IR: "Dead and Breakfast"

We strolled down to our favourite cinema, the Derby Quad, on the eve of the 30th October to enjoy a 5 film marathon of horror. Here's what we thought...

1. Evil Dead II
Dir: Sam Rami

Gave me the chills. Very scary but very funny. Worst (scariest) moment: when the recording says “I buried her in the cellar!” and the main guy is hearing this from the cellar where he’s just been thrown. It’s an old film but it still has an effect on audiences now. Very silly a lot of the time. The audience laughed throughout but I was too busy getting shivers on my arms and spine. The different colours of blood were impressive; I think we saw red, black, blue, green and even purple at the end. I was wondering if the girl who was eaten by a tree was going to come back. The main guy has an amazing face for looking freaky with. “Let’s have some champagne!” Brilliant.

5/5

Although I had seen Army of Darkness years ago, I had never partaken of the original Evil Dead II. Its great to see it on the big screen, and here’s why.

Although the script reaches Ed-Woodian levels of badness, barely a line spoken that isn’t clumsy exposition (Chainsaw! Workshed! THE KEYS!), the technical aspects are all excellent. Inventive cinematography combined with every trick in the visual fx book from truly terrifying prosthetics to matte composites and miniatures giving us wonderful moments. Stand outs include the lurking P.O.V. monster shot zooming through the labyrinthine cottage to grab hold of Ash and drop him in a puddle (oh Jj Abrams…and we thought you were original), or the stop-motion dance of his decapitated ‘ex’ girlfriend. I notice that the creator of the mother-monster’s ‘Rotten Apple Head’ gets a special end credit – kudos to them! The whole film is lit with unreal, theatrical intensity, as a horror film should be. Bruce Campbell turns in the physical comedy performance of the decade, like Chaplin’s gore-splattered grandson, beating himself up, smashing through doors and mugging his chiselled face so frantically you wonder two eyebrows could take it. Add to this some great shocking moments, and you have a schlock treat that deserves the full canvas of a cinema.

4/5 - “Groovy”

2. Halloween
Dir: John Carpenter

‘Oh for fucks sake’

This is the essence of my review.

Once he’s down, keep stabbing until he’s in pieces. Don’t drop the bloody knife next to him and turn away to relax. You daft bint. This film fails because it doesn’t explain why he turned evil in the first place. Not half as scary as the first film (Evil Dead 2). The ‘scariest’ thing was how the main girl looked like a 35 year old cross-dresser, and I think she’s meant to be in college. At least this film was interesting to see American suburbia and because it was groundbreaking in its time. Not great. By any means.

2/5

It’s impossible to deny the importance of Halloween in the history of horror. However, in the cold light of day, from the eyes of someone who has never seen it before, it is not as great as its given credit for.

The opening sequence (complete with the rather charming Pumpkin in the titles) is very well done, and the voyeur-cam throughout the film is highly effective, particularly to modern eyes with its undertones of paedophilia. Suburbia is shot very well, a place both suffocating and agoraphobic where Michael Meyer’s appearances are made all the more frightening because of the sheer sunny normality.

However the acting is wooden in the extreme, except for Donald Pleasances’ Dr. Loomis who gives us some good old fashioned ham. The effect is like a sandwich with chipboard for bread. The horror is a slow burn verging on the point of boring, with few real shocks. John’s carpenters recognisable synth score is overpowering at times and although Jamie Lee Curtis gives a good turn as the likeable ‘girl-scout’ Laurie, the script has her carry the idiot ball in the final sequence to such an extent its difficult to feel sorry for her. It’s like she WANTS to get stabbed up and is just playing a little bait-and-switch game with Michael. And speaking of the villain, I felt a little short changed. After being built up as ‘pure evil’ he doesn’t really do an awful lot…far be it from me to egg on a serial killer, but I paid my two bits, dammit! Work that knife! Of course, the real horror of the piece is not in Michael Meyers, it’s in the suburbs themselves; as Laurie runs screaming, bleeding and hysterical down the street, the neighbours close their blinds on her, annoyed at just another kidding playing around.

2/5 - “Sleep well, kids”

3. Night of The Demon
Dir: Jacques Tourneur

Fell asleep halfway through but caught the end. Not scary in the least but from what I can tell, a damn fine film that has no want of it. Good ‘smoke’ effect, nice to see something without lots of overdramatic effects i.e. the ones we saw were more natural like a windstorm and wind gripping a piece of paper. Bad guy instantly recognisable by his demonic black pointy beard. The demon had a disappointingly rubbery face close-up, like someone was wriggling fingers behind it.

4/5

A properly acted old school theatrical affair, this is much more of a drama than a horror, but with enough moments of genuine shock to remind an audience to sit up and pay attention. An American psychologist and skeptic, John Holden, comes to London to investigate and discredit the Faustian cult of Professor Julian Karswell…needless to say, he finds more than he bargained for.
The story is perhaps a little winding, but it remains interesting throughout due to solid performances Special mention goes to Niall MacGinnis in the role of Karswell, the disarmingly reasonable and urbane devil-worshipper, always one step ahead of Dana Andrews’ cynical scientist. It is amazingly well crafted technically, with a surprisingly unsettling monster.
A bit of casual sexism and racism is included, although plucky girl Joanna does hold her own.

4/5 - “My dear boy, you look as pale as death.”


4. The Horde
Dir: Yannick Dahan, Benjamin Rocher

Bloodbath. The most interesting thing was the characters, taking sides, showing their true values. Started off very promisingly but lost its way and we ended up losing the interesting characters and the ones who were left had no emotional connection so anything that took place like people sacrificing themselves didn’t mean much. It’s not really understood why the lady doesn’t care about the other cop and how she intends to go it alone. There are funny moments but also squirmingly horrible bits like when they’re laughing about raping a zombie. There should have been an epilepsy warning with all the flashing gunfire, which got old and annoying very quickly. There was at least a good (effective) visual style, which was very dark and dirty and bloody. Overall though, quite inconsequential and not something you’re missing out on if you’ve seen films like 28 Days Later or Silent Hill.

3/5

A film which should be called ‘Gangtas vs. Zombies’, the Horde is a back to basics survival horror gorefest with a slight social-commentary.
Beautifully shot in a fantastic decaying tower block, the film follows a group of cops who try to kill some gangtas, not banking on the End of Days. Shit gets real faster than you could imagine in the shape of fast zombies. Not just any fast zombies, though. These guys make anything cooked up by Umbrella Inc. look like a bunch of girl scouts. Thankfully out protagonists make the STARS team look like boy scouts, so they manage to survive for longer than the rest of the human race by about 80 minutes. A bleak, sleek and occasionally inspired film, the first quarter is by far the best, after which the film loses its way a bit. It trips over quite a few over-used tropes, and there are some absurdly overblown bullet-blazing meat-pounding screaming-mad fight scenes that go into Garth Merenghi territory. Plus most of the characters thoroughly deserve to die so watching them get nommed by hungry, hungry zombies isn’t really that heartbreaking.
Overall a solid zombie film, but nothing new.

3/5 - “Fuck this, I’m not going to die of a heart-attack!”


5. Bubba Ho-tep
Dir: Don Coscarelli

Not very good. Elvis and President Kennedy discover a soul-sucking mummy in their care-home. No point to have made it. No need to watch. Has its moments but not worth trawling through the rest of the film to witness them. Why is this classed as a horror film? It’s not even scary. It’s just a horrible film. Har har.

1/5

Again, not really a horror…Bubba Ho-Tep is a surprisingly poignant musing on lost youth, lost fame, growing old and social attitudes to the old, with a monster for good measure. From its outset it is elegiac, winding down rather than building up. The King and JFK (or not) face off to an ancient Egyptian evil, and in doing so gain some kind of redemption from their less than spectacular final years. It is heartwarming to see Bruce Campbell’s Elvis ‘come to life’ after years of semi-catatonic moping and doubly so remembering Gerry Robinson’s television expose of care homes last year.
The films technical aspects are all workmanlike and solid, with a good sense of atmosphere. The humour relies a little too much on the mention of anuses and old-man erections, but again it isn’t really a comedy. It is funny and scary but it is a tragedy, as evidenced by the wonderfully bittersweet ending.

3/5 - “I’m thinking with sand here!”

IR: Mullholland Drive

“Do you think when David Lynch comes to write his movies, he just sits down and writes 20 scenes he really likes, photocopies them a few times and jumbles them up in a weird order and say’s “Right! That’s my film!” - Britta

I don’t understand.
F*****G good film though. (This is also the star rating : P)
Halfway through, the two leads completely change character to completely different people. The cheerful young cute-as-apple-pie lady becomes a sullen awkward struggling actress jealous of her former lover’s success and conquest. The vulnerable car crash stranger is suddenly at home and in charge. Somehow these fit together, with the new characters being people we’ve seen in the original cast. Or at least one of them is. Or both – either could be the dead girl at apartment 17. The money found in ‘Rita’s’ handbag and hidden by the cute actress was later used by the spurned lesbian to pay for ‘Camilla’s’ (same lady’s) death. Why did ‘Rita’ wake up saying Silencio? How did the key get in Betty’s handbag? Who is the man with the horrifying face? Who is ‘Rita’ really? And what was her purpose in the car before the crash? The acting is the best I have seen and so tense and strange at times. And the lust scenes were so real. My favourite part was when Betty was practicing her lines with Rita and was strong and angry… and then playing them opposite the actor she was suddenly so vulnerable and intimate, until she said “then I’d kill you” and they both snapped out of it and realised they were acting. I wouldn’t want to waver an idea of how the plot fits together but I do know I want to watch it at least once more and hear that Silencio song again. Mind boggled. Fantastic.

5/5


I have seen this film a couple of times before, and have described it to many as ‘The Lesbian Lost Highway’. In fact I remember distinctly saying, unfairly as it turns out, that if you have seen Lost Highway there is nothing in Mulholland Drive to surprise you.
This was probably because both in general and in this film, Lipstick Lesbians do nothing for me. Sexually, or in terms of telling a story. I’ll get back to that.
This third viewing really allowed me to sit back and enjoy the film, and I have to say I was mistaken. Although I do still consider this film to be a companion piece to Lost Highway, I think that Mulholland Drive really adds another layer of complexity and really hones what Lynch began in his previous film.
Perhaps LH is the angry male yang, MD is the melancholy female yin.
Both films deal with loss, love, jealousy, manipulation and have the structure David Lynch described as ‘elliptical’ rather than circular.
Whereas LH is all about noise, MD has the major theme of silence. This time round, I really noticed how the whole of the first half hour is nearly soundless, very little music and with voices muted or subdued. Where one might expect a dramatic chord, instead only silence, which only served to emphasise the drama. There is a truly heart-thumping tension that develops due to this, and Lynch and his team manage to craft horror out of every day spectacles, like Betty walking through a (supposedly) empty flat. The photography and lighting is lush, painterly and warm yet the atmosphere couldn’t be more oppressive. The wooden interiors, a visual hearken back to much of Lynch’s work most notably the Packard Hotel from Twin Peaks, seem to trap and confound the characters. MD is, of course, rich with references to the famous horror-melodrama Sunset Boulevard, and one which becomes particularly noticeable on this third viewing is the way people’s faces are lit, half radiant light, half shadow. Whether there is a deep meaning to all this, such as, for example, separating the dark reality from the light exterior (and knowing Lynch their probably is) I will allow you to decide.
The acting is excellent right across the board, and special kudos has to go to Naomi Watts for her dual role as Betty/Diane, which was so different I had to double and triple check the credits to see if it really was the same person.
I also like Justin Theroux as the slightly-Marcus-Brigstocke looking director, going from a sympathetic chew toy in the first act to Diane’s possibly unfair viewing of him as a shallow, giggling, leach.
The structure and story are more or less insoluble, but the cleverness of the recurring themes, the seemingly unconnected vignettes (which turn out to be anything but) and the rich references make it impossible to dismiss as simply ‘open ended’ or ‘deliberately confusing’. There is a real logic at work here, but it is dream logic. The Cowboy, like The Mystery Man (or The Man With No Eyebrows) serves as a sort of minimalist Dues Ex Machina, but he is only one of a dozen mysterious MacGuffins which push and pull on the reality of the film.
You could literally fill a book analysing Mulholland Drive, so I won’t bother doing it here. This is not the place.
I do have my criticisms though; number one, the first Lesbian Love scene. It is, for me, the most awkward in the film. Maybe because of the way it’s shot, maybe just because both girls look like they’ve just stepped out of the makeup room in a shampoo advert. A more subtle rendering would probably have worked better. I don’t think its really supposed to be sexy, on consideration, but its not even that I have a problem with. It just feels wrong.
Second, it’s just too darned long. I would hate to be the editor who had to say which scenes went, but it IS too long. I know this because I love the film, and I love David Lynch, but I was getting bored by the end. It suffers far too badly from multiple ending syndrome, and some of the excellent scenes at the beginning (the incompetent hit man comes to mind, or the scene at ‘this Winky’s’ for me the highlight of the whole film) begin to fade from memory.
All in all, an awesome film; one last thing about the silence…perhaps it’s a reference to ‘the love that dare not speak its name’? Silencio!

4/5



What I Think Of Jim’s Review:
Jim has obviously been watching it through filmmaker’s eyes and studied it for its quantifiable elements. It’s strange that we have opposite opinions on the two girl-on-girl love scenes; he finds the first one too awkward and unrealistic, but would find the second one a believable portrayal of two girls getting it on. While for me, that second one was too much of a bad cartoon universe. Reading his review, I realised I’d almost completely forgotten about the bungling hit-man scene, as he didn’t reprise that role later on in a loud enough way to remind me. Also I should have given honourable mention to the ‘This Winkies’ guy whose face switched between fear and apologetic bewilderment at a rate of 6 per second. We discussed some similarities with Inland Empire that I noticed; both begin with choosing an actress who is tested for the main role, and soon after a mad old woman comes to the door foretelling of evil, and later on there is a blurring of identities.


What I Think Of Britta’s Review:
Really interesting to hear Britta’s review, since I’m an old timer and she’s seeing this for the first time. She took a characteristically intuitive look at her feelings on seeing the film without needing to break it down like what I do. Glad to see she is so positive about it 
When we chatted one thing I really like was her attitude that she wasn’t going to complain about ‘not getting it’ because obviously that wasn’t the point.
Very surprised about our different reactive to the love scene. In discussing it we talked about the second ‘love’ scene, where Diane and Camilla are on Diane’s sofa. I actually found this much more realistic and would have been completely unfazed if they had proceeded to get it on, but it was much more powerful when it became awkward and unsexy, with Camilla calling a halt to the proceedings and opening up a world of hurt.
Interestingly as we talked we got onto Lynch’s subsequent film, Inland Empire, particularly about the similarities of themes around acting and its inherent schizophrenia. I think now that MH sits in the middle of a trilogy of films about identity, starting with LH and ending in IE.
Also, she mentioned after reading my review that she had indeed forgotten the incompetent hit-man scene; you see, Mr Lynch, too freaking long!.