Most Influential

Sometimes the criteria I use to judge a great horror movie isn't just it's inherent quality, but how much it effects my day to day life. There are a small handful of horror movies that didn't just define how I watched movies, but actually informed the way I live my life. Taking that in consideration, probably one of the most, if not THE most, important horror film in my life would have to be Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining.

A lot of purists, and Stephen King, hate what Kubrick did with the movie, arguing that it changes just about everything from the book, but then I'd like to enter into evidence the completely crappy remake that Stephen King went back and did in the 90s. I forced myself to sit through it, and as a result put Mr. King on my personal shitlist for the better part of a decade. I was that offended by the movie.

Now... I have to make an admission here. A statement so blasphemous that my 'cool film buff' status may be revoked by the cultural mafia. I've never quite understood the appeal of Stanley Kubrick. There, I've said it. A great weight has been lifted. Actually, let me backtrack a little. I do understand the appeal of Stanley Kubrick, I've just never been as big a fan as most people think I should be. I like the majority of his movies, and a couple I do agree are classics. The problem is that he's always seemed so damn cold. His movies are so technically perfect, and incredibly sterile. That's opposed to other technically proficient masters like Hitchcock, or Akira Kurosawa, both of whom were able to inject warmth into their perfection. Kubrick's warmest movie, arguably, is 2001 A Space Odyssey, and that's only because the villain is a robot and we automatically associate with the human protagonist.

The Shining, however, has always been a favorite. One of the greatest movie going experiences of my life was seeing this film in a theatre during a Halloween retrospective. I'd seen it countless times on video, but until I saw those sweeping hallway shots on a big screen I had never truly experienced the movie. It's one of those rare movies that still has the power to scare the bejeesus out of me. Admittedly by now it's more a remembered fear, but I'm not going to admit how old I was before I could watch the scene where Jack visits room 237 with unclenched eyes.

And that, to bring this full circle, is the lifelong change this movie wrought on my life. I still cannot use a restroom in which the shower curtain is closed. Those of you who have seen the movie will surely understand.

Almost Done Now

Today I wrap up my thread on Asian horror, and I'm gonna keep this short today. No intros or segues, lets just get right into it.

The entertainment form that I've always been the most hesitant to share with my love of with people is anime. People tend to assume the worst when you tell them you like anime, because mainly the popular image of anime is either disgustingly mind-numbing stuff like Dragonball or Pokemon, or disgustingly perverse pseudo-pornography. A lot of people are completely unaware of the greater heights the genre reaches. I read an article sometime back that said animated entertainment outnumbers live action entertainment in Japan, a fact I'm willing to believe, based on what I've seen. If that's true, it stands to reason there's a lot of good stuff out there, but it also stands to reason there's a lot of crap. Don't hold it against the Japanese that the crap is what makes it over here. Now my particular taste for anime has diminished quite a bit over the past few years, to the point that it really does need to be something special for me to really care. Boogiepop Phantom, however silly it's name, is one of the special anime series.

In the near future Tokyo(actually, I'm only assuming it's near-future, the time line is never really explained), the sky is obscured by an odd form of Aurora Borealis, and the people are still haunted by a serial killer who was stalking the city 5 years earlier. There's also a bunch of mentions of some weird, supernatural event at the same time that seems to have created a lot of weird phenomenon. We never actually see this event, or get a full explanation, since each episode only gives us a piece of the puzzle. Through the 13 episodes we meet a collection of people struggling with some pretty bizarre supernatural problems. One high school student begins seeing spiders attached to people's hearts, and begins eating them to ease the negative emotions of those afflicted. Almost every episode is a complete story focusing on one person, and they're all connected. You'll see in one episode a character walk by a commotion on the street, and then 2 episodes later see the story leading to that commotion. The series really does require that you pay close attention, but it's also quite chilling if you can last.

If your still confused at the end of the anime series(and if you aren't you weren't really watching), then there's hope. A live action movie, Boogiepop and Friends, was released which fills in many of the blanks concerning that mysterious event from 5 years earlier. I say 'many' of the blanks, because the movie follows the same pattern of interconnected stories, telling a much larger epic through the point of view of people who really have nothing to do with it at all. The problem there is that you end up watching some slow moving high school drama with quick brushes with the supernatural. Still, the movie is well worth it if you liked the TV series.

Uzumaki(spiral) is a film based on comic book horror creator Junji Ito, who's really a big name when it comes to these things. The movie doesn't quite live up to either the atmosphere or the gore of Mr. It's comics, and it really isn't the greatest movie among my recommendations, but it is an odd little film that still holds a special place in my heart. It has a pretty strange setup- a town becoming obsessed with spirals- but ends up as kind of a Japanese, Lovecraftian story, with madness effecting the townspeople until it eventually changes many of them physically. An interesting little film, and well worth checking out.










By the same director, and even more worth your time(although unfortunately not readily available in America), is the short TV movie Long Dream. This is a genuinely spooky little short with all the subtlety that Uzumaki was lacking. Set entirely in a psychiatric hospital(one of those arty film hospitals with unhealthy green lighting and long shadows), the films follows a doctor as he tries to figure out how to treat a young man who complains of longer and longer dreams. He sleeps for 8 hours in the real world, but in his dreams he lives entire lifetimes, and the durations are getting longer. Eventually he can't remember people from his daily life because his dreams last hundreds of years and by the time he wakes up he's forgotten almost everything. The doctors are further stumped when he begins to change physically as well as mentally. This one I would suggest you try and hunt down. Like I said it isn't easily available in the US, but you can usually find a copy or two on Amazon for fairly cheap.

Agitator; the director of peace and happiness

Since yesterday the bulk of my post concerned an overview of Japanese cinema(I said Asia, but realized later that most of my comments were centered on Japanese films), but didn't have much in the way of recommendations, I thought today I'd go through a quick list of some films that are worth checking out beyond The Ring(or Ringu, but the title is meant to be The Ring, so I wont be a stickler on that one). It should be said, since I made a bunch of sweeping general statements yesterday, that I am in now way an expert of Japanese culture. I've just seen a bunch of movies. And nothing I'm saying is meant to offend, in case I am way off the mark, these are just the observations I've made through the years of absorbing Japanese books, movies and music.

The Ring can take a lot of credit, if not for inventing the 'haunted technology' genre, but for giving Asian cinema in general a huge boost in the eyes of the world market. It's spawned a slew of sequels and foreign language remakes(the American version being only one of several), and opened the floodgates for the currently waning remakes of Asian films(the Grudge, Pulse, Dark Water). Many of the sequels and remakes weren't that good, but a few other movies about spooky electronic gadgets have lived up to, or maybe even surpassed the Ring. One of the better films would have to be One Missed Call, by the certifiably insane Miike Takashi. It suffers from the curse of familiarity, since it has so many aspects that appear in every Japanese horror movie. Miike is never known for subtlety, but this film is MUCH more subdued than almost every other film he's ever made(and he's made quite a few). That said, it's also much more sensational than the rather dreary Ringu or Dark Water. There's one death, in a TV studio, on live broadcast, that will probably make your jaw drop.

Also by Miike, and much more frightening a film, is Audition. The film follows a middle aged TV producer widow, Shigeharu, who is urged by his teen aged son and coworkers to find a new woman. The problem is, our hero is completely unaware of how a middle aged Japanese businessman finds a woman. A coworker comes up with the monumentally sleazy idea of holding a series of auditions for a fake television movie, calling for women that fit the basic profile of what he's looking for. That alone sounds pretty creepy, but Shigeharu is so sincere that you're willing to forgive him.

Eventually Shigeharu finds a woman who attracts him, a ghostly, silent woman by the name of Asami who seems to be utterly perfect. It's telling about Japanese culture(or just men in general, you decide) that the perfect woman is someone so utterly submissive and unresponsive. Still, the romance begins, and despite the perfection at the outset, things start to go sour when we learn what Asami's secrets are. Beyond that I'm not really willing to give much away, because this film was such a pleasant, masochistic surprise when I watched it with very little idea of what to expect. I'd urge you to not watch ANY trailers, as all the ones I've seen give away one of the best shocks in the history of horror cinema. Suffice to say, you may become bored after nothing much happens in the first hour, but make sure you aren't eating spaghetti(as I was) during the last half hour.

I guess a word about Miike is in order. His first work as a director was in 1991, when he started out working in television. In 15 short years he's become one of the most prolific directors ever to come from Japan, and he'd probably have a pretty high standing in western circles as well, with his 70th film currently filming. As I said he's never very subtle, and his movies are never easy to predict. Sometimes this works against the film, since he seems eager to throw whatever silly idea comes to him on screen, but sometimes it's incredibly effective. He seems to be a filmmaker with no filter. I don't mean that in a 'he says what he believes, he's totally real, man!' way. I mean that he seriously doesn't seem to filter out any idea that comes to him, and just throws it all on screen. This gives even his more generic action work a dreamlike and often horrific quality, since his ideas seem to skew towards torture, violence, and gallons upon gallons of blood. Just look towards Ichi the Killer, which has to be the single bloodiest movie I've seen.

Another film worth checking out is Gozu. Although not a horror film, and maybe not even one of my favorites, this film got under my skin like few others, so that for weeks after I kept returning to it and trying to figure out it's mysteries. A basic plot rundown; it involves a young Yakuza ordered to kill his friend and mentor and then dump the body. The killing goes OK(although not how you'd expect), but on his way through a small town the body goes missing, and our young hero must find the body.But this is one of those towns that seem to exist only in David Lynch films, where everyone is bizarre beyond belief, and events happen with a sudden yet dreamlike quality. Some characters; a transvestite waiter, an inn-keeper who sells breast milk and dreams, a mythical minotaur, a man who collects the skins of killed yakuzas(for their tattoos), and a yakuza boss who finds inventive and disgusting uses for large wooden ladles. Seriously. Not for kids.

The movie, like I said, isn't a horror, and it probably means absolutely nothing in the end, but like I said it stuck with me. To me horror isn't about monsters or ghosts, but about what you can't understand, what you can't get your brain around. In that case, this movie is one of the most terrifying you'll ever see. Except it isn't REALLY scary, and quite funny.

Well... I didn't quite mean to, but this entire post turned out to be centered on Miike Takashi. That means my Asian movie thread will continue tomorrow, with a more traditional list of recommendations and reviews. Seeya then.

A quick list of more Miike:

Happiness of the Katakuris; a joyous musical about an accidentally murderous family trying to open a bed and breakfast.

Zebraman; an incredibly fun movie about a loser middle school teacher in the near future who finds himself gaining the powers of Zebraman, the main character from a 1970's Pwer Rangers-esque TV show.

The Great Yokai War: A remake, of sorts, and Miike's attempt at rubber suited monsters.

Full Metal Yakuza: A violent and silly Robocop rip-off, with gigantic mechanized phallus'.

The Sun Isn't Always Rising

The big boom for Asian horror may be past us, with the diminishing returns for American remakes, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a great many interesting and frightening films to choose from. There are enough, in my opinion, that my next couple of posts will most likely be dedicated to Asian horror cinema. First, though, I wanted to give a little primer to the uninitiated. Most likely you've seen the Grudge, or the Ring, either in it's American form or it's original Japanese, or both. But if you haven't, there are a few things that will be off putting to most western viewers.

First off, you should forget most of the preconceptions you have as a westerner about horror films. I say this because, at heart, our horror films have a very strong Judea-christian, catholic core. The horny co-eds who have premarital sex and use drugs are killed, while the virginal babysitter is left physically unharmed after her descent into figurative hell. This isn't the case in most eastern horror films, since Christianity doesn't have as strong a foothold. What they do have, is Buddhism, and while you don't need to be an expert on the teachings of Buddhism, it is helpful to know one thing. In Shinto Buddhism hate-and other negative emotions- are considered contagious, as an almost physical ailment. Think of Princess Mononoke, where Ashitaka confronts the boar god who is consumed with rage. The touch of the Boar god scars him, and that scar continues to grow throughout the film. The implication being that eventually this hate and rage would kill Ashitaka. And so you have the more common theme of the horrific events spreading from person to person instead of a singular monster hunting down a specific group, as seen in Ju-on(the Grudge, in America).

Often this idea coincides with another theme, which is the fear of technology. It may sound odd, since so many of our technological advancements come from this part of the world, but it makes sense when you think about it. This is a country that has firsthand experience of the nightmare that technology can bring. And really, science has been at the core of Japanese horror cinema since Godzilla. And so you get many many films dealing with our modern technology run amok, as seen in the Ring movies, One Missed Call, and quite memorably in the two cyberpunk Tetsuo films. Think a mash up of David Cronenberg's fascination with bodily modification, David Lynch's Eraserhead(more in style than actual substance), and some of Clive Barker's more disgusting, darker fantasies.

You should also know that this knowledge won't really prepare you for some of the stranger things in eastern cinema. Japanese films in general seem to have a dreamlike quality, an internal logic that the filmmakers don't seem to think you need to know about. It might just be my inexperience with the culture, maybe if I were a local it would all make perfect sense, but as it is many things will not be explained to you. For my part, I enjoy that more than most horror movies that explain why things are happening to the point of diminishing the creepiness. Still, sometimes a little logic helps. It's also pretty easy to confuse this obtuseness with intelligence, making a film seem more intelligent than it really is.

Pulse, directed by Kyoshi Kurosawa(no relation to Akira, but an excellent director in his own right), is probably one of the best examples of all that I've mentioned thus far. The plot concerns a website that is becoming a cult phenomenon among the younger generation, but it also happens to be a gateway for ghosts to enter the land of the living. Or something like that, it isn't really spelled out for you, but that's the basic gist. The movie is more focused on the melancholic aspect of the dead, since what they're really doing isn't killing people, but infecting them with their loneliness until they eventually fade out of existence. The movie has all of the major Japanese horror tenets, with the curse being passed from person to person, and it all centering around technology, but it doesn't execute any of them the way you'd expect if you've seen a lot of Japanese films. Many people find it boring, but it actually scared me more than any other J-horror film simply because it never did what I expected it to. Plus it didn't have creepy-haired ghost women or pale-faced little children. That's a plus. A warning, though, the movie really does live up to the 'infuriating lack of information' trend I mentioned earlier, with many events kind of vague, but it's still a great movie. I wouldn't shy away from recommending the American version, either, which gets rid of some of the vagueness and melancholy in order to impose it's own invented(but still interesting) back story.

So, check this one out if you have the time, it's readily available on DVD, and tune back in tomorrow when I go over a couple of my other favorite Asian horror films. As for Kyoshi Kurosawa, it isn't really a horror film, but he directed another fairly creepy gem called Cure, which I would urge just about everyone to check out.

You'll Wish It Were Only A Nightmare

It's Friday the 13th, so of course I have to talk about that series a little bit. The problem is, I've never been that big a fan of the Jason movies. Oh sure, I've watched them all at least once(most of them more than that), and I'll admit I enjoy them every time I see them. But it's always a workmanlike enjoyment. Like eating a box of saltines when your excruciatingly hungry. It'll satisfy you, but it's nothing to get too excited about.

In the slasher movie wars, A Nightmare on Elm Street had a sick, surreal fantasy edge to it, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre(original, of course) was as bleakly funny as it was stomache churning in it's insanity, and even the Halloween series started off with a touch of style rarely seen inside the genre. Friday the 13th, however, never had much more than a big scary guy with a machete chasing down frequently naked, buxom co-eds. Not that I mind the frequently naked buxom co-eds, or even the big guy with the machete, but the series rarely goes beyond this formula, and it really isn't enough to sustain my interest for a whopping 10 films.

The first film gets a lot of credit from fans regarding it's supposed twist ending, where you learn the killer isn't really Jason but his mother. This isn't really a twist, since Jason is mentioned as having died in 1958, a year before the killings that closed the camp. We're given no reason at all to suspect Jason until we meet his mother at the end of the film and she spells it out for us. I don't hold it against the filmmakers that this isn't really a twist, but it seems to have fooled a lot of people. Of course the shock ending, which mimics Carrie, shows us a seemingly rotted Jason, mostly unchanged from the time of his death(20 years earlier). This leads to one of the more confusing aspects of the series.

In part one we see Jason is still a child, yet in part 2, which takes place only 3 years later, he's a fully grown man capable of stalking and slashing co-eds on his own. The filmmakers probably intended the scene from the first movie to be a hallucination, since this movie implies Jason never died at all, but was raised in the woods by his distraught mother. But thats another problem, because without a dead Jason his mother has no real reason to seek revenge on camp counsellors. I guess it's stupid to think that a movie of this type should have logic, but some things just bother me.

By the third movie it's obvious the filmmakers aren't really taking the job too seriously, as the teens and supporting characters are played for laughs more and more. Not really good laughs, but it's obvious they were going for humor. Plus it's in 3D, which was most likely it's only real reason for being made. Unfortunately the 3D print never survived to DVD.

For me the series doesn't REALLY pick up until, blasphemy I know, number 9. When New Line took over they added a hint of self awareness that really reinvigorated the franchise. The humor was actually funny, while the gore and killings were also still satisfyingly splatter filled. Number 10 took the film to the place all franchises go when they run out of ideas... space(see also Hellraiser 4, Critters 4, and... Leprechaun 4). I may upset some true fans out there, but robo-Jason was fun, and the movie made me fall out of my seat laughing(in a good way). Plus... who the hell thought, back in 1980, that we'd see a horror movie where the villain burned up on reentry into the atmosphere. And who would have thought that villain would be Jason!

There appears to be a new Jason movie in the works, most likely set before the events in part 10, and I'll probably go see that in the theatres. I'll also probably watch the entire series over again once or twice, but for anyone who HASN'T seen it yet, get lots of beer, and as many friends as you can fit into your living room. This is a series that needs to be seen with a group.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm a huge horror fan, so you've probably assumed that October is my favorite time of year. You have assumed correctly. Halloween has to be the greatest holiday ever invented, and it certainly holds more excitement, more warm memories than christmas can even get close to. It's even more important now that I have a daughter to whom I can impart all the wonders of this month. Trick or Treating hasn't been this much fun in a decade.

So... to celebrate the greatest month in history, I'm going to try something a little different. 31 days of horror! Every day(excluding weekends, since I don't have reliable access to this site) I will be adding a post that will recommend various horror movies, books, comics, soundtracks, or experiences. And yes, I know that 31 days from now will no longer be October, but if the Simpsons can air the Treehouse of Horror in November, I can keep talking about horror movies until the 11th.

I don't purport to be an expert(at least not a very good one), but I do think I have some knowledge in the area. As such these won't necessarily be reviews, and I won't be ranking anything, they will simply be things that I think everyone should make an effort to check out. I'm also going to make an apology in advance to Rik over at Cinema4Pylon, because I'm sure that more than a few things in the upcoming posts will owe their genesis to him and his far superior blog. I'm not even going to try and imitate his informed(and informative) reviews, but I've learned a bit about formatting by reading his site, and I just feel that an acknowledgment is in order. Plus I think you all should really check his blog out.

So, for now, bookmark this site, and check back often... or at least daily, and I'll do my best to keep on schedule. If you take me up on any recommendations, drop me a line letting me know what you think.

This is Entirely Relevant

So, to show just how plugged into the national consciousness I am, and how I'm right there on the cutting edge, I've decided to be the last person on the planet to have an opinion about the whole Mel Gibson anti-semitic rant.

My opinion: who the hell cares?

Not to be flippant, because lord knows the Jewish community really is the most unfortunate group of people ever to populate this planet, but so what if Mel Gibson dislikes Jews? From what I've seen in his films and personal life, Gibson has never let this become an issue. He's never harrassed anyone, as far as all reports seem to say, nor has he discriminated any individual or group. In fact, the only other reason for him being called anti-semitic was The Passion Of The Christ. But isn't it pretty much assumed, when someone is THAT fervent about his/her own religion, that they think all other faiths will burn in hell? He obviously has his beliefs, and for the most part has kept them to himself, unloading them only on the people who want to listen.

Also, he was falling down drunk, and alcohol is never good for people wishing to keep their mouths shut.

So yeah, maybe Mel Gibson hates Jews, but what do you want to do about that? You can't force people to change the way they feel, the most you can hope for is that they won't try to pass that hate on, and I'd say Mr. Gibson, for all his faults(I really don't want to sound like an apologist, I have no opinion about him one way or the other), has done pretty well at that.

However, if it's true that Mel's been cold-calling Jewish people in the entertainment industry to apologize, thats pretty ballsy, and not the most tactful move in the world.

I guess the big question so many people liked to bring up was; Is Mel Gibson's career over? How will he ever recover? Are you fucking kidding me?! It's Mel Gibson! As long as his movies continue to make money, of COURSE he'll be forgiven! It's Hollywood!