THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT 2 (2017)

The Houses October Built seemed like an unlikely candidate for a franchise starter. It was a reasonably well made found footage horror film back during the era when audiences still cared about those. It provided a handful of creepy moments, but honestly, overall, it was kind of a failure as a straight-up horror narrative. The five haunt-hopping characters in the film play fictionalized versions of themselves — they’re real people who traveled the country to document the various haunts and celebrations that spring up during the Halloween season. Personally, this is why I found enjoyment in the first film, and why I was able to mine some from its sequel.

Again, like the former, The Houses October Built 2, as a horror film, is a failure. It’s just not scary at all, and unlike the first one where there was an attempt to build suspense and slowly increase the terror, this time around, there’s very little of that. It plays out much like the first one — our characters traipse around the country in an RV, go to different haunts, and every once in a while they’ll hear from a haunt worker that there’s one haunt in particular they’ve definitely got to check out. Last year it was the Blue Skeleton, and this year, it’s Hell Bent.

You know that thing about being doomed to repeat history if you don’t learn from it?

Welcome to the sequel.

Again, like the first, the sequel is a documentary masquerading as a horror film. And I don’t mean that it’s a fake documentary or a mockumentary presenting itself as reality. Granted, a certain percentage of the film is fictionalized. But much of the footage captured is from real haunts and of real haunt actors, and this is why horror fans tend to look at these films as “boring” and “slow.” They’re not wrong to feel like that, because the films are definitely marketed as your typical found-footage horror scarefests; trickery is involved in getting people to watch.

The sequel throws a bit of variety into the batch, this time adding a Zombie 5K Run and even a trip to an “R-Rated” haunt, where its performers use ungodly amounts of profanity and walk around topless. “This way, assholes,” the haunt host says to our characters at one point, beckoning them into the entrance of the haunt, which offered a legit guffaw on my part.

The synopsis explains the rationale behind why these characters would ever go back out on the road after almost dying the last time as the characters “facing their fears,” but really, Brandy (Brandy Schaeffer) is the only one doing that. The other four members — all men — are doing it entirely for the money, as their notoriety has made them hot commodities in the haunt industry. Not only that, not a single one of them seems bothered by their experiences last time. One of them even admits, “I had a blast last year.” It’s…odd.

One thing The Houses October Built 2 has done to improve on its predecessor is its photography, mostly in the form of some beautiful sweeping drone footage that helps to capture very expansive looks at the different places they visit around the country. It’s most impressive during the Zombie 5K Run, whose grounds cover several acres and with very impressive set designs featuring demolished buildings and parking garages, some of which is flooded and dotted with submerged cars. But there are different forms of footage on display, from standard digital camera to phone footage.

Cautiously, I would recommend this sequel if you love Halloween, and its ambience, celebrations, and the different attractions out in the world. If you want to relive your own times spent at haunted houses or hayrides or Halloween parades but you’ve grown too curmudgeonly to leave the house anymore, these films do serve a purpose. Basically, if you’re here for the horror, look elsewhere. If you’re here to celebrate Halloween vicariously through our characters, “This way, assholes.”

EXTRAORDINARY TALES (2016)

Hey, have you heard of Edgar Allan Poe?

Good.

Because at this point in time, nearly 170 years after his mysterious death, there is nothing more that needs to be said about him. He is the Shakespeare of the macabre, and his prose remains as beautiful as it is intimidating. He’s been a constant source of inspiration for an array of artists – from H.R. Giger to Roger Corman – and he’s as popular today as he’s ever been. From the little seen but frankly wondrous episode of Masters of Horror entitled "The Black Cat," to the one-man show starring actor Jeffry Combs that production inspired, to the big budget The Raven (I didn't say they were all good), Poe-inspired projects are constantly coming along to whet the appetites of his legions of devotees.

Extraordinary Tales stands as one of the best. Five of Poe's most famous stories are told (separately), with very different animation techniques utilized to help suit each story as well as stress the anthological nature of the project. It does an excellent job of, if not fully covering the breadth of Poe's original stories, at least capturing their essence. Though Garcia hasn't transposed 100% of the text of each story, but he has captured what made those stories so powerful, and he's brought them to life using the same kind of striking imagery that's certainly worthy of the legendary texts they complement. Keeping it all contained is a somewhat awkward wraparound segment that sees the spirit of Poe embodied by - you guessed it - a raven, as he returns to what appears to be the cemetery of his legacies while he's pursued by Death, who seems to be speaking to him through the many tombstones baring the names of his most famous female creations. Though this segment doesn't quite work, and the raven itself looks somewhat cheap, the actual cemetery "set" is a gorgeous creation - what appears to be a digitized version of a handcrafted paper model.

The Fall of the House of Usher kicks things off with its use of what looks to be wooden models, made both blocky and somewhat angular with heightened features. Christopher Lee provides the narration as well as the voices of the story's sole two characters. The original text, much like the other stories to come, has been pared down, but also kept mostly intact. This isn't the case of a writer retelling the story while taking it in his own direction: the story as you remember it is the same as presented here, if in a somewhat truncated manner. The animation looks quite good, and the musical score by Sergio De La Puente (who scores every segment) is absolutely beautiful.

The Tell-Tale Heart switches to an all black-and-white aesthetic recently utilized by the likes of Sin City and the under-seen Renaissance, and is complemented by archival audio of Bela Lugosi. In terms of guest narrator impact, this one just might play the best, as the pops and hisses from the original recording (purposely left intact by the director) add an old-school charm and somehow helps to heighten the tension of this story. Unfortunately, the brief running time of this particular segment doesn't allow the original text to stretch its legs. The remarkable thing about the story is how unbearable the murder finds the old man's beating heart to be, growing terrified that the policemen in his house are going to hear it and arrest him for murder. But it's the story's short running time that severs a lot of this tension; the murder's confession is so immediate and surprising that any established tension immediately dissipates. Had it been longer, it would've been a highlight of the anthology.

The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valedemar utilizes the most clever of animation techniques, implanting the story in an EC Comics-come-to-life design in which every panel is colored relying only on vivid comic book colors. Being that Valedmar is one of Poe's most ghastly stories, and certainly the most drippy and gooey in the anthology, it was a perfect tactic to use. That the Mesmerist is clearly modeled after Vincent Price (who starred in a lot of Poe-inspired films and voiced many audio versions of his stories) is an awesome bonus and one geared directly to the super nerd. Julian Sands voices all the on-screen characters and does a commendable job.

The most surprising aspect of The Pit and the Pendulum is how much of a good job guest narrator Guillermo Del Toro does in bringing the story to life. His is not a voice one would typically think of in terms of narration, but he does a tremendous job in bringing a lot of emotion and tension to the story (and being that the story is about a man taken prisoner during the Spanish inquisition, he's also an appropriate choice). However, the adaptation of the story falls a little flat, being that it's mostly about a prisoner fighting off rats and then easily escaping from the swinging pendulum. (Spoiler?) Perhaps Pendulum is one of those stories that simply works best on the page. The animation is pretty impressive, however, brought to life by a near Pixar-level of quality, emboldened by a lot of detailed textures.

The Masque of the Red Death caps off the anthology in beautiful watercolor and is a largely narration-free story. Roger Corman, who directed several Poe adaptations with Vincent Price, gets exactly one line in the entire thing (and he does pretty good!), but the beauty of the images and how the camera moves about them more than aptly propels the story. (If the kids have been in the room during every segment up to this one, now's a good time to send them to bed. Unless you want them to see an animated orgy.)

The biggest bummer about Extraordinary Tales is its running time. Clocking in at a respectable 73 minutes, it's a shame that writer/director Raul Garcia (an animator for many famous Disney films) couldn't have added just one more story - or poem. (His artistic take on The Raven has the potential to be excellent.) It's also a shame that he couldn't have added just a few more minutes of running time to his adaptation of The Tell Tale Heart, as it really could have benefited from it.

Extraordinary Tales isn't the definitive take on the word of Edgar Allan Poe, although it may have come the closest in terms of preserving much of the author's original prose in the film medium. Poe remains a pop culture phenomenon even today, acting not just as the godfather of gothic literature, but also as a conduit of comfort for kids who don't quite feel like they connect with the rest of society (which Poe barely did). His emotional instability, as well as his equal parts egocentricity and inferiority complex influenced much of his writing, and it's also come to represent his reputation. His is an existence that will always prove different things to different kinds of people, but one thing remains certain: Poe had an uncanny ability for invoking sadness alongside more traditional horror iconography - he's probably the only author in existence who could write effectively about horror and despair - and, if nothing else, Extraordinary Tales ably captures that.