MACABRE ART: BENJAMIN KÖNIG

© Benjamin König

YIKES

REVIEW: ANTISOCIAL

I didn't need a movie to tell me that people obsessed with social networking websites are actually slobbering brainless psychopaths, but, thanks anyway. (Just kidding!)

(Not really.)

A spiritual sequel (of sorts) to films like The Signal, Pontypool, and even George Romero's The Crazies, Antisocial is the next step in realizing a wide-scale outbreak of mass hysteria and madness, this time seemingly perpetuated by the world's dependence on social networking sites. 

It's New Year's Eve, and college student Sam (Michelle Mylett) joins a group of friends to do what college kids do best: drink too much and act like buffoons. But random news reports of murder-suicides occurring on college campuses across the country threaten to put a damper on the New Year...that is until it begins occurring at their own. One by one their friends begin to exhibit the signs of being infected: bleeding from the nose and ears, incoherence, and finally, bouts of brutal violence thrust upon the self or others. 

With the windows and doors boarded, and doing their best to remain calm, the friends do whatever they must to survive.

We've seen Antisocial so many times before I have to wonder why filmmaker Cody Calahan bothered. Is it to let us know we've become so overdependent on Youtube and Twitter and the slowly dying Facebook that we're turning into mindless monsters? If so, we know. Still, Calahan has delivered a competent film that manages to pack a few layers of freshness into an overused dish. The aforementioned Romero himself tried this a few years back with Diary of the Dead, only this time using social networking as a positive - a means to get the real truth surrounding the zombie outbreak as opposed to relying on the highly censored and manipulated media - but Antisocial remains the superior film. 

While Antisocial is obviously a low budget affair, thankfully that's only prevalent when it comes to the nature of the story and location, not the look or feel. And our young cast are all up to the task, which is another miraculous feat, because so many in films of this ilk are not. The pretty Michelle Mylett makes for a sympathetic lead, though she shares her most of her screen time with the ensemble cast.

Great musical score, too.

Antisocial asks the question: If we were slowly going insane, would we turn to social networking sites to share this insanity? Would we broadcast our newfound madness to our hundreds of fake friends and strange followers just as we do when uploading our dinners to Instagram or offering status updates saying "had the worst day and i DON'T want to talk about it!!!"?

Probably.

And that's when Antisocial is at its most horrifying. Heavy-handed and at times completely unsubtle, it still manages to be energetic and effective. Though it offers up many things you've already seen, it gives you a few you haven't. (Don't miss the bit with the Christmas lights.)

CLOSE CALL

LIGHTNING

We had just moved into a little ranch house in the suburbs. Storybook neighborhood – quiet, friendly neighbors, picket fences, the whole nine yards. Suffice it to say that this was supposed to be a new start for me, a recently single dad, and my three-year-old son. A time to move on from the previous year’s drama and stress.

I viewed the thunderstorm as a metaphor for this fresh start: one last show of theatrics before the dirt and grime of the past would be washed away. My son loved it anyway, even with the power out. It was the first big storm he’d ever seen. Flashes of lightning flooded the bare rooms of our house, imparting unpacked boxes with long creeping shadows, and he jumped and squealed as the thunder boomed. It was well past his bedtime before he’d finally settled down enough to go to sleep.

The next morning I found him awake in bed and smiling. “I watched the lightning at my window!” he proudly announced.

A few mornings later, he told me the same thing. “You’re silly,” I said. “It didn’t storm last night, you were only dreaming!”

“Oh…” He seemed somewhat disheartened. I ruffled his hair and told him not to worry, there should be another storm soon.

Then it became a pattern. He would tell me how he watched the lightning outside his window at least twice a week, despite there being no storms. Recurring dreams of that first memorable thunderstorm, I figured.

It’s easy to hate myself in hindsight. Everybody assures me there’s nothing I could have done, no way I could have known. But I’m supposed to be the guardian of my child, and these are useless words of comfort. I constantly relive that morning: making my coffee, pouring milk over my cereal, and picking up the newspaper to read about the pedophile local authorities had just arrested. It was front-page stuff. Apparently this guy would select a young target (usually a boy), stake out their house for a while, and take flash photos of them through their window while they slept. Sometimes he did more. My stomach sank as the connection was made.

At the time, it was merely something from a child’s imagination. In retrospect, it is the scariest thing I’ve ever heard. About a week before the predator was caught, my son came up to me in his pajamas. “Guess what?” he asked.

“What?”

“No more lightning at my window!”

I played along. “Oh, that’s nice; it finally died down huh?”

“No! Now it’s in my closet!”

I’ve yet to see the photos police have collected.

Story source.

NEW YEAR'S...EVIL

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

CHRISTMAS PRICE

O HOLY

Grzegorz Kmin

THE MAGIC SLICER

 

He carved the ham himself!

(Sorry...)

ONE, PLEASE!

JOLLY

CREEPY CHRISTMAS

Here's the thing: Modern-day Christmas is pretty weird already. It's a conglomeration of legends involving everything from a supernatural home invader with flying pack animals to a talking snowman. So when it comes time to make holiday decorations, the line between festive and nightmarish is razor thin. That's how we wound up with ... 

Text and images from Cracked.

See the rest.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

 

In my youth, I would stare over and over at the horrifying pictures in two books that my parents happened to own: The first was A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, which featured ghastly photos of Vincent Price and Lon Chaney Jr./Sr. in their lurid make-ups, and the other, surprisingly, was an illustrated edition of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, one of the most famous ghost stories in literary history. (I wouldn't find this out until much later, but a ghost-centric Christmas story wasn't an anomaly during the era in which it was written: telling ghost stories at Christmastime was actually part of the yuletide tradition, and it's one I wish would make a reemergence. It'd be way better then debating politics with your drunken uncle.) If you're somehow unfamiliar with the story, an old curmudgeon named Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by four ghosts one Christmas Eve night to tell him he's been an asshole for his entire adult life and he needs to knock it off before he dies and people impugn his name for as long as anyone remembers him. Because of the ghostly element, the tale definitely lends itself to some frightful imagery – particularly when it comes to the final ghost of the night – but you might still find yourself taken aback when seeing the visual representations of this story brought to life by artist Roberto Innocenti. Even in the more "normal" acts of the story, illustrations of everyday people – the children especially – look just a little bit off.

Below are just a few scans of the eerie creations found below in the 1990 edition of the book, published by Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, Ing./Creative Editions Inc.

SOLSTICE

© Benjamin König

OH, HELLO

MUSIC FOR FILM: RAVENOUS

Except to a cineaste, the musical score might be one of the most important aspects of film that is consistently taken for granted. Tasked with both complementing the action on-screen as well as manipulating your emotions, film scoring is essential to creating an effective tone and generating the appropriate response from its audience, whether that response is fear, melancholy, excitement, or jubilation. Regardless of the actual film’s quality – whether great or ghastly – the score is the only component of the film that will live on in perpetuity in a separate form. Some of these scores stand head and shoulders above others and deserve to be recognized. This is one of them. 

Ravenous is an interesting first choice for what I hope to be a reoccurring column, because its score flies in the face of perhaps the oldest and still ongoing of debates: Does a musical score exist only to serve the images flashing on the screen, or should this same musical score also serve its own function and be just as effective, entertaining, and well-constructed, while playing independently of that image? Meaning, the scores for films like There Will Be Blood and Sinister are incredible in the way that they make the on-screen images ten times more effective…but can you listen to them independent of their respective films and still find them to be just as effective? And should it even matter if they simply don’t work on their own, given they were never supposed to be anything other than a companion to their film?

Ravenous seems to be gunning for the latter – that this film score exists only to serve this story of soldiers falling victim to a maniacal cannibal in the dead of winter during the mid-1800s. The Mexican-American War is in full swing, and soldiers are stationed at Fort Spencer to be on hand should their services be required. They spend their days getting high, writing music, or screaming in rivers, and seem to be risking death via total boredom until a stranger named Colqhoun arrives near dead from exposure. Once cared for, warmed, and given proper nourishment (heh), he rattles off his terrifying tale of being trapped in the woods and being forced to rely on cannibalism to survive. Everyone hearing the tale seems to instantly believe the stranger except Boyd (Guy Pearce), who finds the stranger to be more than a little suspicious.

Then a bunch of dudes get eaten!

(For a more in-depth breakdown/examination of Ravenous, read its Unsung Horrors entry. Sadly, its director, Antonia Bird, left us this year.)

The score by composer Michael Nyman and singer/songwriter/record producer Damon Albarn is wonderfully eclectic and quirky, as well as traditional and fucking eerie. Nyman has been composing for over forty years, though his name might not sound familiar outside of cult-like film-score devotees. He rarely scores anything outright “Hollywood” and opts to work in more classical environments. So it’s only natural he would bring with him less traditional ideas – and it’s those unusual ideas that begin the official soundtrack release.

(Note that I’ll only be highlighting the tracks I consider to stand out from the rest.)

“Hail Columbia,” the first track, is based on a pre-existing arrangement, but one that Nyman re-orchestrated specifically for Foster's Social Orchestra. This is important to mention because this orchestra is comprised of non-musicians, meaning the music as played sounds mostly sure-footed, but shaky and awkward. It certainly doesn’t sound polished. This odd approach was also used for “Welcome to Fort Spencer,” probably the least confident and most shakily recorded track in the batch. It literally sounds as if a group of musicians two weeks into their instruments are assembling and playing in a group for the first time. You might wonder why one would bother with such an approach – why purposely include awkward or even terrible sounding music? Because there’s no better way than painting the military as clumsy and primitive; and the inhabitants of Fort Spencer fare even worse.  This track, filled with horn squeaks and screechy strings, make these men seem like miscreants, degenerates, and completely unrefined. Rather than having the men themselves do and act in a manner that screams “idiot,” instead let the music do that for them. “Noises Off” is the final track to take this approach – all the usual out-of-tune notes are in attendance, but also seems to have been recorded at far slower than was intended, making it seem even less confident.

If “Hail Columbia” was the first of a three-part series featuring unsure players, “Stranger in the Window” would be the first of several tracks to drop the altogether dopy and amusing sound and instead go for one ominous and foreboding. The music up to this point has been either goofy or non-threatening. “Stranger in the Window” plays as Colqhoun makes his first appearance – right off you should know there’s something not right about him.

“Boyd’s Journey” and “Colqhoun’s Story” have been credited to Albarn without question. Here, and in some of his other contributions, the musician incorporates found audio, recordings from scratched vinyl records, and vintage field recordings into his original compositions. The latter track repeats one measure of what seems to be an old jaunty tune that likely sounded much more jolly in its original incarnation. Here, though, it provides the syncopation on which Albarn builds his ideas – none of them jolly. I love music that starts small with a simple pattern and builds, and continues to build, adding more instrumentation and ideas until it seems unrecognizable from when it first begin. “Colqhoun’s Story” delivers this in spades.

“Wendigo Myth” is one lone voice performing a Native American vocalization. I personally know nothing about this track or its lineage, but I’d love to know how it was captured. Was a vocalist brought in to record in a studio? Was it recorded in the field? The sound quality isn’t quite 100%, as it’s slightly echoey and tinny. I prefer to think this was recorded in the wild, but maybe because that’s the more interesting and romantic option. [Update: IMDB confirms: Milton 'Quiltman' Sahme's chant was recorded by Damon Albarn in Quiltman's living room on the reservation. Albarn was referred to Quiltman by Joseph Runningfox.]

Following “Trek to the Cave,” “He was Licking Me” will easily get under your skin. A more straightforward composition (by which composer I’m not sure), it’s likely the most brooding track. It’s something Wojciech Kilar would have composed for his take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  “The Cave” seems to be full on Albarn, utilizing repeating musical stings, unsure drum beats, a Glockenspiel (of all things), and something very non-instrumental also sounding off in the background. Soon these sounds fade into an elongated string punctuated every so often by a single piano key. It transforms very quickly from something unusual (while the soldiers are still outside the cave) to something incredibly suspenseful (after they enter), and into a full-on sprint (once Colqhoun enacts his savage plan). Running over seven minutes, “The Cave” transforms and mutates more than any other track, especially at 4:15 when those drums mercilessly kick in. It then becomes a whole other beast entirely. “The Cave,” to me, sums up Ravenous’ entire soundtrack: It’s a bevy of different ideas that one would think could never work, but somehow all comes together and provides something special and unforgettable.

“Run” is the only track which can boast that it sees to fruition the film’s sudden tonal shift from utter terror to (temporary) hillbilly humor. It’s at this moment when Colqhoun flicks his fingers at one of the surviving soldiers (not many are alive at this point) and tells him, simply, to run. Had this scene been scored by something terrifying filled with screeching strings, Colqhoun’s cat-and-mouse games would have seemed disturbing and psychotic. But instead, mixed with hillbilly hooting and fiddle, it actually becomes a little hilarious, and we realize that, for Colqhoun, this is nothing but a good time.

I love a good track that gets the adrenaline pumping, and “Let’s Go Kill That Bastard” kills it. The pounding drums and fiddle remain consistent, but the other instruments come and go, so the song is constantly changing its sound. If there were any track I would listen to on repeat, it’s this one (and I have).

“The Pit” at times seems like it should belong in a Disney film, not in an extremely bloody gore-fest black comedy about cannibals. Harps, swelling strings, and female ululations will make you wonder if Boyd, following his crushing plummet from the cliff, is actually dreaming. He’s not, though. Instead, he’s eating Neil McDonough.

If Ravenous were to have a “theme,” I suppose it would be “Manifest Destiny.” This track manages to encapsulate all the music we’ve heard – and well as the different interpretive approaches – while creating a new musical composition. Like in the earlier track I praised, the track starts off simply and then builds and builds.

“Saveoursoulissa” is the longest track – as well as the eeriest –in this whole thing: repeating discordant notes on a scratchy record, pounding drums, warbling electronic noises, moaning vocalizations. And that’s just the first two minutes. This track goes on for a staggering 8:43, and never sounds like anything other than a nightmare. If you’re a horror writer, play this track in the background during your next writing session. Your imagination will end up places you never thought you’d go.

“End Titles” is a reprise rendition of “Boyd’s Journey,” which is fitting, being that since Boyd is currently pinned to Colqhoun in a bear trap and is slowly bleeding to death, he’s about to begin a new journey: either to death, or to his rebirth, as he ponders Colqhoun’s final words: “If you die first, I’m definitely going to eat you. But the question is…if I die first, are you going to eat me?”

So…having said all of that, what’s the verdict for Ravenous? Is it something only to be appreciated alongside the film, or can it be enjoyed solo? The answer is: both. At least it is for me. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen Ravenous countless times and count it among one of my favorites, so some images that certain portions of score are married to are fresh in my head. Yeah, I might skip the Foster's Social Orchestra tracks, but the rest of this stuff is bloody good.

FIVE MONTHS OF PEACE

"The winters can be fantastically cruel. And the basic idea is to cope with the very costly damage and depreciation which can occur. And this consists mainly of running the boiler, heating different parts of the hotel on a daily, rotating basis, repair damage as it occurs, and doing repairs so that the elements can't get a foothold. Physically, it's not a very demanding job. The only thing that can get a bit trying up here during the winter is, uh, a tremendous sense of isolation...for some people, solitude and isolation can, of itself become a problem."

If we don't, remember me.

M SHOW FAN CLUB

When I was 9 years old I had a favorite TV series. It had human actors and actors in animal suits and funny and educational clips in between. I don’t want to name it because it was a really good show and this story is not at all a fault of the show. I will just call it “The M Show.”

The M Show was running for years and I had been watching it for as long as I can remember. I always sat down, straight after school with my older sister Scarlett and my best friend Brandi, who lived next door.

It was our ritual, every day the three of us sat together – with sweets, if our moms allowed it, or else with apples or grapes – and in the breaks of the show we talked and gossiped about all those important issues in our lives.

Then, I remember it was a warm summer Friday, Scarlett found a prize competition in one of her girl magazines. It asked questions about the show and first prize was a travel with your parents to Disney World. But even better, everybody who sent in the correct answers would become a member of The M Show Club, a fan club for the show. The same day, after watching the M Show, the three of us huddled together on the couch to answer the quiz.

The questions were very hard; they asked details about old episodes of the show. Without Scarlett, Brandi and I would never have managed to answer all the questions.

Scarlett begged our mom for stamps and envelopes and we filled the three envelopes each with a paper with our names and contact details and the answers to the questions. Scarlett even told us to vary our answers slightly so that we wouldn’t be called out for cheating.

The letters were sent off and every day we all rushed to the mailbox to get our The M Show Club badges. When the first snow began to fall we stopped checking the mailbox. Brandi was still passionate about the show and watched it every day, but Scarlett lost interest. When Scarlett stopped watching I too began to skip the show. Brandi still came over, but she was the only one watching. I sat next to her while working my way through Scarlett’s old girl magazines.

It was early spring. I remember there were tulips in our garden and my mom reprimanded me for plucking two to decorate the kitchen table. But right after her lecture she handed me a small square letter with my name printed on it. The back said “Welcome to The M Show Fan Club.”

There was not much in the envelope – only a short leaflet that welcomed me to the club and a small ID card with my name on it, a big logo of the show and in black letters “The M Show Fan Club,” and in the line below, in big black letters, the word “Member.”

Brandi got her envelope the same day. She was glowing with happiness. Scarlett was jealous at first, but two days later she got her envelope too.

From then on, every Friday, each of us received a leaflet about the show with photos and anecdotes and background information on the characters. Occasionally the leaflets also called on the club members to promote the show and to watch out for “The M Show Tour.”

Either way, it worked: We loved the show afterwards. I think from that day on, after I proudly stuffed the membership card in my bag, I didn’t miss a single episode.

Then, in mid-June, we all got two leaflets. The first was the usual one with facts and photos. But the second was an ad:

“The tour bus is in town – this is your chance to become an ‘Elite Member’!”

The bus was coming the next Sunday to our town. We were all allowed to go. We were beyond excited.

The leaflet didn’t have much information and that was before we had a computer at home. The tour bus would arrive at 1pm and the main characters of the show would be there to welcome everybody and play games with us. Those that participated in at least four games would be upgraded to “Elite Member”-status and receive a new, golden membership card.

Those nine days of waiting for “The M Show Tour” were some of the longest in my life. Brandi and Scarlett and I planned every day how we would take photos with each of the characters and then play games with them. I secretly dreamed of beating Scarlett at the “knowledge game,” where our knowledge about the show would be tested.

On Saturday Scarlett went to a birthday-sleepover at one of her friends’ houses. The parents were supposed to bring Scarlett back by 12 on Sunday.

Around 12:30 Brandi came running to our house. She knocked on the back door, like she always did, and I let her in. Brandi was beyond excited; her mom had volunteered to accompany the three of us and she wanted to go early so that we wouldn’t miss anything.

My mom called the house of Scarlett’s friend, but they didn’t pick up their phone. She said that Scarlett would be home soon – early enough to go on time.

At 12:45 Brandi’s mother came over to ask for us. She said that we would have to leave so that the queues wouldn’t be too long. My mom said we should wait for Scarlett, but Brandi threw a tantrum; she was scared that she wouldn’t be able to hug all the characters if we came late.

Brandi’s mom decided to drive. I wanted to come along – but my mother said that she would drive Scarlett and me. I felt like I was being punished for Scarlett’s being late. I begged. I cried.

Nothing helped; Brandi went alone.

Her friends’ parents dropped Scarlett off at 13:40. I was mad at her, but my mom said if I made a scene we wouldn’t go at all. I relented.

We arrived around twenty minutes later at the big parking lot where the bus was scheduled to stop. We saw the crowds from the distance, parked the car and walked over.

I asked my mom where the characters of the show were; she said that they were just behind the crowd.

They all held the “The M Show Tour” flyers, but it looked as if the crowd were mostly parents. They stood in a half-circle towards the edge of the parking lot. Some of them looked concerned, but most of them were laughing and talking.

My mom spotted Brandi’s mother at the other end of the half-circle; we walked over to her. Brandi’s mother was one of the worried ones.

She told us that the bus had been there, together with all the animal figures from “The M Show.” They had a large bus with the “The M Show” logo and they handed out sweets.

One of the animal figures had explained to the parents that they had built a set outside of town where we all could make our own short film with the characters of the show. They said they would drive everybody there.

They took the children first. They were all so excited that few parents objected. Still, three or four parents came along and that calmed the rest. The next bus was supposed to arrive within a few minutes, to bring everyone to the set.

When I heard that I was excited like never before.

I ran to the street to look around so I could be the first on the bus. Scarlett followed me.

I didn’t see the worried expression when Brandi’s mother talked to mine.

I didn’t understand why the police came not even an hour later.

In Monday’s episode of “The M Show” one of the characters came on stage and told us to call our parents to watch the show. Our mom was already sitting with Scarlett and me.

The character said that “The M Show” didn’t have a fan club.

That week Brandi’s parents cried a lot. I was still sure that Brandi was okay, I thought she just had so much fun that she didn’t want to come back.

She must have had a lot of fun; she never came back.

Brandi’s mother cried even more, that Friday, when the small parcel arrived.

There was a new “The M Show Fan Club” membership card for Brandi. It was golden and said “Elite Member” in big, bold letters.

The parcel also contained a video. It was only a minute long; a minute of Brandi at the set of “The M Show.” She was wearing the same dress as when she came over to our house that Sunday morning.

On the video she Brandi smiling; an actor in a big animal suit stood next to her, silently.

“Hi mom, I really like it here,” said Brandi. “I really wish you could be here.” Then she laughed.

“I’m sorry the others were late. I’m sure they would have loved it too.”

Story source unknown.

UNKNOWN ENTITY

I received the following information and image from Ken Pfeifer. It was forwarded to Ken by one of his readers...then sent to me so it could be published:

Nov. 2012 - I was working the night shift on an x-ray crew at a material gas plant. This was around 3 am and there was only four of us in the plant at the time. I took this picture after seeing something swaying side to side out of the corner of my eye. I was in the basket of a man lift coming down when I took the picture. By the time I unhooked my harness to get out of the basket the creature was gone. The police were called and walked premises. The officer told me there were 26 UFO sighting calls throughout that night. If you zoom in you can see the silhouettes of eyes and elongated mouth. I have no doubt of what I believed I seen that night. The other person that saw it with me took off running for the truck.

Story and images source.

TEOS RECOMMENDS: THE RESURRECTIONIST

 

Lovers of the icky and depraved might want to take note of The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Spencer Black, an astounding (and first) novel by New Jersey native E.B. Hudspeth. A story about an anatomist named Spencer Black who, after growing frustrated with his inability to educate the modern world about natural deformities, plummets down a rabbit hole of animal experimentation - later becoming human experimentation - in an effort to create his own brand of mutation.

Presented as a fact-based account or dossier, Hudspeth fills in the reader on Black's history, his rise to fame and infamy, his increasing madness, and his mysterious disappearance. Accompanying this narrative is a book within the book, The Codex Extinct Animalia, Dr. Black's personally penned and self-described "Gray's Anatomy" for animal mutations. Page after page features beautiful illustrations of mythical creatures of which you're already like aware: the chimera, the minotaur, and even the mermaid. Each creature has pages and pages dedicated to their anatomical breakdown, and their every layer is sketched with artistic and scientific precision: the skeletal system, the muscular system, the epidermis, and the "final" presentation.

The first part of The Resurrectionist is less than a hundred pages, but an awful lot of gruesome details and events are packed into them. It ably paints a portrait of a man suffering from madness and delusions of grandeur over a specific time period, spurred by the untimely deaths of his children and the scientific community's constant dismissal of his theories and ideas. The text is comprised of historical accounts, snippets of correspondence, "reviews" of his work by his colleagues, and cleverly vintage advertisements in support of Dr. Black's later colorful career.

I am drawn to creations such as these that skew as closely to reality as possible while still being a work of complete fiction. Likely the same reason why I'm attracted to films of the found-footage/fake documentary format, or those likely bogus ghost-hunting shows that every network seems to have these days, I want to be fooled. Occasionally I want to realize what I've been reading or watching has made me take a step back to determine if it's possibly real. Even within the text of The Resurrectionist, Dr. Black is painted as a man clearly losing his grip with reality. By the end of Part One, you're ready to see the man committed and removed from society entirely. But then when you begin Part Two - The Codex Extinct Animalia - and you see him approaching these mythical beasts with a scientific and analytical mind, and you see all the fancy Latin terminology he's using to label each and every single appendage, you can't help but think, "Shit, maybe this guy wasn't so craze-balls."

That's when you know you've got a good book open in front of you.

To reiterate in complete amazement, this is E.B. Hudspeth's first book. I can't wait for the next.

Get.

ENCOUNTER

FRIDAY THE 13TH

Worst game ever.

CLOSE CALL

DEMENTIA

"Come with me into the tormented, haunted, half-lit night of the insane. This is my world. Let me lead you into it. Let me take you into the mind of a woman who is mad. You may not recognize some things in this world, and the faces will look strange to you. For this is a place where there is no love, no hope...in the pulsing, throbbing world of the insane mind, where only nightmares are real..."

 

TRAIL CAM

ONE, TWO...

"You want to know who Fred Krueger was? He was a filthy child murderer who killed at least 20 kids in the neighborhood. Kids we all knew. It drove us crazy when we didn't know who it was, but it was even worse after they caught him. The lawyers got fat and the judge got famous, but somebody forgot to sign the search warrant in the right place and Krueger was free, just like that. A bunch of us parents got together and tracked him down. We found him in old abandoned boiler room, where he used to take his kids. We took gasoline and poured it all around the place and made a trail of it out the door. We lit the whole thing up and watched it burn. He's dead now. He's dead because Mommy killed him."

DVD REVIEW: SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT

Before Michael Myers ran rampant on Halloween night, and before Billy began picking off sorority sisters one Christmas weekend, there was another slasher film unleashed upon the world in which a mysterious killer wreaked havoc one dark Christmas Eve. Though Silent Night, Deadly Night gets all the (undue) love, it was the similarly titled Silent Night, Bloody Night (aka the oddly spelled Deathouse) that beat all these folks to the punch. It's a title that for one reason or another has eluded me for all the years of my horror-lovin' life. In my youth, the obscurity of the actors involved likely turned me off, and as I approached my "adult" years, bad word of mouth/reputation likely continued my disinterest. 

So when I received this screener of Film Chest's upcoming restored edition of the film, I thought, "Yes, damn it - we're finally going to do this."

The film opens with a somewhat docudrama approach, complete with voice-over filling in the audience on the history of the Butler home. One Christmas Eve, an accidental (?) fire claims the life of Wilford Butler and the house is left silent and empty. Years later, the house is inherited by Wilford's grandson, Jeffrey, who is only interested in selling it. The townspeople aren't too keen with that, as they just know there's something not right about the old place, and they'd rather people just stay away. Jeffrey's lawyer takes up temporary residence in the house with his wife while he awaits the decision of the townspeople whether they want to outright buy the house to keep it unoccupied. And don't you know it? The house isn't as empty as everyone thought. And that's when the bodies start to drop.

Look out!

Though Silent Night, Bloody Night is, if we're being honest, rather poorly made from a technical standpoint, it does get points for endeavoring to create a creepy tone established on mood, the harsh wintry conditions, and a disturbing mythology. It's worth watching for that reason alone. And it's interesting to see infamous horror tropes show up in cinema history far earlier than expected. Halloween gets a lot of credit for showing the killer's point of view, though that was previously explored in Black Christmas...which created a lot of tension by utilizing mysterious made by a whispering caller...which earlier appeared in this, Silent Night, Blood Night.

But sadly the film falls victim to so many other low budget film-making pitfalls. This is the kind of film where the musical score cuts-out the same time that the scene ends; where the audio track doesn't always match the action on-screen; where the direction relies almost exclusively on point-and-shoot techniques; and whose own rickety and inconsistently colored picture suggests that this was a film that wasn't really worth treasuring.

Which is kind of a shame, because Silent Night, Deadly Night had potential. It satisfied my own personal requirements for a quality horror film: an isolated location, a moody atmosphere, an intriguing mythology, and a cast of (gasp) adults! There is a chilly Hammer-esque approach using darkness and shadow, and at times an unnerving feeling...there's just not enough of it.

As the ad above boasts, this version released by Film Chest was harvested from an original 35mm negative. I don't know the history of the different releases this film has seen, but being that I believe it's in the public domain, there have been dozens. This particular version, impressive picture or not (and it's merely okay), might be the first time ever the film is appearing in widescreen on a home video format. That, alone, should warrant a purchase from fans of the film. 

This Film Chest restored edition of Silent Night, Bloody Night streets December 10. Give it a whirl and see if I'm wrong.

STRINGS

CLAP CLAP

One day, a young married couple went hiking in the mountains. As the sun began to set, they realized that they were lost. The wife was getting worried, but her husband tried to calm her down and assured her that they would eventually find their way back to their car. However, after walking for hours, they still had no idea where they were.

It was growing dark and the man and wife were getting desperate. They didn’t have a map or a compass with them and all of the trees looked the same. Just when they were about to give up hope, they came across an old cabin in a clearing.

The cabin looked as if it had seen better days. It was dilapidated and seemed like it hadn’t been used in a long time. Some of the windows were cracked and broken and a lot of the tiles had fallen off the roof. The husband knocked on the front door but there was no response. When he turned the handle, it slowly creaked open.

Inside, they found it was in a bad state of disrepair. There was very little furniture and the floor was covered in a thick layer of dust. As the couple cautiously looked around, they noticed a strange atmosphere and a peculiar musty smell.

The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with graffiti. Written in red paint, the words, “Death! Death! Death! Death! Death!” were repeated over and over again.

The man and woman were unnerved. With a shaking hand, the husband reached out to touch the wall. He was horrified to find that the paint was not yet dry.

The couple were very frightened, but they had nowhere else to go. They knew that the mountain was dangerous at night and there were lots of wild animals prowling the woods. Despite the creepy writing on the walls, they decided to stay the night.

Going upstairs, they found a moth-eaten mattress that was covered in stains. The husband and wife wrapped themselves in an old piece of carpet to keep warm and tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. They lay down together on the mattress and eventually managed to fall asleep.

Sometime after midnight, the couple were awakened by a strange rustling noise. It sounded like someone or something was moving around outside the shack.

“Did you hear that?” asked his wife. “I think there’s somebody out there.”

Her husband listened for a while, but he didn’t hear anything. He got out of bed and walked over to the window. It was too dark outside to see anything. Opening the window, he stuck his head out.

“Who’s there?” he called nervously.

There was no answer.

He was about to go back to bed when his wife said, “Maybe it’s someone who can’t speak…”

The husband returned to the window and said, “Is there anybody out there? Clap once for YES and twice for NO.”

He strained his ears to listen. The stars twinkled in the night sky. The crickets were chirping loudly.

All of a sudden, he heard a loud CLAP!

The man turned to his wife and said in surprise, “You were right. There’s someone out there.”

He leaned out the window and his eyes scanned the darkness. he couldn’t make out anything in the pitch black.

“Are you the owner of this cabin?” he asked.

CLAP! CLAP!

“Are you a man?”

CLAP! CLAP!

“You’re a woman, then?”

CLAP! CLAP!

“Are you human?”

CLAP! CLAP!

A chill ran down his spine. He swallowed hard and croaked, “Did you come here alone?”

CLAP! CLAP!

“How many are with you? Clap once for each person…”

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!…

Story source.

YIKES