Celebrating My 50th with 50 Favorites

 So in just a few days, I'm turning 50.  While it sounds monumental and scary, I'm really okay with it.  It's better than the alternative, right? It's also important to mention that this blog is now ten years old.  In March of this year, it turned a decade old and it's still going, despite going bursts of time with no updates. 
 
In correspondence of these two "historic" events, I've decided to do a little countdown, because everyone loves lists and because it's been many years since I've done a favorites list.  Back in October of 2011, I did a list of 31 favorite films, in which I essentially just did a review of each of those films to celebrate the Halloween season.  
I have noticed that while many of my favorites still made the cut this time, I have replaced several of them with other films I have grown to love. 

So without further ado, here are numbers 50 - 41.

50. The Resurrected (1991)

This adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story is directed by Dan O'Bannon and stars Chris Sarandon as as Charles Dexter Ward, a man dedicated to the science of bringing the dead back to life. While some of the acting is campy, the special effects are very good and the story compelling enough to look past the hokey parts.  Ward's wife (played by Jane Tibbett) hires a private investigator (John March) to look into Charles's unusual behavior.  Unusual is quite the understatement, as you'll find out. What's so great about The Resurrected is the mood it sets and the unnerving feeling you get as you watch events unfold.

49. Pet Sematary (1989)

I couldn't leave this Stephen King adaption off my list.  It was one of the first King novels that I read so it holds a special place in my heart. When the movie came out, there's no denying it was downright scary.  From Victor Pascow's nightly jaunts to good ol' Jud introducing Louis Creed to the power of the "real" pet graveyard to Gage's accident and subsequent trip to the Micmac burial grounds to Rachel's sister Zelda, there is a whole lot to be frightened of.  And we can't forget Church. What a cat!

48. Subspecies (1991)

It's all about the atmosphere for this vampire tale set in Romania. Filmed on location in Bucharest, the ambience of rotting castles and vampire-fearing locals only adds to the film's appeal.  While the acting is actually pretty bad, it's a truly dark and moody journey into the heart of a (formerly) communist country.  Radu (Anders Hove) has killed his father, the vampire king (horror royalty Angus Scrimm), in order to be able to utilize the "bloodstone", an ancient relic that drips the life-sustaining blood of the saints.  Three beautiful college friends travel to Castle Vladislas to do research on the ruins and run smack into a power struggle between Radu and his extremely attractive half-brother, Stefan.  Chaos ensues.  Hilarity also becomes unavoidable once the stop-motion sub-species creatures come into play.  But I can overlook silliness for pure atmosphere....and a great soundtrack.

47.  The Shining (1980)

 This is a film I have watched countless times and would consider one of my go-to "comfort horror" favorites.  I know Stephen King isn't crazy about this version of his best selling novel, but there's no doubt it's a juggernaut of terror.  Jack Nicholson is over the top as Jack Torrance, a man with just enough inner crazy to be sent over the edge when holed up in a haunted hotel for the winter with his passive wife Wendy (Shelly Duvall) and young, psychically-enabled son Danny (Danny Lloyd).  So much shockingly ghastly goodness to love here but I'll say the blood-drenched elevators, the wacky ballroom party, the rotting woman in the bathtub and the last scenes of the chase in the maze all say horror to me, and in a big way.

 46. Rogue (2007)

It's kind of hard to find a good crocodile horror flick that isn't a comedy. But I have found it, and it's glorious.  Michael Vartan stars as a travel writer who hops on a touristy cruise down an Australian National Park river.  The always great Radha Mitchell is the guide for a group of folks that even includes the lovable Aussie John Jarratt (Wolf Creek).  Long story short, the gang runs smack dab into a giant crocodile's territory and getting out is one big pain in the ass (and a lot of other places).  Run aground and stuck on the edge of a small island about to be submerged by the tide, the group slowly stops placing blame and begins to work together to devise a plan for survival.  Great effects, stellar casting and a lovely yet fierce score make this one to admire.  If you haven't seen it, do get on that, stat.

45. Pumpkinhead (1998)

Now this is a film that wins me over every...single...time.  With superb creature effects by Stan Winston (who also directed) and the talents of the stupendous icon, Lance Henriksen, Pumpkinhead is a delight to be savored at each viewing.  What is thought of as B-grade horror is near the top of any discerning horror fan's monster flick list.  Henriksen plays Ed Harley, a backwoods proprietor of goods and the loving father to Billy, who sadly becomes the victim of the antics of a group of snot-nosed twenty-somethings out for a good time.  Ed, overcome with relentless grief, has the local witch conjure up a terrifying revenge.  And its name is Pumpkinhead.  Suspense and atmosphere are key here, with the monster effects certainly worthy of the great Winston name. 

44.  The Wolfman (1941)

Universal monsters have a special place in my heart, as they do for many a horror fan.  I love all the classics, but a few of them I hold a little dearer, this werewolf story being one of them.  Lon Chaney Jr. portrays Larry Talbot, a man heading home to the family estate after the mysterious death of his brother. When the friend of his love interest Gwen (Evelyn Ankers) finds herself attacked in the dense fog, it's up to Larry to attempt a rescue.  Instead, he gets bitten by a wolf, at least that's what he thought...  With gypsies and silver bullets and transformations, The Wolfman has it all, topped off by the sheer charisma of Chaney.  And do keep in mind: 
Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night;
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.

43. The Birds (1963)

When Hitchcock finished Psycho, I'm sure he was wondering what he could possibly do to surpass the popularity and critical acclaim of that film.  Did he accomplish it here?  No.  But The Birds is a damn fine film in its own right, and I still love popping it in and singing a rousing round of "Risselty-Rosselty."  Ahhhh! Total ear-worm.  I digress.  I love The Birds. I love Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren, I love Jessica Tandy.  Hell, I even love Veronica Cartwright.  But what I love most is those birds. EVERYWHERE.  On the power lines, at the school, the monkey bars, the roof, the cars, the restaurants, the gas station....even in the attic.  Such a powerful statement these birds make, for just one bird is nothing...not scary in the least.  But put hundreds together and it's just totally unsettling.  In the best possible way!

 42. Misery (1990)

Misery, by Stephen King, is a fantastic read. And the film is just as extraordinary.  With two knock-it-out-of-the-park performances by James Caan and most especially Kathy Bates.  Centered on a writer who always finishes his novels in the same way, Misery introduces us to Paul Sheldon, a best-selling author who wrecks his Mustang in a snowstorm and is rescued from near death by one Annie Wilkes, who just happens to be his number one fan.  After treating his multiple injuries (because she is a nurse, you know) she neglects to notify his family and friends and proceeds to hole him up in her cabin and force him to re-write one of his novels after he had the audacity to kill off the main character that Annie lived and breathed.  Bates won a well-deserved Oscar for her performance and Caan is equally as stellar in his role.  The title is perfect for this one.  The film is equally as perfect.

41.  The Legend of Hell House (1973)

Based on a book by the genre favorite prolific horror writer Richard Matheson, Hell House is a British film that tells the tale of the Belasco house, supposedly the "Mount Everest of haunted houses".  Dr Lionel Barrett is tasked to prove one way or the other, and takes his wife and two psychics with him over Christmas holiday to debunk the mansion and all its ghosts.  Now, there's nothing I like better than a good haunted house flick, and this was one of my first experiences with one, I vividly remember watching this one on television with my mom on a rainy Saturday afternoon, so it holds very dear memories for me.  Through electromagnetic experiments, seances and other manners of ghost-hunting, they find the source of the hauntings, at least they think they do.  But all is not as it seems.  And Belasco is not finished with our ghost-busters.  Not by a long shot.  There's something very eerie and unsettling about this film, and I think it is just the tremendous bones the story itself has, and we have Matheson to thank for that.


Next up, numbers 40-31...

Resurrecting some Lovecraft

I love to chat about forgotten films that I've taken a liking to. I like it even more when they are that rare film that puts together two of the genre's best:  H.P. Lovecraft and Dan O'Bannon. 

A rather faithful adaption of the Lovecraft tale, 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward' (note: many people try to add “strange” in there, but they are mistakenly thinking of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), The Resurrected tells the tale of a man obsessed with a mysterious ancestor who was delving into the forbidden dark arts, including re-animating the dead.

Widely known as being the screenwriter of such films as the incomparable Alien, Return of the Living Dead, and Total Recall, this particular film was one of Dan O'Bannon’s few times in the director’s chair. It certainly seems like a B-movie when it starts, but to me it’s part of its charm.  So what’s it about, you ask?

Christian Shephard (Whoops! LOST reference, sorry) John Terry stars as John March, a private detective who is hired by the wealthy yet despondent Claire Ward (Jane Sibbett) to look into her husband’s exceedingly bizarre behavior. Seems Charles Ward (genre fave Chris Sarandon), married less than a year to Claire, has moved out of their happy home and into a house a bit further out of town – unsurprisingly the ancestral home of one Joseph Curwen – a man with a dreadful hobby. He has found a way to regenerate the dead using the ash of corpses and some dark magic.

The search for answers makes up most of the movie, but the getting there is half the fun. After Charles opens an old chest filled with an ancestor’s (Curwen) personal belongings, he becomes driven to discover just what it was Curwen was working on. At first Charles camps out in his own home’s carriage house, but eventually he has to move his “lab” (dude’s front is that he is a cosmetics scientist, and is always perfecting the next best thing. How ironic.) to the house out in the country because the neighbors were starting to complain about the smell and the noises emanating from the house. (Never a good sign.) So he moves his operation away from town and away from his wife.

During March’s investigation, he finds that long boxes (um, coffins for the clueless here) and loads of blood and animal parts are being delivered from the slaughterhouse at the edge of town on a VERY regular basis.
When confronted, Ward denies any wrong-doing, but it is so blatantly obvious he’s flipped his lid.
He tells some bogus story about a confidant of his, a Dr. Ash, who has been helping him with his work. Later, Claire receives a cryptic phone message from Charles telling her to stay away from Dr. Ash. It’s here where things take a turn for the worse. As if it wasn’t already weird enough.

Eventually able to corner Ward at the house and remove him in a straitjacket, it becomes obvious that Charles is no longer actually “Charles’. Anyone paying close attention can figure this out, but when Ward tells them (from his stretcher as he’s being loaded into the funny farm wagon) that they’ve made a “damndable mistake” (and no, I’m not sure that was ever a word), it’s fairly clear he’s off his rocker.

With Ward safely tucked away in his padded cell, John, Claire, and John’s right hand man Lonnie (Robert “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” Romanus) return to the house in the country to delve into Charles’s work. They end up finding a labyrinth of tunnels under the house, with one branch leading to the river (easy access to dump unused ‘parts’, you see). Seems Curwen had been using the underground lair to try out his handiwork.They discover the journal of Joseph Curwen, and the movie sidesteps a bit to a flashback from the past to tell the tale of Curwen and the Ward family, which does help to explain the story a bit more clearly.

Even worse though, they stumble upon a pit of “mistakes” – a hole full of writhing things that seem to be part human, part total fuck-up. After they notice a wall full of shelves containing the remains of some of the most renowned alchemists in history, March dabbles a bit himself, pouring the ashes of one of them onto the table and mixing it with some blood that is already there, you know- just to see what happens! It generates into one of those fuck-ups but they kill it before it can harm anyone.

Getting out of said lair however, becomes an unenviable task after their flashlight batteries die (if I only had a dollar for every time that happens in a horror film!) and they drop their only lantern (yep, seriously). Using a pack of matches (!), they attempt to make their way to the exit, only to be chased by a few of the monstrosities created by Curwen. Do they make it out? And what happens to Curwen/Ward – locked up in the psych hospital? Will the experiments continue? What will become of Claire’s perfectly coiffed yet utterly ugly hairdo? And hey, are those explosives in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

As mentioned, this film is one of the better Lovecraft adaptations, in my humble opinion. A few details have been changed to bring it up to date a bit (after all, the novella was written in 1927), but the major plot points are kept intact, and for me, the movie portrays quite well the sense of dread and unease surrounding Charles Ward and his unique brand of life-science. The family doctor in the original story is replaced by the private investigator in the film version, and I think this is quite suitable and makes a bit more sense for these times. No doctor I know would pursue the truth so diligently unless of course, there is a giant monetary compensation – in particular after seeing that house in the country. March’s character in fact exclaims in the movie that he’d require at least five figures to go there after dark. True that.

The movie progresses at a circumspect pace, careful to address all the weirdness going on, but never dragging to the point of boredom. There are some unnerving scenes, such as when Detective March finds himself at the door of the country house for the first time and is greeted by a menacing dog and then shunned and told to leave initially by Ward’s henchman (a creepy Asian dude with a wonky eye) then by Ward himself – who proceeds to explain away the strange smells by saying it is decaying laboratory animals… as if that’s okay. The second time March comes back he brings Mrs. Ward, and is allowed access into the house. But Ward has changed.
He has major inexplicable physical changes, as well as the fact that when he speaks he sounds like he belongs in the 18th century. So very disconcerting.
If we didn’t know better already, we’d be wondering just what the hell was going on, but the film isn’t exactly cryptic, at least not to me. Then again, maybe it would be to someone who hadn’t read the novella (and if you haven’t, you should. Now.)

So how does the film fare as far as the logistics of it all? Well, I can’t say it’s a stellar production, in fact it even reeks of straight-to-video lameness. But you can’t help but like it, it’s so darn freaky and unorthodox. All the deviant occult overtones make for some good gore and an interesting plot line to be certain.

Acting. Hmm… It’s overacted in many places, but again, it didn’t kill the film for me.
That said, I don’t really care for Jane Sibbett in any capacity. She is very much a “Lifetime Movie of the Week”-kind of actress, and the part severely lacks because of it. Overly dramatic in all the wrong places, she is just barely passable here, if even that.
The rest of the cast fairs okay, in particular Sarandon (who incidentally was an Oscar nominee at one point). He embraces the dual roles fervently, and has a tight hold on just how far to go with it. Holy balls is he scary as the back-from-the-beyond Joseph Curwen. The way he talks in that antiquated accent is shuddersome enough, but the way he looks - Ahhhh! If I saw that answering the door I’d run. With rotted teeth, sunken eyes, darkly disturbing fingernails not unlike Frankenstein, and funky outfits from waaay back? Gah!

Plot. Do I really have to sing the praises of H.P. Lovecraft?
Nope, didn’t think so.

Effects. Minimal special effects make more sense here, and what is there works sufficiently enough.  The ghastly look of Sarandon as he ‘becomes’ his nefarious alter-ego are practical and just enough. Less is more, and certainly is in this case. The hideous mistakes in the pit are the most ambitious part of the movie, save for perhaps a few scenes at the end which I won’t spoil for anyone. After all, I’m not sure most people reading have even heard of the film, much less seen it.

And to that I say – see it! Matter of fact, it was streaming on Netflix before I dropped that part of the red envelope company. So it still may be available for free!  Instantly! And you might as well check it out there, because damn if it isn’t nearly impossible to find for purchase anywhere. It does make an appearance on eBay: two copies available on DVD, starting at $89.75! You can get it on VHS, however, but as a big fan of this Dan O’Bannon obscurity, I was lucky enough to get it on DVD as soon as I saw it for sale several years ago.

(On a side note:  This film was also known as Shatterbrain.  Why, I have absolutely no idea.  It’s original title makes worlds more sense.  But if looking for the film, you may run across it under this name.)