Halloween Special Edition

(This review initially ran in the Purchase College Independent on October 25th, 2007, in a slightly different form.)

There’s a special place in my heart for horror movies, and I don’t mean the standard iconic slasher films in which a couple of teenagers feeling each other up in the back seat of a car get an involuntary lesson in abstinence from an indestructible masked killer. Perhaps the fact that I grew up with a more-or-less steady diet of strange and obscure horror films alongside children’s Disney movies has helped create my warped sensibility. As a kid, I owned nearly every Goosebumps book, one of my all-time favorite TV shows was naturally Are You Afraid of the Dark?—during my Purchase TV internship last semester, I helped bring a couple of seasons back on the air—and I loved The Nightmare Before Christmas back when it was still just a darkly-tinged kids’ film and hadn’t yet become emblazoned on half of a typical mall goth’s wardrobe. It goes without saying that Halloween was my favorite holiday, and in homage to that, I’m offering reviews of some lesser-known horror movies I’m fond of. All of these are available on Netflix.


Gothic (1986)

No, it has nothing to do with those mall goths in their Jack Skellington hoodies. This film is about the purported origins of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein at Lord Byron’s Swiss manor, with Natasha Richardson as an oddly prudish Mary. Gothic is packed with surreal imagery almost from the start, and a lot of it is apparently based on, or at least loosely inspired by, actual events in the lives of its characters—well, except for the summoning of a genuine demonic figure that leaves ectoplasmic puddles everywhere—making it a great ‘80s horror film for lit and history nerds. Here, Percy Shelley is feverish, paranoid, and hallucinating from an excess of laudanum, and Lord Byron is a cruelly seductive figure who tries to bang everyone in the house, especially Mary’s big-haired and bulging-eyed half-sister, Claire, while under the watch of Dr. Polidori, a leech-loving closet case wracked with Catholic guilt. This is one of my all-time favorite horror movies; I catch some new detail every time I watch it.

Also worth watching: Lair of the White Worm (1988), by Gothic’s director, Ken Russell, whom you might know from Altered States or The Who’s Tommy. I really did grow up with this one around, although that’s pretty strange to me now, considering the hallucinatory sequences of nuns being slaughtered by Roman soldiers wearing dagger-tipped codpieces while a giant snake munches on the crucified Christ. Yes, you read that correctly. One of its stars is a young Hugh Grant, some years before he became known for playing smug, smirking cads who are humanized by a woman’s love, or whatever the typical plotline is: my idea of a chick flick is Secretary, so I’m not exactly an expert in that field.


Crawlspace (1986)

This was my introduction to the wonderful world of Klaus Kinski. I admit I have an unwholesome fondness for horror characters with an intense, creepy-sexy vibe to them—like Dr. Herbert West of Re-Animator or Crispin Glover as the title role in Willard—and Kinski is no exception here, despite the hockey hair and rejected Cosby sweaters. In Crawlspace, he plays the son of a Nazi doctor who has developed his own fondness for euthanasia, particularly involving the young women to whom he rents rooms, and he brings a depth and subtlety to the role that this film frankly doesn’t deserve. This movie basically hates people; among Kinski’s boarders are a gossipy Southern belle who thinks it’s preferable to stick with some asshole than be single and an airheaded, gold-digging soap opera actress who tries to sleep with a wealthy older man who “reminds her of her uncle Morris.” Kinski’s character enjoys breeding rats, writing his memoirs, playing Russian Roulette, spying on his tenants through the air ducts, and conversing with a tongueless woman he keeps in a cage; there’s a wonderfully bizarre sequence in which he inexplicably smears lipstick all over his face to watch old footage of a Nazi rally before going on a killing rampage. Tasteless? You bet!

Also worth watching: The Attic (1980), which is on the reverse side of the Crawlspace DVD (which is now apparently out-of-print and fetching high prices on eBay; lucky I already have a copy!). A stifled librarian resentful of her controlling, egomaniacal invalid father—whom she has frequent fantasies of murdering—still has feelings for the man who left her at the altar almost two decades ago, and both of these factors gradually break down her psychological state. It’s more gentle and less in-your-face than Crawlspace, if that’s your preference in horror.


Waxwork (1988)
Another one I grew up with, this horror-comedy stars a group of wealthy students who attend some nebulous high school/college and are invited to view a wax museum featuring scenes of murders by famous villains from history—and of course, being a horror movie, these “historical figures” are mostly characters from other horror movies. Stepping into the waxwork scenes opens some strange chasm in time and space that brings you face-to-face with the real-life evildoer, and in a few minutes’ time, your friends might remark to each other that the victim in the wax display looks oddly familiar. One of the main “villains” is the Marquis de Sade, a laughably caricatured depiction who dresses like a pirate and bears little resemblance to the actual Marquis beyond being an aristocrat who likes to whip prostitutes. Seriously, de Sade’s “evil” aura is severely negated by the fact that anyone can go to Barnes and Noble and pick up a copy of The 120 Days of Sodom. His waxwork scene entrances the quiet Sarah, who is, unusually for a movie virgin, neither a prim prude, a desperate psycho-bitch, nor a stereotypical loser—although she’s hardly the best actress in the world. When each of the waxworks have claimed victims, they all come to life and start wreaking havoc, and the day is improbably saved by a cadre of elderly British men.

Also worth seeing: Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992), which has better production values than the original and ditches the painfully ‘80s synth score. It begins right at the end of Waxwork with a completely different actress playing Sarah, and someone didn’t care much for continuity as she’s obviously wearing a completely different dress and hairstyle. A zombie’s hand from the wax museum has escaped and murdered Sarah’s stepfather, so she and quasi-boyfriend Mark must travel through time to prove her innocence. Featuring cameos from the likes of David Carradine and Bruce Campbell, with a Waxwork II-themed hip-hop song during the end credits.


Troll (1986)
Sonny Bono turns into a forest. No, really. It’s part of an evil troll’s plot to turn all the tenants of a particular apartment into grotesque mythical woodland creatures—and a boy named Harry Potter fights the troll with magic, although I wouldn’t call this a children’s movie. Fun fact: the apartment’s staircase is clearly the same one used in Crawlspace.

Also worth watching: Troll 2 (1990), which has basically nothing to do with the original Troll. It’s also far more infamous, due to its hilariously inept filmmaking. A little boy who tries to save his family from goblin food by standing up and pissing on the table? Sub-porn-quality acting, especially from the teenage big sister? A monstrously-overacting goblin witch who tries to get into a high school boy’s pants by seductively eating an ear of corn? Grandpa’s ghost as a deux ex machina who can temporarily stop time and even bring back Molotov cocktails from the afterlife? It’s all there and more.