NOT CARPENTER

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.”

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (2018)

I’ve been following director Mike Flanagan’s career ever since his debut, Absentia, was quietly released to video following a successful film festival run. I’d been so eager to see it that I’d messaged him on Facebook to inquire where I could find it and he’d politely responded. Now look at him: in less than eight years, he’s matriculated from a kind fellow answering Facebook inquiries to landing the gig of making a sorta-sequel to The Shining, one of the greatest and most intimidating horror films of all time. (He is also still politely answering questions, this time on Twitter.) Following the release of Absentia, Flanagan has remained loyal to the horror genre, writing and directing the haunted mirror flick Oculus, the criminally underseen sequel, Ouija: Origin Of Evil, the similarly criminally underseen horror fairy tale, Before I Wake, and Netflix originals Hush and the Stephen King adaptation Gerald’s Game. Flanagan has yet to make a horror film that’s not been at the very least engaging, with nearly all of them being frightening in some manner, and in different ways. (Ouija: Origin Of Evil is legitimately spooky, and if you’ve been ignoring it because the first Ouija is so terrible, I don't blame you, but please rectify that immediately.)

Though Flanagan is still early on in his career, I’m tempted to call The Haunting of Hill House his masterpiece. While it heavily revises the source 1959 novel of the same name by Shirley Jackson, which was previously adapted for 1963's moody classic The Haunting and 1998's overblown update of the same name, all the characters from the novel appear in the new take, though rewritten to be members of the same family (one of them named after the novelist herself). Instead of a group of volunteers gathering in the infamous Hill house to take part in a study on the paranormal, those volunteers are now siblings growing up under the guidance of their romantic, dreamy parents (Henry Thomas and Carla Gugino), who have somehow turned the concept of flipping houses into an admirable, artistic act. Hill house is just their latest endeavor, and a huge financial risk, but if all goes well with the restoration, it will be the last house they ever flip, and they can finally build their own “forever home” to live out the rest of their days. Soon, the ghosts of the house begin to victimize them all, especially setting their sights on the emotionally unwell Olivia (Gugino), pushing her to a mental breaking point and permanently altering the family dynamic.

Spread out over ten, approximately one-hour episodes (several of those appearing as extended director’s cuts exclusively on the new Blu-ray release), The Haunting of Hill House is a magnificent piece of filmmaking—one intent on positioning horror and human emotion side by side, in the same way the Crain family lives side by side with the varied ghosts of Hill house. The series is honest about many human issues, some of them taboo topics trapped in the constant debate of everyday news cycles—chief among them, depression and mental illness. Because of this, The Haunting of Hill House is a brutal gut punch in many ways, and one of the Crain siblings, Steven (Michiel Huisman, Game of Thrones), lays out in one of the opening scenes what a ghost actually is: “A memory, a daydream, a secret. Grief, anger, guilt. But, in my experience, most times they're just what we want to see. Most times, a ghost is a wish.” That right there is the foundation on which The Haunting of Hill House has been erected. Along with the typical, spooky-faced specters, all of those things—grief, anger, guilt—bleed through every episode, haunting our characters in different, meaningful ways. (Each of the characters also represent the different stages of the grieving process, and their specific episodes appear in that same order.) Though Flanagan has drastically changed Jackson’s story structure, he remains firmly true to the intent of her novel. The haunted house exists in the background, but the story itself is about Nell (Victoria Pedretti), her unhappiness, her inability to fit in, and that being surrounded by people who don’t understand her, and who dismiss her struggles and feelings of isolation, leads to her ruin. This is the crux of the show, so it’s no surprise that the siblings’ relationships to each other serve as the emotional center; the back-and-forth timeline technique juxtaposes their child and adult counterparts, and the prologue scenes will break your heart once you begin to suspect how badly things will go for the Crain family.

In many ways, The Haunting of Hill House is a Rorschach test. If you’re in it solely for the horror, you won’t be disappointed; there are numerous moments that will give you serious, earned chills, and you’ll have fun trying to spot all the background ghosts hidden throughout the show (there are a lot). Meanwhile, if you’re more interested in the drama, you’ll get that too, and if you truly invest in the characters and manage to relate to any one of them, you’ll find yourself in tears. And if you want both, I can’t think of a single piece of genre filmmaking in recent memory that’s gone anywhere as close to offering and achieving those combined sensibilities. You will bring out of The Haunting of Hill House exactly what you put into it—like the mysterious Red Room itself. 

It’s a bold claim, but for my money, The Haunting of Hill House is the best thing Netflix has ever done (I’ll certainly say that “Two Storms” is one of the greatest episodes of any television show—ever), and it’s touched many of its viewers in different ways. For as long as I’ve delved into films and television as a means for exploring artistic expression, I’ve been hearing people say, “Such and such changed my life,” and for years I wrote that off as a clichéd, bullshit expression that didn’t mean anything—a haughtier but equally vague way of saying something was “amazing.” Following my now multiple viewings of The Haunting of Hill House, I finally understand what those people were saying. Its many themes about life, its ruminations on death, and the way it presents real struggles of people both ordinary and extraordinary have resonated with me in a profound way, and I can honestly say The Haunting of Hill House has changed my life. 

Thankfully, Flanagan has found a nice and comfy home at Netflix headquarters, with all kinds of upcoming projects in the pipeline, chief among them The Haunting of Bly Manor, a spiritual sequel to The Haunting of Hill House, based on the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James—another tale of children growing up in a haunted house. Here's hoping their collaboration continues long into the future, because based on what we've seen so far, the end result is always smart, honest, and emotional horror. We could use more of that.

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

THE WITCHES (1990)

[Contains spoilers for the film and book, The Witches.]

Whether you’re a genre person or a typical cinephile, certain films leave an indelible impression on you, especially at a young age. And if you’re a genre person, certain titles with a slight horror bent have the power to stick with you—especially if said film, though marketed as being kid- and family-friendly, doesn’t necessarily feel like something a kid should be watching. Depending on your sensibilities, those kinds of titles can differ. (I still get nervous when Christopher Lloyd’s eyes go cartoon-3D in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) One of those titles, for me, is definitely The Witches, an adaptation of the novel by famed author Roald Dahl, himself no stranger to seeing his works adapted into certain kinds of other so-called kid-friendly insanities. See: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Starring Angelica Huston as the German-bred Miss Ernst, the Grand High Witch of the world’s entire witch population, and unexpectedly directed by Nicolas Roeg (Don't Look Now), The Witches, on its surface, is your typical kid-friendly adventure story. A young boy, Luke (Jasen Fisher), while on holiday with his Swedish grandmother, Helga (Mai Zetterling), discovers that representatives of witches all over the world have gathered to have a witches’ convention in their very same hotel. After Luke crashes the closed-door convention, he overhears that Miss Ernst has a plan to disappear the children of the world: she orders her fellow witches to open up candy shops in their homelands and spike their delectable sweets and deserts with her magical potion called Formula 86, which will turn the children who eat them into mice. Naturally, Luke is discovered eavesdropping, and after attempting to escape, he’s caught and turned into a mouse himself—along with a fellow adolescent hotel miscreant, Bruno (Charlie Potter). Now trapped in mouse form, Luke and Bruno work together, along with Luke’s wily grandmother, to save the day—and, hopefully, return themselves to boyhood. 

Along the way, so many disturbing mouse mutant puppets will be wrangled.

And that right there is what caused so many childhood nightmares, courtesy of the puppet effects from the legendary Jim Henson Puppet company, not to mention the overall themes of the story itself. The most disturbing aspect of the film is that witches, though it’s never explained why, utterly abhor children—not just enough that they’re planning a near mass-extermination of them, but that, beforehand, witches have been known to kidnap children and do dastardly things to them behind closed doors. Granted, by comparison, the scheme to essentially kill the world’s children is worse than the errant kid kidnapping, but that scheme is only ever a scheme—an idea—something that’s said out loud, but could never be depicted. However, the film opens with a story of witchcraft, and of kidnapping, and of seeing a young girl disappear while her parents scream her name in the streets and police investigate a missing pail the young girl was known to be carrying.

A girl that is never seen again.

Helga, her past which is also kept a little vague, knows an awful lot about witches, schooling her grandson Luke during the opening moments, showing off the nub where her little finger used to be that she lost while confronting a witch at some point in her past. Take that, and add some double-parental vehicular death, and bam—you’ve got your first EIGHT MINUTES of the movie.

The Witches has always been a personal favorite, and that likely has to do with the hard, somewhat maniacal, and whimsical edge that the film shows off. This isn’t what one would call a “safe” flick to put on for kids. It’s certainly not violent—at least not till the end, but even then, the impact of violence tends to lessen when violent acts are being committed against non-human beings, and that’s how The Witches ends. No, the real disturbing moments come from the witches’ utter hatred of children, and the diabolical schemes they hope to enact to rid the world of them for good. More disturbing, however, are when the witches shed their human disguises when in shared company, sliding off their wigs and peeling off their faces to reveal live-action versions of cartoon witch faces: long, peppery noses, terrible complexion, large bulbous eyes, and totally bald. 

Angelica Huston has a blast with the role, despite having to undergo long and grueling make-up sessions to put her into full-on witch mode, and with her German accent, she very subtly calls forth allusions to other, real-world events in which a race of people were nearly exterminated off the face of the earth. Whether or not this was intentional, the association is there all the same, and this only adds to the dark tone. Mai Zetterling, largely unknown to American audiences, also does admirable work in a role that’s more restrained, and in a film with a concept as ludicrous as witches turning children into mice. Granted, she’s a tired, elderly woman hampered with diabetes, but she’s also Luke’s protector, and a fierce one at that. 

Amusingly, Dahl was distressed and angered by the film, calling it mean-spirited and scary, even though the adaptation had mellowed some of the novel’s darker tone. (The ending of the book even has Luke, still in mouse form, postulating that a mouse’s brief lifespan means he and his grandmother would probably die around the same time. (Yikes.) This ending was shot but not used, as Roeg had vied for the happier end instead, which angered Dahl, causing him to boycott the film’s release and dissuade audiences from going to see it. )

The Witches is now on Blu-ray from Warner Archives in time for the best, witchiest time of year, and for those of us who grew up with the film, but are old enough to have kids of our own, it’s the perfect time to introduce a new generation to this weird, wacky, and somewhat morbid tale of witches, mice, and cress soup. 

Besides, Rowan Atkinson’s in it, and if kids love one thing, it’s Rowan Atkinson! 

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

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.

DUDE, BRO

I've been laughing nonstop.

ANNABELLE COMES HOME (2019)

The haunting and deeply questioned career of demonologists/paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren seemed like the very last thing that would lend to a cinematic shared universe, but after the two main Conjuring entries, an army of spinoffs has pervaded theaters since—all of them based on otherwise insignificant details from the series. 

After The Conjuring, Warner Bros. moved forward with Annabelle, directed by The Conjuring’s director of photography John R. Leonetti. It made for only a mediocre experience due to its weak script, weaker ending, and uninspired casting, although it managed a handful of creepy scenes. Following The Conjuring 2, Warner then announced two spinoffs: The Nun, based on the creepy visage of demon nun Valak (which was only ever a machination of in-film Lorraine Warren’s imagination) and The Crooked Man, which is dated for a 2020 release. (If you can’t wait, there’s a direct-to-video knock-off starring Michael Jai White!)  Following that came Annabelle: Creation, the prequel to the prequel to The Conjuring, directed by Lights Out director David F. Sandberg. To say that it’s better than Annabelle would be an understatement. It was actually one of the most frightening films of the year. Following that came The Curse of La Llorona, which didn’t have squat to do with the series, minus a small part where a familiar character shows up to influence that connection. (It doesn’t work, but that doesn’t matter, as the film itself was very bland.) Now there’s Annabelle Comes Home, the third and purportedly final entry in this particular offshoot of the Conjuring series, which comes under the helm of longtime series screenwriter Gary Dauberman (IT: Chapter One; IT: Chapter Two) making his directorial debut.  

The Annabelle series rides kind of a stupid concept: a creepy looking doll that demons like to hang out with. That’s…primarily it. Though the first Annabelle wasn’t by any stretch a “good” film, it didn’t turn the doll into some kind of living Chucky doll murderer that sprang to life at night and set up booby-traps around the house. It respected the maturity and class of the Conjuring series by maintaining the idea of the doll being used as a conduit by demonic entities and it didn’t take any ridiculous liberties. Annabelle Comes Home follows that same mold, with results more effective than the first film, though not as successful as the second. However, to be fair, Annabelle Comes Home is designed differently than the previous outings. Annabelle vied to feel as much like The Conjuring as possible but without being able to rely on ghostly visages. Annabelle: Creation, however, pushed supernatural horror to its breaking point, turning the events in that isolated farmhouse into something disturbing, in part due to some graphic violence the consistently R-rated series had otherwise avoided. Annabelle Comes Home is The Conjuring meets Poltergeist (aka Insidious) – a fun, spookshow experience designed to feel like you’re walking the narrow halls of a haunt during the Halloween season. It’s the highest concept yet of the series, one built on pure scares, and made with the mindset of, “Hey, let’s just have FUN.” A horror version of Night at the Museum, Annabelle Comes Home literally brings to life previous cases (allegedly) investigated by the Warrens, or artifacts tied to said cases, and these come in different forms. 

Not to pull my hipster card, but as someone intensely interested in the paranormal, I’d read about the Warrens years before The Conjuring became a phenomenon, chief among them a book called The Demonologist, which delved heavily into the Warrens’ background and many of their cases. To my memory, none of the specters that appear in Annabelle Comes Home are based on the reality confined to that book and the Warrens’ body of work—not even in exaggerated forms. Basically, the creepy things that stalk our characters reek of Hollywood hokum, even if the Warrens “worked” a case involving a werewolf, which was rumored to be the plot of the third Conjuring. (Oh, I’m calling it now: Warners is going to announce The Ferryman within the year.) Again, Dauberman’s approach is to create a pure, horror-based environment where nightmares walk, all to thrill his audience, and he mostly succeeds. 

Warmly, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson make brief appearances that bookend the film, notably at the beginning that sees them bridging the gap between the opening moments of The Conjuring, during which they take possession of the Annabelle doll, to Annabelle Comes Home, which sees them bringing the doll home and experiencing spooky things along the way. It’s nice to see them, as these spinoffs have lacked their appearance (some for obvious reasons) and it grants this newest spinoff a touch of legitimacy. However, it’s a trio of kids who become our main characters, led by Judy, the Warrens’ daughter (Mckenna Grace, who excelled in another recent superior horror effort, The Haunting of Hill House, and who replaces previous Conjuring actress Sterling Jerins), along with her babysitter, Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman), and her mischievous, trouble-making friend, Daniela (Katie Sarife). Despite the typical horror-movie carelessness that causes Annabelle to become free of her mystical, magical glass prison and animate the evil in the Warrens’ Occult Museum, it’s founded on an honestly touching moment, which helps to offset that it’s one of those face-palm moments where a character makes a stupid decision and starts a whole bunch of shit. 

Annabelle Comes Home isn’t the best of the series, but it’s the purest and makes for a fun, inconsequential watch during the coming Halloween season. The series has been all over the place, chronologically, and used up seemingly every timeline in which to tell a story, but if the audience demands it, there’s no keeping a good doll down. (Technically, a film could be made about the three college students featured in the opening moments of the first Conjuring who started all this trouble in the first place – Warners, please send a check to the DG offices to my attention.) As someone who prefers original horror to endless sequels, I do hope this is the final entry, but based on what this series has offered so far, I’d certainly see what else Annabelle has up her tiny sleeves. 

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]