UNSUNG HORRORS: DOLORES CLAIBORNE

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre.

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. Taylor Hackford

1995

Castle Rock Ent. / Warner Bros.

United States

Dolores Claiborne has always been the most wrongly unheralded Stephen King adaptation. Despite the immense talent in front of the camera and behind it, for some reason it never became either the box office juggernaut like Stand by Me, or the underground cult classic The Shawshank Redemption. And I could never figure out why, as it is far superior to both those admittedly great films. While Dolores Claiborne is not a traditional horror film per se, horrific themes are definitely at play here. There is an unrelenting darkness, along with several disturbing scenes that lend itself to our genre. While it may not be about horrific creatures that hide in the dark, it is very much about horrific human beings and what they are capable of doing to people they claim to love. It is about the horror of memory, time, betrayal, and so many other weaknesses that make humanity just as flawed as we are intriguing. And besides, on what horror blog is a work by Stephen King not welcomed with open arms?

Dolores St. George (Kathy Bates) is a loving but no-nonsense, bull-headed and forthright woman who says what’s on her mind, and hardly minds what she says. She lives on Little Tall Island, Maine, with her husband, Joe (the slimily good David Strathairn) and their young daughter, Selena (Ellen Muth of “Dead Like Me”). Joe drinks too much and seems as bull-headed as his wife, but otherwise life isn’t too bad. After all, Dolores has just gotten a job working for the very rich Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt), and though the money isn’t rolling in, she receives enough to put in the bank every week for Selena’s eventual college tuition.

What many would consider a pretty ideal life, living in picturesque New England and right on the beautiful Atlantic ocean, comes to a screaming halt one particular afternoon when Joe’s had a bit too much to drink and he misinterprets Dolores’ chiding as an attack on his manhood and his ability to provide for his family. After swinging a large piece of firewood directly into Dolores’ spine, sending her shaking into a nearby seat, he goes back to watching television as if nothing ever happened. And what could have ended with an angry husband’s act of dominion over his wife instead ends with an intensified act of reciprocation, in which Dolores smashes a dish over his head and threatens him with an ax. An understanding between man and wife is temporarily established, but Dolores knows she’s got to get out. She just has to save a bit more money and she'll be free to flee with Selena…until one day she sees that Joe has closed her bank account, something he had no moral or legal right to do. Dolores sees her future, as well as Selena’s, come crashing down before her eyes. All the hope that was stored away in that account is gone, and she must now risk resigning herself to a permanent future where Joe is abusive to her…and a sexual predator to their own daughter.

In an eerie scene in which Dolores breaks down in Vera's presence and confesses having discovered that Joe has been molesting their daughter, Vera shows the closest thing to humanity she will exhibit during the entire film. With restrained tears in her eyes, she tells Dolores, "Men die every day. Sometimes the brakes in their cars fail as they are on their way home from their mistresses'. They die, leaving their wives their money." The message is clear: Some men do not deserve to live. Joe does not deserve to live. 

Dolores makes a choice to no longer exist as a woman in a man's world. She decides to take action. During a much-ballyhooed eclipse, which has stolen the attention of the entire town, Vera excuses Dolores from her housekeeping duties and tells her to spend the day with Joe. The exchange is simple, but her eyes speak volumes.

Dolores sets a trap, weighing Joe down with too much food and too much liquor. Once he is nearly drugged from the spread she has prepared for him, she confronts him. She tells him she knows about the bank account...and of what he's been doing to Selena. He begins to chase her, and she leads him to an open mine shaft located not too far from their property. Still drunk, he plummets through the ancient wood and hangs on for just a brief moment before falling to the darkness, and his death.

Many years later, Selena is grown and gone, and Dolores still maintains duties at Vera Donovan's house, though this time as a nursemaid. Vera, an invalid imprisoned in a wheelchair, is disgusted with what she has become. She tells Dolores she hates the smell of being old, and she just wants to be done. She throws herself from her wheelchair and tumbles down the stairs, injuring herself quite badly but not quite finishing the job. She begs Dolores to put her out of her misery. Dolores nearly does, with a marble rolling pin, before she is interrupted. For the second time in her life, she will be tied to a murder of someone close to her. It will bring a daughter home (now played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) and force her to confront the memories she has long repressed, and it will cause an old nemesis to begin circling again, this time determined not to let her get away.

Dolores Claiborne is very much a film about female empowerment. Dolores, Selena, and Vera are all victims of the men in their lives who were never supposed to do anything more than love them and take care of them. Dolores suffers physical and emotional abuse, Selena is sexually used by her editor/boss, not to mention her own father, and Vera is imprisoned for years in a loveless marriage with an unfaithful and distant husband. Vera’s own adage, “Sometimes being a bitch is the only thing a woman has to hang onto,” is eventually passed from her, to mother, to daughter, and all three recite the motto at some point. And yeah, it's easy to point to a film like Dolores Claiborne and call it a female empowerment film, all based on the fact that women play the primary roles in the film, but to make such an assumption would cheapen the care that went into the careful crafting of the story. Dolores isn’t just roughed up by her husband; she’s disregarded by Mr. Pease, the local bank’s president, whose silence basically concedes to Dolores’ claims that Joe had no rightful access to her account. And she’s been the target of John Mackey’s decades-long attempts to see her pay for Joe’s death, for which he knows she is responsible.

In one particular scene where Mackey requests a hair sample from Dolores’ head, she wryly states, “Go ahead, I ain’t entering any beauty pageants this week.” Because Dolores was never meant for that kind of life, her physical attributes notwithstanding. Because she’s not a womanly woman. Though she is loving and fiercely maternal, she has a man’s resolve and even his masculinity. Her years of wintry outdoor laundry has given her a man’s ruined hands and stolen any good looks she might have had. She did not live the idealized life of a woman, or even a man. She lived her life as a broken soul, isolated, persecuted, and alone.

Following the death of her husband, Dolores changes her name back to the maiden Claiborne. Because after rightfully (?) killing Joe to save her and Selena from a life of torment, she has rediscovered her womanhood and her independence, though not without consequences. Perhaps most telling, during the last scene that Dolores and Vera will share in the past, where the death of Joe becomes an inevitability, Vera icily tells her, "It's a depressingly masculine world we live in."

Though the film details the redemption of our three primary women, don't assume that the few men present are painted as weak, imbecilic, or otherwise inferior. That would be an easy out, and the novel and script are smarter than that. However, that doesn't mean the men aren't your antagonists, because they most certainly are. In fact, there is a male antagonist present for both time periods: Joe in the past, and John Mackey in the present. And while John Mackey is only doing his job, there is almost no chance for you to like him. He is obsessed with bringing down Dolores for her crimes, either for having killed Joe, or possibly Vera. He never had a chance to be liked. And though I earlier mentioned that the men are not depicted as inferior because they simply are men, it must be a very emasculating feeling for John Mackey that seemingly an entire town knows Dolores offed her own husband, and yet he was never able to prove it. As for John C. Reilly’s Constable Frank Stamshaw, he is the perhaps the most decent and likeable character in the film, though he seems all too eager to stay out of Dolores’ and Mackey’s warpath, leaving him appearing gutless and childlike.

Five years after winning Best Actress for her deranged portrayal of Annie Wilkes in another King adaption, 1990’s Misery, Kathy Bates revels in yet another King-created woman riddled with dark secrets and a past she tries to keep buried. Her role is one in which she is not afraid to look unkempt and unglamorous. She wears every year of her life in her winkled face, and her gray hair swirls above her in the cold winter winds. Her eyes are the most haunting part, as they contain a deadness that only comes from too much life. She is someone who has spent the better part of her life with only one person: her employer, the irascible Vera Donovan. Dolores’ tenure at the Donovan house gradually matriculates from house keeper to house nurse during Vera’s elderly years, feeding her, cleaning her bedpans, and lifting her in and out of bed. The pay is shit, and Dolores is too old for such work, but the two women remain together because they are all each other has. It’s a sad life for both of them, but it’s the life each was given.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is probably the most underrated actress of our time. She has shown an amazing versatility throughout her career, leaping from mile-a-minute news reporter in the screwball comedy The Hudsucker Proxy, to outright psycho in Single White Female. She is that very rare actress who possesses the ability of her male counterparts Daniel Day Lewis and Gary Oldman to disappear, chameleon-like, into her roles. Her performance here is her career-best, forced to play a woman living in complete denial as to what happened in her youth, hoping that pills and booze and a career grilling prominent male figures for the truth will help to bury the real truth, should it ever begin to work its way up into the recesses of her mind.

Speaking of underrated, David Strathairn plays the perfect kind of slime ball here. Relegated to supporting work for most of his career, he plays wonderfully against type and paints himself as the cancer tearing through the St. George household. He is rotten to his wife and daughter, but in very different ways. There is a very disgusting undercurrent within his “relationship” that he shares with his daughter. It’s bad enough that he’s molesting his own flesh and blood, but he even goes as far as giving her a piece of jewelry that once belonged to his mother…as if Selena were not his daughter, but a woman he were courting. It’s sick and depraved, and subtly makes you wonder just what on earth is going on inside his mind. In the scene where the grown Selena is forced to recollect her father’s abuse, and Joe forces his daughter’s hand inside his open jacket, he isn’t a grinning monster with a deviant face. He looks very worried and even terrified—that he’s become this man willing to do this to his own daughter, and that he seems unable or unwilling to stop.

The hardest job on the film belongs to Ellen Muth, who is tasked with displaying a wide range of emotions. She plays a girl who goes from happy-go-lucky to emotionally destroyed almost over night. Like many victims of sexual molestation, she is filled with anger, humiliation, and guilt. It rockets across her mind almost daily, where it gets to the point that she tries to spend as much time away from home as possible, spending it at a nearby hotel where she has been working. And in the scene I earlier mentioned in which Joe forces his daughter’s hand, Hackford lets the camera linger on young Selena’s face. The moment her hand makes contact with her father, you can literally see her die. All the fear disappears from her face and her eyes become immediately hard. On the commentary track, Hackford explains that for this scene, Muth utilized a tactic she learned after spending time with victims of familial molestation: that every time it happened to one of them, they pretended to be a bird, or a stone, or a cloud—something that allowed them to leave their body and become this other thing, so that they did not have to experience the horror that was occurring. While this does come across in Muth’s performance during this scene, I see more of the former. I see quite literally the death of her innocence.

In a well-known anecdote, after Judy Parfitt auditioned for the role of Vera Donovan, Kathy Bates reportedly turned to director Hackford, and said, “Who was THAT?” With such a performance, it’s not hard to see why. Judy’s role as stone-cold bitch Vera Donovan is stone-cold good, and her transformation from the uppity, bitchy socialite into the bed-ridden invalid is even more impressive than Kathy Bates’ own. She is the catalyst that both dooms and saves the entire St. George family; her presence systematically seals each of their fates. It is because of her that Joe dies, that Dolores becomes hunted and vilified, and Selena is rescued from her tormenting father, if not the scars he left behind.

As for Christopher Plummer, well, he could shit on a dinner plate and call it steak and I’d believe it. The man is a genius, and his presence on any film immediately legitimizes it. His obsessive and ruthless take on Detective John Mackey is a wonderful foil to Bates’ Claiborne. He proudly claims that he’s never been wrong (“not when it counted”), and he makes it known that he was able to close every single one of his murder investigations except one. Guess which. The scene he shares with Leigh at the conclusion of the film – one in which Dolores, for the first and last time in the film, remains meekly quiet – is nothing short of miraculous. These two titans go at it with all the unleashed fury and vitriol they can muster, and it’s completely awing to watch them go back and forth. Besting the antagonistic opponent in a film is one thing, but when that subjugation comes using only words, its extremely powerful and rewarding. It’s one of the best-scripted scenes I’ve ever seen.

There’s one more performance in the film that needs to be mentioned: that of Nova Scotia, standing in for the fictional Little Tall Island, Maine. Though the surroundings are often dark and foreboding, and the elements harshly cold, there is no denying the natural beauty of the place. From the water to American iconography, Nova Scotia works so eerily well as a New England stand-in that for years I believed the film had actually been shot there.

Director Taylor Hackford injects Dolores Claiborne with cold blues in an attempt to make his audience freeze to death. New England is known for its extreme winters, and he endeavors to capture that as best as he can. And he does. To watch this film is to stand outside in the dead of winter wearing a bathrobe. Like I mentioned in my fellating write-up of Ravenous, wintry landscape does wonders for a film where you want your audience to feel isolated, stark, somber, and hopeless. He wants you to feel like that because that’s how Selena feels, and that’s how Dolores has been living for the last twenty years.

The scenes involving the eclipse are exceedingly complex, combining elements of green screen, in-camera effects, and CGI. While the look of the sky in the last few minutes before the sun is covered borders on artificiality, the look is still somehow appropriate. Because, as we all know, one does not simply watch an eclipse. So who knows what it really looks like? And it helps that Little Tall Island is briefly transformed in this foreign looking place dripping with vibrant and cartoon colors. Because Dolores’ world is changing. After she finishes the job of killing her husband to spare both her life as well as Selena’s, Dolores realizes she will never be the same. That what she has done is going to be with her for the rest of her life, and that it will define her as a person, both from her daughter’s point of view as well as the town’s.

It’s always difficult to tell a story that takes place in two different time periods, but Hackford not only pulls off such a device, but actually finds way to show that past and present are merging. Scenes in which Dolores begins recollecting will feature a character from the past enter through a door behind her, and it never fails to be jarring. If Hackford is the first person to utilize such a device on film I could not say, but I’m confident I’ve seen it utilized several times since then.

Taylor Hackford has had a pretty stable and consistent career, though besides an Officer and a Gentleman, has never really directed a movie that both caught the attention of the masses and pleased the critics. His biggest hit to date may be 2004’s Ray, about the life of Ray Charles, but he’s stayed mainly out of the limelight. Which is a shame, because Dolores Claiborne deserved many more accolades than it received. Though it made five times the amount that The Shawshank Redemption did in its opening weekend, Hackford hasn’t quite enjoyed the same success of his colleague Frank Darabont. Here’s hoping he returns to the Stephen Kingdom sometime soon. 

Dolores Claiborne is not a feel-good movie, not even at the end when the redemption for our characters becomes prominent. This is a film where no one smiles, unless it's a rueful one. And it’s a film where the cold, dark surroundings of wintertime wraps itself around you with frigid arms, refusing to let go, your only relief being the flashback sequences filled with dazzling sunlight and warm breezes…during which a well-known and well-liked man named Joe St. George is inside molesting his teenaged daughter. It is an ugly film about ugly things, and even when mother and daughter are emotionally reunited at the end, their presence in each other’s futures is still left largely ambiguous. We want and need for Dolores and Selena to reconcile, and to have the relationship that many of us are lucky enough to have, and are foolish enough to take for granted. But decades of secrets and pain are a lot to overcome, and we can only hope they both find the peace for which they long.

UNSUNG HORRORS: THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre.

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. Mark Pellington

2002

Sony

United States

I’m not entirely sure audiences knew what they were in for when The Mothman Prophecies hit theaters in the winter of 2002. Once marketing for the film was underway, the mythical (?) and titular antagonist of the film had effortlessly achieved a shape and rictus based on the title alone; audiences concocted in their mind a hulking and unnatural monster that was man-shaped, but sprouted wings and towered over even the tallest person who had claimed to see the monster with their own eyes. The opening weekend of The Mothman Prophecies followed, by less than five months, another horror film that featured a “similar” monster, insofar as the limited imaginations of audiences allowed. It was called “the Creeper,” from the very, very stupid Jeepers Creepers. I honestly believe audiences just weren’t ready for The Mothman Prophecies, which snuck into theaters under the guise of being a more traditional monster movie and was something else entirely.

John Klein (Richard Gere) is a reporter for The Washington Post. He lives in Georgetown with his incredibly gorgeous wife, Mary (Debra Messing). In addition to his role as a reporter, he casually appears on a national television show called “D.C. Review” to discuss politics, but it ain’t no thang. Despite his job and his hot wife, he’s pretty down to earth and not at all arrogant. Because of his career, the Kleins seem to be doing quite well, financially; especially since the film opens with the couple shopping for a new house. They share a good life, and their love is genuine.

But this life they’ve built together, and the future they dream of with infectious enthusiasm, all comes crashing down one cold night as the couple drives home after picking out their dream house. A flash of something murky with glowing red eyes flies at the car with immense speed and causes Mary to lose control. Her head cracks against the window with a sickening shattering of glass, and John immediately rushes her to the hospital, where she, seemingly delirious from the accident, says to John, “you didn’t see it, did you?” Assuming that she is in shock from the accident, he can only tell her no, and ask her what it is she thinks she saw. The question seems impossible to answer, and so she cannot, and tears fill her red, terrified eyes. John goes back to the scene of the accident to see if he can locate the “it” of which Mary speaks. He sees only some glowing red lights atop a construction barrier…and a v-shaped layer of burn residue on the car’s grill.

Mary soon passes away (on Christmas Eve no less); not from the accident, but from the incredibly rare brain tumor (called glioblastoma) growing inside her, and had only been discovered during routine hospital tests following the accident. A notebook found in her hotel room features frantic and hand-scrawled sketches of “angels,” as an orderly describes…but these drawings don’t look angelic at all. They show a dark figure with angry features and wings like a butterfly.

Two years pass. Klein remains isolated and melancholic, turning down offers from friends to be set up on dates. He smiles as he declines, pretending to be amused by the prospect instead of outright destroyed; his sadness is paramount. An impromptu late-night drive to prep for an interview with the Virginian governor begins Klein’s journey into the world of Indrid Cold, aka the mothman. It begins in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where he meets Connie Mills (Laura Linney), a police sergeant, after a surreal “misunderstanding” at the home of a local named Gordon Smallwood (the always wonderful Will Patton.) You see, after Klein’s car broke down just outside Gordon’s house at 2:30 a.m., he knocked on the door to see about using their phone. He has a shotgun shoved in his face for his troubles and is forced into the bathroom (which is a somewhat creepy place to force a man you’ve captured, once you realize it would be the easiest place to clean...should someone get their head blown off). But instead of Gordon being the “bad guy,” he immediately calls Sgt. Mills and explains to her that Klein has apparently knocked on his door the past two nights, at the same time, asking to use the phone. Even though the audience and John know that’s not true, Gordon seems to believe it intensely. But how could that be? How can John have been in two places at once? How is it John impossibly traveled over 400 miles in just 90 minutes when ordinarily it would have taken six hours? How did he end up in damn-near Ohio when he was aiming for Richmond, Virginia? Just what the fuck is going on in Point Pleasant?

And so it begins.

John and Connie begin to compare notes. She explains that Point Pleasant has been plagued for the past month or so with weird sightings and complaints—of “mothlike” figures with “red eyes;” strange lights; phone calls filled with high-pitched electronic shrieks. After visiting one of the eyewitnesses, John sees burn residue on a nearby tree that matches what he saw on their car the night of Mary’s crash. And the witness descriptions of the figure itself seem to match Mary’s sketches beat for beat. Whatever’s going on in Point Pleasant has John’s full attention.

John and Gordon begin an uneasy friendship. They begin to depend on each other, trying to figure out this puzzle that the mothman has created. What is it? What does it want? Is it even real?

One night Gordon claims to see a reflection in his bathroom mirror that is not his own, and a howling voice coming out of his sink drain that says the same words over and over for an hour: “Do not be afraid. 99 will die. Denver 9.”

The next day they see the news report: a plane flying out of Denver, Concorde 9, has crashed, killing all 99 passengers on board.

For whatever reason the mothman seems to be warning people of impending disasters, which on the surface doesn’t seem to be something to fear. So then why is the mothman so haunting and strange? Why have people been left physically harmed from its presence?

John seeks out a man named Alexander Leek (a meta-pseudonym for John Keel, author of the book which inspired The Mothman Prophecies.) Leek is a paranoid, afraid, and unstable man. He’s aware of the mothman and of its repertoire. He explains that the mothman doesn't have one form; that it appears in certain ways to certain people based on their ability to perceive what they are seeing. He describes it as an advanced being, observing our lives from afar. John demands to know why the mothman doesn’t just come down and explain itself, and make clear what it wants. Leek responds, “You’re more advanced than a cockroach. Have you ever tried explaining yourself to one?”

The Mothman Prophecies, from the first minute to the last, is draped in an incredibly palpable feeling of eeriness. It doesn’t let up, even in the lightest moments of the film. And the mothman, though never clearly seen beyond quick flashes and fuzzy recollections, is a constant presence. He hovers outside every window, diving in and flying away. The camera moves fluidly to achieve this feeling, especially when swooping rapidly from behind John as he sits in a desolate park. John turns, sensing something behind him, but of course he sees nothing.

If you were to ask me who I felt were some of the most underrated modern directors of our time, Mark Pellington would be on that list. Many directors are accused of exhibiting only style over substance (Zack Snyder comes to mind, as do the Wachowsi Bros.), and while that may be also true of Pellington, that’s only because the man hasn’t been given enough chances to show what he’s got. His 1999 effort, Arlington Road, was an incredibly thrilling and effective look at terrorism on American soil. Following on the heels of the Oklahoma City bombing, which claimed 168 lives, it starred Jeff Bridges as a college professor who slowly begins to realize that his next-door neighbor (Tim Robbins) is a terrorist. It is a nerve-wracking and highly emotional film with a gangbusters performance from Bridges, and its bleak ending is especially powerful. While it wasn’t Pellington’s first effort behind the camera, it had been and probably remains his most high-profile film. Despite the so-so haul that Arlington took in at the box office (it barely recouped its budget), Pellington secured Mothman as his next gig. It would be a film that received so-so notices from critics as well as middling box office returns (though his direction would be praised by Roger Ebert, who lamented that his tremendous skills behind the camera had been wasted on a sub-par screenplay. Agree to disagree.).

Pellington’s direction in Mothman is the strongest of his career. He takes a not-so-traditional concept for a horror movie, steeping it in paranoia and mood, and drenches the film in bleak tones. Pale blues and stark whites litter the screen, and he shoves the bone-crunching harsh winter of Point Pleasant directly into your face. Cold weather has always been intrinsically more effective for a horror film (The Shining, The Thing), and the harsh winds and shorter days drive Point Pleasant citizens off the streets and into their houses, leaving the town at night seemingly deserted.

As mentioned previously, Pellington uses the camera to invoke the presence of mothman whenever appropriate. The camera doesn't move as it has in other films; it starts at ground level and hovers around people’s faces, as if constantly moving around to study them, before shooting off into the sky. It swoops in on John as he stares forlornly out a skywalk window, and before he is whisked away by a doctor, the camera moves just as quickly away again, as if taking off back into the night.

Eyewitness accounts of Indrid Cold are painted with swirling and red-tinted light, and each recollection of the encounter are simplistically but eerily effective. There are several sequences peppered throughout the film that pull you in and give you the chills, regardless if you’ve let the film take you where it had intended. The most effective sequence in the film has Klein alone in his dingy and dark motel room, and Indrid Cold calling him on the phone. Klein, for personal and obsessive reasons that have nothing to do with all he has learned, but everything to do with his deceased wife, refuses to believe Indrid is the mythical figure everyone in Point Pleasant seems to believe. And so Klein rushes around the room, testing Cold’s so-called omniscience:

Where is my watch?

 In your shoe...under the bed.

What’s in my hand?

Chaaaapstick.

[grabbing a book] Third line, page fifty one?

"A broken smile beneath her whispered wings."

They are things Indrid couldn’t possible know, but he somehow does. It’s one of my favorite scenes in any film, grippingly directed with feverish and chilly eeriness.

I have not read the book of the same name by John Keel, but I can assume that screenwriter Richard Hatem took what was most assuredly a "non-fiction" book and created a narrative, featuring characters we could follow in order to experience the strange goings-on of Point Pleasant. The events featured in the film allegedly took place during the 1960s, but were updated to present times for the 2002 film. From what I’ve learned about mothman from other sources (there is an exhaustive, almost three-hour documentary called Eyes of the Mothman, which tells you everything you’ve ever wanted to know), The Mothman Prophecies includes many of the events that were said to have taken place in Point Pleasant.

As for Richard Gere as an actor, I can’t say I’m either a supporter or a detractor. The film for which he received the highest accolades of his career, American Gigolo, was a film for which I could barely stay awake, and except for his wonderful and evolving performance in Primal Fear (his first on-screen pairing with Laura Linney), I haven’t exactly been the ideal demographic for his last decade of film roles. His performance in Mothman, however, is certainly worth praising. He plays a man so emotionally stricken by the death of his wife that he falls effortlessly into the hands of Indrid Cold, who uses Mary’s image to fuck with his mind. His performance is split right down the middle, maintaining his objectivity as an investigative journalist, but also allowing himself up be swept up into the town’s paranoia and outright fear of this mystical figure. Klein is emotionally invested in the town’s victimization as well as his own personal heartache, but at the same time he sees a mystery that needs to be solved, so much that he’s willing to abandon his position at The Washington Post. His obsession with the mothman fuels him and gives him purpose, because to him, it’s not just about finding out who this “man” is, but really finding out what he had to do with his wife’s death…if he even did. It’s an interesting conflict, in that we as the audience don’t know when the investigation stops being objective and starts becoming personal.

I love Laura Linney. I will always and forever love anything she does; she’s as beautiful as she is talented. While this isn’t her best role (for me personally, that would be the criminally under-seen You Can Count On Me), it’s certainly not a bad one. In this day and age, actors are woefully miscast for their roles, taking on characters for which they are not suited whatsoever (my personal favorite is Tara Reid as a paleontologist in the ludicrous Alone in the Dark), but Linney believably embodies a small-town citizen who knows all her people by name. In the film she is strong and intelligent, but never abandons the soft side that the audience as well as Klein depends on. Linney isn’t set up as the generic romantic interest…just a potential one. In the last act of the film, it’s clear that Linney cares for John. What’s unclear is the kind of companionship she is offering him. Is she there for him as a friend? Or more? The audience is never let in on that secret, but what we do know is it’s up to Klein to answer the phone.

Will Patton is among my favorite character actors, and his career has touched down in almost every genre: horror/thriller with fellow Unsung Horror Copycat and The Fourth Kind, action with Armageddon, and drama with Brooklyn’s Finest (again with Gere). His role here is quiet and understated, but extremely evocative of fear. He doesn’t just look afraid, he is afraid. He speaks in whispers, as if fearful that Indrid Cold will hear him and come looking for him.

The score by tomandandy is appropriately droning and moody. There's not much "musically" going on with their score, but that doesn't mean it's not an effective one. Every inch of the film is tinged with their electronic humming, brimming with psychedelic and unusual choices...and it all comes to a head at the bridge finale, where their pulse-pounding music makes the sequence ten times more powerful. (Seriously, if you don't have chills throughout this entire sequence, you're not alive.) 

While I can understand people not liking The Mothman Prophecies, I certainly can’t condone it. No, it’s not your typical rubber-suit monster streaking through town and punching off heads. It doesn’t swoop down from the skies and clutch a baby in its talons before disappearing into the night. Mothman’s presence is psychological. It takes the form of other people to get inside their heads. The human race is a rat in a maze, and the mothman gets its rocks off on providing us with information and seeing how we react. Yes, the mothman does warn of impending disasters, but we never get the sense it’s because of the goodness of its heart. It’s more that it wants to see if we’re smart enough to recognize the hints it leaves us; it wants to see what choices we make; it wants to see if the human race is worth the mark we're leaving on the universe.

Modern movie audiences don’t like ambiguous films, and even more, ambiguous endings. Sure, they love the film if it’s something like Inception, where people shoot guns and float around for hours at a time, because it’s provided all the thrills necessary for a typical mainstream film. But The Mothman Prophecies is a slow burn. It starts off as a slow burn, and except for the wonderful and heart-pumping bridge climax, it remains a slow burn. Most people just don’t have the patience for films that take their time, but for those that do, I’m confident that The Mothman Prophecies is a film that will remain effective for years to come.

UNSUNG HORRORS: GHOSTWATCH

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre. 

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time. 

Dir. Lesley Manning

1992

BBC

United Kingdom

"This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character, to assure you that War of the Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be; The Mercury Theatre's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying "Boo!" Starting now, we couldn't soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night, so we did the next best thing: we annihilated the world before your very ears and utterly destroyed the CBS. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn't mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye everybody, and remember please for the next day or so the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody's there, that was no Martian; it's Halloween."

- Orson Welles' on-air apology following

 his War of the Worlds broadcast; 

October 30, 1938

Running BBC's 1992 Ghostwatch program for this entry of Unsung Horrors is kind of a cheat for several reasons. First, while I try to feature films reasonably recent, Ghostwatch will turn twenty years old this coming Halloween. Second, its notoriously hard to find. If you've got a region-free DVD  player and deep pockets, then you should be able to order the DVD from Amazon UK fairly easily. Finally, Ghostwatch isn't very unsung. Considering its extremely limited audience and near impossibility to find, it has a wealth of fans. People who have seen it love it and eagerly share stories of how it left them utterly terrified. It's because of this that I couldn't resist running an appreciation of this incredibly eerie and effective film. 

Shot and edited weeks in advance to its air date, Ghostwatch is presented as a live on-air special that spotlights an alleged haunted house on Foxhill Drive in London. The host of this show is Michael Parkinson, a well known (and quite real) British journalist. Next to him sits Dr. Lin Pascoe, a parapsychologist who fervently believes that the spooky events occurring at Foxhill Drive are genuine signs of a haunting. And in the cursed house live the Early family; mother Pam and daughters Suzanne and Kim. Much like modern ghost-hunting shows of today, a camera crew enters the house to investigate the events the Early family claim to have been dealing with for months. Leading this crew is Sarah Greene, another well-known British personality. Sure enough, the house is haunted for real, and as the investigation unfolds, the events within the house steadily increase into utter chaos.

While the crux of Ghostwatch is built around the events occurring inside the house at Foxhill Drive, the power of the story comes from all the different sources of information used throughout the film. Michael Parkinson and Dr. Pascoe provide much of the exposition and background on the investigation, and because they are on a "live" on-air show, they frequently patch in phone calls from "audience members" who share either their own ghostly encounters, or provide even more information about the Foxhill Drive house previously unknown. What this does is add to the legend of the specter haunting the house, and with each new detail, the events become more and more creepy. Think Blair Witch: The first half of that film is the kids gathering information, and the only spooky goings-on are married to stories told by locals and experts. Ghostwatch operates the same way.

The awful thing causing all this havoc is Pipes the ghost, the name derived by the Early children after the first few times their mother had claimed the weird noises they were hearing were caused by their water pipes banging beneath their walls. Over the course of the last few months, Pipes made his presence quite well known, focusing most of his wrath on young Suzanne. The few scarce sightings we have of Pipes, along with eyewitness accounts of the young children, paint a very chilling image of him in our mind, but it's at the very end when Pipes' true origins are revealed is when the film is at its most frightening. The filmmakers do a great job of teasing you with brief sightings of Pipes, but never long enough to give you a full, detailed glimpse of how he actually appears. Brief images of him are scattered throughout, and while the film today can be paused, or slowed down frame-by-frame, twenty years ago the audience had no such options; they watched it unfolding "live" on their televisions, and the brief sightings of him were made to induce moments of "did I just see that?"

Pipes is described as having a skull-like and bald head, a scratched face, and one bloodied eye. He wears a black dress with large buttons running down the middle (the explanation for which is eventually provided), and sightings of him seem to be accompanied by the shrill howls of cats. The image enough is unnerving on its own, but once we find out the ghost's real name, his origins, and how he possibly might have come to be, it becomes much more so.

Your pranksters.

Ghostwatch plays out in real time, darting back and forth between the live feed in the house and the studio. Every actor handles their part with ease, from those playing different people to those playing versions of themselves; all the performances come across as very genuine. Despite the more lurid attacks young Suzanne endures, or the terror Sarah Greene finds herself facing, it's Michael Parkinson that has the most interesting role; his performance is incredibly realistic, in that it suggests he doesn't take much of what Dr. Pascoe and the Early family are telling him all that seriously, but is willing to go along with it for the sake of journalistic objectivity. Being a real journalist, he knows he cannot let his own prejudices cloud his attempts to tell a story.

Ghostwatch remained unavailable on home video for ten years after its airing for quite an interesting and unfortunate reason: Despite the film running during the same time slot that a popular (and scripted) BBC series called "Screen One" usually ran, despite the program being preceded by a "written by" credit, and despite the call-in number provided during the program stating that the program callers were watching was a work of fiction, certain members of Ghostwatch's viewing audience thought it was real, and it really fucked with their minds; from the revealed origins of Pipes to the in-studio phone calls made by "audience members" experiencing weird occurrences in their own home seemly caused by the events in the program - they bought it all: hook, line, and sinker. 

And while any writer who crafted such a project might say, "Then I've done my job!" he probably didn't count on, hope for, or expect the effect it would have on some lesser-stabled viewers:

18-year-old factory worker Martin Denham, who suffered from learning difficulties and had a mental age of 13, committed suicide five days after the programme aired. The family home had suffered with a faulty central heating system which had caused the pipes to knock; Denham linked this to the activity in the show causing great worry. He left a suicide note reading "if there are ghosts I will be ... with you always as a ghost." His mother and stepfather, April and Percy Denham, blamed the BBC. They claimed that Martin was "hypnotised and obsessed" by the programme. The Broadcasting Standards Commission refused their complaint, along with 34 others, as being outside their remit, but the High Court granted the Denhams permission for a judicial review requiring the BSC to hear their complaint. (Wiki.)

And so, following such controversy, any future broadcasts of the program were pulled, and for ten years it remained unavailable on home video. A ten-year anniversary VHS and DVD were issued but are now out of print.

Part of me wishes I had been a London native while watching Ghostwatch for the first time. I'm sure the power of the film's realism is enforced when seeing the likes of Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith, and Craig Charles all dealing with the paranormal activity in very different ways - because they are all real people; very well-known television and media personalities playing victimized and scared versions of themselves. An American equivalent of the cast might have Regis Philbin (but perhaps someone with a bit more esteem) as the host, with any assortment of other well-known personalities filling out the cast of the studio crew. Perhaps Kelly Rippa as Sarah Greene, since I just opened that door. Then again, the familiarity of them might destroy the illusion that what we're seeing is real. Maybe it's best that I had no idea who any of these TV personalities were until after I watched the film and did a bit of research.

I love Ghostwatch for many reasons, but most of all, I love it because it was planned, written, and executed simply to have something fun to play on Halloween night. Normal scripted shows will often incorporate Halloween into one of their plots, much like "The Simpsons" continues to do with their annual Treehouse of Horror episodes; "Ghost Adventures" and "Ghost Hunters" will perform a "live" investigation to honor the dark night. But you hardly ever see a program being created from scratch to pay tribute to October 31st. It feels like a perfect melded concoction of paint-by-numbers television and reality - and all to give viewers something a little spooky to watch as they put to bed another Halloween night. I'd love for a major network to put something like this together - to concoct a Ghostwatch of their own. Found footage has never been more popular than it is right now, and with the format being applied to television with the likes of "The River" and "The Lost Tapes," I'm surprised this program hasn't been snapped up for some kind of Americanization. Is it because we've become jaded towards Halloween? Do American studios instead want to focus on seeing a Halloween-themed episode of "The Kardashians" as each of the spoiled divas dress like a slutty witch and say something inherently racist?

Ghostwatch has become annual and essential Halloween viewing in my home. If you're able to find it, I'm sure it'll become a part of yours, too.

Read a retrospective article on Ghostwatch and its legacy - recollected by the cast and crew.

UNSUNG HORRORS: STIR OF ECHOES

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre.

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. David Koepp

1999

Artisan Entertainment

United States

In a previous Unsung Horrors post, I lamented the fact that Copycat had been completely overshadowed its debut weekend at the box office after falling victim to the similarly-themed but heavily star-powered serial thriller Se7en. A similar fate also befell this film from Spielberg stalwart/go-to screenwriter David Koepp, adapting Richard Matheson’s simple novel of the same name to the big screen. Released by the now defunct Artisan Entertainment, Stir of Echoes had the extreme misfortune to open against soon-to-be juggernaut The Sixth Sense. And while M. Night Shyamalan’s film debut was nothing more than a rip-off of an "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" episode, Stir of Echoes was based on a book already forty years old at that point. Frankly I find that a little sad, given the high prestige only one of these spooky films would go on to enjoy. While The Sixth Sense is not a bad film – not at all – would anyone remember it if not for the pushing-it twist ending? The jury’s still out on that one.

Tom Witzky (Kevin Bacon) is your every man. And he knows it. And he doesn't love it. He has a wife, Maggie (the adorable Kathryn Erbe), and son, Jake (Zachary David Cope), he clearly loves, but also a job where he "clips wires all day; a monkey could do it." Even when his wife tells him she's pregnant, his happiness is genuine, but delayed. His initial reaction? "Bummer." And again, it's not like he doesn't love and want his family, but his presence in his little-mentioned band suggests he may have wanted more for himself. He betrays this notion by admitting to his wife that he had wanted to accomplish more with his life – that he didn't expect to be so ordinary. And with this news of his wife's pregnancy, what is supposed to be joyous news instead reinforces the idea that his chances to be anything more than a husband and father are slipping away. "I'm a happy guy," he says, but doesn't altogether mean it, and it's a little saddening. This isn't just idle chatter, nor an attempt to garner false sympathy for our lead. This is important to know about Tom Witzky right up front, because it will ultimately determine how he reacts to the change that is soon to come.

Despite Tom's misgivings, life isn't so bad for the Witzkys. Their rented house, owned by their neighbor and friend Harry Damon (Conor O'Farrell) is clean and cozy. They are surrounded by good friends, including Frank McCarthy (Kevin Dunn) and his wife, Sheila. They live in Chicago, but despite the elevated train and police officers' uniforms, it feels like Boston. (It could be the tight knit community and the seemingly constant outdoor block parties, or the extra enthusiasm for the local high school football team that gives off more of a Boston vibe. Or maybe I just don't know shit about Chicago.)

At a party, Lisa begins to tell her friends about her experiences with hypnosis, and the things she has witnessed for herself. Tom, feeling good with his gut full of beer, challenges Lisa to hypnotize him, even going as far as to antagonize her into it. Lisa, wanting to show off, takes Tom up on his offer and puts him into a trance. She tells him to close his eyes and picture an old-fashion movie theater with black walls, floors, ceiling, and seats. Tom soon falls under before immediately (to us, anyway) waking right back up, disturbed, but unaware of the remaining experience of his hypnosis. Apparently while under he had admitted to certain buried secrets previously deeply hidden within his subconscious. We know right off the bat that Lisa has successfully put Tom under, and unbeknownst to him, Lisa has opened a door inside his mind, implanting a suggestion to be more open-minded in the future.

This new open-mindedness allows Tom to see the ghost that is haunting his family's house. She appears to him in nightmarish hallucinations, waking nightmares, and even in reality. Her image is pale, translucent, and flickers before him like a character in a flipbook held by unsteady hands. (Oddly, these visions of her cause Tom to become immensely thirsty, who starts off throwing back water like it's his job before moving on to stocking his fridge filled with orange juice. This odd little detail isn't quite rationalized in the film, but it's interesting nonetheless, and also makes for one particularly humorous scene later in the film.)

Stir of Echoes  is about growing up. It's about facing the fact that you're not going to live forever – and I speak not of the spirit haunting Tom Witzky, but Tom himself. He bemoans what life could have been had he been dealt different cards. And once he gets a taste of these new cards, he definitely straddles that line between intrigue/obsession and self-destruction. It's an interesting theme that Koepp injects into his film, only because it's less glamorous than one might expect. Other directors, such as Romero and Carpenter, have used the horror genre in the past to share big, dangerous ideas with you – harsh criticisms of American culture and/or government. Wes Craven's Last House on the Left was a direct response to the Vietnam War –  the violence we do, unnecessarily, to people we have never met, and who haven't wronged us in any way. By comparison, the ideas in Stir of Echoes seem pretty small – small ideas for a small man and what he deems his small life. And what might Tom learn, whether or not he survives his ordeal? Was he right to pursue these extraordinary circumstances? Would he be/feel justified? Or was he wrong to want for something more, failing to see the family before him is all he would ever need? As always, smart movies are subjective, and what you think and feel is the only message that matters.

Stir of Echoes draws interesting parallels between another similarly-themed horror novel-cum-film, The Shining. (Perhaps you've heard of it?) Like Danny Torrance, Tom's son, Jake, has the uncanny ability to communicate with spirits around him. In fact, the film begins with Jake talking with the very ghost that will soon turn its attention to Tom. And like Jack Torrance, the part of Tom that is also able to communicate will be woken up by the change he undergoes (in The Shining it was the Overlook; here, it's Tom's new-found ability to "see"). And lastly, like Wendy Torrance (more so in the book than the Kubrick film), Maggie Witzky is a fighter. She sees for herself that this radical change in Tom is causing him to lose his mind. She doesn't like the strange kinship he begins to share with his son about the ghost, and even her own "witch" sister can't provide much help. Maggie ends up on her own journey, finding help in Neil (the movie's version of Dick Halloran, if you will), a perfect stranger with the same uncanny abilities shared by her husband and son.

He tells her:

It comes and goes. Some people have it for five seconds, some their whole lives. He's a receiver now. Everything's coming in. He can't stop it; he can't slow it down; he can't even figure it out. It's like he's in a tunnel with a flashlight, but the light only comes on every once in a while. He gets a glimpse of something, but not enough to know what it is - just enough to know it's there.

And Tom knows this. He knows the change that's occurred in him. He knows there is a spirit in his house reaching out to him, and while he's reaching out to her, he's ignoring the signs she is giving him. His son communicates with her out in the open. He hums "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones. He even teaches his father how to play it on his guitar, pushing him closer to realizing what song it is he is unable to get out of his mind  – the significance of which he won't understand until the climax of the film.

"You're awake now, Daddy," Jake tells his father. "Don't be afraid of it." Eventually Tom begins to follow the signs, and the pieces start to come together. This isn't like The Sixth Sense in which Haley Joel sees random ghosts walking around; while creepy, they are not a part of "the big picture." In Stir of Echoes, every hallucination, every sign, every random development has everything to do with "the big picture." They are all leading Tom to one specific destination – nothing that he sees or experiences is superfluous. 

With Jake's help, along with the increasingly angry signs from the ghost, Tom follows the journey before him, but not out of fear or obligation, but because as he finally admits to his wife in a heated exchange, "This is the most important thing that's ever happened to me in my whole stupid life." He finally feels extraordinary. He finally feels like he is doing something with his life that is of value.

If Richard Matheson is a name with which you aren't at least a little bit familiar, there's nothing anyone can do for you. The man is a literary legend, and his work is still being adapted for audiences (most recently being Real Steel and The Box, based on short stories, and the Will Smith I Am Legend, based on his novel). He's inspired the likes of Stephen King, George Romero, and Neil Gaiman. It's been a while since I read the original novel A Stir of Echoes, but I do remember the movie veering off the main skeleton of the book after a while (but with thankfully positive results). Loving homage is paid to the man in the film, from a character reading his novel The Shrinking Man to the film Night of the Living Dead playing on television, whose own writer/director, George Romero, always openly labeled as an I Am Legend rip-off.

Writer/Director David Koepp hasn't found himself behind the camera for too many films. While Stir of Echoes was not his first job as director, or last, it remains his best. He's worked steadily as a screenplay writer and fixer since 1988, contributing to such films as Mission: Impossible, Jurassic Park, Carlito's Way, and Panic Room. Subsequent directorial projects for him included the disappointing Stephen King adaptation of Secret Window, as well as the humor-injected supernatural farce Ghost Town, starring Ricky Gervais (an oddball version of Stir of Echoes considering its plot). Koepp manages to inject several creepy and shocking moments in the film, such as Tom's hallucination of Frank's son, Adam, shooting himself and maniacally grinning as he smears blood all over his own face; or the tired mirror trick, in which someone quickly closes a mirror, revealing the reflection of something standing just behind them – but this time with a twist: we can see the spirit, but our character cannot, which adds an extra level of creep to the proceedings.

Kevin Bacon never spends too much time away from our genre, diving back in from time to time as if checking in. With roles in Friday the 13th, Tremors, Flatliners, and Hollow Man, it's good to know he's one of us. And Stir of Echoes ranks up there with the best of his performances. Kevin Bacon is a great actor, but he's been relegated to supporting work for most of his career, willfully and partially disappearing into ensemble films. In Stir of Echoes, the movie begins and ends with him in the lead and he takes seriously a premise through which other actors might have slept-walk. You feel for him in the film's opening when he confesses to his wife that he'd always yearned for his life to have a bit more meaning. And during the scene where he sits alone outside on the front porch of a house in which a party is occurring, with the baby monitor by his side, there's a suggested sadness present. Sure, he may have wanted more for his life than what he was given, but that didn't mean he wouldn't die for his son, either. 

Kathryn Erbe as Maggie is thankfully fleshed out and fully dimensional. The role of "the wife" is often underwritten and included in genre films just so there is one more person around to disbelieve the ensuing ramblings and claims of our lead character. But she gets in on the spooky business from the very beginning, close enough to recognize the change that's occurred in her home, but far enough removed that she can approach it with an open mind and a clear rationale. Tom might be the one suffering through the increasing anger of the ghost, but it's Maggie who puts herself in real physical danger by descending to the seedier city streets to search for the mysterious Neil, the perfect stranger who might be able to shed light on just what the hell is happening to her family.

Illeana Douglas is goddamned fun in this. She was given the best part in the film and she knows it. She plays a witch and a kook and has almost every best line in the film. She provides great comic relief when the film needs a chance to breathe, but she also seems quite real. She's dry and flippant one moment to her sister, but then immediately apologizing to her the next - and meaning it. She's a well-rounded character who starts this whole thing in the first place, but never comes off vindictive – just more of a new-age, hippie liberal. Added to that is the very subtle dislike between her and Tom – it's not overbearing like your typical cinematic sister/brother-in-law dynamic, but it's definitely present. Tom doesn't respect Lisa because she seems like a grown up child, and Lisa doesn't like Tom because she considers him close-minded and small-dreamed – something he dislikes even about himself. They make a good, if at-odds, on-screen pair.

Kudos must absolutely be given to Kevin Dunn as Frank McCarthy. Most assuredly an audience will see Kevin appear on camera and say, "hey, it's that guy!" It's because he's appeared in literally everything over the years – from "Seinfeld" to Hot Shots to the Transformers films, and most recently 2011's brilliant Warrior. Again, Dunn has found himself in supporting character work for most of his career, but it's in Stir of Echoes where he shines. This underrated actor gives a career-best performance, rattling off rambling and comedic dialogue one minute and switching gears and becoming morose and somber the next, leading to an extremely powerful performance in the film's climax. He'd never before been given the chance to express so many different emotions within one character, and his performance displays his eagerness to show all that he is capable of as an actor.

The more cynical out there might say that Stir of Echoes isn't an entirely original premise; after all: main character sees ghosts + twist ending = standard Hollywood fare. But let's not forget Richard Matheson wrote the core concept back in 1958, when it was a little less standard. And don't misunderstand my argument; I don't intend to make it sound like Stir of Echoes should be grandfathered in just because its now-cliched concept wasn't so cliche in '58. Instead, it's like I've always said: I don't care how many times I've seen the same premise in a genre film – if you come at it with a passionate and well-told story, and so long as you're backed up by talented folks in front of and behind the camera, then that's good enough for me. And it always will be.

UNSUNG HORRORS: FRAILTY

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre.

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. Bill Paxton
2001
Lionsgate Films
United States

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.”

— Albert Einstein

Frailty is a sobering look at the impact of religion on the American family. On its surface it’s about demons that may or may not exist, and one man’s belief that he was chosen to slay them with God-given weapons. But at its core it’s about the family unit. It’s about a man and his two sons, and how they are torn apart when one son follows the father, and one does not. And who is right? The son who follows unconditionally, or the son who questions orders and rebels at all costs? The movie is about free will verses destiny. It’s about knowing when to think for yourself, and when to recognize that you’ve become a man. And it’s about realizing everything you know is wrong.

There’s a scene in the beginning of the film where the family sits down to share dinner together. The younger son spoons a large helping of peas onto his plate.

Dad exclaims, “Whoa, Tiger! Save some for us!”

“I sure love peas!” the son shouts.

“I bet! You better be careful or you’ll turn into one!” Dad replies.

Yes, the dialogue exchange is unbearable corny and clichéd. You may even roll your eyes, and that’s fine. That's the point. It’s supposed to come across that way. The filmmakers are willing to embarrass themselves by showing you that this is a typical, American, drama-free, completely undiluted, and ably functioning family. There is not even a hint of something dark and seedy simmering under the surface. Dad is normal. The kids are normal. Life is…normal.

Until God talks to Dad...

It’s a fierce, black, rainy night when Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) confesses to FBI Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) that he knows the identity of the serial murderer plaguing rural Texas who the media has dubbed the God’s Hands killer. Fenton confesses that it’s his own brother, Adam, who earlier in the night took his life because he couldn’t stand what he had become. Being that Fenton has stolen the ambulance containing his brother’s dead body and driven it directly to the FBI headquarters in Dallas, Agent Doyle is understandably wary of anything Fenton might have to tell him. But as the night grows late, Fenton reenacts the past for Agent Doyle, explaining that the events that led up to this night were set in motion long ago…by the boys’ father.

In this past, Bill Paxton plays Dad, the aforementioned father of two sons: Fenton (Matt O’Leary) and Adam (Jeremy Sumpter). The boys’ mother died years ago, and so it’s been just the three of them against the world—which suited them fine. As Fenton says in the movie, “we didn’t need anyone else.” Dad worked as a mechanic during the day, but always came home to his sons in the evening and spent as much time with them as he could. Fenton and Adam, separated by only a few years, lived fairly typical lives, though Fenton was tasked with some of the duties his deceased mother likely would have handled (cooking dinner for the family, keeping an extra eye on Adam). The three were close, and despite the loss of their mother, the boys were happy. They went to the movies, laughed about girls throwing up, and did other things brothers/boys do.

It all changes the night Dad wakes them up in the middle of the night and explains to them both that in a strange vision, in which he was visited by an angel, he learns he was chosen by God to slay demons living amongst humanity in human shells. His weapons in this crusade consist of an ax named Otis, a lead pipe, and a pair of work gloves. To determine who is a demon and who is not, he is to lay his hands upon them, and their sins will be revealed.

Understandably, Fenton immediately doubts his father’s claims, wondering if the stress of single-fatherhood has finally taken its toll. Adam, however, is quick to believe; his young age makes him prone to easily accepting such claims, and if his own father believed them, then why shouldn’t he? Why would his own father lie to him?

The hunt soon begins. Dad orders Fenton to take part, and the boy at first refuses…that is until he realizes that he really has no choice. As much as he believes that his father has gone insane, he still loves him and does not want the family to be torn apart.

It all leads to shocking conclusions that cap off the past sequence as well as the present. Additionally, Frailty ends with my favorite kind of twist—which I won’t reveal here. But those who have seen the film know exactly what I mean.

Bill Paxton does a fantastic job with his meaty role in front of the camera. It’s a tough one to pull off, as he has to bring humanity to a role that audiences will have no choice but to vilify and fear almost from the very beginning. To make the role of Dad clearly villainous and cartoonish would have been a disservice to the smart story by the Texas-born Brent Hanley. Of course it would’ve been easy to root against the “antagonist” as he slithers around grinning ear to ear like Nicolas Cage, covered in blood, punctuating each kill with a truly bad pun. But it’s the strength of Paxton as an actor that he can make Dad flawed, human, and sympathetic—all the while making you feel uncomfortable and hesitant whenever he is on screen. (This is something I often bring up in reviews. I always find characters that skirt the line between antagonist and protagonist to be the most interesting, and the role of Dad is no different.) Put yourself in young Fenton’s shoes: how far would you be willing to go to follow your father? For you, what would be the line between real life and insanity? To our eyes, what Dad is doing is clearly wrong, but he doesn’t believe it to be. He believes he is doing God’s work, and it’s because of this that his work is carried out with care and concern. Like Abraham from the Bible, Dad loves his sons more than anything, but it’s the love for his God that will determine his actions.

Matt O’Leary and Jeremy Sumpter do commendable work with their roles. Let’s be honest, child actors are always a gamble. Their inability to grasp the concept of the kind of movie they are making is always reflected in their performance. Luckily, these two know what they’re doing.

O’Learly puts more work and effort into his role than most established adult actors. He sweats and bleeds and suffers with his character—it gets to the point where you wish you could pluck him off the screen just to get him away from all the misery his life has become. The movie rides on his shoulders, and he pulls it off gracefully.

Younger Sumpter, too, has a tough job. He is reciting lines that, at his young age, must have little to no meaning. The real-life complexities of the idea of a “God” and what people who believe in him are willing to do, even things that seemingly violate basic tenets one learns early on in life—it’s a tough thing for even adults to work their mind around, let alone a child of Sumpter’s age. But he plays his part with great confidence and assurance.

The young actors’ chemistry as brothers is believable, and especially in the case of Sumpter, their performances are utterly in line with how real people would react to such a trauma. As Adam begins to follow his father more and more, he, too, does not become comic bookish and antagonistic. He avoids turning into The Bad Seed. Adam wants nothing more than to follow in his father’s footsteps, even going as far as producing his own “demon list” that God allegedly gave to him—filled with the names of people that have bullied him in the past. The scene in which Dad explains the difference between destroying demons and killing people is morbidly funny. From Fenton’s disbelieving point of view, Dad is clearly out of his mind, and so this explanation between destroying demons and killing humans is hypocritical. (Additionally, there is one sequence in the film where Dad is forced to take the life of a human being in order to protect “the mission”—and upon doing so, he immediately vomits and begins to sob as his sons bury the body, lamenting what he was “forced” to do—that he has only just now become a murderer.)

As Fenton suffers through one punishment after another for not following orders, Adam urges his brother to conform—to believe in his family and accept his own responsibility. He does so with the love and admiration a younger brother has for his older. In his mind, Adam is unable to see why Fenton just won’t join them. It’s intelligently and realistically done.

Powers Boothe will always be a dependable bad ass, no matter the role he is playing. And while he might not have much to do during the first 2/3rds of the film, it’s the last act that shows even as someone as deeply intimidating as Boothe can be shaken under the right circumstances. He so rarely gets to play someone with weakness that when it does happen, it makes the events causing his transformation that much more disturbing.

Despite his slew of truly brainless rom-coms, Matthew McConaughey will always be an actor who makes me turn one eye towards whatever project he has in the works. Yes, he’s made a shit-ton of tepid movies (most with Kate Hudson), but his roles in A Time to Kill, Lincoln Lawyer, and even We Are Marshall proves he has the chops to pull off a great performance, so long as he’s got the passion to do so. His role in Frailty is one that’s quite understated, dark, and disconcerting. Like O'Leary, it’s up to him to make this movie work, and it’s because of him that it does. His performance is supposed to make you think he’s insane, but at the same time, possibly telling the truth—all at once. You’re supposed to question what you are seeing and hearing at all times, because as McConaughey looks at you with his thousand-mile stare, and as his eyes shimmer from the appearance of tears despite the lack of emotion on his face, you have to know that there’s something not 100% right about Fenton Meiks. What filmmakers call an unreliable narrator is the one leading us on this journey into the past—so everything you see on screen must be doubted. Nothing is to be believed.

Lastly, we have Otis, who plays the ax. Yes, the odd choice to have a random name carved into the ax's handle might seem erroneous until you realize that the ax really is a character. Never in the movie is it just a random household tool, but rather something that has the power to tear apart whole families. It comes to represent what Fenton believes to be the lie – the insanity – his father insists on perpetuating. 

The direction by Paxton is quite assured for a first time director. Most actors can make that leap successfully and Paxton is no different. The first appearance of the Meiks house – a former and very isolated residence of the gardeners who tended the Thurman Rose Garden, where the bodies of “demons” are soon to be buried – is haunting, nostalgic, and saddening all at once. As the brother burst from the trees and their large, white, farm-style house looms into view, the music (a subtly simmering score by the usually bombastic Brian Tyler) ceases, and the sounds of cicadas fill the screen. It’s perhaps the most beautiful shot in the film—a fuzzily recollected memory from childhood.

Another sequence that deserves special mention is the taking of the second “demon,” where Fenton is forced to play the part of an upset and crying boy whose dog, Trixie, won’t come out from under the demon’s car. What the soon-to-be-victim thinks are tears of sadness coming from this boy are actually from fear, as Fenton knows what’s about to happen.

(As an aside, the movie also makes awesome use of Johnny Cash’s “Peace in the Valley” in two very well done and connected sequences.)

Frailty is a movie whose ending I am desperate to dissect and explain in all kinds of tangential ways why it’s so awesome, but to those who haven’t yet seen this film, I would hate to ruin it. What I can say about Frailty, however, is that above all, it’s terrifying…because it could happen. And it does, every day. Even today entire wars are begun over the belief that God speaks through his followers and orders them to destroy the unclean and the infidel. And really…what’s scarier? Jason Voorhees wielding an ax and coming at you…or your own father killing someone else in front of you as you beg and plead him to stop?

Most films based on faith, religion, and peoples’ ties to both tend to come down on one side of the fence: either religion is good, or bad. Frailty manages to show you that it’s both. It shows you what it’s done to a simple family that, after losing their wife/mother, has already suffered enough. But it also shows you that sometimes you’re right to have faith, and you’re right to follow it, no matter the circumstances.