We learn more about the secret life of Hank Foxx (Hamilton) as well as his true motives as Cordelia's (Paulson) husband.  Meanwhile, Cordelia is attacked during a night out with her mother, and is left blind but with the gift of sight through which she can read the minds of those she makes physical contact with.  Zoe's (Farmiga) powers continue growing as she tries balancing the whims of the regenerated Kyle (Peters) and the marginalized Misty Day (Rabe).  Finally, the young witches [un]intentionally set free the spirit of New Orleans serial killer the Axeman (Huston).

Well fiddle dee dee if I'm not three weeks behind.  Luckily Horror Buff has been jotting down notes while watch the past three episodes of this increasingly interesting yet decreasingly scary season of American Horror Story.  My general thoughts are as follows:

--So.many.questions.  Each episode has thrown more mysteries at us while only resolving some of our questions.  My biggest question at the moment is who was that hooded figure that tossed the acid into the lightweight (I thought maybe pregnant for a second there) Delia's face?  Stature-wise, they were mad short, so unless Murphy and Falchuk are about to introduce dwarves in the AHS scene, a far out suspect might be that warlock from the Council of Witchcraft (yes there are warlocks.. apparently).  Or even Nan!

--Speaking of which, is this witch becoming a bad actress?  Horror Buff is fearing for both Jamie Brewer and Gabourey Sidibe as far as acting goes; Nan sometimes speaks without any emotion (or at least not the correct emotion as she focuses too strongly on good diction); Precious relies on the grumpy sass that she seems to have become famous for… and I'm getting kind of bored of Quennie's negativity.  Can these young actresses step up their game?

*SPOILER ALERT*

--Myrtle Snow is an awesome, kooky, colorful, complex character.  Her scriptwriters are obviously having fun; after all they made her a "Guardian of Language" or something of the sort.  While Fiona is easy to love beyond her evil selfishness - minus that stunt she pulled with the stillborn *magnanimous* - I was a little upset to see Myrtle spurned again and again during the Council's investigation as well as years ago as a student and classmate of young Fiona.  But I guess we'll be seeing more of her...

--Now unlike the rest of the brainwashed world, Horror Buff is not a huge fan of zombies.  Obviously I love Night of the Living Dead and it holds a special place in my horror heart - but otherwise the undead bandwagon is not for me.  As all the zombies started appearing on Halloween ("great costumes" lolz) I got a little worried as to where we were headed regardless of Voodoo's close connection to these beings.  Aside from good makeup and interesting costumes, the return of LaLaurie's daughters, and good guy Luke's (Dreymon) major injury (although he's back at home so I guess he's okay…?) it was a pretty random plot twist, wasn't it?  What it did reveal to us was 2 major things: (a) Zoe is familiar with The Evil Dead and tried reenacting it and (b) our girl Zoe is getting strong!  Developing new powers all the time!  And really useful ones like making dead things die (again) and picking books off bookshelves.  Imagine how easy life would be…

--There's nothing to fear but fear itself, and also regenerated, crispy Myrtle (renewed enemy/ monster?), dangerously marginalized and unstable Misty Day (mind you she's now clad in red *pathetic wardrobe fallacy* and Stevie has been taken from her by that clumsy FrankenKyle), an enraged and Bastian-less Marie Laveau, a serial killer who we're not really sure is dead or not, a witch hunter, and of course Fiona even as she seems to be physically weaker than before.  Personally I think our biggest threats are Squirtle and Misty I mean Myrtle and Misty.

--A giant WHAT THE HORROR regarding Spalding (O'Hare) and Hank.  In just one episode, our perception of both of these 'men' changed entirely in Episode 4, and their back stories have been developing ever since.  The whole involvement of 'muggles' with witches is confusing in the first place - mainly in that these ladies and women have tons of powers but can't see through two schmucks who enjoy murdering or covering up murders, respectively, in their free time.  Really?  My guess is Hank will knock out another student or two before this season is done.

--The new Delia is great.  Earlier in the season I was worried that she might turn into some antagonist, but so far in her physical blindness and otherwise complete clarity has made her a much more mature person.  The makeup is a really cool touch.  Her wardrobe has also seen a change to darker colors.

Final critique: What else is there to say except boil, boil, toil and trouble - the plot is seriously thickening on this season of American Horror Story.  Our characters are each changing (developing, regressing, dying, coming back to life) in their own ways, which aside from the witch hunters and grumpy Voodoo queens is what's truly driving this season forward.  At the rate this show plays with life and death, what can we possibly predict?  Is a witch hunter - or even a good old burning at the stake - useless when Misty Day is around?  How much more important is magical power than common sense and a good heart?  Lots of questions to be answered and problems to be solved in the coming episodes.

Would You Rather (2012)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  David Guy Levy
Studios:  Periscope Entertainment, Social Construct
Starring:  Brittany Snow, Jeffrey Combs, Enver Gjokaj, Sasha Grey; ft. John Heard
Tagline:  Tell Yourself It's Just a Game.
MPAA Rating:  Unrated
Genre:  horror, thriller, psychological thriller, drama
Scare score:  C
Rating:  B-

Plot overview:  Following their parents' deaths, Iris (Snow) has dedicated her life to supporting herself and her brother Raleigh (Logan Miller) who suffers from terminal leukemia.  Between jobs and out of school, Iris is desperate for help when her brother's physician, Dr. Barden (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.), introduces her to a rich philanthropist named Shepard Lambrick (Combs).  Lambrick invites Iris to a dinner party at which "a game" will be played, and as he explains, the winner of the game will have all of their problems - financial, medical, what have you - taken care of completely.  Although the offer seems too good to be true, Iris attends the party where she meets the other guests who also seem to be suffering from various afflictions and responsibilities.  As soon as the first course is served, however, the game and terror begin, and the bounds of human desperation are pushed to the extreme.

Before I begin, I'd just like to give a shout out to Bloody Brooklynn because I found this title on her blog, and it turned out to be a really fun watch for my Saturday late night flick.

The first thing that's going to catch our attention (or my attention, at least) about this film is Brittany Snow's bill.  Snow is an actress that never ceases to grab my attention because while I always feel like she's such a budding little starlet, is she really doing that much?  Yeah we've all seen Hairspray, Prom Night (which I have to review), and, of course, Pitch Perfect, but I wonder if Snow has quite broken out of her ingenue role in Hollywood.  What I'm trying to say is once you've starred in big name blockbusters, why *regress* to, say, a random horror movie like Would You Rather?  Then again I live abroad and have no idea what publicity for this film's release was like.  Either way, I think she consistently delivers in her movie rolls ranging from horrors to musicals, so I'm absolutely on the lookout for her to bring us bigger and better things in the future.

Continuing on my Snow spiel, her acting seemed pretty much the same to me here as it has been in the other movies I've seen her in.  Not that that's a bad thing, but maybe that explains why she hasn't burst onto the A-list scene yet.  She's cute, innocent (even if this movie pushes her no-more-misses-nice-girl altitudes), desperate, and I guess somehow finds her inner strength/ will here.  Not that her transition and development as a character is the most believable-

In fact, I wasn't sure about the reactions of the various dinner guests throughout the playing of the game, partially due to the script itself.  They all keep talking about "logic" when in several major accounts they don't do anything logical.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Example:  In round 2, each guest is giving a choice to stab their neighbor in the leg with an icepick or beat Travis (Charlie Hofheimer) with a sjambok 3 times.  When it comes round to Cal (Eddie Steeples), he doesn't want to stab anybody so he chooses to whip the down and almost dead Travis.  Everybody reacts as if this were the worst thing he could possibly do, and even though he doesn't necessarily kill Travis, everybody treats him as a murderer.  Cal even gives himself a really poorly acted guilt trip.  But let's look at the facts: Travis was down for the count, as butler Bevans (Jonathan Coyne) informs Lambrick (and I think as the remaining guests can assume).  Basically by choosing to beat Travis again, he is helping put the suffering ex-soldier out of his misery instead of injuring an otherwise healthy contestant.  What's the harm in that?  Logically, it was safer for all of them that he hurt a man who was already down instead of injuring or potentially killing a healthy person.  Come on, people.

Then again, this game isn't fair in general, and I would have walked out at the beginning when given the chance.  What they don't clearly explain while explaining the rules here is that before a contestant even gets a chance to play, he or she might be killed off or made to be considered unfit to play by someone else.  That's not fair at all (like the last round, ugh).  The only reason Iris does well here is because she was taken in by the gentlemanly Cal and Lucas (Gjokaj) who do their best to protect her quite unlike the ferocious, trashy, frustratingly unstable yet sexy Amy (Grey).  The cutie award goes to wheelchair-bound Linda (June Squibb) - who knows how such a dear old lady got tied up in such a dastardly dinner party.

Hands down the most important thing about this movie is the fact that Mr. McCallister, apparently down on his luck perhaps after a messy divorce and his fortune lost through alimony and grievous lawsuits from child wellness lawyers after forgetting his youngest son Kevin not once but twice on family vacations, is here to play the game.  Now a recovering alcoholic, Peter unfortunately leaves the dinner party rather unexpectedly because of his failure to understand the rules.  And to think that 50 g could have been his…. Okay, so I've had my fun, but I love John Heard and Home Alone 1 and 2 are the best movies of all time, 'nuff said.

Otherwise, I thought acting was decent enough to carry us through the movie (that progresses rather quickly).  The obvious star here is Jeffrey Combs who is a face I'm so familiar with but can't quite place (apparently he was in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer in a role I don't remember).  He was really fantastic as a quirky and easy-to-hate sadistic rich man with that terrible habit of munching on nuts or whatever he was always chewing on; I wanted to smack the snacks out of his cruel mouth.  I also thought that Robin Taylor in the role of Julian Lambrick was really excellent in an unstable, unpredictable kind of way.  His portrayal was toned-down and just right.

Let's talk about the scares.  I like movies like this because they're not unnecessarily gory (I guess this wasn't actually gory at all) but we're always set up to be made really uncomfortable, as much for the physical as for the psychological.  Now I'm more of a Never Have I Ever guy myself, but Would You Rather is a difficult game as it is (would you rather have sandpaper hands or hot dog fingers?  Impossible!) even without life and death consequences.  We don't like thinking about what we as humans are capable of doing to ourselves or other humans for the sake of a loved one, and this movie rubs it all up in our faces.  What would you do?

As far as the actual questions and rounds of the game went, I was rather surprised and found that the movie played it safe rather than branching into more disgusting things.  The fact that the first two rounds only provided us with two options each really caught me by surprise because I thought that each new question would be different and worse than the last.  In my opinion, the electrocution choice, and later the whip or stab choice made the movie more boring, or at least more tame.  Only the envelop round - which played with the unknown - was interesting to me.  By the end of the film, the only would you rather that was actually disturbing for me was when Lucas has to cut his own eye, which I don't think I would be able to do either.  And is it just Horror Buff, or does Lucas do that rather rashly?  Probably hurt himself a lot more there than he needed to.  Yuck.

The worst thing about this movie is not that people have to hurt or kill each other, but rather that the whole game is conducted under such pretenses of class and good manners - reminiscent of Paul in Funny Games - that really frustrates us as viewers while simultaneously adding to the terrible charm of Shepard and his staff.

Then, of course, we arrive to the end of the movie.  As soon as Iris leaves that place we're all asking ourselves how she's going to live with herself, and if helping her brother or even saving his life is worth what happened in that dining room.  Then given Raleigh's choice (was it on purpose?) kind of spins the whole previous night's events back in her face.  Sure she can live comfortably now - if she can live with herself.

Final critique:  This was a fun movie that flies by pretty quickly while putting it's own terrible twist on a classic party game.  There are plenty of thrills mixed both with drawn out or no suspense whatsoever, leading to plenty of unanticipated emotions and frights.  This is a good movie to watch with a group of friends as public reactions would spice up the various electrocutions, stabbings, shootings, beatings, and drownings.  Not my personal favorite, but definitely an enjoyable watch.

Friday the 13th Part III (1982)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  Steve Miner
Studios:  Paramount Pictures
Starring:  Dana Kimmell, Larry Zerner, Paul Kratka, Jeffrey Rogers, Richard Brooker
Tagline:  A New Dimension in Terror...
MPAA Rating:  R
Genre:  horror, slasher, stalker, thriller, psychopath, masked murderer, serial killer, teen
Scare score:  D
Rating:  B-/C+

Plot overview:  Picking up on the same day that the last movie left off, Jason (Brooker) is now on the loose, roaming the area around his lake.  Unaware of the recent murders, a group of teens - including the kind but spunky Chris (Kimmell), the goofy Andy (Rogers), his nerdy roommate Shelly (Zerner), Andy's girlfriend Debbie (Tracie Savage), Latina friend Vera (Catherine Parks), and potheads Chili (Rachel Howard) and Chuck (David Katims) - take off for a relaxing weekend at Chris' family's lake house.  Unbeknownst to the group of carefree teenagers, Jason got to the lake cottage first.

So I'm still on my Friday the 13th binge, but I think I might have to take a break from Jason after this movie.  At this point the franchise is still enjoyable, but every movie is… uh… the same?  At least Part 2 and Part III are identical in the way the plot plays out.  It's becoming more and more obvious how horror film stereotypes developed in the '80s.

Before anything- Manfredini, what is with the music in the opening (and closing) credits?  We feel like we're at some '80s club and not at all in a horror movie.  Maybe teenagers liked it at the time, but oh my goodness was that music terrible (and secretly delightful).

One of the best things this installment had to offer was the cinematography that was made to be watched in 3D.  While I watched this on my computer and not in 3D, some of the scenes (like the yo-yo bit and some of the death scenes) really play with the image coming towards the camera/ audience, and it was certainly a lot of fun/ something different.

The characters in this movie really cracked me up, and while most of them were still pretty static as sitting ducks, we saw some more development than in prior movies.  The best thing about this movie - other than the hockey mask - was hands down the Chili and Chuck duo.  Starting with the gang thinking the Mystery Machine - I mean Chris' van - was on fire, the laughs never stopped.  Several scenes throughout the film of these two just sitting or lying comatose in their altered state made me laugh out loud.  Coming from a guy who doesn't typically love the dumb humor in horror movies, that says a lot.

Shelly was also a very interesting character here.  From the first scene where he begins pulling his dumb stunts, rocking that you-know-what-fro and an assorted array of costumes and props (what a weirdo), I practically convinced myself that we were going to have a final boy here due mainly to his virginal innocence and the amount of camera time this sucker got.  A guy with low self confidence like that should be lucky to spend his final day with girls like Chris, Debbie, and Vera (ow oww).  We root for him as he stands up to the biker gang - quick aside: why? why a biker gang? why random leather-clad bullies? that entire plot bit was the most random and frustrating thing.  did random bully gangs exist like that in the '80s? I'm going to say random one more time for good measure. - or wins the apple juggling contest, but even his loser charm isn't enough to save his life from Jayjay.  In fact, is Shelly the most tragic character we've seen in a horror movie?  Dumpy, overweight nerd with not enough self-confidence to accept that Vera has been set up with him for the weekend, doesn't even get a kiss out of her before having his throat slit.  Whoops, spoiler alert.

Chris was easy to fall for.  Although her tiny body and pitchy voice might be the source of annoyance for many viewers, Horror Buff fell for her rather quickly.  This girl was a fierce final girl, like not once did she let her guard down.  Girl played defense the whole game through the fourth quarter in the barn. Dead boyfriend thrown through the window?  No biggie, she grabs any household item and goes lethal on Jason's behind.  Car out of gas and falling through a non-sanctioned bridge while a masked murderer is chasing you?  Like borrringggg, girl runs through the woods expertly until finding safety.  Trapped in a barn about to meet your maker?  Nuh uh, girl grabs all kinds of weapons and axes Jason in the face.  This girl could survive any horror movie, hands down.

This has also been the movie in which we see the most of Jason, who takes on more of a bumbling Michael Myers persona as opposed to the silent, unseen stalker we've been used to up until now.  I guess we can ask ourselves why is Jason no longer confined to hiding in dark spaces and woods, and also has his MO changed?  We get that this new batch of teen victims are in the same area where the previous two films have taken place, but are they even really on Crystal Lake?  Aside from a news broadcast in the beginning of the movie, there's no mention of the camp, previous murders, or Jason Voorhees.  Is our killer still defending his turf here, or has he just been driven to some demented rampage?

Unfortunately, with Jason getting all this new screen time, he's a lot more open to criticism here - and I didn't really like him.  I'll admit that I was most excited to watch this movie to finally see the hockey mask, but otherwise I thought that Brooker portrayed Jason too heavily with a mental disability that we've been led to believe he has/ had as a child.  In earlier films, the scares depended on suspense coming from the killer hiding out in dark corners, throwing bodies through windows, or waiting under beds for some unsuspecting teens (come to think of it, all of those things still happen here).  Any confrontations in previous movies resulted in almost immediate deaths, save for the final girl who consequently engages in a drawn out series of cat-and-mouse where we see that the otherwise invincible Jason can, in fact, be temporarily knocked out by having various lumber and weapons thrown at him, only to watch him rise and attack again… oy this is getting repetitive.

*SPOILER ALERT*

This time around, instead of only hiding in his favorite spots, Jason also lurks and stalks in the open, and we as viewers become much more accustomed to his body language, fighting techniques, strengths, and potential weaknesses.  Not that I'm saying that an unseen killer is that much more interesting movie after movie, but I certainly think that Jason was really dumbed down here.  Especially towards the end of the film with the endless pursuit of Chris, we become aware of how clumsy he is in his brute strength, and the several times that we see his disfigured face we're reminded of a dopey, color version of Lon Chaney's famous monster.  I'm pretty sure there was a grin on his face, right?  Or is it just slanted that way?  Oh well.  Also, what's the mystery bit about Chris and Jason's rendezvous in the woods?  She blacked out after being dragged away by him - what was the point of including that episode and what are we supposed to assume happened there?  Or is it just a loose end?  Not my favorite.

The ended of the movie needs to be discussed.  We've seen the *surprise-dead-murderer-jumps-out-of-the-lake-and-grabs-final-girl-just-as-we-thought-it-was-safe-but-oh-no-wait-that-was-all-a-dream* in the first movie, and a similar on-land sequence in the second movie.  Like OKAY franchise, we get it.  You like the shocking endings (that are no longer shocking).  And this time they even had Momma Vorhees jump out of the water from beyond the dead, just for shocks sake (PS that slow-mo took way too long and made it not scary whatsoever).  But no, wait, it was a dream, AGAIN.  And then - as if Paramount would have ever dropped this franchise so young - we see Jason's body being completely ignored by the police because, hey, he's dead so why should we bother taping off a crime scene?  But no, boys and girls, the nightmare doesn't end here, nor did any other horror franchise of the '80s, so I say viva la teen slashers.

Final critique:  In many outdated ways, this movie begins to remind us of our favorite love-to-hate (or hate-to-love) teen slashers from the '90s and 2000s (think Freddie Prinze and Neve Campbell.. mmm).  While this movie isn't particularly scary (at all), it's the type of film that comes to mind every time we spend a weekend at the lake house, wondering what's lurking upstairs behind all the pine and tacky decorations, or what's creeping outside in the woods.  What this film certainly is is enjoyable.  We have a fun cast of characters getting slain one by one by a not-so-fun demented killer in an iconic mask.  The deaths are creative in their own way, and aside from this movie completing the very cliches its prequels established, it's a good watch, perfect for sleepovers and lazy summer nights.

October Review

For your consideration:

1.  The Conjuring (2013): A
2.  The Omen (1976): A
3.  The Exorcist (1973): A-
4.  Friday the 13th (1980): A-
5.  Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981): B+
6.  The Mummy (1932): B-
7.  The Invisible Man (1933): C
8.  The Gate (1987): D

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  Steve Miner
Studios:  Paramount Pictures
Starring:  Amy Steel, John Furey, Warrington Gillette, Bill Randolph, Marta Kober, Stu Charno; ft. Walt Gorney
Tagline:  The Body Count Continues...
MPAA Rating:  R
Genre:  horror, slasher, stalker, thriller, psychopath, serial killer, teen
Scare score:  C
Rating:  B+

Plot overview:  Five years after the events of the first movie, the woods and waters surrounding Camp Crystal Lake are still said to be haunted by the vengeful spirit of Jason (Gillette).  When a group of teenagers arrive to a Counselor Training center just down the lake from "Camp Blood," will they provoke the wrath of the formidable killer?

While this movie does boast a pleasant change of plot (like thank goodness this wasn't just a new batch of teenagers deciding to go back to the original campground) and cast, it is pretty much your typical horror sequel.  By no means am I trying to say that this was a bad movie, but it was a very easy watch, almost pleasant, with few scares and not that much terror.

Surprisingly, acting wasn't that bad in this movie.  I know what you're thinking, it's a teen horror movie from the '80s, acting has to be horrible, but at no point did I find myself sitting there getting ticked off by bad delivery.  Sure there are some dumb moments, and I think about half the movie relies on flashbacks and plot development before any terror really begins, but I thought the film progressed smoothly.  One thing that does constantly surprise me about these movies is the way the death scenes are filmed and edited - there is about 0 gore in this film.  Zed.  Zilch.  Sure there's some blood, sure we see the murder weapons and occasionally the weapons and bloods combined, but at no point are we subjected to guts or long-lasting deaths.  In fact, most death scenes cut to still frames or that weird 3D effect.  Personally I'd like some more for added terror!

From the beginning we have this sort of cheesy '80s flick filled with your classic "cool" and even "nerdy" characters, tons of short shorts, that odd blend of humor and horror, a heavy dose of teen lust, and just the right amount of '80's fashion.  The large cast of teen characters was actually pretty surprising at the start of the movie when you start asking yourself "are all of these people really going to get killed off?"  We have a pretty wide array of personalities here - from the seemingly uptight but actually chill but general pushover Paul (Furey) to his sweetheart last-to-arrive (foreshadowing) Ginny (Steel) to the sexy but big-hearted Terry (Kirsten Baker) - because why not go skinny dipping when out looking for your lost puppy - as far as even having the handsomely handicapped Mark (Tom McBride).  The most interesting thing here is that none of these characters was mean, or annoying, or even an obvious victim.  We have a generally nice group of people, and aside from some recreational drug use and premarital relations (read the rules, people), these victims were really very innocent.  This calls our attention because Jason especially (along with frenemy Mike Myers) is known for his prophetic slaying of badly behaving teens.  This movie presents us with a group of young people whose only crime is stepping foot on the J-man's turf.  Tough luck, kiddos.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Likewise, a surprising feature of this movie is that our final girl isn't even too virginal herself, although she is the girl that plays devil's advocate when she allows herself to tap into how Jason himself might be a victim.  Speaking of which, I've read some interesting criticism about how these movies are morally wrong because they allow the viewer to sympathize with the insane killer.  If Jason's (among other antagonists) primary motive for discontinuing random teens is that they are breaking other moral and legal codes or that they themselves are the enemies (i.e. premarital sex, drug usage, or grouped into the same type of people that murdered his mother), then perhaps his actions are in the right.  Jehoshaphat forbid the audience side with a killer, right?  A fun twist this movie provides us (we'll see something similar in Halloween V) is when Ginny's survival comes down to her relating directly to the killer through his own mind and memories, even if it does involve putting on a rotting, bloody sweater.  So brave.

This movie isn't very scary, but the scary moments I thought were particularly noteworthy.  The two scares I remember (because they made me jump) came towards the end of the film as I was getting ready for bed and let my guard down.  Those were really good.  Otherwise, this film relies on constant, constant tricks to make us expect we're about to be scared, when in reality nothing happens.  Much like in the first movie, the first person point of view cameraman makes things a lot more exciting in otherwise dull parts.  Is it the killer?  Is it just the camera?  Wait for the next scary shot and you'll find out.

Let's take one final moment to talk about the worst part of this movie.  I think that it wins "worst last 10 minutes of a horror movie", because really it wasn't a bad film and then all of the sudden, the last ten minutes happen.  What?  Why?  Just when we think not only a final girl but her guy survive, we hear a tapping on the door.... to reveal a dumb dog we thought dead - I'm pretty darn sure we saw her/ it dead early on - only to reveal the killer yet again.  And then what happened?  We're not sure because it's not explained to us, but it's immensely frustrating.  Who actually lived?  Who actually died?  And when and where and how in between.

Final critique:  While the first one is probably better, this wasn't a terrible sequel.  There is a fun cast of characters, and although we imagine the Friday the 13th series as headlining the horror stereotypes, I found this movie to be quite unpredictable at times.  I'm pretty pumped for the next installment in this classic franchise, but unfortunately I'm traveling this weekend so I really won't be able to blog until next week.  In any case, have a Happy Halloween, horror fans!

American Horror Story - S3, E3 (2013)

"The Replacements"

GENERAL INFO:
Creators:  Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk
Producers:  20th Century Fox
Channel:  FX
Starring:  Jessica Lange, Emma Roberts, Taissa Farmiga, Sara Paulson, Angela Bassett, Evan Peters, Kathy Bates, Gabourey Sidibe, Patti LuPone, Jamie Brewer, Lily Rabe, Dennis O'Hare; ft. Christine Ebersole, Mare Winningham, Alexander Dreymon
TV Rating:  MA LSV
Genre:  television, horror, thriller, drama, witches, magic, Voodoo
Scare score:  D
Rating:  A

(I thought the change of poster was appropriate for this week)

Plot overview:  We learn how Fiona (Lange) gained her title as Supreme after the death of her mentor Anna-Lee Leighton (Ebersole).  Fiona continues in her struggle to remain young and powerful despite suspicions that Madison (Roberts) may be blooming as the next Supreme.  Madame LaLaurie (Bates) continues to accustom herself to the modern world and is punished for her racist antics, building an even rockier relationship with Queenie (Sidibe) who wants only to be loved.  Zoe (Farmiga) reunites regenerated Kyle (Peters) with his hopeless mother (Winningham) unaware of their family secrets.  The rift between witches and voodoo practitioners is firmly established after Delia (Paulson) asks for a guaranteed fertility ritual from Marie Laveau (Bassett), who spurns her on account of her wicked mother.

This episode broke all the rules.  While I generally thought it was a great episode, I couldn't help my mouth from falling open time and time again after I had to ask myself "Did that really just happen?"  I'm surprised that this episode had the same rating (MA LSV) as previous episodes considering the content.  

Before we get into that (half of me doesn't want to), let's talk about what's going on at this point three episodes deep in the season.  I'm worried about Misty (Rabe), who certainly felt a connection with Kyle as she nursed him back to zombie-like health.  It was obvious that she is only reaching out to Zoe, who is uncharacteristically cold towards the Stevie Nicks-blasting bayou girl, and now that Zoe has given her the brush not one but two times, I'm worried she won't stay aloof and friendly for long.  Why not just invite her to Miss Robichaux's?  (Especially now that they're in need of more pupils LOLZ).  I don't get that.  We'll have to keep an eye out for this life-and-death-defying witch.

Another new plot development is the arrival of the uber religious Ramsey's - maniacal mother Joan (LuPone) and strapping son Luke (Dreymon) - in the house next door to Miss Robichaux's.  While Luke seems harmless, his mother seems to already be onto the case of the young witches.  Having this God-faring family right next door is sure to cause some conflict for the school, although they seem to be busy enough with internal struggle that an external lawsuit doesn't seem like much.

Our other big nemesis - Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau - seemed even more wrathful this episode, contrasting her beautiful, sexual side and turning it to what seems like pure anger and dark power.  Will the clash between witches and followers of voodoo become the major conflict of the season?  Will Queenie somehow bridge the gap since we know she descends from Tituba?  Maybe we're more worried about Queenie's immediate fate regarding...

*SPOILER ALERT*

... WHAT was that girl thinking?  This was not the first jaw-dropping gross moment of the episode, but it certainly left its impression.  American Horror Story's message to the public after this episode remains clear: we don't care about rules and norms.  After all, it was pretty clear that our sassy, young, and misguided witch was ready to engage in some bewitched bestiality.  Yup, the other 'B' word.  And that wasn't the only "Oh no they didn't" part of the episode - let's take a quick minute to brush over the incest we were also subjected to.  What won't this show do?  Was it in poor taste?  Was it done for a purpose or only to show some humane terror that we'd rather not acknowledge?  That remains for viewers and critics to decide; I'm sure that people will be vocal about things like this.  I didn't even know we could show these things on TV.  Aside from these more taboo subjects, we are also being force fed a lot of racism via LaLaurie this season, with her comments going so far as to insult the current President.  On some levels this is just a bridge to place this show within our reality, on the other hand it was a surprising insult.  Though I suppose it was no harm, no foul when we were told that Fiona voted for Obama "twice."  A funny touch that the coven's leader swings left.

A guilty pleasure moment for me during the episode was when franken-Kyle bludgeons his mom to death.  The sounds, the blood spatter, and then the image we get when Zoe discovers her body was just perfectly gorey.  Viewers beware!  

Aside from specifics instances that push the button, I was most surprised by this episode's seemingly rapid killing off of characters.  Then again, in a world of witchcraft we never know who's gone for good.  Still, Fiona - who walks such a fine line between pure, unfeeling evil and tragic emotion and defeat - has shown us more of her true colors: red and black.  I love the color motif this anthology always plays upon, and in this episode it was really beautifully played out by Fiona in red and Madison in white.  Like I said in last week's entry, this show pays a lot of attention to art form, imagery, and style.  I think this episode's crowning moment was the imagined fertility ritual, filled with dancing, African-Carribean music, and images of fire, animals, and blood.

Final critique:  Deaths and conflict are increasing rather rapidly as we enter the third season's third episode.  I like that we hear Fiona's inner dialogue and see it contrasted with her outer actions.  The scares still aren't there, at least not in the ways we expect them to be, but there is something very dark about this season.  What trouble lies in store with Marie Laveau and her minotaur, or with Joan Ramsey and her Bible?  So far it's clear that nobody is getting what they want, be it love (romantic, familial, maternal), power, acceptance, youth, or freedom.  If the powerful and magically inclined aren't even powerful enough to get what they want and be happy, what does that say about the rest of us?

Friday the 13th (1980)

GENERAL INFO:
Director: Sean S. Cunningham
Studios: Paramount Pictures
Starring: Adrienne King, Kevin Bacon, Betsy Palmer
Tagline: They Were Warned... They Are Doomed... And on Friday the 13th, Nothing Will Save Them.
MPAA Rating: R
Genre: horror, slasher, stalker, thriller, psychopath, serial killer, teen
Scare score: C+
Rating: A-

Plot overview: As the film begins, two adolescent counselors at Camp Crystal Lake are killed by an unseen murderer wielding a knife and a machete. The film continues in "present day" as a handful of teenagers make their way to Camp Crystal Lake, which is set to reopen despite past tragedies and local rumors, resulting in the townies referring to it as "Camp Blood." The counselors arrive on Friday the 13th, and on their first night they are stalked and murdered by an unseen killer until only one is left to fend for her life.

Ask somebody in America to think about teen slasher movies, or just show them a retro hockey mask, and they will think about the Friday the 13th franchise. These films might just be your most stereotypical, thought-about, and referenced staple horror movies, filled with plenty of teenagers behaving badly and some mysterious killer stalking them in the distance. To me, the character of Jason goes hand in hand with Michael Myers even more so than he does with Freddy, although the latter left his mark rather explicitly on the '80s despite recent remakes. I wish I could have been alive in the 1980s if only to rot my teeth with candy and popcorn while going to the movies to see the constant debuts of these now-retro horror flicks— the iconic masks, the wide array of weapons, and the horrible acting on behalf of the victims.

I was never a big Friday the 13th fan growing up as I was much more partial to Halloween. Last night, however, was the perfect night to re-watch this campy horror classic and really enjoy it for the first time. It's clear that this franchise wanted to soak up some of the success of Halloween, and to me that's really cool. They did their own, good* job, made a new horror menace, had your classic storyline, and left their mark on generations to come.

*I use 'good' here to mean the sort of good that comes from kind of bad things. You know? Anyway, let's get started.

This is a movie of wonderful contradictions. Throughout the whole thing there is a bizarre mix of awful script-writing with strangely natural, effortless acting, but there's also plenty of decent script with acting so bad that you want to pull your hair out. This really surprised me, especially the scenes where the varied ensemble (including Kevin Bacon and one of Bing Crosby's sons... like no big deal I guess) of teens are actually so casual that you think you're looking at candid home footage. These parts are contrasted by everything you imagine teen horror (especially from the '80s) to be: awful. To help the acting, some of the writing is really natural and even enjoyable— and then there are parts that you want to poke your own eyes out because the dialogue is so dumb. What a roller coaster ride with a strangely awesome outcome.

I think most people between the ages of 15 and 60 would at least recognize (although not necessarily know the source of) the "ki ki ki, ma ma ma" sound that this movie made so iconic. Also, I mean, it's clearly more of a "chi chi chi, ha ha ha" with a really guttural emphasis at the beginning of either sound, but movie scorer Harry Manfredini says otherwise. This movie gives us an eerie score (with parts sounding identical to Psycho by the end), with music building us up and making us ready for "bam" moments that rarely come.

The movie poster is awesome. I want it in my bedroom now. Enough said.

My favorite thing about Friday the 13th is how it was filmed. The first person point of view is normally just the cameraman, but in crucial moments it is also the killer— and the lines are often blurred. There are scenes in which we're meant to think we're seeing what the killer sees, and then it turns out that no one was there. I absolutely love that. Sure we've seen what it's like behind Michael Myers's mask (with the two dumb eyeholes, nobody actually sees like that), but we also usually see Michael himself. That's the other thing I love about this movie— killer wise, it does everything Halloween doesn't. We don't know who the killer is this entire film, and this mystery identity keeps us guessing and worrying. Also, where Halloween banks on the shots with the killer made just visible in the background—down the street, in a window, in the backyard (PS I love those shots)—in this movie we never see the killer. The best part is that we are so often set up to expect to see a shadow or silhouette, and we never do. All we ever see is a hand and the weapon. The first person makes this film much more suspenseful.

Next we have the question of the plot itself: this entire film is plausible— why shouldn't some teens left alone at a creepy camp out in the woods be stalked and murdered by some assailant? Nothing fantastic happens here except for the killer's insanely good aim with arrows, knives, and axes. This movie is scary because you're going to think about it the next time you go out camping with friends. So again, the whole movie, you're sitting there and thinking "Uh huh, this is going to happen to me (especially in West Jersey: yikes)"— and then the last ten minutes happen.

*SPOILER ALERT*

The last ten minutes of the movie leave us with questions that cannot be answered. Following a night of scaring and tragic events, why would you just float out into the middle of a lake in the dark on a canoe quite literally without a paddle? Why would Jason still be a boy? Why does Alice (King) suddenly believe that "he's still there" and why would he be a boy (you dope)? Why did the police show up blaring their lights to a camp even though there was no call for help or reason to think anything was wrong? And since when does a machete—which I could have sworn was a broken canoe paddle—cut clean through a neck and spine? While the shot of Jason jumping up out of the water made me jump a little, too, I wonder if the entire falling action of the movie was made purely to introduce Jason and set up the sequel. Still, I've read that the whole Jason sequence was dreamed up only to provide one final scare in the movie. Sell. Outs.

One of the best things about this movie is the mystery identity of the killer. This isn't Michael Myers, who we know is stalking and killing everybody in Illinois. Is it Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney)? Is it the camp's owner, Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer)? After the commercial success of this franchise, everyone associates the movies with one thing: Jason. After all, it's all about him, isn't it? Well we return to this first film, and then we're not so sure. Because 21 years after an unnamed child drowns at Camp Crystal Lake, we think we're watching only slightly related events until the last ten minutes of the film when we finally hear the name 'Jason'— and meet his mother, Mrs. Voorhees (Palmer). I absolutely loved that the killer was a woman and a mother, and I loved that through her reverse-Psycho psychosis she provides her own M.O. by switching to "Kill her, mommy. Kill her." While that might be really easy to laugh at in a crowd, by yourself or with a small group it is a truly eerie touch of crazy. Mrs. Voorhees's pursuit of Alice at the end of the film was rather pathetic (I think she gets knocked down, but she gets up again a la Chumbawumba at least 5 times), with the suspense dragging on until ridiculousness climaxes with a decapitation that's so unpredictable we don't know if we can accept it. Then again, I guess the filmmakers didn't really care if we accepted it, because with at least 10 more sequels to follow, this is the highest-grossing horror film franchise of all time.

Final critique: While this is the slasher film franchise that set all the stereotypes, in and of itself it is not the most stereotypical movie. One one hand, we had something creepy, new, and different at the time of the film's release. On the other hand, this movie is pretty much the basis of my second cardinal rule. Characters are at times filled with real teenage emotion, but they are usually very flat with little delivery. Deaths are plentiful and while they are often suspenseful, they are not scary or interesting. Their random occurrences and their random discoveries, however, perhaps add more terror to the film than a movie boasting predictable deaths might have. All in all, this is a campy classic that I'm sure only gets worse as the franchise moves on. For the time being, I highly recommend this first film especially during the Halloween season or at any late night movie viewing. Be warned that there are some gorey scenes, but not too many real scares.

The Exorcist (1973)

GENERAL INFO:
Director: William Friedkin
Studios: Warner Bros.
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow
Tagline: The Movie You've Been Waiting For... Without the Wait.
MPAA Rating: R
Genre: horror, terror, supernatural thriller, drama, exorcism, possession, religious occult
Scare score: B
Rating: A-

Plot overview: Recently-separated movie actress Chris MacNeil (Burstyn) is living in Georgetown with her friendly, spontaneous 12-year-old daughter Regan (Blair) and some staff. When Regan suddenly begins undergoing extremely drastic personality changes, Chris takes her to several doctors, who can only conclude that Regan should go to a psychiatrist. Chris, however, thinks that there is something much more fantastic and malevolent at hand. When Regan, who is now constrained to her bed due to her violent fits, appears physically altered and her personality has completely changed, Chris enlists the help of Father Damian Karras (Miller), a gifted psychiatrist and priest who is dealing with his faith. After seeking the help of the renown Father Merrin (von Sydow), both men attempt an exorcism to rid Regan of the demon possessing her.

If you ask anybody between the ages of 30 and 60 to name a horror movie, any horror movie, chances are they will name The Exorcist. There is something special about this film that scared—or maybe the word here is fazed—audiences and then stuck with them, something that people today still recount and it sends shivers down their spine. Horror Buff doesn't particularly love hopping on the bandwagon without giving the fad in question a good thinking over, so I have to admit that I was not enamored of The Exorcist after first seeing it when I was little. A coworker was talking to me about it recently while we discussed my love of horror movies, so I decided to revisit this classic. I guess I had to know exactly what it was about this movie that still scares people today.

Even if you're not into overkill, mainstream stuff, The Exorcist is a genre-defining classic. The movie is more artful than scary, relying on a few images that shock you and stick in your mind after the movie has ended. I have to admit, as I started this movie around 1 AM the weather took a turn for the worse outside my window, and I was able to enjoy this film during a pretty crazy wind and rainstorm. As I've said before, the ambience changes the movie-viewing experience entirely. Beyond the few scares this movie tosses our way, there is a general sense of uneasiness, and throughout the rest of the time we have a family struggle of which the drama certainly had me hooked early on.

What's weird about this movie? Nothing scary happens until about an hour into the film. Sure, there are a few subtle moments (I was really into the random flashes of that demon's face; would love to see a monster like that in modern horror), but the plot doesn't even beginning rolling into pretty far into the film. I thought the Ouija board was a fun touch, although I wasn't convinced that it was even important to the plot— is that how Regan first got possessed, or is it introduced as a cultural tool that introduces the possibility that Regan brought this on herself? Same goes for the small medallion that Father Merrin uncovers at the dig in Iraq. The multiple story lines in this movie struck me as being pretty bizarre in the fashion that they were ultimately edited together. It took such a long time to get to Regan's story, which, while everyone knows is the main point of the movie, in reality doesn't even take up too much time. We see practically just as much slow-moving background on Father Merrin (even though we don't know who the heck he is) and Father Karras as we do on the MacNeils.

One thing I did like about all the background was that it makes the characters more real, which I guess has a lot to do with the book on which this movie is based. I haven't read it, but I'm sure that Blatty, Friedkin, and crew knew exactly what they were doing. The dynamics between Burstyn and Blair are so genuine, so spontaneously realistic that you can't help but liking them. Blair is an incredible actress (although later in the movie it's not clear when it's actually her and when it's a doll with Mercedes McCambridge's voice) because you can't even tell she's acting. She just seems like a happy-go-lucky 12-year-old girl. This is one of the biggest challenges to Karras's faith: Why would such an innocent girl become a victim? What does that mean for the rest of humanity? The onset of her possession happens really quickly (hmmm), but the contrast afterwards is great. Out of all the possession movies I've begrudgingly seen, I think that my absolutely favorite possessed person has to be Regan/ Pazuzu.

What else is weird about this film that I wasn't crazy about? Now I certainly don't think that directors need to beat a dead horse, and I really can't stand dialogue for the sake of plot exposition, but you can't always take crazy leaps and expect people to follow. I acknowledge that I haven't read the book, so perhaps the movie was made with the understanding that many viewers wouldn't have as hard a time following along. Example 1: Father Merrin is called to check out the recently discovered dig site, and when he finds a small medallion and a carving he suddenly grows ill, freaks out, and 'has to leave.' And then he disappears for like an hour and a half. Alright. Later, Regan is showing her mom the Ouija board that she 'found in a closet' and we are introduced to this character of Captain Howdy. The Ouija board is a reference to one of America's most famous cases of possession, which Blatty's novel draws inspiration from. While we do see the planchette move by itself, therefore refusing to let Chris play along with Regan, we never see or hear it mentioned again, and even during a preliminary meeting between Father Karras and possessed Regan, when asked "Are you Regan's friend Captain Howdy?" the entity responds no. So is the Ouija board a red herring, or is Pazuzu just a master of deception, lying all over the place? I couldn't help but feel like this movie on several accounts jumps ahead and we miss out. Why are there bumps in the attic? What was there? A physical manifestation of the demon? Something else that ticked me off was the help in the house— did this movie ever explain that Sharon Spencer (Kitty Winn) was an assistant, or why she was living with the family? For half the movie I thought this was Regan's sister that Chris oddly didn't treat like a daughter. This was really confusing, but I guess it's in the book.

I think the special effects of the movie were really pretty good. In fact, I'd have to say that in the whole movie—forget the pea soup, the green slime, the mucus-y loogies-from-hell, the twisted necks, and even the crucifix being used as a weapon and other things—the scene that grossed me out the most was when Regan had to go to the hospital for tests and they like stuck that wire into her neck. The shooting blood and then even thicker needle really grossed me out. Perhaps the other memorable part about this particular classic is Pazuzu's use of profanity. Like keep your children away from this movie unless you want them acting like the offspring of a sailor and a truck driver. I think the fact that they filmed Regan's bedroom scenes in a refrigerated set was brilliant, because I hate in movies when it's supposed to be cold and you don't see any breath. I read that Friedkin kinda sorta abused his cast here, leading to some real and true reactions from various actors resulting from surprise or even pain sustained while filming. I also saw the version with the so-called "spider-walk," and I thought that while its placement within the film was awkward, the scene itself was a cool touch.

As far as acting goes this movie had a '70s touch to it, but the acting was both convincing and endearing. Call me crazy, but did anyone else find it ironic that while Burstyn plays an actress, I didn't think her acting in the beginning of the movie was that great? Regardless, she might have been my favorite character, but I found some scenes a little questionable earlier on in the film. I thought Jason Miller was the true main character of the movie (not sure how it is in the book), and while I felt like I was watching The Godfather, he did a good job. Not sure why Father Merrin is treated so importantly in the plot when his importance did not seem established to me, but I liked von Sydow's acting. As you know, I don't think Linda Blair could have done any better. A quick shout out to Reverend William O'Malley in the role of Father Dyer, because we share the same alma mater. You gotta love a good Jesuit-themed horror movie.

Final critique: You should see this movie, especially at this time of year. While I think there's much more to this movie than its horror, the scary scenes are fun and worth the wait. What I don't understand is why people, magazines, and conglomerate sites rate this movie the scariest movie of all time because it's quite simply not. Understandably, at the time of its release it might have been, especially because of the shocking language and gross imagery. What's strange about the 'scary moments' of this movie is that they're very memorable, but not very scary. Sure, you have a few head turns and a lot of slime thrown on people's faces, and the title song is certainly eerie, but these things last a brief amount of time and then the emphasis returns from horror to drama, which seems to me to have been the theme of this movie.

American Horror Story - S3, E2 (2013)

"Boy Parts"


GENERAL INFO:
Creators:  Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk
Producers:  20th Century Fox
Channel:  FX
Starring:  Jessica Lange, Taissa Farmiga, Emma Roberts, Kathy Bates, Sara Paulson, Lily Rabe, Angela Bassett, Evan Peters
TV Rating:  MA LSV
Genre:  television, horror, thriller, drama, witches, magic, Voodoo, resurgence
Scare score:  F
Rating:  A-

Plot overview:  Following the [various] tragedies at last episode's frat party, the even more isolated and angry Madison (Roberts) tries to do a dark favor for the grieving, confused Zoe (Farmiga).  Meanwhile, we learn more about headmistress Coredlia's (Paulson) personal life with her husband Hank (Josh Hamilton).  After digging up the immortal yet cursed Madame LaLaurie (Bates), the ruthless Supreme witch Fiona (Lange) searches New Orleans and tracks down Marie Laveau (Bassett) from the rival clan of voodoo practitioners.

This episode dives much further into the dark side of witchcraft without losing an emotional side.  No one ever said being a witch was easy, but the wicked gals of AHS: Coven bring plenty of heart to the story as well.  We saw more relationships form, develop, or end in this episode, and while the episode is titled "Boy Parts" and we are introduced to Delia's husband, the emphasis is still on the females here. Even Fiona shows some emotion towards the end of the episode when sitting on a bench with the bewildered and out-of-place LaLaurie.  Is there perhaps more to our favorite wicked witch?

Let's chat quickly about plot before I movie into spoilers and analysis/ opinions.  "Mommy, where do witches come from?"  That's a question we've all asked at one point or another, right?  Well if we watched Episode 1, chances are we asked ourselves that question last week.  One of my favorite things about horror is the different ways that each film, TV show, or story interprets an evil or specific genre that we think we've already seen done.  Like sure, we've seen a million Draculas, but sometimes he's just a random Eastern European dude with a blood fetish, and sometimes he's Judas, condemned to walk the earth harvesting blood for all time.  A good interpretation makes all the difference.  That's why Horror Buff was excited to get some juicy plot thrown our way this time around in Episode Dos, and it all comes down to one of America's most terrible and true stories: slavery.  If you never fell asleep during a production of The Crucible and you listened closely to the dialogue between Fiona and Laveau, you'd know by now that according to AHS' interpretation, witches first learned their power from Tituba, a slave in Salem and one of the first women to be accused of practicing witchcraft.  Not only was li'l Tituba accused, but she confessed to said witchcraft (after being severely beaten by her master... because a confession after torture is always honest) and then went on to accuse many others, constantly elaborating her story and generally scaring everybody in Salem so much that lots of innocent people were brutally executed in various, terrible ways.  Tituba is of debated descent, but AHS has chosen the belief that she descends from the Arawaks of the "West Indies" (speaking of which, Happy Belated Columbus Day if you're into that), aka the Antilles and the Bahamas, aka one of the tribes most famously annihilated by the Spanish and other gold-hungry Europeans.  Wait for the best part: after causing so much chaos in New England, Tituba was sent to jail, released, and then --- wait for it!! --- she disappeared.  I have to admit that I didn't know this until doing some research just now, but hey, it works great for the plot here!

One more time: as dedicated viewers of AHS, we are to understand that Tituba, a native of the Carribean and alleged practitioner of old, dark magic.  Upon being brought to Salem as a slave, Tituba taught her magic to the white settlers, and witches as we know them in America (and the world? we're not sure) were born.  (Why Delia's scrolls/ spells are in Latin, then, is beyond me...)  Other important plot note: early in the episode we learn that Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe) is supposed to be a scion of Tituba.  We'll see if that comes into play later!  All in all, this "passing on" of magical knowledge has since caused a rift between native practitioners, such as those who know observe voodoo including Marie Laveau, and the witches, largely considered to be white (at least according to Queenie).  Riveting stuff.

*SPOILER ALERT*

As if anyone thought that Evan Peters would be crossed off the list of characters after just one episode; he's AHS royalty, people.  The only thing is I'm just not sure how Kyle-y he's going to be this time around as a modern, fratty Frankenstein's monster.  His revival scene was the first real bit of magic that we've seen so far this season, and it wasn't Hocus Pocus (actually that movie is surprisingly dark for kids...)  What I'm trying to say is that this was no white bread magic, this was dark, satanic stuff with blood and salts and candles (matches have been a really beautiful motif so far this season).  It ticked me off that Madison left the morgue as soon as she thought the revival didn't work- what was her plan of action after workers came back to find body parts sewn together in what was clearly some sort of ritual?    Kyle himself was angry, violent, and confused, like any monster recently brought to life, and I'm sure we're in for some complicated little love story here.  I did love how his resurgence caused some sort of ripple that Misty Day (Rabe) was able to sense.

Speaking of which- did those silly humans really think a witch with powers over life and death could be killed so easily?  Silly farmers and their pitchforks (and chewin' tobbacy).  I can't tell yet if I like Misty or if I trust her.  She seems, like her gift itself, unstable and potentially dangerous.  She's clearly lonely and out-of-it, and I was surprised that Zoe didn't try and convince her to come join da crew at Miss Robichaux's- she is a young and gifted witch after all.  Her instability is what worries me most, so we'll see where this season takes her although I assume she'll be more on the positive side considering the events of last season.  Even so, we've certainly seen her dark side in the first few minutes of the episode (if she were with PETA imagine what she could do with fur coats).

I am really thrilled to see where the Fiona-Laveau-LaLaurie plot line goes this season.  It's difficult because we naturally feel pity for LaLaurie, cursed with immortality and suddenly thrusted into modern society where even the ring of a cell phone frightens her.  Then we remember who she is and what she did, and we have to remind ourselves that she shouldn't be invited to our pity parties.  Still, this anthology has been known to push our limits and make us question ourselves.  There is this overwhelming sense of lost love - Laveau's bull beau, LaLaurie's daughters (even the ugly one!), and something about Fiona's past we're still not sure about (is there a man?), my guess is there's still more to see between her and Delia.  Taking these three women, all of which are evil but likable in their own way, we have three types of relationships lost entirely: a woman and her lover (Laveau), a women and her children (LaLaurie), and a woman and herself (the self-absorbed Fiona).  All of these women think themselves great through their powers, accomplishments, and followers, and now each will have to prove just what she's capable of.

At the end of the day, what American Horror Story really comes down to is the beautiful images that it gives us.  This show is a well thought out work of art, and each week it gives us new, terrible, beautiful, frightful, artistic imagery to work with (or deal with) and try and understand (or erase from our memories).  The opening credits this season are so excellent (I didn't really like them in Asylum), filled with spooky and mysterious pictures of women, ceremonies by firelight, blood, hoods, snakes, horns, candles- the list goes on.  Just do a Google image search and you are provided with truly beautiful yet scary pictures and posters, many of which possess a moving symmetry with much deeper meanings (from Connie Brighton and Rubberman to a nun with a contorted patient).  On this episode we saw the 'boy parts' that represented tragedy to Zoe and potential to Madison, and to many viewers it probably just represented a reason to go blow chunks (this show is full of them).  As each new episode comes about, I mainly look forward to plot development and then what new, tragic or inspiring imagery will be introduced to us.  In a show like this, it's easy to be distracted by the disgusting and disturbing elements and then to overlook the artful, beautiful side of horror.

Final critique:  Good episode, good plot development, great acting- but where's the horror?  Methinks it's approaching us subtly and that soon it will take us by storm.  If we see more magic/ ritual scenes, I can only imagine how dark (and hot?) they will be.  Heads are starting to butt, a minotaur is being let loose, and soon we'll have not only a serial killer but a superstar joining our ranks: next week, Miss R's receives some new, religious neighbors (holla' Patti LuPone).  The girls will meet some new love interests and learn how to deal with old (deceased) ones.  Family troubles and old rivalries will not be easily extinguished.  There is so much in store for this season, but Horror Buff says bring on the scares!

The Conjuring (2013)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  James Wan
Studios:  Warner Bros., New Line Cinema
Starring:  Vera Farmiga, Lili Taylor, Patrick Wilson, Ron Livingston
Tagline:  Based on the True Case Files of the Warrens
MPAA Rating:  R
Genre:  horror, thriller, family drama, haunting, possession, exorcism, witch, ghost
Scare score:  A
Rating:  A

Plot overview:  After moving into a historic home in a small Rhode Island town, the Perron family is hoping for an easy transition and a fresh start.  Shortly after moving into the house, however, strange events begin plaguing the family such as the persistent smell of rotting meat, bruises appearing all over wife Carolyn's (Taylor) body, unexplained sounds, and broken objects throughout the house.  Things become worse when husband Roger (Livingston) has to go away for a few days, as both Carolyn and several of her five daughters witness the horrifying presence of various spirits in the house.  Desperate for help as the haunting worsens, the Perrons call acclaimed paranormal investigators Ed Warren (Wilson) who is a demonologist and his clairvoyant wife Lorraine (Farmiga) to help them save their house and family.

Now back before my days writing The Horror Blog, I would have considered going to the movies by myself to be an unthinkable act of social embarrassment.  However, this summer helped me prove my dedication to horror movies as I was compelled not once but twice to go see a horror movie alone during its premiere weekend.  It's not my fault if my friends are too scared; it simply had to be done.  You'd think Horror Buff's friends would have thicker-skin.  Alas, that's not the case.

The Conjuring was the first of these movies (the second was Insidious: Chapter 2 so I mean I can't complain about my choices).  Now of course your opinion of any film is going to be influenced by the environment in which you see it.  Unfortunately for me, instead of going to see this movie, say, late at night, or at a private showing, or even with friends, I saw it by myself at 7:30 on a Saturday evening in a completely full movie theater which had several children and one baby in the audience.  Yes, a baby was carried in after the film already started, at which point the family had to sit in the FIRST ROW.  That instance of bad parenting was probably scarier than the movie itself.  Aside from the general situation, this was a talkative audience (the baby, it should be noted, never made a peep).  I however sat behind this couple that loved discussing every happening in the movie - this included the girlfriend trying to constantly guess what was going to happen next (she was never right.  Not once), and when her boyfriend wouldn't respond she'd just try making out with him.  Otherwise the audience laughed too loudly at all the funny moments in the movie, but they'd also laugh at things that weren't funny, which certainly made it less scary.  At scary (or not scary) parts, this talkative audience would also react with screams or jumps, which makes a movie-going experience more positive.  As several months have passed, though, I'm just re-watching the movie now alone in my apartment to get a better feel for the terror.  PS it's working.

My first reaction when I started seeing trailers for this movie last spring was "I need to see this."  My second reaction, however, was that it all seemed a little too over-the-top.  Here we had James Wan and half his cast from Insidious (which I blogged about a year ago today; where does the time go?) thrown together into trailers which looked like somebody went into a horror movie props room in Hollywood and took everything they could carry.  Like seriously, in a 2 minute trailer alone we saw scary dolls (aka the girlfriend of Billy the Puppet), scary witches, pasty dismembered hands, people covered in sheets, a swarm of crows circling the house, women hanged from trees- the list goes on.  That being said, I went into this movie expecting it to be cliche and misguided.

As per usual, let's start at the very beginning.  "Base on a true story."  You know how I feel about these words.  You know that they turn me into a skeptic and put an almost automatic frown onto my face.  While I still really enjoyed this film, I naturally did lots of research on the Warrens immediately following the movie as I stayed to see if anything funky happened in the credits (nothing did), and the whole Perron case is pretty changed here.  According to real accounts from the Perrons, their house was filled with both friendly and malicious spirits, some of which would play with the children and tuck them in at night.  I guess we missed out on those friendly ghouls as the film opted to stick to the pure terror.

Next up: Annabelle.  The allegedly creepy doll.  I want to know if James Wan designed this little lady like he did Billy, the doll on the bike in the Saw movies, who to be fair I think is a creepy looking dude.  Annabelle isn't looking too well herself, but these two definitely have traits in common which makes me wonder.  The prologue to the movie felt random to me, like a B-feature way to scare people/ set the tone for a totally different plot.  Hours later when Annabelle comes back into the storyline I think I let out an audible, unamused "Ha" to welcome her back.  Needless to say, I hate loud pounding, and the prologue was therefore pretty discomforting as far as the physics-defying doll's display, which then led us into a comfy classroom setting to introduce us to this movie's equivalent to Insidious's Elise, the loving and easy-to-love Warren duo.  Then cue the spectacular title sequence - the font, the script, the yellow on black, the whole look of the title sequence was really fantastic and took us back to the '70s.  It reminded me a bit of the look of The Amityville Horror, which this movie pays homage to due to the involvement of the Warrens in both cases.

*SPOILER ALERT*

I like the scene where we first meet the Perron family because the cameras are already inside the house, making the viewer one with the spirits who eagerly wait inside for their new prey.  Still, we have some pretty slow-moving rising action and introduction to the peculiarities of the house such as a cellar filled with haunted I mean beautiful antiques (omg surprise basement!  Plus square footage on our next refinancing!), a totally ominous tree outback with an old abandoned toy, and clocks that stop in the early hours of the morning.  It isn't until about half an hour into the film that we actually start to get scared by the "clap hands" game between Carolyn and youngest daughter April (Kyla Deaver).  Quick side note- who in their right mind lets their children walk around a completely unfamiliar home blindfolded when it is still covered in unpacked furniture and boxes?  Hello safety hazard.  Immediately following that scare is the invisible but pretty convincingly scary night haunting sequence starring middle daughters Christine (future major celeb Joey King) and Nancy (Hayley McFarland).  Immediately following that scare is Caroyln's big intro into the true terrors of her house - including the scene that we were all perhaps most looking forward to from the trailers.  And then, as if we hadn't been scared enough, remaining daughters Cindy (Mackenzie Foy) and Andrea (Shanley Caswell) are witnesses to a malicious demon.  Like enough already!  This haunting is truly a family affair (minus daddy who is away being a trucker).  After that, the movie slows down again to build up the plot behind the terror and draw us into a false sense of safety as we are readied for the oncoming barrage of horror.

I remember the first time I saw this movie I was caught up by the many transitions between normal life and the hauntings that sometimes distract us from the fluidity of the plot, which I guess it pretty typical of haunting movies with the contrast between night and day.  This time around, though, everything felt much more normal.  The way this film is set up, we get a nice balance of crowd-pleasing scares and plot, both of which keep us content.  The scares in this movie are really great and really scary.  There is an older feeling about them, just your classic scares that you know are coming up, yet they still manage to make you jump.  As far as special effects, this film doesn't depend on them like a lot of modern horror does, but what is does do it does well.  I was constantly surprised by the excellent transitions at the end of the film when Carolyn is possessed- her changing face was so disgusting, and then in a second it would be back to normal.  Cool stuff.

Even though this movie relies on old school scares, and even though it might easily remind us of flicks like Insidious, The Exorcist, and Poltergeist (that brief scene with TV static was not for naught), it really is its own film entirely, and through a strange mixture that's heavy on some cliches, it manages to create an entirely new element.  Mind you, Wan really goes for broke on the whole "sometimes it's not just a house that's haunted" when the Warrens oh so matter-of-factly explain that these dark entities have latched themselves onto the Perrons themselves.  This seems to be a new trend developing in horror, but hey, I'm happy with it.  The ghosts are equally disgusting and frightening (with impeccable timing and makeup), and we have to give a shout out to our main girl Bathsheba who is played by none other than composer Joseph Bishara - who you could tell from the get go with the strings in the opening piece is also the composer of either Insidious film.  Who knew he would make a ghost equally as terrifying as his music?  One concept I ended up liking about this film was the very thing I went in doubting - the seemingly over-the-top use of scary items and motifs.  By the end of the movie, I had come to really appreciate the room in the Warrens' house filled with possessed or otherwise dangerous items.  Not only was Rory's toy a good idea for possible marketing (like either previously mentioned doll), but it was so darn creepy.  Right up until the last second of the film, we were all expecting that music box to show us something horrible.

The acting in this movie is alright.  I didn't really like Lili Taylor in The Haunting, and she's virtually unchanged here.  Her portrayal of a mother possessed is much more convincing than her happy-go-lucky wife and mother.  I like Ron Livingston as a pretty believable American dad, but I liked him better as Lt. Nixon.  You can't win 'em all.  To me, the biggest disappointment was Patrick Wilson who I genuinely liked in the Insidious films.  When it comes to his portrayal of Ed Warren, is he even really acting that well?  I get that these people are intelligent, well-versed, and experienced, but he delivers all of his lines so curtly and coldly as if the things he revealed about demons and paranormal activity were things we should have learned in kindergarten.  On the other hand, I did really enjoy Farmiga's (older sis of Taissa who's our new star in American Horror Story: Coven!) performance as the sincere, kind, and clairvoyant Lorraine.  It's tough when you have a kind of all-powerful character like this, who again is so similar to Insidious' Elise, because they're very easy to like.  Aside from her personality, I thought that Farmiga brought us a very powerful delivery- convincingly showing us her roles as wife, lover, mother, and helper.  As for the 5 daughters, I wasn't convinced that they were actually sisters or a family, but in their various moments in the spotlight they each did a good job.  If you haven't seen the comedy-horror Detention starring Caswell in a role equal in teen angst to that of Andrea, you're in for an impeccably-written treat.  I really didn't like King in the various nighttime sequences when she unconvincingly tried convincing us that she thought her sister was pulling her leg (literally) and passing wind (euphemistically), but by the end when she seemed truly terrified in car she won me back.  To tell you the truth, I thought that Cindy was the one who was going to be possessed because I mean, just watch her throughout the movie- girl is so freaky.  The various scenes of here looking legitimately evil had to be done on purpose as a red herring.  Kyla Deaver as April was simply too young, and while she was a total cutie, her lines sounded, well, like memorized lines.  As for Nancy... uh, E for effort? #middlechild

Final critique:  Ultimately, this movie amounts to scare after scare thrown at us until we can't handle any more.  Naturally, I love that.  To the film's credit, the plot itself is neat, and while I went into this fearing it would be all over the place, everything sort of manages to tie itself together.  After seeing it during its opening weekend this past July, this film immediately shot its way high up on my list of horror favorites, and I would easily recommend it to anybody.  Well- if you scare easily, if you have nightmares after horror movies, or if you have a weak heart, stay away.  This is a truly scary movie for general audiences; it's also well thought out, delivers on its promises, and has heart to boot.