by
Ghastly McNasty
The Mist is based on a novella written by horror legend Stephen King back in 1990. Directed by Frank Darabont, director of King’s other works The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, who also co-wrote the screenplay with the big man himself, has made a few minor tweaks to the novel and a significant change to the films chilling conclusion.
The townsfolk of Bridgton, Maine (I’m so glad I don’t live in Maine) experience a ferocious thunderstorm causing widespread damage. Artist David Drayton, his son, and estranged neighbour head to town the following morning to stock up on supplies at the local supermarket. When a strange mist suddenly sweeps in to town the locals find themselves trapped inside and fighting for their lives.
Opinion
Many previous film adaptations of King’s work have fallen well short of the mark, the most notable exceptions being the 2 films directed by The Mist helmer Frank Darabont. I’m a huge Stephen King fan so I’m extremely pleased to report that Darabont has pulled off an amazing hat trick with this instalment. The Mist is a throwback to a twighlight zone type story, a cautionary ‘what happens if’ affair that leaves you on edge for a long time before revealing at least a possible cause for the mysterious events. It’s not breaking any new ground here and could be considered cheesy in places due to some second-rate acting and singular location. However, it reminds me affectionately of a 50’s B (Monster) Movie with modern CGI. A small town fighting off unknown creatures from another dimension. Perfect! The Cthulhu type creatures are a nod to H.P.Lovecraft and we are only allowed glimpses of the larger things in the mist when someone who leaves the building is brutally slain.
As with many of King’s novels it’s us humans you really have to be careful of. The film initially creates the fear of something unknown outside in the mist. However, as the religious zealots attempt to take control of the bizarre situation we begin to realise that it’s just as dangerous to stay indoors as it is to head in to the mist. The power plays between the survivors to assume control of what’s left of their world is a key theme within this film. Especially as out hero is placed on the losing side of this battle. We are given the view that if the shit really does hit the fan, any form of safety or authority will be easily be overthrown by the fearful masses.
Rating
I’ve not read the book and was fortunate to not hear anything about this film prior to watching it. I’d like to say they don’t make films like this any more but apparently they do. An absolute rollercoaster of a movie experience that uses an unknown apocalypse to leave you feeling very vulnerable indeed. 9/10
by
Ghastly McNasty
[REC] is one of the recent batch of films to employ the use of first person storytelling, the others being Diary of The Dead and the smash hit Cloverfield. Some people may find the handheld shaky camera work to be annoying but in REC’s case it certainly ads to the tension that builds gradually throughout the film. This is a low budget Spanish horror movie that can easily hold its own when compared to the grand-mommy of the genre, The Blair Witch Project (1999).
Documenting the humdrum working lives of a local firecrew, reporter Angela Valesco and her cameraman Pablo are so bored the decide to join along with an emergency call out to help an old lady locked out of her apartment. The news team and firecrew then find themselves locked inside, unable to escape as the authorities have completely sealed the building as part of standard quarantine procedures. The chaos and terror then begins to escalate as each new attempt to escape is thwarted and the remaining tenants succumb to an unknown disease.
![[REC] Movie Poster](http://www.backfromthedepths.co.uk/thetheatreofterror/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/rec2movieposter.jpg "[REC] Movie Poster")
Opinion
[REC] is clearly influenced my many different types of horror movies and could be described as slightly unoriginal because of this. However REC’s influences are also its strengths. It’s taken only the scariest of horror movies as a guide to horror should be made. The result is, in places, absolutely petrifying!
The hand held style only adds to the movie in that you feel trapped inside the apartment with the cameraman and remaining survivors. You are seeing what the characters in the story are seeing and, like them, are powerless to control the unfolding events.
This is a zombie movie at heart, and using the turbo-zombie style from 28 Days Later (2002) in such a confined area only manages to crank up the sense of urgency and impending doom that make this film so scary. There are only so many places the survivors can hide and the infection is spreading fast.
Rating
A movie that uses the first person camera style to good effect and has some genuinely terrifying images. 8/10
by
Ghastly McNasty
“What’s that thing?”
“A knife.”
“What’s it doing?”
“Descending.”
–The Raven (1935)
When you think of horror films from the 1930’s, the first thing that might come to mind is their historical value. After all, without the huge successes of the original Dracula and Frankenstein, horror movies would have been off to a slow start indeed, and we probably wouldn’t have the more modern classics that we take for granted today. No Night Of The Living Dead, no Alien, no Scream…a bleak prospect, indeed.
What else does 1930’s horror make you think of? They do have a certain glamour (refreshingly different after the endless fashion revivals of the Sixties and Seventies), the screen presence of greats like Karloff and Lugosi, and a particularly gleeful “full speed ahead” feeling. There’s none of the moral complexity and downbeat mood of, say, Forties horror, like Isle Of The Dead or The Body Snatcher.
You can also see the twisted reflections of the problems of the day in Thirties horror movies. The Depression drained people dry, just like Lugosi’s Dracula, and who wasn’t anxious about the latest Frankenstein Monster-like technological advances? (Looks like the Nord had a dark side.) These pleasures are mostly for students of that era, however.
The most attractive thing about these horrors from the 30s is just how fun they were. They comprise a separate little world of their own, an old-fashioned but thoroughly moderne world where you can be chased by zombies, mummies, vampires or man-made monsters, experimented on, stuffed and mounted in a glass case, sacrificed to Satan, and rescued by David Manners. And all depicted in the most tasteful Deco manner. No boring gore; the horrors were all left to your imagination. And isn’t the imagination sometimes the scariest thing of all?
It’s more than just the meeting of mad science and perennial terrors, however. These films all have a certain similar structure, and a cast of characters so familiar that they make any horror fan feel right at home. These films were the source for all the horror movie conventions we take for granted, which makes things predictable, but fun and satisfying.
Each film starts with our heroes, the Charming Young Couple. They are usually either newlyweds or engaged (although sometimes they meet during the course of the film, as in The Mummy). One thing’s for sure, though, it’s True Love, which is why their relationship endures all kinds of monsters.
If only real life were that simple…And as for charm, well, this couple are sometimes interesting as a reflection of the ideals of their time and place. But let’s face it; the audiences want to see the monster, not Madge Bellamy or David Manners.
The Charming Young Couple consists of the Monster Bait (her) and the Useless Hero. More about him in a moment.
Next, there’s the Wise Old Man. He alone knows of the threat posed by the monster, villain or force of nature, and combats the threat while trying to warn the others. Thanks to the Useless Hero, however, he sometimes has an uphill struggle.
Here’s an example from Dracula, when Van Helsing and Harker are at the lunatic asylum, trying to figure out who the vampire is:
- Van Helsing: “The vampire casts no reflection in the glass. That is why Dracula smashed the mirror.”
- Harker: “I don’t mean to be rude, but that’s something I’d expect one of the patients here to say!”
The Monster Bait usually wakes up to what’s happening, but the Useless Hero persists in his dangerous ignorance. (Hubby knows best, dear.) Here’s an exchange from “The Raven”, where Jean wakes up to see Bateman, the villain’s sidekick, sneaking into her room through a trapdoor in the floor:
- Jean: “Jerry, I saw a man coming up through the floor!”
- Jerry: “Darling, I can understand you imagining all sorts of things, but not a man coming up through the floor!”
And now we come to the good stuff: The monster, or villain, and his sidekick. (The monster and villain are not always one and the same, however. In Bride Of Frankenstein, the monster is portrayed in a very sympathetic way, and actually becomes the sidekick, whereas Dr. Pretorious is most definitely the villain.)
The villain is usually very charismatic as well as powerful, for example, Dr. Vollin, Dracula, Dr. Pretorius and Hjalmar Poelzig. Although he tends to be pretty one-dimensional, somehow this strengthens the character rather than detracting from him. As a rule, we don’t see much of his motivations, although Dr. Vollin from The Raven is one exception.
“When a man of genius is denied of his great love, he goes mad! His brain, instead of being clear to do his work, is tortured, so he begins to think of torture. Torture for those who have tortured him!”
This doesn’t explain all his villainy, though, because Dr. Vollin was into hobby torture before his ill-fated attraction to Jean.
If the villain has a sidekick, this character will usually have a change of heart, sometimes inspired by the kindness or beauty of the Monster Bait, which will cause him to double-cross the villain and allow the Charming Young Couple to escape.
Who can forget Bateman locking Dr.Vollin into the “room where the walls come together” in The Raven, or the Monster pulling the lever that destroys the lab at the end of Bride Of Frankenstein? (By the way, why did Dr. Pretorious install that lever? I’ve been in a few medical labs in my time, but I’ve yet to find one with a lever that will “blow us all to atoms!”)
And now, last and often least, we have the Painful Comedy Relief. “Bride of Frankenstein” is a perfect example. It has plenty of arch humor in each of the horrific scenes, beautifully incorporated, so why did James Whale include the unbearable Minnie (Una O’Connor)? Am I the only one who was waiting for her to become the next victim of the Monster?
The Black Cat also has two fairly painful “funny” characters, who both try to persuade the hero to visit their home towns, along with the hypochondriac Colonel from The Raven. (Personally, though, I quite like the party guests). The humor of a horror film always seems to work best when it’s a sly by-product of the horror, rather than put into a separate character or scene.
So there we have it–a set of fascinating horrors just waiting to be rediscovered by a new generation of guys and dolls. Let’s have a toast: “To a new world of Gods and Monsters!”
by
M.I.K.
Alrugo Entertainment is releasing the full movie of Italian Spiderman to the internet in 10 weekly installments from May 22nd and it will be available from MySpace, Youtube and Yahoo.
For those of you unfamiliar with this lost classic of Italian cinema, here’s the story behind it’s production, as related on Alrugo’s MySpace profile ; (sic throughout)…
“Alrugo Entertainment was founded in 1961 in Palermo, Italy by Orange Farming mogul Alfonso Alrugo. After collecting huge wealth in the citrus trade Alfonso decided to start a film production company that produced films that he felt “did the job”. Alfonso was very supportive of up and coming practitioners and helped to nurture the blossoming career’s of a spate of Italian Directors like Gianfranco Gatti, Massimilliano Buonatempi, Carlo Zoffa and of course Giacomo Dentibiachi.
Alrugo Entertainment began producing low budget, nudie cutie pictures such as Busto Busto (1961) and Sex Cops II (1962). During this period, Alfonso was to discover two men who would play a large role in the next part of his life, director Gianfraco Gatti and Actor Franco Franchetti. In 1964 Alrugo went into production of Gatti’s Opus, Italian Spiderman. Spiderman was a heavily adapted and abridged interpretation of a novel Gatti had read during a summer in Moldova entitled ‘Death Wears a Hat’. When applying for the option, however the Author felt Italian Spiderman held such little resemblance to his work that payment was not necessary and felt that his name should be distanced as far as possible form the production.
After three years of turbulent production and about 15 million dollars later (a sum unheard of for any production of the time) Italian Spiderman was finally completed in 1968. Even though Alrugo had survived the epic production period, a venture that Gatti described as “Opening the gates of hell” the company was in debt. There was no money left to distribute the picture, Alfonso pulled every last favour he had during the production process. In a desperate attempt to show Italian Spiderman to the world, Alfonso sent the only existing print across the atlantic on a cargo ship to a distributer friend of his in New York, the ship however, never reached it’s destination.
In the summer of 1969, Alfonso Alrugo closed the gates to Alrugo Entertainment and donned his orange picking glove once more. Gianfranco Gatti went on to direct hard core pornography and Franco Francheti died in a spear fishing accident. On Alfonso Alrugo’s dying wishes, his two Grandsons Vivaldi and Verdi Alrugo led an expeditioan to scour the Atlantic for the cargo ship carrying the only existing print of Italian Spiderman. On the 9th of January 2006, after four years at sea, they discovered the sunken vessle with the cans intact inside. In the excitement of this amazing discovery, Vivaldi and Verdi re-opened Alrugo Entertainment and spent two years restoring the full length print of Italian Spiderman from it’s water grave.
Vivaldi and Verdi believe that the internet is the best device to expose Italian Spiderman to the world. In November 07, they uploaded the Theatrical Trailer and in 2008, ten remastered excerpts form the feature will be roadcast for free over myspace, youtube, yahoo and other video hosting websites. Hopefully through the internet, the world will now have a chance to behold Alfonso Alrugo’s dream, Italian Spiderman.”
You can see the trailer for yourself here…
by
Ghastly McNasty
I’ve been following a couple of Watchmen websites related to the upcoming movie.
www.watchmencomicmovie.com
www.watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com
I gotta admin I’m getting quite excited about the film. Especially since they released images of the characters that look superb.
I’ve read Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ masterpiece about 5 times. Incredibly geeky thing to do but I do love it as a shining example of how graphic novels can be written for adults and include intelligent, thoughtful and mature ideas. I’d love to be able to give the book to all my non-comic loving friends and make the realise that comics can be as thrilling as any hollywood blockbuster.
Of course it’s possible that Director Zack Snyder will make a steaming turd of movie, closing the door to all those who possibly could have been persuaded to read the graphic novel if they had enjoyed the movie. Alan Moore himself was so disgusted by what they did with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LXG) that he removed his name from all future adaptions of his work and became a recluse.
There will be some Watchmen fans who will never be pleased with anything except an exact copy of the GN in screen format. However, I’m willing to remain optimistic that this film WILL rock!
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