Carrie: What Happens When They Laugh

It’s Halloween night; I’m all dressed in my best Gothic attire, I have my favorite Stephen King movie all set to go, and a nest of uneaten candy calling my name. The day is great and I feel happy, a luxury poor Carrie White would never be able to claim.
Carrie White is a lost child. She’s teased and tormented by her peers at school, and abused by her religious zealot of a mother. Her life doesn’t look to improve, until, one day, she discovers that she’s been gifted with telepathic powers. Not only that, they come when a handsome classmate finally asks her to the prom. She attempts to take her life back into her own hands…and it all goes horribly wrong. The night that this town would never forget…black prom.
Carrie is an interesting piece. I discovered it when I was an unhappy 16 year old girl, wishing for someone who ‘understood’ what it felt like to be bullied. What I found when I picked that book up was one of the most raw picture of teenage life I had ever seen. King it so right that this book was banned from several different school libraries. It was unfiltered, truthful, unapologetic in it’s portrayal of just how nasty teenagers can really be.
This version of the movie keeps that, mostly in how nasty 70’s’ teenagers can be. Nancy Allen’s Chris Hargensen is just so hateful, spiteful and nasty that I can’t look at her without getting angry; Sissy Spacek as the titular character is fragile and delicate…and then so unnerving and horrifying later on; and John Travolta plays Billy Nolan like a more vicious version of Danny from Grease. They’re all fantastic, though a chunk of them didn’t go off to do anything else too special (Sans Travolta).
This is my favorite version of the movie because everything looks the part. The normal, everyday suburbia is clean, bright and cheery; Carrie’s house, by contrast, looks as old-fashioned and suffocating as the mother herself. It’s all so quaint and suburban, making it all the more interesting when it’s shaken up. It even managed to include an awful little prop from the book: a statue of Jesus, crucified, with some of the freakiest looking eyes you ever saw. It was a major point from the text, despite how little we see it, and I can’t ever forget it after seeing it in this film…that awful statue…

He’s always watching.

That being said, this is also one of the first movie’s I’ve seen that isn’t tacked down by very many useless scenes. There’s one I would have cut, mainly when Tommy goes to find his Tux with his two annoying friends, but otherwise everything else we see keeps the story going at an even pace. If it seems like I’m overselling this, it’s honestly because there’s not much wrong with it. Blunt, to the point, and unforgiving; just like it’s source material.

 I can’t recommend this film enough. It’s a dark, twisted film that really probes the uncomfortable places of being a kid, and the dark subconscious of those suffering from some pretty intense bullying. The newer versions can’t measure up, and I don’t see this one going away anytime soon.

Halloween: THe Boogyman comes home.

Image from http://backwoodshorror.com

Beware the bogy man…
    The little town of Haddonfield is in shock when 6 year-old Michael Myers murders his older sister, Judith, with a kitchen knife. 15 years later, Halloween Night, the amoral  Myers has escaped from his Asylum and returned home to commit more atrocities. His path crosses with that of  Lynda, an amoral-blond-bimbo (Dead-Meat #1), Annie, an amoral-jerk (Dead meat #2 2), and Laurie, the responsible girl-scout who turns a blind-eye to their poor choices (Jamie-Lee Curtis). It’s a suffocating thriller as you watch Myers slowly stalk idiotic teenagers whose dumb decisions come back to bite them, and the relentless prowling of an evil man who just. Won’t. Die!
    And then the sequels came and ruined everything, but that’s neither here nor there.
    So I’m naturally biased here, as this was the first slasher-movie I ever saw, but the film has enough of a fan-following that I need not try to force myself to be negative. It is an entertaining and scary horror film that has several bragging points for it’s low budget: Mikey himself is a terrifying force with little more than a painted Captain Kirk Mask; For a film done near completely at night, it did an amazing job making sure everything was adequately visible, and the film uses that darkness well towards its jump scares. With some great piano tracks and camera angles, it’s clear that John Carpenter knew exactly what he was doing.
    That said...perfection, it is not. We are, after all, talking about one of the core slasher films, and it did churn out the biggest slasher movie stereotypes. Sorry for spoilers, but Lynda and Annie, the two amoral teens I mentioned, are killed, and only responsible, ‘pure’ Laurie gets out alive.  Mikey also has a tendency to move impossibly fast when the plot demands, and how he actually learned to drive in that asylum is still a little questionable:
    There’s also a question of how someone who looks like this gets unnoticed for so long, but most of these are nitpicks.
    Lastly, there’s one more elephant in the room that needs addressing. There have been several critics who claim the film promotes several terrible things, misogyny and sadism being just a few. They’re valid points, given the awful things that happen to the girls, but I don’t think they’re nearly as terrible as some would believe. After seeing the absolute torture-fest that was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, I can say confidently that Halloween isn’t in support of any of that. Annie and Lynda didn’t die because they were sexually promiscuous, they died because they were caught in an unfortunate situation. Furthermore, their deaths were not overly violent or drawn out, and unless you find suffocation and stab wounds titillating, you’re not gonna be too turned on when they’re finally axed.
So, my final thought is thus: This is a horror movie classic, and an awesome piece of October nostalgia. It’s the type of film that demands watching with a group of friends over a bowl of popcorn, lights down low, and sound up high. It’s spooky, unnerving, well acted, and very well directed. Just do yourself a favor and bypass the sequels...they’re not worth anybody’s time, even casually.
Since my next post will be on Halloween, how about we tackle my favorite horror movie, which just so happens to be classified as a cult film?

Next Film: Carrie

The Stuff: The Stuff of Badly Written Nightmares.

Image from comicartfans.com

This would be a hell of a lot scarier if the directors had given a damn.

...Okay, seriously, what the hell?

    Two unmanned, unimportant construction workers discover a weird bubbling substance in the middle of winter. They get the incredibly stupid brilliant idea to taste it and soon it’s sold by container to millions under the name ‘The Stuff’ (height of creativity, that one.) Ice Cream Companies world wide send in a badly-acted mole to get the formula, only for him to discover that The Stuff is an evil, mind controlling alien bent on taking over the world. Bad special effects ensue, badly written characters are killed in stupid fashions, and I’m left laughing at just how pitiful this film is.

    First of all, let’s just be clear; the idea isn’t entirely stupid, but it is incredibly lame. The idea of killer ice-cream is so kitchy that it needs clever writing and good storytelling if it is ever going to get off the ground. Such was the case with Killer Klowns from Outer Space which made good use of colorful visuals, insanely comedic writing, and good actors whose charm outweighed their stereotypes.

    That charm and fantastic writing was nowhere to be seen here. Ignoring the premise, the visuals were some of the ugliest I’ve ever seen (second only to Nuke’em High), and the writing was some of the worst I’ve come across. The Stuff looked utterly disgusting, even when it was presented in colorful containers, with method-of-murder being the only interesting thing it ever did. The story-telling techniques were non-existent with terrible pacing, poorly written characters, and some of the most inane movie-logic I’ve ever seen; seriously, if you saw some strange white substance bubbling up out of the ground, would your first instinct be to eat it, or call the CDC?

    Such poor presentation is only hindered by the actors.  The child actor was surprisingly okay, but the adults in this film were just comedically bad.  Mo’s faux southern accent, punctuated by one too many ‘uhs’ and ‘ums’ triggered my gag-reflex more than once;  The dad comes across more abusive than authoritative, and Nicole couldn’t be more plain and boring if she tried. The corny acting on all sides just breaks whatever spell you’re trying to put forward, and leaves me feeling detached rather than entertained.

    My final thought on the stuff is that we are at the site of a tragedy.  Remembering the acid-cream pies from Killer Klowns, I wish the directors of the stuff had tried to have a little more fun with their concept instead of attempting to play it straight. With this in mind, I must dissuade those looking for a fun horror movie to watch this October. The Stuff is insultingly poor in production and presentation, in dire need of some pruning shears, and leaves on the most confusing ending I’ve seen in awhile. If the creators didn’t feel it was worth their time to make it the best it could be, it’s not worth your time to sit through it.

To prove my point, our next film is a little classic film that proves that quality can be achieved on a shoestring budget.

Next Film: Halloween.