Writer/Director/Producer Guillermo del Toro has a pretty good track record when it comes to genre films (despite the fairly crappy 2010 remake of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark). His next directorial effort is the Kaiju vs Giant Robots epic Pacific Rim, which looks like it's going to be a sort of Godzilla vs Transformers through the eyes of a mad Mexican genius. And while Blade II was amazing; both Hellboy films were visually stunning and Pan's Labyrinth was absolutely devastating, del Toro hardly has a perfect track record.
Well before Pacific Rim is released, del Toro produced the forthcoming ghost movie Mama.Based on a short film from brother/sister team Adres and Barbara Muschietti, Mama is the story of two young girls who witness their parents' murder and spend the next five years not-quite-alone in the woods. Returned to civilization under the care of their uncle ("Game of Thrones" alum Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his wife (recent Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain, looking very different with short, brunette hair), the girls may have brought 'something' along with them...
Traditionally, early-in-the-year films aren't the best of what the studios have to offer. Invested in their late-year Oscar hopefuls, most studios dump the movies in which they have the least faith off in late January and February, hoping to make a quick buck off of opening weekend receipts. And while I fear this may well be the case with Mama, the short on which it is based gives me some hope:
While Chastain may have proven herself in films like The Helpand Zero Dark Thirty, that doesn't mean everything she's in is a gem. And del Toro (best known for the 2006atmospheric fantasy Pan's Labyrinth) has made and/or produced some of the genre's recent best films (The Devil's Backbone; The Orphanage), flops like Don't Be Afraid of the Dark give me reason to pause. Personally, Uncle P will probably wait to see Mama either OnDemand or on cable, unless Dear D or one of my other horror-loving friends wants to see it on-screen.
Any real writer familiar with the English language knows that "unexplainable" isn't a real word. "Inexplicable," however, is. But then, I may just be a picky a-hole...
Director Peter Jackson is probably best known for his adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Long before those films made him a household name, he made probably the best zombie comedy ever in 1992's Dead Alive (known as Braindead outside the U.S.).Jackson also made the astounding 2005 version of King Kong, which made Uncle P fall in love with the movie that made me fall in love with the movies, all over again. Jackson really made his mark with 1994's Heavenly Creatures, a mostly true story starring Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey as two Kiwi girls who live in a fantasy world and eventually conspire to kill the mother of Lynskey's character. The film was an International sensation and Jackson found himself invited to play with the Hollywood big boys for 1996's The Frighteners, an underrated and unappreciated ghost story starring Michael J. Fox; John Astin; Dee Wallace; Jeffrey Combs and Jake Busey. Re-edited by the studio, The Frighteners is not the film Jackson intended to make, though it deserves more praise than it received upon its realease.
Frank Bannister (Fox) develops psychic abilities after his wife is killed in an auto accident. Able to commune with the dead, he starts a business where the ghosts he knows haunt houses which he then "exorcises" for a fee. When the ghost of a serial killer (Busey) starts marking his victims, Frank and his ghost pals embark on a quest to stop the murders. Aided by Lucy, the widow of a heart-attack victim (Trini Alverado) - whose character is named after Melanie Lynskey, Frank tracks down the killer's still-living lover (Wallace) and eventually sends both of them to their just rewards, but not before dying, himself. Frank realizes that the killer was responsible for his wife's death and returns to Earth with her blessing, finding new love with Lucy and able to finally demolish the unfinished home he'd started to build while his first wife was still alive.
Hated by most critics and denounced by Jackson, The Frighteners isn't exactly a bad movie, though it's not really a good one, either. The performances are pretty solid and the FX are certainly on par with other mid-90's films, but I imagine Jackson's version was probably much scarier than the one audiences were given. I, for one, would love to see a 'Director's Cut' version of this film.
Director Guillermo del Toro's first anti-Franco horror film, 2001's The Devil's Backbone explores many of the themes common to his films: parental abandonment; the horrors of war; children who are 'different;' man's inhumanity to man and ghosts.
Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives at an orphanage, thinking his stay is temporary, until his father returns from the war. In the orphange's courtyard lies a supoosedly diffused bomb. Carlos tries to make friends, but is bullied by Jaime (Inigo Garces), who steals Carlos' comic book. That night, when an apparent ghost knocks over the water pitcher, Carlos and Jaime dare one another to go to the kitchen and refill it. Carlos is caught by Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega) and sent back to bed. The next day, Carlos saves Jaime from drowning, despite having his face cut by Jacinto. Eventually, Jaime tells Carlos the story of Santi, an orphan who died the day the bomb was dropped and who now supposedly haunts the orphanage. Jacinto learns that there is a large stash of gold in the orphanage and plans to take it, but is foiled when the orphanage's director Carmen (Marissa Paredes) refuses to give him the key to the safe. Carmen is in love with Dr. Casares, but he is too scared to admit he loves her. When he witnesses the murders of Carlos' tutor and body guard, he decides to lead all of the orphans out of the city. His plan is spoiled when Jacinto burns down much of the orphanage in failed attempt to steal the gold, during which Casares is mortally wounded.
Jaime tells Carlos he saw Jacinto kill Santi in the cistern. Meanwhile, Jacinto returns for the gold with band of hooligans, who abandon him when they find the safe empty. The remaining orphans, knowing that Jacinto is evil, arm themselves with sharpened sticks and pointed rocks. When Jacinto finally finds the gold (hidden in Carmen's prosthetic leg), he is confronted by them and thrown into the very cistern where he drowned Santi. Weighed down by the gold and dragged down by Santi's ghost, Jacinto disappears in the murky water and the orphans leave as the ghost of Casares watches over them.
Just a bit grimmer than Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone is remarkably atmospheric and quite chilling. Del Toro truly found his voice with this film and his love of the genre and flair for ominous visuals is in full display.I imagine a double feature of the two films would be rather... intense. Later films produced by del Toro (The Orphanage and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark) explore similar themes, though none quite so horrifyingly as The Devil's Backbone. Del Toro has said it may be his most personal film, which I must imagine says a lot about his own childhood.
Del Toro's next film Pacific Rim, is his homage to Japanese kaiju (monster) movies of the 50's and 60's.
Given del Toro's amazing visuals (see Hellboy IIand Pan's Labyrinth), Pacific Rim should be THE Sci-Fi movie of 2013. Personally, I am bummed that hisproposedadaption of At the Mountains of Madness isn't going to happen.
To those expressed concern and well-wishes over my recent bout with a stomach virus: Thank You!
Any way, back to the Shocktober subject at hand.
Director John Carpenter followed up his massive Slasher hit Halloween with a more traditional horror movie in 1980's The Fog.
The sleepy northern California town of Antonio Bay is about to celebrate it's Centennial when a series of strange events occur. Lights go out; gas stations pump themselves and all the town's payphones (remember them?) ring at once. Mr, Machen (John Houseman) tells a spooky tale at the beach, where young Andy finds a piece of driftwood with the word "DANE" carved into it. Meanwhile, Father Malone (Hal Holbrook) discovers the journal of his great-grandfather in a crumbling section of his church. A heavy fog rolls in and three members of a small fishing crew are killed.
Drifter Nick Castle (Tom Atkins in a role that's nod to actor who played 'The Shape' in Halloween) picks up hitchhiker Elizabeth (Jamie Lee Curtis), who is headed home to Antonio Bay where her mother (Janet Leigh) is heading up the Centennial Celebration. Nick's headlights and radio start to fail and his truck's windows shatter, inexplicably. The next day, Andy brings the piece of driftwood to his mother, local DJ Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau). Stevie takes it to the lighthouse from which she broadcasts, only to find it seeping water onto her tapedeck and bursting into flames, but not before a mysterious voice intones "Six must die." Once she extinguishes the flames, the wood once again reads "DANE."
As the celebration moves forward, Nick and Elizabeth learn that her mother's husband was among the fisherman killed the night before. Kathy (Leigh) and her assistant visit Malone to ask him to deliver the benediction at the celebration, but Malone reads from the journal which tells the tale of a group of lepers aboard the ELIZABETH DANE, who wanted to establish a colony at Antonio Bay but whose ship was deliberately sunk by Malone's great-grandfather. Not wanting to hear such a horrible tale, the women continue their plans for the celebration. That night, the fog moves in and Stevie talks to her Weather Service pal Dan, listening in as the ghosts of the DANE kill him. As the fog continues to permeate the town, Stevie begs people to help save Andy. His babysitter, Mrs. Kobritz, is killed but Andy is saved at the last minute by Nick. Retreating to the church for safety, Nick; Andy; Elizabeth; Kathy and Sandy gather where Blake finds a cross made from gold stolen from the ELIZABETH DANE. As ghosts trap Stevie on the roof of the lighthouse/radio station, Blake grabs the cross which emits an eerie glow, apparently eliminating the ghosts and the fog. Stevie goes back on air to warn others about the fog as Malone, wondering why he was spared, is suddenly taken by the ghosts of Blake's ship.
The Fog has plenty to admire, the least of which is the only pairing of 'Scream Queens' Janet Leigh and her daughter, Jamie. Of course, the traditional tale of ghostly revenge is gory, creepy and loads of fun. Featuring loads of genre actors, plenty of inside jokes and another terrific score by Carpenter, The Fog is one of the few 80's horror movies to rely on atmosphere as much as gore. 2005 saw a truly awful remake starring "Smallville" star Tom Welling and "Lost" alum, Maggie Grace. Avoid it and stick to the original.
Poor Cole. He sees dead people. But you knew that. Writer/director M. Knight Shyamalan had his first big success with 1999's The Sixth Sense, a ghost story with a supposedly "surprise" plot twist at the end (more on that in a bit).
Bruce Willis plays child psychiatrist Malcolm Crowe. When Malcolm and his wife return home from an event in his honor, he is confronted by a disturbed former patient Vincent (an emaciated Donnie Wahlberg). Vincent feels that Crowe failed him, as he still has the hallucinations that for which he sought help in the first place. Vincent shoots Crowe and then himself.
The following fall, Crowe meets a new patient, Cole Sears (Haley Joel Osment in his film debut). Cole confides the he sees dead people walking around like live people and that they terrify him. Crowe at first thinks that his new patient is suffering the same condition as Vincent and he worries he may fail him as well. Meanwhile, in the wake of his shooting, Crowe's marriage seems to be falling apart and he can't understand why can no longer get into his basement office. Eventually, he decides that Cole may be telling the truth and convinces him to talk to the dead people and help them move on. After helping several ghosts, Cole tells his mother (the excellent Toni Collette) about seeing the dead people. She finally believes him when he passes on a message from her dead mother. Satisfied that Cole is going to be okay, Crowe returns home to find his wife sleeping on the sofa. She turns over and his wedding ring rolls out of her hand, making him realize that he hasn't been wearing it along and that (here's the big twist) he is actually dead, himself.
So here's the thing, I figured out the big twist about halfway through the movie. It was the scene where Malcolm meets his wife for dinner and she completely ignores him. I turned to my companion and whispered "He's dead. No one else has spoken to him but the kid the whole time." It seemed pretty obvious to me and I was kind of shocked that other people didn't figure it out, as well. The movie is fine as a ghost stoy, without the big twist and Shyamalan coaxes a beautifully nuanced performance from both Willis and Osment and provides some good scares. But it's 'surprise' just wasn't, which really ended up kind of ruining for me. Of course, Shyamalan went on to make increasingly bad movies (Unbreakable is simply ridiculous and Lady in the Water is practically unwatchable). For a really good ghost movie released that same summer, see my previous post.
Sadly overshadowed by a more popular (though inferior) ghost movie released the same year (and one I will write about soon), writer/director David Keopp's Stir of Echoes is another example of the ghost story as a mystery, centered around the disappearance of a local girl.
Kevin Bacon plays Tom Witzky, an average Joe trying to support his family as a phone lineman. His pregnant wife Maggie ("Law and Order: C.I." alum Kathryn Erbe) and their son Jake live in a working-class Chicago neighborhood. One night at a party, Maggie's sister Lisa (the underrated and always wonderful Illeana Douglas), convinces Tom to let her hypnotize him. She implants a post-hypnotic suggestion in the skeptical Tom to be more 'open-minded.'
Not long after, Tom starts having visions of a mentally-challenged girl named Samantha ("Once Upon a Time" star Jennifer Morrison) who disappeared a few years before. The visions lead to obsession and Tom is soon digging up the backyard and causing Maggie to question his sanity. Tom eventually demands that Lisa undo whatever it is she did to him, but she can't and Samantha continues to haunt him. Tom finally breaks through a wall in his basement to find Samantha's remains and confronts his landlord, who admits that his sons lured the girl to house with the intention of raping her. When she resisted, they killed her and their father helped brick up her body in the basement. Consumed by guilt, the landlord apparently kills himself. When his sons show up and confront Tom with the intention of killing them, the landlord emerges from the basement and saves Tom and Maggie. The mystery solved, Tom's visions abate and the family moves out of the house. But as they are driving away, young Jake is seen battling against the voices of the dead which now rage in his head.
Keopp, who also wrote the screenplays for Jurassic Park; Panic Room and Spider-Man (among many others), working from the novel by Richard Matheson ("I Am Legend"), crafts a creepy and atmospheric tale in Stir of Echoes, populated by believable characters reacting to forces and situations outside their realms of experience and aided by an extraordinary cast. Bacon is simply terrific as Tom, a man confused and frightened by what's happening to him and Erbe is solid as a wife and mother who doesn't understand why her world is being torn apart. Douglas gives yet another wonderful performance as the quirky sister-in-law who isn't fully aware of the consequences of her interests in the occult, while the rest of the cast embody Chicago's late-90's working class. Prolific composer James Newton Howard (Batman Begins; King Kong; The Hunger Games) provides an appropriately creepy score and the visual effects by BFTRE are spot on.
If you've never seen Stir of Echoes, you owe it to yourself to do so. If you have, then you already know what a terrific and underrated film it is.
Prolific Horror author Stephen King's third (and one of his best) novel "The Shining" is an epic masterpiece about ghosts, madness, ancient evil and familial terror. When I first read it, it was the most terrifying and fascinating novel I'd ever read. And I ate it up like manna.
You can't begin to imagine how excited I was to hear that one of the greatest filmmakers of all time was going to adapt one of the best ghost novels of all time into a feature film. I remember sitting in the theater before The Shining started, nearly peeing my pants in anticipation of what I thought was going to be the scariest movie ever made. The film started out so promising... Wendy Carlos' (The Exorcist) and Rachel Elkind's booming score was amazing. Jack Nicholson and Scatman Crothers seemed perfectly cast. I could live with Shelley Duvall as Wendy and Danny Lloyd seemed just right as Danny.
But as the movie unfolded, it soon became clear that Kubrick's vision had very little to do with King's. Nicholson, rather than a contrite alcoholic who wanted to make things right, seemed mad from the start and Duvall was hardly the strong-willed Wendy from the book. All of the hotel's backstory was made irrelevant and the roque court and wasp's nest were dismissed out of hand, while the topiary garden was replaced with a hedge maze. WTF!?!? In King's novel, everything has meaning and all of the events are tied together. In Kubrick's movie, nothing has true relevance and events that are explained in the book remain completelyrandom in the film.
It's not as if I don't get what Kubrick was going for. He obviously wanted to create a disorienting atmosphere for his audience. Okay. But why would he deviate so far from King's very effective novel? Why abandon so many of King's ideas? Why present glimpses of scenarios so important to the book's narrative without any context to the plot? When Jack killed Dick Halloran with an ax to his chest, I gave up. This was by no means the movie I had hoped it would be.
Now, before you all go nuts on me and start complaining about how brilliant this movie is, I must ask: Have you read the book? Because just about everyone I know who read the novel, hated the movie. Conversely, those who saw the movie without reading the book, loved it. And I totally get both points of views, though I will go to my grave saying that Kubrick completely failed in adapting King's novel.
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Mick Garris' 1997 TV miniseries version is a little more faithful to the novel (and Rebecca DeMornay makes a much more convincing Wendy), but still disappoints on so many other levels.
The Shining remains on my list of 10 Fantasy/Horror/Sci-Fi Movies that Should Be Remade.
Meanwhile... King's son, writing under the pseudonym Joe Hill, had a brilliant debut novel with his own modern ghost story "Heart-Shaped Box," though his second (and inferior) novel "Horns" is being adapted for the screen, starring Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe. The film adaptation of "Heart-Shaped Box" remains in 'turn-around.'
A 'Romantic Fantasy,' 1947's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, based on the novel by R.A. Dick, tells the story of widower Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) who moves in to an English seaside cottage which ishaunted by the ghost of it's former owner, Captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison). Lucy's daughter Anna (Natalie Wood) and maid Martha (Edna Best) join her, though Gregg only appears to Lucy, agreeing that Anna is "...too young for ghosts." When Lucy's investments fail, Gregg helps her out by dictating his memoirs to her. The resulting book, 'Blood and Swash' proves to be a best-seller and Lucy earns enough to keep the cottage. Of course, during the writing of the book, Lucy and Daniel fall in love. Knowing their romance is hopeless, Daniel advises Lucy to find a "real" (i.e. living) man.
Lucy eventually goes to London to publish her book, and meets charismatic children's author Miles Fairly (George Sanders). Fairly follows Lucy to Gull Cottage and begins to woo her. Knowing he doesn't stand a chance against a living person, Captain Gregg agrees to leave Mrs. Muir alone to pursue her happiness. Lucy is later devastated to learn that Fairly is not only married with a family of his own, but has behaved similarly with other women. She soon shuts herself away at Gull Cottage with Martha. Years later, a grown Anna (Vanessa Brown) returns to Gull Cottage with her Navy Lieutenant fiance, telling her mother she knew all along about Gregg and Fairly and that Fairly has grown fat and bald and has been abandoned by his wife. Lucy and Martha grow old together and on her death bed, Gregg appears to Lucy, lifting her youthful spirit up and the two of them disappear into the mist. The movie's original trailer can be seen here. I've embedded a fan-made homage below:
24 years later, the movie inspired a 1968 TV sitcom starring Hope Lange as 'Carolyn' Muir; Edward Mulhaire as Daniel Gregg; character actress Reta Shaw (Mary Poppins) as Martha and gay icon Charles Nelson Reilly as the Captain's wimpy descendant, Claymore. The series ran for two full seasons and was my youthful introduction to the story.
The original film, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, is just about as atmospheric and romantic as they come. Harrison is superb as the externally gruff Captain Gregg, whose heart is captured after death, while Tierney (best known for her Oscar nominated performance in Otto Preminger's Laura) is simply lovely. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir may not be a scary ghost movie by any means, but it is certainly worth a look for film students and lovers of old-fashioned love stories.
Like many good ghost stories, 1988's under-appreciated Lady in White is actually a mystery (which I am about to spoil).
On Halloween, 1962, nine year old Frankie (Lukas Haas) is trapped in his school cloakroom by some bullies. While there, he sees a young girl being murdered and is attacked, himself. The girl's ghost asks Frankie to help her find her mother and he faints. He awakes in the hospital to learn that the school janitor has been arrested for the attack on him and the murders of 11 other children.
The ghost. Melissa, befriends Frankie and eventually, he returns to the cloakroom where he finds a hairclip and a class ring. The janitor is released due to insufficient evidence, but is later murdered by the mother of one of the real killer's victims. The bullies later lure Frankie to the nearby cliffs, but are scared off by a ghostly lady in white. Frankie runs home and confides to his brother Geno, who doesn't believe him, until Melissa appears to him as well. Frankie also tells family friend 'Uncle Phil' (Len Cariou) about the ring and how he thinks the real killer was looking for it on the night he was attacked. Geno and Frankie follow Melissa to the cloakroom where they see her murder re-enacted, though the killer remains invisible. After being strangled, Melissa's lifeless body is carried to the cliffs, where she revives and is then thrown over. Her mother, dressed in a white dressing gown, runs out of their nearby cottage and, seeing her daughter's lifeless body, throws herself off the cliff in despair.
Eventually, Geno and Frankie link the ring to Phil who drags Frankie off to the cliffs to kill him, but as Frankie's life is being choked from him, Phil is hit from behind. Frankie awakes in the cottage, tended by Amanda (Katherine Helmond), Melissa's aunt and the lady in white who scared the bullies away. Before she can get help, Phil enters the cottage and kills Amanda, setting the house on fire. Phil drags Frankie back to the cliff but before he throw him over, he is assaulted by the ghost of Melissa's mother and falls over, himself. Melissa and her mother then ascend together toward Heaven as Geno and their father Angelo (Alex Rocco) arrive to pull Frankie up from the side of the cliff. Just as they do so, Phil reappears, grabbing Frankie's ankle. Faced with the truth and the police, Phil lets go and plunges to his death.
Creepy and loaded with atmosphere, Lady in White was a critical, if not a commercial, success. It was eventually embraced by fans with its release on video and repeated offerings on cable, where it eventually earned a sort of cult status. Writer/director Frank LaLoggia does a fine job of creating atmosphere and tension, though the plot was probably a little old-fashioned for contemporary horror fans, who were still looking for gore and mayhem in the wake of the 80's Slasher craze. The performances are mostly terrific. Haas was still best known for his debut in Witness but does a lovely job and Cariou, known mostly as a Broadway performer is superb as the guilt-plagued killer. And while hardly a scare-the-pants-off-you thriller like The Haunting or Insidious, Lady in White is certainly worth watching on a gloomy Saturday afternoon, especially when paired up with another similarly atmospheric film.
Okay - so technically, 1984's Ghostbusters is a comedy. Dan Aykroyd supposedly based the screenplay for Ivan Reitman's movie on his own beliefs in the supernatural and UFOs. The veracity of the supposition remains to be proven. Of course, it doesn't really matter because Ghostbusters remains one of the quintessential '80's comedies which will be quoted by frat boys and movie enthusiasts ad infinitum.
Aykroyd is Columbia University parapsychologist Ray Stantz, whose colleagues Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) are called in to investigate phenomena at the NYC Public library and later, a prestigious hotel, where their use of 'proton packs' and a ghost 'containment system' causes all sorts of damage, resulting in them being fired from Colunbia. They start their own business, 'Ghostbusters,' with which they promise to remove paranormal entities from fellow New Yorkers' homes. They set up shop in an abandoned firehouse and transform an old ambulance into their official vehicle, hiring Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) as their receptionist. Business is slow until they get a call from Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver), a philharmonic musician whose apartment has been taken over by an ancient demon named Zuul. As the sarcastic Venkman woos Dana, Egon discovers that her building was designed by a cult leader who designed it as gateway to summon a demon known as Gozer in order to bring about the destruction of mankind. Meanwhile, Dana's neighbor Louis (Rick Moranis) becomes possessed by a demon known as 'Vinz Clortho,' or The Keymaster. When Dana is possessed by The Gatekeeper Zuul, she and Vinz start the end of the world. All of this thanks to EPA lawyer Walter Peck (William Atherton), who shuts down the Ghostbusters' containment unit because it's an unlicensed nuclear device. When the spirits trapped in the device escape, New York is overrun by malevolent spirits and the mayor has no choice but to let the team (now joined by Winston Zeddemore - Ernie Hudson) to take action. Zuul forces the team to choose the form of the 'destructor,' and while the others block their thoughts, Ray can only think of the mascot for StaPuft Marshmallows and a giant marshmallow monster is loosed upon the city.
Aykroyd, Ramis and Moranis came up with a brilliantly hilarious script and Reitman was wise enough to let Murray improvise much of his dialogue, resulting in one of the funniest supernatural comedies ever made. But for my money, it's Weaver's fearless performance as Dana/Zuul; Moranis' insane performance as Lewis/Vinz and Potts' deadpan performance as an imperturbable New Yorker that make the movie work so well. Without these three actors, Ghostbusters would have been just another throw-away 80's comedy with a supernatural hook. Personally, it's the amazing Annie Potts who makes the movie so watchable. Janine embodies the unimpressionable "been there, seen that" New Yorker of the 80's to a tee. Of course, Atherton's imperious prig Peck doesn't hurt.
The rather silly 1989 sequel Ghostbusters 2 has it's merits (among them,Peter MacNicol's insanely hilarious performance as Janosz), it doesn't hold a candle to the original.
I know that I've written about Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist several times. And there's a very good reason for that: it's a true modern genre classic. And I'll get to the why's and wherefores in just a minute.
First, I would like to note that Poltergeist serves as one of four movies with which I can always win a bar bet. I've seen this film so many times, you can play any scene without dialogue and I can tell you exactly what's happening on screen just by listening to the score. The other movies I can do this with are Raiders of the Lost Ark; Psycho and the original version of King Kong. I know my sister can also do this with Poltergeist; probably with Raiders... and maybe with Kong. But that's beside the point...
The Freelings are a typical suburban family of the early 1980's. Father Steven (Craig T. Nelson) is a successful realtor in Cuesta Verde, the planned California community in which they reside. Mom Diane (Jobeth Williams) is young and hip, while rebellious teenaged daughter Dana (Dominique Dunne) and her younger siblings Robbie (Oliver Robins) and Carol Anne (Heather O'Roarke) are typical kids. They all live typically messy suburban lives. A construction team installing their in-ground pool has the backyard in a tizzy, while the death of the family canary Tweety has Carol Anne wanting a canary funeral and Robby wanting to dig Tweety up after it rots.* One night, while Steven and Diane fall asleep in front of the TV, Carol Anne comes in to watch the post Anthem buzz (this was before the days of 24 hour cable) and begins talking to the "TV people." Soon, furniture in the kitchen begins to rearrange itself and Carol Anne can slide across the kitchen floor without being pushed. These seemingly harmless events soon escalate and Carol Anne is eventually captured by the "TV People" during a thunderstorm, her voice crying out from the TV for help.
At their wits' end, the Freelings call in a team of parapsychologists, led by Dr. Lesh (Beatrice Straight) who brings her assistants Ryan (Richard Lawson) and Marty (Martin Casella). After a particularly awful night in the house in which Marty sees himself tearing off his own face, Dr. Lesh calls in diminutive psychic Tangina (Zelda Rubenstein), who sends Steven on a journey through the Other Side to rescue Carol Anne from the 'Beast' which holds her captive. Tangina declares the house 'clean,' though the horror isn't over. It is eventually discovered (after Diane spends some horrifying moments among the corpses in her unfinished pool) that Steven's boss, developer Teague (James Karen) has built Cuesta Verde on an old cemetery where he moved the headstones, but left the bodies. The Freeling's house is eventually consumed by a psychic black hole.
Tobe Hooper, best known as the writer and director of the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, had his undisputed best success with Poltergeist, though there are those who would argue that producer Steven Spielberg actually directed the movie. There are 'Speilbergian' touches all over the place, including his trademark close-ups and reaction shots. Of course, the performances of the (mostly) then unknown cast that make Poltergeist so good. Nelson and Williams are just terrific as the suburbanites who find themselves up against forces beyond their comprehension, while the accomplished Straight (Network) lends gravitas to the role of the bewildered parapsychologist (and I must admit to using part of her performance to inform my own performance in a college production of Equus). Add loads of foreshadowing in the brilliant script from Spielberg, Michael Grais and Mark Victor; a creepy clown doll; a terrifying tree; a ceiling crawl and amazing effects from Jeff Jarvis, Jose Abel and company, and you have the iconic ghost movie of all time. Oh, and then there's Jerry Goldsmith's aforementioned score. Genius doesn't even begin to cover how brilliantly Goldsmith was able to musically convey what's happening on screen. Can you say "Perfect Movie?"
Sadly, increasingly inferior sequels and the unfortunate deaths of several actors involved in the film and it's sequels (including young Heather O'Roarke's untimely death from an intestinal blockage and the murder of Dominique Dunne at the hands of an unstable ex) have led to a bizarre, cultish following to what should be considered one of the 80's best horror films.
Unfortunately, a completely unnecessary remake has been announced, though I (for one) am hoping the project never comes to fruition. Poltergeist remains one of the few ghost movies that scares, entertains and fascinates all at the same time. Any remake would have to prove exceptionally extraordinary to be worth seeing. Personally, I don't see that happening.
Author Peter Straub's 1979 novel "Ghost Story" is one of (if not the) most frightening ghost stories of the 20th Century. Richly layered and deeply disturbing, its main plot centers around four older gentlemen who call themselves the "Chowder Society." They meet once a month in their small New York town of Milburn to share ghost stories with one another. A fifth member has passed away a year before the story starts, found upstairs at a party celebrating a noted young actress named Eva Galli, with a look of horror on his face.
When one of them calls in in his nephew, a noted occult novelist, the story deepens and we learn that the five men all had had a dalliance with a beautiful young woman named Alma Mobley in 1929. It ended badly and Alma died, drowned in the local lake. Meanwhile, a mysterious ne'er do well and his young brother (the Bate brothers) show up in Milburn, resulting in a series of wolf-like attacks on local livestock. The full plot is far too complicated to cover here, but (SPOILER ALERTS) it seems that Eva and Alma are both incarnations of an ancient spirit which thrives on fear and the Bate brothers are its accomplices. The book blew my 19 year old mind and made me a fan of Straub's for life. His follow-ups, "Shadowland" a supernatural coming-of-age novel about the nephew of a true magician and "Floating Dragon," about a town plagued by a recurring cycle of evil, are among my all-time favorites. And his first collaboration with Stephen King, "The Talisman," is nothing short of amazing.
So you can imagine my excitement when it was announced that "Ghost Story" was going to be made into a feature film. Starring four old Hollywood masters (Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and John Houseman) as the members of the Chowder Society and directed by John Irvin (The Dogs of War and the original miniseries version of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"), 1981's Ghost Storyshould have been a no-brainer. Sadly, that's exactly what it was. Focusing solely on the Eva/Alma central plot and abandoning all of the layers that made the novel so fascinatingly frightening, the film lost all of the novel's gravitas and left audiences with a rather mundane ghost tale without any bite. While it did introduce American audiences to young, South African actress Alice Krige (who would go on to gain fame as the Borg Queen in the Star Trek: TNG series) and featured some spectacular effects from makeup genius Rick Baker, the film ultimately failed as a representation of Straub's novel. It also failed to connect with audiences, who stayed away in droves, after its opening weekend. In fact, the film I'm going to talk about next (released later the same year) advertised itself as "A Real Ghost Story" (bonus points if you already know what that movie is).
Much like Kubrick's venerated (and completely overrated) version of King's The Shining, fans of the novel hated this movie, though I do know a few folks who have never read "Ghost Story" who love Ghost Story. Go figure.
If you've never read Straub's novel (and you should), I suppose you might enjoy this watered-down version of a truly terrifying examination of supernatural evil. If you have read the book, then avoid this movie. You'll be sorely disappointed.
So far we've talked about scary ghost movies and funny ghost movies. I thought it was time to talk about a romantic ghost movie. And they don't get much more romantic than 1990's Ghost, starring Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg in a role that won her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Sam (Swayze) and Molly (Moore) are a young New York couple. He's banker and she's a potter. When Sam discovers a discrepancy at the bank, he confides to his friend Carl (Tony Goldwyn, currently so good as the conflicted POTUS on ABC's "Scandal"). Carl offers to investigate, but Sam says he'll take care of it. Later that night, on their way home from a date, Sam is gunned down in a botched mugging. But Sam isn't gone. His ghost is still here, learning about his new found afterlife through a series of encounters with other earth-bound spirits, including a rather malevolent NYT subway ghost played by Vincent Schiavelli. While Sam is hanging around the apartment, his killer breaks in, looking for something. Sam freaks out the cat, scaring the killer away. Following the killer, Sam learns that he intends to return and kill Molly, if need be. He also encounters con-artist Oda-Mae (Goldberg), who has been bilking money from people by claiming to talk to the dead. Oda-Mae is freaked out that she can actually hear (though not see) Sam and thinks she's losing her mind. Sam convinces her that he is real and gets her to help him uncover why he was killed (and to contact Molly).
Molly thinks Oda-Mae is trying to scam her, until Sam tells her to tell Molly "Ditto," his answer to Molly's "I love you" and making a penny crawl up the door into Molly's hand. This leads to a weird scene in which Sam possesses Oda-Mae in order to kiss Molly one more time. Eventually, Oda-Mae goes to the bank and with Sam's help, scams them out of the $4M that (SPOILER ALERTS) Carl had been stealing all along (making her to donate the check to a church shelter in a particularly funny scene) and lays a trap to save Molly from the murderous Carl. With his murder avenged and Molly safe, Sam can move on, but not before materializing for one last ectoplasmic kiss.
There is a lot to like about Ghost, despite its often hokey romance. The special effects (especially the shadowy figures that drag people off to their unsavory rewards) are quite good for a pre-CGI film and then there's the sexy early scene that had women all over America running out to buy pottery wheels:
But it's Goldberg's comedic performance as Oda-Mae that makes Ghost so eminently watchable. She's hilarious here, and her Academy Award makes up for her snub for 1985's The Color Purple. Of course, the hopeless romantic in me always get suckered in by the love story. And Swayze wasn't too hard on the eyes, either.
Recently, Ghost was adapted into a musical which is still running in London's West End, but fared less successfully on Broadway, despite some amazing stage effects by illusionist Paul Kieve and new songs from Eurythmics' Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard:
Ghost has become (for better or worse) a modern classic and I always find myself stopping to watch when I come across it while flipping through channels on my TV. If you've never seen it, it's certainly worth watching. If you have seen it, it's certainly worth seeing again. Especially if you're a hopeless romantic.
