31 Screams in October, Vol. 5, #31: Peeping Tom (1960)

Director: Michael Powell

Starring: Carl Boehm, Moria Shearer, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley

There will always be debate among horror fans over just which film can be defined as the original slasher movie. Some will point to when the genre first exploded, after the release of Halloween in 1978 and Friday the 13^th in 1980. Others will say that it really begins in 1974, with Black Christmas and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. However, the film most often credited as the first “knife movie” is 1960’s Psycho. One you don’t hear mentioned nearly as often is Peeping Tom. This is strange to me, and not just because Peeping Tom was released two months before Psycho. Pay enough attention, and you’ll find that it’s actually Peeping Tom which displays more of the tropes most commonly associated with slasher films.

Peeping Tom tells the oddly sympathetic story of Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm), an aspiring filmmaker who works in both the movie and pin-up photography industries. Around most people, Mark is withdrawn and shy. He also has a darker side which has been shaped from years of abuse by his psychologist father. Those who meet Mark’s dark side don’t live very long. The particular psychosis which dictates Mark’s every waking thought is scopophilia (aka “voyeurism”), or the pleasure of looking at something or someone. This is not automatically a dangerous compulsion to have, but in Mark’s case it most definitely is.

Due to having every moment of his childhood documented and filmed, Mark as an adult is on a mission to create a documentary of his own. Because his father’s greatest interest was in the emotion of fear, this becomes the subject of Mark’s own filming. Using young women as his guinea pigs, Mark elicits fear using various methods, ultimately killing the women by stabbing them with a blade concealed in his camera’s tripod. The POV shots used during the murder scenes are one of the best things about Peeping Tom. Not only are we watching through Mark’s eyes as he gazes through the lens of his camera. We are also being introduced to what would become one of the most widely used techniques of the slasher genre.

Mark eventually meets a girl named Helen (Anna Massey), our “final girl” for this picture. They form a tragically sweet relationship, prompting Mark to declare that he will never film Helen, not wanting to chance that his compulsion might overwhelm him in this case. At the same time, he understandably doesn’t want Helen to see the films of the women he’s killed. Instead, he opts to show the films his father made of him as a child. These films don’t disturb Helen any less, though they aren’t enough for her to do the smart thing and run far, far away.

It’s at this point that I ought to at least briefly mention the fact that Mark lives in his childhood home, an inheritance from his father, and that he rents out some of the rooms to pay the bills. Helen and her blind mother (Maxine Audley) are two of the tenants. I mention all of this not just because it’s how Mark meets Helen, but also provides an excuse for Mark to get caught. Despite all the secrets he has, Mark never locks his door. This has something to do with his childhood, though I honestly forgot what. The important thing is that this allows for both Helen and her mother to enter into Mark’s apartment when he’s not there. Pretty sure that’s called trespassing… Whatever! It sets up a terrific finale, wherein Mark completes his documentary in the exact manner he’d always intended.

Though the POV shots are the biggest visual treat of Peeping Tom, they are far from its only slasher trope. Among them:

– The killer is the product of psychological trauma
– A knife or stabbing weapon of some kind is the primary weapon
– The victims typically being sexually active, such as the prostitute in the opening scene
– The fact that there are multiple female victims

Another way in which Peeping Tom is recognizable as a (or perhaps the) proto-slasher is in how those who view it are made to share in the killer’s voyeurism. Slasher movies would not be near as popular without their depictions of violence, or the scenes in which their female characters are at their most vulnerable. It was the film’s tone, as well as its now quaint scenes of violence and sexuality which landed the film in hot water. This also essentially tanked the career of its director. Yet, try as the censors might have to bury this movie, Peeping Tom survived and remains an essential film to anyone considering themselves a true fan of horror.

31 Screams in October, Vol. 5, #30: Bad Taste (1987)

Director: Peter Jackson

Starring: Terry Potter, Pete O’Herne, Peter Jackson, Mike Minett, Craig Smith

When you are serious about following a particular actor or director’s career, it’s absolutely imperative to go back to the very beginning, to the film that started them on the path which led them to wide recognition and acclaim. Most filmmakers don’t knock it out of the park their first time at bat, but there are still hints that something special was on the horizon. In 1987, Peter Jackson was still a long way away from bringing to life the amazing world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. However, at least in hindsight, it is clear from the outside-the-box thinking it took to come up with Bad Taste that there was already a creative genius at work.

The premise of Bad Taste is that aliens disguised as humans dressed in blue shirts have landed on Earth with the intent of turning us into a sort of fast food. Our only hope appears to be a ragtag group of New Zealanders who work for an agency called the Astro Investigation and Defence Service. If you break that down to its acronym, then you’ll already know why the group is seriously thinking there should be a name change. The town of Kaihoro is completely empty, its inhabitants all having been captured, turned into fast food and stored in boxes inside the aliens’ house/mothership.

Pretty much everyone who appears in the film plays dual roles, but by far the most interesting character in Bad Taste is Derek. He is played by none other than Peter Jackson himself. The other agents think of Derek as somewhat nerdy, but his personality takes a sharp turn towards insanity after a run-in with an alien named Robert (also played by Peter Jackson). Derek at first toys with Robert, but is ambushed by some of Robert’s friends. Ultimately, Derek falls off a cliff and appears to plummet towards his (very) bloody demise. We later see that Derek is not yet bereft of life but has cracked open his skull. This leads to several scenes of humor where Derek is seen having to use first a hat and then a belt to hold what remains of his brains inside his skull.

Driving a car with cardboard cutouts of the Beatles from the “Sgt. Pepper” era displayed up front, Derek is a little late to the party when his friends launch their assault on the aliens’ house. However, that does not mean he isn’t prepared for a fight, ramping up his already playfully violent nature to a whole new level of grotesque. His primary weapon of choice becomes a chainsaw, which he uses to bisect, dismember and turn inside out several of the aliens, including the alien leader. But perhaps the greatest single moment of Bad Taste is reserved for when Derek narrowly dodges a shot fired from a rocket launcher meant to hit one of the aliens. The rocket flies through the human-shaped hole Derek has just cut into the front door and hits/blows up a sheep grazing out in the fields. It’s the sort of humorous bit of random mayhem you’d expect from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, to which this and other scenes are no doubt an intentional nod.

Bad Taste has an almost student film kind of feel to it, which is owed to the limited budget with which the film was put together, as well as the 16mm camera on which it was shot. It took several years to complete, with Peter Jackson serving not only as one of its stars but also as director, producer, writer, cinematographer, editor, and he was even in charge of the special makeup effects. The result was a bloody insane horror comedy that kick started a terrific directorial career, made possible one of the greatest cinematic trilogies of all-time, and holds up pretty well as a piece of turn-your-brain-off entertainment.

31 Screams in October, Vol. 5, #29: Les Diaboliques (1955)

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Starring: Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel

Do enough ancestral research, and the odds are favorable that you’ll run across familial connections that you would never expect. The same is true of film history. Watch enough classic cinema, and eventually you’ll find a movie with surprising connections to your modern favorites. 1955’s Les Diaboliques might on the surface seem a simple tale of suspense and mystery. It can also be looked at as the incidental ancestor to a subgenre we have come to know as the slasher. I say “incidental” because, although Les Diaboliques displays none of the identifiable characteristics of a slasher, the movie was a favorite of author Robert Bloch and inspired him to write “Psycho,” the novel which Alfred Hitchcock turned into the movie many cite as the original slasher. In other words, if not for the existence of Les Diaboliques, the slasher genre might never have come to be. The more you know…

At a boarding school in Saint-Cloud, teacher/school owner Christina Delassalle (Véra Clouzot) has had absolutely all the stress she can take from abusive husband/school principal Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse). Christina has a heart condition, so the stress is wearing her frail. Michel has also been unfaithful, and has apparently been physically abusive toward his mistress, teacher Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret). Rather than be antagonistic toward one another, mutual hatred of Michel seems to bring Christina and Nicole into something resembling friendship.

At some point prior to the start of the film, Christina and Nicole have come up with a deadly plan to rid themselves of Michel once and for all. Christina is understandably unsure whether or not she can go through with it, but pressure from Nicole convinces her it’s the best way to move on with her own life. The plan, which works a little too well, starts with Christina luring Michel to Nicole’s apartment in Niort, where Michel is first drugged and then drowned in the bathtub, left there overnight just to be sure. In the morning, the two women move Michel’s body back to the school where they dump him in the swimming pool.

Christina and Nicole become concerned when the body never resurfaces. Feigning a reason for the pool to be emptied, the women are further shocked when there’s no sign of Michel. They think they’re okay when a newspaper article tells of a body found nearby, but a quick visit to the morgue by Christina reveals that, whoever it is, it most definitely is not Michel. It’s around this time that private detective Alfred Fichet (Charles Vanel) becomes involved. He doesn’t suspect Christina of foul play at this time, but he is interested in helping solve her mystery.

When Christina returns to the school with the detective, it alarms Nicole. Christina is far more upset, though not just because the body at the morgue wasn’t Michel. It turns out that one of her students has been punished for breaking a window, he says, by Michel. How can this be, wonders Christina? Other hints emerge which are enough to drive Nicole away from the school and Christina into full-blown crisis mode, which lands her in bed due to her heart.

I’m hesitant to go on from there, because the final fifteen minutes really do need to be seen as spoiler-free as possible, even given the fact that the film was made sixty-five years ago. If you manage to figure out the big finish beforehand, then bravo. Otherwise, it’s well worth the surprise. Suffice to say, nothing has been as it has seemed. Other than Christina’s heart condition. That’s completely real… a little too real, sadly. Les Diaboliques was hit by something resembling a “Poltergeist curse” long before that was even a thing. Actress Véra Clouzot tragically died only five years after filming Les Diaboliques from a heart attack at the young age of 46.

Unburdened by the horror conventions of today, Les Diaboliques does not rely on cheap jump scares, or extreme violence of either a gory or sexual nature. Just good old fashioned suspense. The real horror of Les Diaboliques comes from that which remains unseen. It’s the idea… the possibility of something lurking around the corner that can get your heart racing just as much if not more so than a tangible threat.  Les Diaboliques was one of the best at accomplishing this feat back in the day, and is also the reason why its legacy persists.

31 Screams in October, Vol. 5, #28: Midsommar (2019)

Director: Ari Aster

Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, Ellora Torchia, Archie Madekwe, Will Poulter

It’s important to tread carefully when approaching films as massively hyped as 2019’s Midsommar. There are the inevitable comparisons to films of the past, even hyperbolic claims that it surpasses those classics. There will be those who say the film’s length doesn’t matter vs. those who beg to differ. Maybe the overall experience of watching it just leaves you in a bad mood and you’re trying too hard to analyze why this is. I’m afraid it’s that last category where I find myself.

Like Hereditary before it, Ari Aster’s second feature film is based around the themes of tragedy, loss, and mental illness. Main character Dani (Florence Pugh) starts the film off with her life already FUBARed thanks to her bipolar sister, who killed their parents by asphyxiation before committing suicide by the same manner. Her douchey boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) had been looking for a way out of their relationship prior to this, but feels obligated to stick around under the circumstances. Oh, did I say stick around? I meant quietly plan a trip to Sweden thinking he wouldn’t have to tell her about it. Christian, Mark (Will Poulter) and Josh (William Jackson Harpers) have been invited by their Swedish friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) to attend a once-every-900-years event at a commune Pelle calls home. Naturally, once Dani catches wind of this, she’s invited along under the assumption she’ll turn it down. She doesn’t turn it down.

You’ll know exactly what to expect if you’ve seen any of the following: Herschel Gordon Lewis’s Two Thousand Maniacs!, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, either the classic 1973 original or shitty 2006 remake of The Wicker Man, or any horror movie about a doomed vacation where the main characters have been manipulated into their choice of destination. The people of the Swedish commune are warm and welcoming at first, but you can tell right away that something feels off about the whole thing. The cult-like atmosphere is a bit too hard to ignore, and we know those never lead to anything resembling sunshine and rainbows by film’s end.

It is this atmosphere the film creates which rightly leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable and distressed through the bulk of the runtime. Any horror filmmaker worth his or her weight in salt knows that they’ve done their job right if they can effectively stir these types of emotions. Ari Aster is one of the best among modern directors at using emotion to restore to the horror genre a dark edge that it has been missing since the 1970s. I just wish his were the kind of movies that beckon me to revisit them.

The really maddening thing about Midsommar is that, as much as you’d like for it to break new ground, it really doesn’t. At least not in the way you’d want for it to do so. For, you see, Midsommar is at its core a break-up movie. Whereas Hereditary was about the dissolution of an entire family, Midsommar is about the slow-burn ending of the relationship between Dani and Christian. How it goes about arriving at that point won’t surprise you in the least if you’ve seen any of the aforementioned movies.

None of this would be that big of a deal to me if it weren’t for Midsommar’s undeniably beautiful cinematography. From the shots which foreshadow future events to the scenes of disorientation when characters are under the influence of one hallucinogen or another, Midsommar can often be quite pleasing to look at. It’s when you peel all that back to reveal the ugly interior (and Dani’s hopelessly pre-destined descent into it) that the possibility of taking any enjoyment from it is turned into an impossibility.

I want to be clear: Midsommar is not a bad movie. I’ve seen my share of those this month, enough to establish the difference. I will gladly watch whatever Ari Aster comes up with for his third film, particularly because I know he’ll get great performances out of his leads. Florence Pugh’s acting in Midsommar is as gut-wrenching in its brilliance as was that of Toni Collette in Hereditary. The problem is not in being able to watch movies like this, but in the lack of enthusiasm toward repeating the experience. Makes me feel more like revisiting The Wicker Man (the good one), instead.

31 Screams in October, Vol. 5, #27: C.H.U.D. (1984)

Director: Douglas Cheek

Starring: John Heard, Daniel Stern, Christopher Curry, Kim Griest

C.H.U.D. is a movie I’ve now tried to watch twice. The first time, several years ago, I drifted off somewhere midway through and never bothered to figure out which parts I missed. That’s all I remember from that first attempt. It’s been long enough that the actual plot to the film and all the names of the characters that move it along had slipped my mind. It’s the list of actors who appear in the film that had me try again this year. I wanted to know if it was just bad timing on my part, or if the movie really was that lame. I suspect that, before long, the only way for me to remember anything of importance about C.H.U.D. this time will be to go back and read my thoughts that I’m about to share.

First of all, let me just get out of the way the amusement I got from seeing Home Alone’s Daniel Stern and John Heard teaming up in this one. All that was missing was for an eight-year old boy to scream his fool head off. John Heard plays photographer George Cooper, whose days making big bucks in the fashion industry are behind him, his focus these days being on the homeless in the streets of New York. Daniel Stern plays A.J. (nicknamed “The Reverend”), who runs a soup kitchen that assures the homeless of a hot meal when they are in need. The paths of these two men will eventually intersect, along with that of NYPD Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry), whose wife goes missing after the film’s opening scene.

More people than just one police captain’s wife go missing. In fact, A.J. reports that several of his regulars are nowhere to be found, including all but one who made their home underground in the sewers. A.J. has also found several curious items down there, including a Geiger counter. Everything points to a cover up of some sort perpetrated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A.J. and Captain Bosch receive a lot of dirty looks until they are able to produce photographic evidence, taken from George Cooper’s files. It seems that, while he was photographing the homeless, George snapped some images of nasty-looking bite wounds, the kind you really should see a doctor about.

Turns out the NRC has gotten around the inability to transport toxic waste through New York by simply stockpiling it in the sewers. This has had the unfortunate side effect of mutating those who live down there into Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers (C.H.U.D. for short). In time, the depth of the humanitarian crimes committed by Wilson (George Martin) of the NRC is brought to light. It seems that C.H.U.D. also stands for “Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal.” The implication is that Wilson knew of the risks that came with storing the radioactive waste in the sewers, knows exactly what those risks have created and cares more about his own reputation than the safety of those the C.H.U.D.s might attack and kill. He’ll even go to the extreme of opening up the gas lines to flood the sewers. This would eliminate the C.H.U.D.s, yes, but a secondary function would be the murder of any witnesses. It’s going to take the combined efforts of A.J., George and Capt. Bosch to stop him.

The thing about C.H.U.D. is that it does have a great cast, and they are given the proper time to establish their characters and make you care about what happens to them. This includes George’s pregnant girlfriend, Lauren (Kim Griest), whom I feel obliged to mention even though she’s mainly here to provide George with something to fight for. There’s even a cameo from John Goodman! If I’m being honest, I’d have to say that C.H.U.D. would work better as a conspiracy thriller/crime drama. Those are the parts of this movie that actually shine. It’s when we dip into the horror part of it, the appearance of and attacks from the C.H.U.D.s, that the movie slips into blandness. You’d think that we’d be suffering through long sections of dull exposition before finally getting to the exciting creature action, but C.H.U.D. apparently comes from a bizarro world where everything is the opposite.

Despite being a critical flop, C.H.U.D. did manage one direct-to-video sequel. Played mostly for laughs, 1989’s C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D. has almost nothing to do with the original film, apart from the name, and is far duller than its predecessor. The sequel does feature one scene with actress Tricia Leigh Fisher in an outfit that rivals her half-sister’s Return of the Jedi “slave girl” costume (in my opinion) …so there’s that. The original C.H.U.D. has no such moments of titillation. Sad to say that it might provide more lasting memories if it did.

31 Screams in October, Vol. 5, #26: Maniac (1980)

Director: William Lustig

Starring: Joe Spinell, Caroline Munro

One of the more understated losses the film industry has ever suffered occurred on the 13^th of January 1989 with the death of actor Joe Spinell. Most widely recognized for his supporting roles in The Godfather and Rocky, Spinell also had notable starring roles in various low budget science-fiction and horror films. One of these was the lead in the 1980 slasher film Maniac. While Spinell was never going to be considered “traditional leading man material,” he is absolutely unforgettable for the way in which he was able act with his eyes. This is the sort of thing which made Spinell an ideal choice for characters of a sinister or unhinged nature.

Our tour guide through the world of Maniac is New York citizen Frank Zito (Joe Spinell), a grown man who has never fully gotten over the abuse dealt to him by his late prostitute mother. As a result, Frank has developed a sort of dual personality, both of which color his interactions with the opposite sex. One personality sees Frank as a charming and sweet man whom the ladies don’t mind hanging around while the other is prone to sudden acts of extreme violence. The two sides are sometimes seen arguing with one another, often with Frank’s “good” side chastising the other for his deeds. Both however demonstrate a certain possessive attitude towards women.

What Frank Zito does to keep the lights on is never made clear; his hobby is made brutally obvious in the film’s opening scene as he kills an unsuspecting couple on a beach, scalping the woman post mortem. This becomes Frank’s calling card, as he’ll do the same to a prostitute before moving on to another couple near the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. He takes along a shotgun for this occasion, blowing the man’s head clean off before turning the gun on the woman. The visual makeup effects for Maniac were done by gore wizard Tom Savini, exactly the guy you want for a movie like this. Savini also plays the ill-fated man credited only as “Disco boy.” Fitting, as it’s the most outstanding/shocking scene of gore in the whole picture.

This latest bit of ugliness has garnered Frank some attention from both the press and the police, although his identity is still yet to be discovered at this point. This leaves Frank free to stalk and murder a nurse in classic slasher movie fashion. The extended chase sequence goes from the streets down into the subway, ending in a bathroom stall. The poor dear thinks she’s eluded him. We know that, when the nurse moves to wash her hands in the sink, Frank will appear behind her in the mirror as soon as she looks up. As he has done with the other women he’s killed, Frank nails the nurse’s scalp to the head of a mannequin he keeps in his apartment.

A glimmer of hope arrives in the form of photographer Anna (Caroline Munro). Exactly how the two are formally introduced is a bit awkward, though. After noticing that she’s taken his picture in Central Park, he heads up to her apartment a few days later and introduces himself. Instead of rightly telling this weirdo to get lost, Anna invites Frank inside and even accepts a dinner invitation after the briefest of conversations about their personal backgrounds. All appears rosy until Frank attends one of Anna’s photography sessions, becoming jealous of the attention given to model Rita (Gail Lawrence).

In order to provide a reason to show up at Rita’s apartment, Frank covertly steals a necklace of hers before leaving the photoshoot set. Tying to her bed, Frank’s two personalities begin to argue with one another as Rita looks on helplessly. At first, it seems as though his calmer side is winning, though it doesn’t bode well for Rita either way. If Frank doesn’t kill her, he still intends to hold her against her will indefinitely. He even starts to talk to Rita as though she were his mother, whom he both loves and hates. Then he gets that crazy look once again, and it’s all over for Rita. This is arguably Spinell’s best scene, as you can tell the exact moment Frank’s dark side has taken the wheel just by watching him go to work with those magnificent eyes of his.

Some days later, as Frank and Anna are preparing to go on another date, Anna expresses gratitude for Frank’s attendance at Rita’s funeral. It’s unclear to me as to whether or not this acts as a trigger, but Frank does nonetheless declare a need to visit his mother’s grave, it being the anniversary of her death. While kneeling in front of the headstone, Frank starts babbling about Rita in a manner suggesting his involvement in her death. Suddenly, Frank attacks and then chases Anna, ultimately losing her and opting to return to his apartment. There, he hallucinates that his mannequins are coming to life to tear him apart, but it’s really just a sign of his complete mental breakdown before committing suicide.

From a critical standpoint, it’s difficult to take a film like Maniac and call it “entertaining” with a straight face. In part because it is told from the perspective of the killer, this is a mostly unpleasant movie. I learned after the fact that both director William Lustig and (especially) actress Gail Lawrence have a history with pornographic films. This actually makes a bit of sense considering the movie’s general grimy feel, and may also explain why I can’t shake the thought that Frank Zito at times resembles disgraced porn star Ron Jeremy. Whatever the case, Maniac ends up a more enjoyable film than it should be, and that’s due to the performance of Joe Spinell (who also co-wrote the screenplay) and the artistry of Tom Savini. Both are at the top of their game here, giving this low-budget horror the cult-classic status it deserves.

31 Screams in October, Vol. 5, #25: Asylum (1972)

Director: Roy Ward Baker

Starring: Peter Cushing, Britt Ekland, Robert Powell, Herbert Lom, Barry Morse, Patrick Magee

Recalling how much I enjoy Creepshow, I knew going in that I was likely to have a similarly fun experience with the 1972 anthology horror film Asylum. Granted, Asylum takes a somewhat different approach given that it is written by Robert Bloch (author of Psycho), who adapted the screenplay from a series of his own short stories. This is in contrast to Creepshow’s reverence for America’s EC horror comics. That difference aside, all I had to do was to take one look at the list of familiar names among the British cast of Asylum to know I would be in safe hands for the next hour and a half.

As the movie is just getting started, we’re treated to perhaps the most Halloween thing ever as “Night on Bald Mountain” plays over the opening credits. The story which connects all the others together concerns Dr. Martin (Robert Powell)’s arrival and potential employment at an asylum whose patients are denounced as “incurably insane.” Dr. Rutherford (Patrick Magee), wheelchair-bound following an attack from an inmate, would like for Dr. Martin to take on the position of chief doctor. First, Rutherford wants to test Martin by having him interview a few of the inmates. If he can correctly guess which one is Dr. Starr, who ran the asylum until a recent mental breakdown, then he’s hired.

The first inmate whom Dr. Martin pays a visit is Bonnie (Barbara Parkins), who spends the bulk of the interview with her back turned. Bonnie was the mistress of Walter (Richard Todd), a man with whom she conspired to murder his rich wife, Ruth (Sylvia Syms). Walter took on the task of performing the deed himself, at which he succeeds before dismembering the corpse and storing the remains in a freezer unit. However, what neither Walter nor Bonnie had counted on was that Ruth was proficient in the art of voodoo. This allows for the pieces of Ruth to break out of the ice chest, strangle Walter to death, and then cause Bonnie to disfigure her own face trying to get Ruth off of her. “Frozen Fear” is a decent, if overly simple tale.

Next, Dr. Martin talks to Bruno (Barry Morse), a tailor who stumbled into a job opportunity he couldn’t pass up. One night, Bruno is visited by Mr. Smith (Peter Cushing), an allegedly rich man who wants a suit made for his son. Mr. Smith has very specific instructions on how to make the suit, handing Bruno a very unusual, visually dazzling fabric to use. Bruno follows Mr. Smith’s instructions to the letter, arriving at the man’s doorstep with the completed suit shortly after finishing. Mr. Smith reveals the suit is designed to resurrect his dead son. Dismayed when Mr. Smith declares that he’s broke and cannot pay, Bruno starts an argument, which ends with Mr. Smith producing a gun and accidentally getting shot in the scuffle. Bruno later discovers that Mr. Smith wasn’t bullshitting him about the suit’s powers when it brings to life the store mannequin. It’s hard to go wrong with any story involving Peter Cushing. I also enjoyed Barry Morse’s performance in “The Weird Tailor,” having familiarized myself with the actor through streaming 1^st season episodes of the 1970s sci-fi TV series Space: 1999.

Dr. Martin’s third interview is with a young woman named Barbara (Charlotte Rampling), who is quick to note that this is not the first time she’s been committed. The story entitled “Lucy Comes to Stay” details how after her first stint in an asylum, Barbara returns home under the supervision of her brother George (James Villiers) and Miss Higgins (Megs Jenkins), a registered nurse. In addition to her fragile mental state, Barbara also has a history of pill addiction, as well as a trouble-making friend named Lucy (Britt Ekland). Barbara’s soul-crushing house arrest is livened up when Lucy shows up to turn that frown upside down. However, this is quickly followed by a series of events which turn out to be quite deadly for her brother and Miss Higgins. Barbara is back in the asylum as a result of this, and because she can’t understand who is truly responsible for the murders. I guessed from the moment this segment started that Lucy was a figment of Barbara’s imagination, but it’s played so well that I don’t mind that much. Being fond of Charlotte Rampling’s work, and a huge fan of Britt Ekland’s thanks to 1973’s The Wicker Man, this was the segment I was looking forward to the most. It’s probably the one I had the most fun watching, as well.

Dr. Martin’s last stop is to see Dr. Byron (Herbert Lom) who has been busy building small robots. His latest model bears his own likeness, and is said to contain organic material. All it needs, Dr. Byron says, is for him to use the power of his own will to transfer his soul into the robot so that he might use it to exactly bloody vengeance on the man he perceives as his nemesis, Dr. Rutherford. Shockingly, Dr. Byron is successful, and the Byronbot murders Rutherford with a scalpel. Dr. Martin destroys the robot, which in turn kills Dr. Byron, but by then it’s far too late. Refusing to take a guess as to which of the four patients he’s seen is in fact Dr. Starr, Martin is then strangled to death by an attendant (Geoffrey Bayldon) had been calling himself Max Reynolds. Turns out this man had killed the real Reynolds and has been Dr. Starr all along.

Asylum is a very solid anthology film, with “The Weird Tailor” and “Lucy Comes to Stay” being the standout sections. It is nowhere near as stylish as Creepshow, but that’s all right. It’s also not as cartoonish, keeping the focus on the excellent performances of its star-studded cast. I would maybe have included one additional section just to keep the fun going, but that’s just me. Anyone who loves anthology films should definitely give this one a watch.

31 Screams in October, Vol. 5, #24: Hereditary (2018)

Director: Ari Aster

Starring: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Gabriel Byrne

Most horror movies out there leave me wondering if I haven’t become desensitized from all the years of exposing myself to this highly entertaining genre of film. Many have provided lasting images. Only a select few have truly ever left me speechless. I can tell just by the number of times I’ve started this opening paragraph over that Hereditary is of that special breed of horror.

The film opens with text that reads like a newspaper obituary, detailing the recent passing of Ellen Leigh, mother to Annie Leigh Graham (Toni Collette). By the end of her life, Ellen had been suffering from multiple mental disorders, and in fact Annie recalls that other members of her family also had mental instabilities, including her brother who committed suicide to stop the voices he claimed his mother had placed inside his head. Annie herself is a sleepwalker. It’s this unfortunate commonality which the family members share that inspires the film’s title. Don’t worry, though. By the film’s end, it becomes clear that it’s much more complicated than that.

Annie, a miniatures artist, has her own children: a 16-year old son named Peter (Alex Wolff) and a 13-year old daughter named Charlie (Milly Shapiro). While Peter is an unremarkable stoner, Charlie is an artist like her mother. She’s also prone to strange behaviors, such as cutting the heads off of dead birds, and she has a nut allergy. That last part may sound normal enough, but it figures heavily into the plot when Charlie accompanies her older brother to a party. While Peter is off getting high with his peers, Charlie unknowingly eats from a cake filled with nuts and goes into anaphylactic shock. Thinking quickly, Peter rushes her into the car and speeds off towards the hospital. Unable to breathe, Charlie rolls down the backseat window and leans her head out. Just then, Peter swerves to avoid a deer and, as he does this, Charlie is decapitated by a telephone pole.

It’s an incredibly dark and sad moment, but not even close to the following morning when Annie learns what has happened, Charlie’s headless corpse still laid out in the backseat. By this point, Toni Collette had already given a decent performance, but it’s from the half-hour mark onward that she kicks things into overdrive. Dare I say, Oscar-worthy territory? That is why it’s such a shame that Collette was not even nominated.

Annie was already attending a grief counseling support group after the death of her mother, but now she can’t even bring herself to go there. Pulling a U-turn in the parking lot, she’s stopped by Joan (Ann Dowd), who relates the story of her own losses before telling Annie how to contact Charlie through séance. Eager to show what she’s learned to her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) and to Peter, she ends up frightening Peter and furthering Steve’s skepticism. As Charlie’s sketchbook was the connecting object used in the ritual, Annie decides to burn it, but that only ends up catching her arm ablaze as well until she puts the fire out.

Going back to Joan’s, Annie finds no trace of her friend, though she does find evidence that ties Joan to her mother, as well as a book with a passage about the demon Paimon, whose goal it is to inhabit a male host. According to the passage, Paimon can only accomplish this by first weakening the intended host. As Paimon goes to work on Peter, Annie discovers the headless corpse of her mother in her attic. When she shows this to Steve, he assumes she’s the one who desecrated her mother’s grave/corpse. Annie tries to convince Steve that burning Charlie’s sketchbook is the only way to stop what’s going on, and that it will mean Annie’s death. When she commits what she believes to be self-sacrifice, Steve is the one who ends up burning alive. Paimon then takes temporary control of Annie as a means of continuing to scare the bejesus out of Peter. When he’s finally ready, Paimon makes Annie kill herself and then transfers himself to Peter. That’s when Paimon’s cult reveals itself in the family treehouse and declares their fealty to him.

I won’t call Hereditary my favorite film that I’ve seen this month, but that’s only because its goal wasn’t seemingly to play to my own personal checklist of my favorite things about horror movies (the way that The House of the Devil did). What I will say about Hereditary is that it was the best acted, best written, most skin-crawlingly creepy film I’ve encountered in the last few weeks. At the same time, it’s not something I can recommend to everyone. If you’re a parent (and, really, even if you’re not), this may not be the movie for you, as this thing is 90% grief over lost loved ones. Otherwise, it’s a hell of a show.

31 Screams in October, Vol. 5, #23: The Crazies (1973)

Director: George A. Romero

Starring: Lane Carroll, Will MacMillan, Harold Wayne Jones, Lloyd Hollar Lynn Lowry, Richard Liberty

Oh, this one was a bad idea. Here I was thinking that I could simply sit down to watch another movie about a viral outbreak and once again have a rollicking good time. I thought that having George Romero as the director would mean an excellently-paced film with some thought-provoking social commentary. I remember my experience in watching the 2010 remake, and thinking how much better the 1973 original must be. How silly of me.

The Crazies blows its wad in the first few minutes, detailing how a Pennsylvania farmer has gone mad, killed his wife, and is in the process of burning down his house with himself and his two children still inside of it. The man and his son are shown later to have survived the fire, but this is still a startling opening sequence… one that the rest of the film sadly never matches in its intensity. What we do get are alternating sequences of a government caught off guard by a virus they have no idea how to handle and the innocent citizens caught up in the mix. That may sound topically relevant to a 2020 audience, but don’t let the tease of relatability fool you.

David (Will McMillan) and Clank (Harold Wayne Jones), two of the firefighters sent to battle the blaze from the opening scene, are Vietnam War veterans. That bit of background will be important only in the sense that it will serve as the explanation for how these two are able to fight back against heavily armed soldiers (who are decked out in white hazmat suits and gas masks) as they attempt to enforce martial law. David is also trying to reach his pregnant girlfriend, Judy (Lane Carroll), a nurse who is present when the burn victims are first brought in and who also flees the hospital when the government starts rounding everyone up into quarantine.

The Crazies would have been better served by sticking with David, Judy and the others as they continue trying to evade the soldiers, but slows to a crawl every time we cut away to see what the scientists are up to. A potential cure is being worked on, but one could potentially be found a lot faster if everyone would just… stop… talking! Although The Crazies was filmed in 1973, it’s these stilted sections of the film that feel more like they come from the science fiction B-movies of the 1950s. There is definitely such a thing as too much exposition, and The Crazies reaches that point far too soon into its 103-minute runtime.

I wish I could say that the film’s overall pessimistic tone delivers the kind of atmosphere The Crazies requires. I don’t know whether or not it does, necessarily. What I do know is that it’s the kind of movie which leaves you in a bad mood afterwards. That would be bad enough, but The Crazies is also the sort of movie that can put you to sleep if you’re not careful. There are a lot of things a horror movie is allowed to be. Boring is never one of them.

Director George Romero’s legacy will remain intact for all time, no matter what missteps he made along the way. I just want to make that clear. Dawn of the Dead stands as one of my ten favorite horror movies of all-time, and both Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead are bona fide classics in their own right. The Crazies, while not the worst thing I’ve seen all month (that title remains firmly attached to Night of the Demons), is still something I can say that now that I’ve seen it I can feel secure in the knowledge that I never need to revisit it.

31 Screams in October, Vol. 5, #22: Society (1989)

Director: Brian Yuzna

Starring: Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Evan Richards, Ben Meyerson

At a time when the disparity between the social classes is as blatantly obvious as it has been in recent memory, a movie like Society can be seen as more topical now than when it was originally filmed. That would be fine and all, except that the tone is all over the place. Primarily, Society functions as a satire, but also deals with the politics of the class system, conspiracy, misinformation, as well as more icky subjects like incest. All the while, Society is literally the stuff nightmares are made of, its last half-hour a bonkers gore effects extravaganza resembling something out of a David Cronenberg film.

Well before the madness of the final act, the audience is immediately thrown into a fog of confusion as we enter into the story of Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock) already seeing him doubting his standing in the world and amongst his own high-class Beverly Hills family, without the benefit of seeing whatever events might have led him to seek professional help from Dr. Cleveland (Ben Slack). Planting more seeds of doubt in an already troubled mind, Bill is confronted by his sister’s ex-boyfriend David Blanchard (Tim Bartell) with a rather disturbing audio recording of Bill’s family. In the tape, Bill’s parents and sister (Charles Lucia, Connie Danese and Patrice Jennings) appear to produce evidence of their participation in some type of orgy. He leaves the tape for his therapist to listen to, but is shocked when the content has been altered the next day. Bill should know better than to trust a shrink in these situations.

Bill is also not going to receive any further aid from Blanchard, who appears to be killed in a car crash on the way to meet with him. Later, Bill’s suspicions are given credence when Ted Ferguson (Ben Meyerson) confirms the things Bill heard, and even disgustingly fills in a few blanks. Angered and even more confused, Bill leaves with Clarissa Carlyn (Devin DeVasquez). Within minutes, the two go from barely knowing one another to hopping into bed together. It’s a very jarring and unrealistic sequence (one that was difficult/uncomfortable for the actors to perform)… but then most everything else about Society is unrealistic, so I guess it gets a pass.

At Blanchard’s funeral, close inspection of the corpse by Bill and his friend Milo (Evan Richards) reveals the body to be a fake. Moments later, Bill is approached by Martin Petrie (Brian Bremer) who wishes to discuss what’s really been going on. He’s later discovered “murdered,” only to show up at school the next day, completely unharmed. All of this is set up to make Bill more unhinged, and to make sure everyone sees him this way. But who is doing this, how many are involved, and what is the ultimate purpose of it all?

The poster for Society sports a line of dialogue from the film, as spoken by Ted Ferguson: “The rich have always fed off the poor.” That’s probably the simplest way to explain what takes place in the sequence that comprises the entire last thirty minutes of the film. Alternating between absurdly silly and graphically gross, “the shunting” as it’s referred is easily the one thing anyone who has either seen the film or knows anything about it will remember. The gore effects of this final act are easily the star of the show, as none of the characters themselves ever ascend to anything resembling relatability.

I fully recognize and respect the fact that Society has its fanbase. I can even respect the filmmakers for what they were trying to do here. There are clearly a lot of great ideas being tossed around, aided in part by renewed relevance. I just don’t find the overall experience all that enjoyable. This is a shame, as I went in really wanting to like Society. Maybe it’s that I needed to be surprised by the ending. Maybe it’s that I’m typically not that enthusiastic about early 90s horror (which Society technically counts as since it didn’t hit the USA until 1992). Or, perhaps I’m feeling burned out on horror films about cults/secret societies. Whatever the case may be, Society failed to reach me.