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Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988)

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Howling040220 Movies for $5; What could possibly go wrong?  Part XIV.

The opening credits say this is based on The Howling I, II, & III by Gary Brandner.  So, it took three books to create this masterpiece; as opposed to The Hobbit which is one book being made into three films.  So this film must be stuffed with great ideas, metaphor, action, rich characters — it must be nine times as good as The Hobbit!  Great, can’t wait!

Author and walking 80’s billboard Marie Adams (Romy Windsor) is riding up in an elevator to meet her agent.  A nun boards the elevator with her, but when she turns to speak to her, she has vanished.  She spots the nun again at lunch, but again she vanishes.  She has yet another vision — this one of a wolf — and this is the one that finally gets her hauled away.Howling0403

She is taken to a hospital, where she opens up a compact mirror and sees a vision of her face all bloody.  But in the director’s signature move, the shot is so quick — just a few frames — that it is barely perceptible on the first viewing (and WTH would anyone watch it a second time?).

The doctor and her husband Richard decide she needs a few weeks in the country to relax. Marie, her husband and their their preciously-named dog Pierre go to a rustic cottage in the country.  Rustic meaning there are wolf claw marks on the door.

During a walk in the woods, Pierre disappears.  Marie seems to think this is worthy of reporting to the sheriff.   The next day she thinks she sees the nun from the first scene, but it turns out to be a local in a black cape who will soon be banging her husband.  She points out a short-cut home to Marie which takes her past a cave.  Peeking inside, she sees Pierre’s severed head — identifiable only after replaying the scene three times, thanks to the director’s signature .5 second shot.

The next day, Richard goes to the cave to check out Marie’s story about Pierre.  Despite Marie specifically telling him Pierre was “in the cave,” he does not even peek in.  He finds an old doll several yards from the cave and tells her that’s what she must have seen, silly woman.

The story picks up slightly as a couple of New Yorkers are killed.  Sadly, it is all wolf-cam, so we see nothing.

yada yada.

Howling0405Finally about 80 minutes in, we get what we came for.  Richard, who was bitten in the 2nd yada, begins melting into a pile of viscous goo.  I still don’t understand how that is a step to becoming a wolf, but I was just happy to see anything finally happen in this film.

This attracts many other man-wolves most of whom look more like Nosferatu than wolves.  However, to average it out, they also present shots of red-eyed dogs running around that are supposed to be wolves.

Eventually, Marie is able to kill the wolves in much the same way we saw in Night Shadow.  A car is launched toward a bell tower where they have been lured.  Then the car is blown up, consuming them all in the fire.  When the denouement of your film draws from the same concepts as a Kato Kaelin joint, you’re on thin cinematic ice.

Romy Windsor is very watchable with a very distinct look about her.  Sadly, she is not reason enough to endure this movie.  Some of the effects are fun and appear to be practical, but they are too few and far too late coming to be much help.

I rate this a I out of IV. Stoopid no-fraction-having Romans — it only deserves a .V out of IV.

Post-Post:

Ray Bradbury Theater – There Was an Old Woman (S2E11)

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bradbury02Maybe I see the problem here.  There are 100 stories in the collection I have of Ray Bradbury’s “Most Celebrated Tales.”  There are 65 episodes in the Ray Bradbury Theater series; but only 14 of the episodes are included in the “Most Celebrated Tales” volume.  Perhaps the other episodes were based on “Volume II: Crapped Out Facing Deadline Tales” or “Volume III: Really Only Worked on the Printed Page Tales.”  Because this series is a legacy-destroyer of Phantom Menacean proportions.

Old and stunningly unattractive Matilda hears a noise downstairs and finds several men coming into her house.  The small old woman winds her way around the tall black-suited men in the sole interesting shot of the episode.  Only one of them, credited as “The Listener” acknowledges her, showing her a wicket casket they have brought.

rbtthere01He sits silently, listening to Matilda pad out the episode with tales of her grand-daughter Emily, the one man of her life (who died), and her philosophy of death.  She tells him that she will not allow herself to die, will not get into that wicker basket.

He continues staring silently with a smile on his face, but she will not be seduced into giving up.  She utters maybe the most horrifying words in this series:  “I’m too old to be made love to.  That’s all twisted dry like an old tube of paint left behind in the years.”

Despite her protestations, she drifts off to sleep.  The screen takes on a golden “magic hour” hue, but it is not clear why.  It is not from either character’s perspective, yet alternates with standard color palette shots.  A few seconds later, the camera moves seem to suggest that it is The Listener’s POV, but this contradicts the earlier shot where he himself was bathed in the golden light.

rbtthere02She wakes up from resting her eyes and sees The Listener is leaving.  She gloats about how he was unable to get her in the casket.  Seeing the men carrying it out, she can tell that there is something weighing it down.

When she demands to see what is inside, the men stop and lower it for her — which is strange because they can’t see or hear her.  To be fair, it is halfway presented as adjusting their grip and halfway as  a freeze-frame moment.  Either might have been OK if they had committed to it, but this is just awkward.  She realizes that it is her in the casket.  But she was already dead in bed upstairs, so what really has changed?

Her grand-daughter enters the house and Matilda greets her, pouring some tea.  There is no way that Emily could have missed her.  Yet, she casually goes to hang up her coat.  Only when she enters the kitchen with Matilda, does she give a blood-curdling scream.  Throughout the scene her sight-lines are bizarre as if sometimes she can see Matilda and sometimes she can’t, or is trying to avert her eyes.  It’s just a mess, but the scream is pretty good.

To stop Emily’s screaming, Matilda slaps her face.  But then, in the struggle, Emily discovers that she is able to pass her hand through Matilda’s stomach.  So is Matilda solid or not?

She makes Emily drive her to the funeral parlor.  She sees the same men carrying a wicker basket and looks inside, but it is not her.  Strangely, the men can see her now as can all of the employees and mourners.

She finally finds her body being embalmed.  She tries to barge in, but is restrained by a fat guy.  She passes through the man’s arms, but that is done off-camera so we just cut to a goofy shot of him standing behind her with his arms in an empty circle.  Again, this could have been played for low-budget laughs had they committed.  Instead, they tried to obfuscate the shot and it just looks weird.  She slaps him, so she is solid again — or, at least that slapping hand is firming up nicely.

rbtthere03She threatens to haunt the funeral parlor unless they give her the body.  They remove her corpse from the slab where the autopsy had already begun with the Y incision.  They then lift her into the casket with the body and somehow the two bodies merge back into her “living” self but somehow wearing the surgical garb the corpse wore on the operating table .  The body in the surgical gown sits up in the coffin, to a pretty subdued crowd.  The Listener literally closes the curtain on the scene.

In the epilogue, Matilda says if any one asks, she will show them the marks “where that crazy funeral autopsy man sewed me right back up.”  WTF would ask?

Post-Post:

  • The Listener is played by Ronald Lacey, best known to American audiences as Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I’m not sure his name was ever used on screen, so he is the HNIC (Head Nazi in Charge).   With the head-piece of the Staff of Ra burned into his palm. You know, with the glasses.  The guy with the nunchuck coat-hanger.  Right . . . .

Ghostmaker (2011)

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ghostmaker01“Last year this footage started to appear on the internet.  As of today the identity of these people remains unknown.  The following film is inspired by their story.”

Well, this is new: A film that only claims to be inspired by the events rather than being based on them. I’m not sure that is better.  In this genre, based on is always an obvious lie; but inspired by flat out tells you this is show-biz.  No matter — this is a fun ride.

College student Kyle needs money for college necessities like textbooks and crystal meth so he is working for a cleaning service.  While clearing out an old woman’s basement, he finds a coffin with a window in the lid.  The film immediately becomes terrifying as it reminds me of having to sit through that episode of Ray Bradbury Theater which also featured a coffin with a view.

The old woman makes him promise to destroy it, but he thinks he night be able to sell it on eBay.  He opens it up to clean it out and discovers the cushions lift out.  Inside he finds a clockwork device with more wheels and gears than the Antikythera Mechanism.

ghostmaker04With his friend Pratt, Kyle finds an antique book with a drawing of the coffin which is called a Ghost Machine.  It was created to simulate the sensation of a near death experience.

They test it out first on a goldfish.  Seriously.  I appreciate that they are scientifically weighing the risks, but a goldfish?  Couldn’t they find an ant?  The fish appears to die, but does wake up, leading the brain-trust to proclaim the device safe for humans.  Fairly ludicrous, but more-so as we learn about the device.  It uses sound waves as part of the process — do goldfish have ears?  And plunges a needle into the back of the subject’s head — did the bowl mysteriously spring a leak?

Kyle tries it first and discovers that it transforms him into a ghost.  He is able to move about unseen, even through walls, while his corporeal body still lies in the coffin.  His buddy Platt tries it with similar results.  Kyle’s wheelchair bound roomie Sutton tries it, and naturally is able to walk.

ghostmaker06Kyle compounds his meth addiction with an addiction to the device.  One feeds the other as he uses the device to plan robberies in order to score more meth.  Eventually he sees the destruction that his actions are causing and realizes he must break the cycles of both the meth and the coffin.

Sutton is seduced by the device’s ability to let him walk again.  The more he uses it, the further more enslaved to it he becomes.  He uses the device far more than anyone else and experiences the most changes.  He uses the device to spy on Kyle’s girlfriend Julie, eventually stealing it to protect it from Kyle.  He rats out Kyle as a meth user and abducts Julie.

Platt falls down some stairs and dies.  OK, his story is a little thin.

The film looks great, and has great pacing and score.  The acting is a little spotty, but not distracting.  There is a strange flatness to the movie though, which I am at a loss to describe.  Maybe because there are no extreme highs or lows, no big jump scares, no big twists.  It even has an ending that ties things up maybe a little too neatly.  Maybe all that works in its favor — it succeeds by not doing anything wrong.

But the important thing is that it succeeds.  Highly recommended.

Post-Post:

  • Originally titled Box of Shadows.
  • The name on Julie’s medicine bottle is Julie Strain.
  • Not crazy about that cover.  While death is personified in the film, it looks nothing like that and does not carry a scythe.  The cover is actually far less interesting than the reality for a change — the old switch and bait.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Number Twenty-Two (S2E21)

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ah2204

Wipe that smirk off your face, punk!

Coppers are chasing a ne’er-do-well through an alley.  The young man, with a big smile on his face, seems to be taking this as a real hoot, daddio.  Ultimately cornered on a fire escape by the police, he gives up.  The punk with the smirk is Rip Torn, although so young here that he is unrecognizable.

He is pretty proud of himself over his crime-spree of a single robbery.  Of an old man.  In a candy store.  With a toy gun. Lest you underestimate him, he did slug the geezer with the toy gun.

He has a big smile the whole time he walks down the cell-block to his new home.  These are just temporary holding cells, but these are some of the best dressed criminals I’ve ever seen — suit jackets, ties, a nice fedora.  This is the anti-Oz.

He gets to his cell and meets his new roomie, an old man named Skinner, who has clearly been here before.  When Torn finds out he will be photographed for the mug shots, he gets excited.  Will reporters be there?  Will he get his picture in the paper?  Having his priorities straight, he is hoping to impress the “big shots” back at the pool hall.  However, he does worry that the papers will spill the beans that his gun was only a toy swiped from a 5 & 10 (The Dollar Store before inflation).  Wow, guess that really was a spree!

ah2207

Forced perspective trick now used by Tom Cruise.

Torn and Skinner are taken to a line-up where they are questioned from the back of the room by a man with a microphone.  Skinner and Torn are kept for additional questioning.  During the bonus round, Skinner claims not to remember anything in answer to all their questions.  Doesn’t remember last time he worked, or anything about the crime.

Torn continues to take it all as a joke until the detective tells him the old man he slugged in the candy store sustained a cracked skull and died.  That’s murder, baby!  Although, that must have been some toy gun to fracture his skull.

This is a pretty slim story.  The big final twist here is the standard plot point we would expect at the end of the first act in a contemporary crime show.  Maybe it was shocking 60 years ago, but I expect better from Evan Hunter.  Credited with the story, he also wrote the screenplay for The Birds and the 200 87th Precinct novels.

I rate it 8 out of 22.

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  Rip Torn and Martin Wilkins are still with us.  Although with a 1905 birth year, I suspect Wilkin’s bio might need updating.
  • AHP Proximity Alert:  Ray Teal was just in an episode 4 weeks earlier.
  • Would it have killed them to delay this one week and make it the 22nd episode of the season?
  • Alfred Hitchcock directed movies titled Number 13 and Number 17.  I like to think that if he had directed this episode, he would have renamed it Number 23 just to keep the prime number theme going.  And would have delayed it two weeks.
  • Hmmm, just noticed that there is already a movie named The Number 23.
  • And then there is this strange piece of business.  The man below does not seem to be drunk or stoned.  He does, however, have a snappy haircut and a stylish blazer-over-t-shirt that Miami Vice would not popularize for another 25 years.  The only thing I can think of is that they are hinting at some gay-related crime, but that would be pretty bold to put on TV in the 50’s.

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