Black Fears (Horror Noire, 2019)

When you think of horror, it can often seem like people of color don’t exist. The Universal classics were devoid of black people. And even when they were present, they were violent savages (1933’s King Kong).

But Horror Noire looks deeper into the presence of the black community in horror films. It is not really hard to find black horror fans today. And really, horror has a long history of popularity in the black community…but often with very different lessons.

The film opens by noting the most famous horror film of them all is a film a lot of white people do not often cite as a horror film. But you can see why Birth of a Nation is truly horrific in its story and racist portrayals of black men.

Through interviews with writers, directors and many actors the decades of horror are explored. Early on the documentary explores forgotten films from the 40’s such as Son of Ingagi by Spencer Williams (most remembered as Andy from Amos & Andy).

There is a heavy look at the 70’s with regard to films that came out during the height of blaxploitation films. While films like Blackenstein do not fare well, Blacula and Ganja and Hess transcend the genre.

There is a terrific statement in the film:

“We’ve always loved horror. It’s just that horror, unfortunately, hasn’t always loved us.”

The insights from actors in regards to their roles is key. Kelly Jo Minter, Ken Sagoes and Miguel A. Nùñez Jr all bristle at the notion that their roles were incidental. Of course, they were aware that in many cases they were the only people on the set of color…but as Sagoes notes, he was happy to have a check.

Horror Noire is a worthwhile documentary that I found fascinating and educational. I highly recommend sitting down for it.

As an aside…Jordan Peele…while you are changing the face of horror…please do not forget about Keith David, Ken Foree and Tony Todd.

February 9, 2019 0

Just Need to Take a Ride (Knightriders, 1981)

I never really had any idea what this movie was about, based on the cover in the video store. s thought it was maybe about time traveling bikers in medieval times or a post apocalyptic future. It turns out…it is about Ren Fair bikers who get super popular.

Billy leads a traveling show where everyone dresses as knights and other medieval citizenry, with the one different being they ride motor cycles rather than horses. Most treat it as a fun business, but Billy seems to have really bought into the notion that there is a certain reality to his kingdom. He starts to really have a crisis when he discovers a magazine write up about his crew that starts to cause fractures. It starts to get minds within the group to be tempted by dreams of fame and stardom.

Eventually, Morgan (Tom Savini) walk away to take a lucrative sounding offer of commercialization. And while it is exciting at first, they start to become disillusioned, missing what they had with Billy.

It is interesting to see how they have framed various members of the Arthurian court. Merlin is more of a hippie than magician…but he seems able to reach Billy in a fashion others cannot.

The film focuses on themes of being true to yourself and your ideals, an not caving to compromise. And that can feel a bit goofy in a film about guy jousting on motorcycles for fun.

The jousting sequences are fun to watch and really, the cast does a good job of bringing it all to life convincingly. If the film has one major flaw, it is quite simply that at two and a half hours? It is a bit to long. But still, this is such an odd man out of the Romero catalogue, it has some real charms.

October 7, 2017 0

When There Is No More Room In Hell (Dawn of the Dead, 1978)

It took about ten years for Romero to find something new to explore with zombies. It was the Dawn of the Shopping Mall, with large insular buildings housing a variety of stores. At the time, this encapsulated the concerns of modern life and consumerism. George Romero looked at the shopping mall and thought “What a terrifying place!”

The film opens amidst a frenzied newsroom trying to make sense of what is happening. It appears this may be the same night as the original film, though the film is never that explicit. It does not reference Night of the Living Dead. None of the films do, actually. Each film seems to take place in an ever present “now”, regardless of if it makes sense in the greater context of all the films.

Two newsroom employees escape in a helicopter, along with two S.W.A.T. team members. They end up landing on a mall roof. What follows is an adventure of survival as they build a small fortress and use the mall stores to wait out the zombie situation. At first, this works out quite well, and they get creative, building fake walls to hide stairwells from Zombies, blocked glass doors with trucks, using the mall keys to move from store to store and get supplies.

But you know their paradise cannot last as outside forces close in. Romero keeps his central cast to a tight four. This is a good choice, as we are allowed to connect with our leads and root for their success in a way that can be hard if there are to many people to keep track of.

The gore effects are improved over the previous effort, though as Tom Savini noted making many zombies grayish colored actually results in zombies looking blue. And the blood splatter from some zombies seems far to large for shambling dead creatures.

This is the film that really set up the “Zombie represents mindless consumption” metaphor. Which is kind of funny, since there have been an endless supply of bad zombie films over the years for the masses to consume. But Dawn of the Dead is a great film and important to the horror (and especially zombie films) genre.

October 6, 2017 0

Let’s Visit Texas Part 3 (Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, 1990)

After the failure of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, New Line Cinema got the the rights. And they were determined to make the Texas Chainsaw Massacre into a franchise in line with their Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Let me get this out of the way. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 has one of the best Teaser Trailers Ever:

Of course, absolutely to be expected the movie is just not as wonderfully absurd as the trailer. Truthfully, the most interesting aspect of the film is they tried to get Peter Jackson to direct and the film stars Future Aragorn, Viggo Mortenson. Unlike the second film, this one goes for darker and gorier.

A young couple runs afoul of Leatherface and his new family. Leatherface is the only returning character (to be fair, all the others died in the second film) and his new family is a different approach. They are more of a traditional family. You know, a traditional family who hacks people up. But a traditional family. A mom, dad, kids, a guy with a weird eye. And a big, big chainsaw.

Again…traditional family.

The film’s cast was mostly unknown at the time, though they did include genre vet Ken Foree. The cast is generally likeable, but the story is kind of dopey. The story includes all sorts of references to the original film, but they feel like moments where the film makers felt they should be following the original closely without directly ripping it off. At the same time, it is clear that the first time screen writer David Schow was trying to take the series in a slightly different direction that made the sequel open for more sequels.

The film also had many re-shoots that significantly altered the story. One character clearly dies at the hands of Leatherface. And then shows back up at the end. A lot of what is happening gets confusing.

Director Jeff Burr had made the entertaining horror anthology Whisper to a Scream (also known as the Offspring). The film was made bloody, but it then cut extensively to satisfy the MPAA. So gore hounds were not going to be satisfied, while people looking for a great scary story were not going to get that either. Everybody involved seems to have put a lot of effort to do it right…but there were to many cooks in the kitchen.

Looking back, most of the crew is pretty honest about how terrible the film turned out to be. I had a conversation with Jeff Burr back in 2004, and he made no pretense about how it would be a good film “if only”. And I honestly enjoy that kind of honesty. Here is a short documentary about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6fzaJrkY_U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m09kPjDuqsY

October 27, 2016 0

The Night He Became a Zombie (Halloween, 2007)

After the failure of Halloween Resurrection, The franchise regrouped and tried to figure out their next step. And they were stumped. So what they decided to do? Reboot the franchise.

Rob Zombie had two films under his belt, and while the response to House of a 1,000 Corpses was tepid, exploitation fans ate up the semi sequel the Devil’s Rejects. The producers decided Zombie could rev new life into the franchise.

The end result is kind of mixed. To begin, the original gave us very little of Michael’s childhood. He puts on a clown mask, kills his sister, his parents come home…BAM! Jump to the present. The film was more focused on Laurie and her friends, with little attention given to Michael’s past. All that we really got was he came from a standard suburban family.

Zombie changed all that. Instead, we were introduced to a little boy from a white trash home. his stripper mom has an abusive boyfriend…his sister Judith is verbally abusive and mom boyfriend leer at her…and so on. He is bullied at school, and little Mikey Myers has issues…he kills animals and gets into fights. And he actually kills before he kills his sister. He actually goes on a killing spree that culminates in his sister’s death. The only person left is his baby sister and mother.

Michael continues to be creepy and violent in the hospital. He grows up to escape, being hunted by his psychiatrist Sam Loomis. We are almost halfway through the film before we meet the teen Laurie Strode and her friends. So, the film tends to be a rush to get to the end, with Michael slashing what seems to be half the town.

The most enjoyable part of the film is the cast. It is a horror and exploitation who’s who. Brad Dourif (Child’s Play), Malcolm McDowell, Danielle Harris (Halloween 4 & 5), Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) among others play either prominent characters or have cameos.

This is a bloody exploitation take on the franchise, unlike prior attempts. Depending on the version you watch, it can be potentially triggering for a viewer. The theatrical cut has Michael fighting a bunch of guards to escape…in the unrated cut, he escapes when the sleazy asylum employees drag a girl into Michael’s room so they can rape her on his bed (?!). It is a pretty sickening scene that was not needed. And truth be told, I might like the film more if is was just Rob Zombie’s Exploitation Horror Movie. But calling its lead “monster” Michael Myers and having the title of Halloween invites a lot of comparisons.

The biggest is that part of what made Michael Myers scary in the original was his ambiguity. What little we could see was he appeared to come from a middle class family.There appeared to be no abuse. Michael appeared to lack any warning signs. That question made him very frightening. Rob Zombie’s Halloween gives us a view of a textbook case of the “childhood of a serial killer”. Michael has everything working against him. Michael should be haunting and this new back story ruins that. It makes Michael a predictable monster, rather than a foreboding shape.

Michael kills more in the reboot…and we get more profanity. The exploitation approach does make it stand out from the other horror reboots…rather than a glossier reboot, Zombie gives us a grittier one.

The standout for me in Rob Zombie’s Halloween films is probably Brad Dourif’s Sheriff Bracken. He remains a good-hearted heroic type angry with Loomis for what has been unleashed on this town he protects. Dourif does not seem to get a lot of those roles, and he is actually quite good at it.

October 30, 2015 1