Joseph Howell
Horror has always been a pretty big business, especially on home video. So, in the advent of Blu-Ray, DVD, and Digital Download, which titles are worth seeing? Which ones are worth avoiding? Well, read on to see the best, worst, and most “eh, whatever” titles in genre films available now.
Eyes Without a Face (Criterion) is essential in many ways, and is now available on Blu-Ray. Possibly the greatest French horror film of all time (it’s certainly my favorite), this sucker has influenced everything from exploitation (Corruption) to the likes of Jess Franco (who made two films influenced by it in The Awful Dr. Orlof and Faceless), but to this day, it remains without peer.
At first glance, the premise isn’t really anything all that special: Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) and his trusty assistant kidnap young women for their skin. Why? Well to repair the face of his daughter Christine (Christiane Génessier) of course! So far, so standard. However, so far, every experiment the doctor tries fails, no matter how hard it is that he tries. All while he remains increasingly unaware of how this is affecting Christine and her slowly slipping grip on reality…
Part of what I love about “Eyes Without a Face” is how it goes out of it’s way to avoid the usual “descent into madness” tropes to instead present poetic and at times existential themes revolving around identity and parental guilt. Also worthy of mention is the films visuals. Whilst it was shockingly gory for it’s time (some graphic surgery sequences) the thing that strikes me the most is Christine herself. Always alone, she wears a flesh like mask to hide her scarred face-a mask that looks equal parts haunting, tragic and beautiful. Combined with a atmosphere of slow, crumbling despair and dread, gorgeous black and white cinematography and a feeling of hopelessness and you get a horror movie that’s equal parts chilling and uniquely human.
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With my recent praising of The Conjuring, I remembered another classic haunted house film in Lewis Allen’s The Uninvited (Criterion). Here, siblings Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald (Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey) move in to a seaside mansion. At first, it seems like a great idea, but the two then start to hear stories about the people who owned the building, and meet the daughter (Gail Russell) of the past owners, who just happens to live next door. Soon, unexplained phenomena involving strange sounds and screams in the night begin to happen, and it becomes clear that the house is haunted. However, is it related to the daughter of the previous owners, or is it something else? Meanwhile, Roderick begins to fall for her, as things start to get worse…
If anything, “The Uninvited” has tons of atmosphere. The house itself is used to excellent effect, with it’s Gothic interiors and exteriors helping to the mood of supernatural malice on display. It’s also the kind of horror movie that, like The Haunting, revolves more on what the viewer doesn’t see. The director (as well as screen writers Dodie Smith and Frank Partos) know that scaring audiences should rely more with playing with their nerves and allowing things to slowly unravel, and the movie milks every little bit of this perfectly. Finally, the acting is top notch here. Milland and Hussey are actually pretty likeable protagonists, though for my money Russell steals the show as Stella the daughter. Everything about her is haunting, yet the fact that her budding relationship with Roderick is so convincing and well handled adds to her character to a T. If your the kind of guy who loves old fashioned ghost stories, then this is absolutely perfect for you.
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It’s actually kinda pleasant to see a movie like 100 Bloody Acres (Doppelgänger Releasing), a horror/comedy blend that joins the likes of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil as the kind that actually has a big heart underneath it’s bloody mayhem. Reg (Damon Herriman) and Lindsay Morgan (Angus Sampson) are two brothers who run an organic fertilizer business that has a secret ingredient. Said ingredient includes produce, local road kill and…oh, what do you know, human beings. Reg ends up running into two guys and a girl, and at first sees the solution to all of their problems. Hell, maybe Lindsay will finally show some respect. However, things start to take a south turn when Reg finds himself in a bit of a moral quandary when he takes an interest in the girl named Sophie (Anaa McGhan) and begins to think that maybe this isn’t such a good idea.
With plenty of darkly comic gore gags (the funniest involving a knife accidentally thrown onto a leg) and even the occasional moment of shocking horror, the thing about “100 Bloody Acres” that sticks out is the performances. Herriman is actually pretty likeable as Reg, who underneath his tendency to kill people so they can be fertilizer, is just a guy who wants someone-anyone-to accept him as something or somebody, whilst Sampson manages to play Lindsay as a guy whose more than a bit twisted, but is also really frustrated by his brother. Oh, and when the movie is funny, it can be really funny, with some pretty inspired and offbeat dialogue (“He wants my fertilizer”) and one liners (“We’ll fertilize ya!”) that made me chuckle on several occasions. Oh, and don’t forget to watch the “local commercials” in the bonus features.
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On the more negative side of the equation, there’s Killer Holiday (Lionsgate), which is…well, just another direct-to-video slasher movie. Here, a straight A student named Cammi (Julia Beth Stern) decides to join some dumb teenagers played by adults. They end up at an abandoned amusement part by Route 66, and lo and behold, someone begins killing them one by one. That’s it in a nutshell story wise.
While some of the kills are at least creative, nothing else about this movie stands out. Acting? Mediocre to terrible throughout. Nudity? Nada. The evil clown on the DVD cover? Not here. To make matters worse, director Marty Thomas (whose prior credits include music videos and a movie called Hotties) can’t keep his camera still. Relying constantly on fast, hyper stylized camerawork and choppy, incoherent editing, he makes something that feels increasingly difficult to watch. Which is ironic because 1.) While still a bad movie, you could do far worse, and 2.) This actually isn’t the worse movie of this entry.
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That would be Snuff (Blue Underground), a relic from the golden age of exploitation whose behind the scenes story is more interesting than the movie itself. Basically, Michael and Roberta Findley did a movie The Slaughter, which was a Charles Manson crime influenced tale. It was shelved for a while, then producer Allan Shackleton decided to release it with a tacked on ending meant to make it look like the audience had seen a snuff movie. The film became pretty notorious (probably because Shackleton hired fake protestors to drum up interest), and the thing lead to police searching for the “murdered” actress, who was actually alive and well. As for Findley? Michael ended up being killed in a helicopter accident in 77, and Roberta ended up directing porn.
With all the controversy out of the way, what’s the movie like? Well, horrible. The Manson-esque gang part of the movie is incredibly boring, with little actually happening, and what does happen is filmed and acted incompetently. Watching it, you can’t be surprised that it was shelved for so long. As for the notorious “snuff” sequence at the end? Well, the “director” yells “CUT!”, and the next thing you know, you see a woman being tortured and slaughtered. Except that the “snuff” scene in itself is so unconvincing it becomes laughable. The chopped off hand is clearly a prop, the actress looks more annoyed than terrified, and by the time the film “runs out”, you’ll be glad it’s over. Even as a curio, this isn’t worth seeking out.
Next Time: “Assault on Precinct 13”, “Night of the Comet” and ‘Just Before Dawn”
