31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: The Funhouse

The Funhouse (1981)

Directed by Tobe Hooper

Starring Elizabeth Berridge, Cooper Huckabee, Miles Chapin, Sylvia Miles, William Finley, and Kevin Conway

            After an opening that rips off the opening to Halloween, we find that nobody is getting murdered.  It is just a brother and sister making each other miserable.  The older sister, Amy, goes to a rather sordid carnival against her father’s wishes.  She goes with her boyfriend Buzz, her friend Liz, and Liz’s boyfriend Richie.  They smoke pot, ride the rides, go to the carnival strip show, make trouble for a fortune teller, and visit the sideshow freaks exhibit.  The group is having a ball when Richie gets an idea: stay overnight in the funhouse.  Their night takes a decidedly downward turn when they witness the deformed ride assistant, Gunther, proposition and murder the fortuneteller.  Before doing the smart thing and running, Richie steals Gunther’s whoring money.  With Gunther enraged and his father not too far behind him, Amy and her friends have to escape a family that kills plenty of strangers in their funhouse. 

            The characters are your standard teenage slasher-fodder, carny stereotypes, and dysfunctional families.  None are particularly interesting, but the actors do their best with what they are given.  The creature is the real center of the movie, presented as both monstrous and mistreated.  The first appearance of Gunther is him in a Frankenstein suit, which really sets the tone for his arc.  Conrad, Gunther’s father and the carnival barker, has the queasy charm of a cult leader.  The pair make for good antagonists that you love to despise.  Unfortunately, no other character has that kind of forethought put into them. 

            The makeup and overall design of Gunther is fascinating.  He is deformed and fanged, with wisps of white hair going everywhere.  He drools near uncontrollably and has a harelip that seems to go into his forehead.  And even though it is just a mask and some makeup, those bright pink eyes are unsettling and emotive.  The kill makeup gets the job done, but the real cool thing is how amusement rides are used.  The teenagers are systematically dispatched with props, rail cars, and all manner of funhouse paraphernalia.  It adds some welcome dark humor to the movie, especially since you probably have not been taking it seriously. 

            Hooper is a talented director and that does show through in The Funhouse.  He knows how to make a slow burn feel like no time at all.  The first half of the movie is spent following the teens around the carnival and taking in its seedy wonders.  The people who go there do not seem right, the barkers are a little too pushy, and the sideshows are genuinely creepy.  By the time the group gets to the funhouse you feel ready for anything.  Even if you know Hooper’s filmography, you are not expecting a family relationship straight out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  From there, the movie lets you see some truly nasty work.  And then there is that fat, laughing lady animatronic outside the funhouse.  That thing is just disturbing. 

            Overall, The Funhouse is an enjoyable little flick.  It is not the best Tobe Hooper movie, nor is it the best horror movie about carnivals.  It is a good choice if you are brave enough to try something new the next time you are on Netflix. 

7 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Prince of Darkness

Prince of Darkness (1987)

Directed by John Carpenter

Starring Donald Pleasence, Lisa Blount, Victor Wong, and Jameson Parker

            A priest invites a group of graduate students and professors to help him investigate an old church in Los Angeles.  Specifically, the priest needs help understanding an artifact in the basement.  It is a large, ancient cylinder filled with a churning green fluid.  The students settle in and start running tests, the priest and professor discuss religion, and a swarm of homeless people surround the church.  As people leave, the hobos are led by one of their own (Alice Cooper in a cameo) to kill those who try to exit the grounds.   The contents of the container make its intentions known when it opens of its own accord and attacks a grad.  Those who come into contact with the liquid become possessed by an otherworldly force.  Meanwhile, the team experiences the same odd dream when they sleep.  They see a message from the future showing a dark figure leaving the church.  The scripture left with the cylinder reveals something disturbing: the green fluid is Satan and he is trying to bring something more evil into this world.  It all comes to a head when the infected corner what remains of the team and put their plan in action.  Their lord will come and the church shall be his entrance. 

            The second film in Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy, Prince of Darkness is a flawed wonder.  It showcases Carpenter’s ability to create atmosphere and maintain it, adding to the tension systematically until the climax.  But, it is also filled with logistical and aesthetic choices that really hinder the enjoyment of anyone paying attention.  For every one thing this movie does right, it does three things wrong. 

            The story is a mixed bag, but mostly the mix is good.  There is a heavy influence felt from Quatermass and the Pit and Lovecraft stories.  The unknown evil that infects man and turns him against himself is a big part of this movie and it is terrifying.  What the movie gets most right is that sense of something greater than our heroes’ comprehension actively working to set itself free.  The art design and the special FX help sell the mood.  The mysterious fluid is shot convincingly, never quite becoming unintentionally funny.  The early kills are also executed well, with some painful looking stabbings and bug bursting.  Carpenter regulars Donald Pleasence, Victor Wong, and Dennis Dun all put in fine performances.  Pleasence could add class to anything and he plays the priest with a profound sense of religious terror.  Wong is cooky but authoritative with Prof. Birack.  And Dun is annoyingly smug, which works well for the comic relief character. 

            Not everything in Prince of Darkness works, if at all.  The dream sequences seem to be shot on VHS and purposefully grained.  For a dream from the future human resistance, you have to ask why it had to look like a poor quality broadcast.  It totally takes you out of the movie when this signal from the future looks like someone accidentally taped over the movie.  When the possessed people spit demon water out of their mouths, it is unfortunately funny.  With every infected shooting an evil squirt gun from their mouths, it gets hard to take anything else seriously.  The antagonizing infected people switch half way through the movie and not for the better.  After having some creepy possessed homeless people in the beginning, having some grad students is a real let down.  Finally, there is the issue of Carpenter’s story itself.  He chose to combine quantum physics and religion to derive the source of evil and create an overly complex mythology.  The mixture comes off as haphazard and pointlessly confusing.  Once people start talking about God and the Anti-God as aliens, the story takes a sharp dive in quality. 

            If you are going to watch Prince of Darkness, be prepared to have mixed feelings.  There are some great parts that chill and thrill with the best of Carpenter’s filmography.  And then there are parts that clearly needed more time and thought put into them.  This one is only for the Carpenter fans and enthusiasts of the genre. 

6 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Dead Alive

Dead Alive (1992)

Directed by Peter Jackson

Starring Timothy Balme, Diana Penalver, Elizabeth Moody, and Ian Watkin

            The year is 1957.  On the infamous Skull Island, a man is attempting to smuggle out some unstable cargo.  This man procured the wicked Sumatran Rat-Monkey, a creature of terrible legend.  When he is bit by the caged specimen, his local guides cut him up to stop the rat’s evil from spreading.  The guides do, however, collect the money for delivering the cage to a waiting airplane.  The monkey is the newest attraction at the Wellington Zoo in New Zealand.  Meanwhile, Lionel Cosgrove is in a bad spot.  His authoritarian mother controls his life.  This makes it hard for her when Lionel starts seeing the local shopkeeper’s daughter, Paquita.  Lionel and Paquita are followed by Mrs. Cosgrove on a date to the zoo.  While spying on the couple, Mrs. Cosgrove gets bitten by the displayed Rat-Monkey.  She immediately takes ill and physically falls apart.  When she dies, Lionel does not know what to do.  When she comes back from the dead, Lionel is even more lost.  As he hides his mother’s new condition, it gets harder to keep the secret from his friends and neighbors.  To make matters worse, Lionel’s sleazy Uncle Les starts going after the estate.  Soon enough, Mrs. Cosgrove breaks loose and spreads her disease to some random folk.  As the infected numbers grow larger, Lionel will have to finally stand up for himself and stop his mother from controlling his life. 

            Before Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson’s assent into mainstream movies, he made some pretty twisted flicks in New Zealand.  Of all these tasteless, deplorable, and sickening films, Dead Alive is probably his best known early work.  It was released under the title Brain Dead and then Dead Alive in North America.  This movie manages to blend slapstick comedy and buckets of gore better than Evil Dead 2.  Like a deranged Buster Keaton routine, there are some hilariously horrific moments in Dead Alive.  There is a scene involving Lionel and an undead baby-monster in a park that is laugh out loud funny.  The gore is way over the top, with sentient intestines chasing people and heads splitting open.  The battle scene in the main hall of Lionel’s house is one of the bloodiest bits of film I have ever seen.  If you ever wondered what a weaponized lawn mower could do to a crowd of zombies, this movie is for you. 

            The actors all make fine work of the lunacy that is this film.  Timothy Balme does a fine job of playing Lionel.  You can see the conflict in his face when his responsibilities to his mother get in the way of a normal life.  Elizabeth Moody has the part of overbearing mother down and has fun twisting it while undead.  The true scene stealer is Stephen Papps as Father McGruder.  Papps has a fight scene that is unexpected and extraordinary.  This movie has a lot of those kinds of moments.  Little things build up to create a series of scenes that are hard to forget, with the ending toping it all off.  The final confrontation between Lionel and his mother could make a Freudian scholar spontaneously combust.  It is too good to spoil here. 

            The effects are creative and wonderfully icky.  The humor is decidedly devilish and drenched in blood.  The enthusiasm for this project can be felt in every frame.  Dead Alive is the hidden gem of Peter Jackson’s career.  Go find it and take it in, then spread the disease and show it to your friends. 

10 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Dead Snow

Dead Snow (2009)

Directed by Tommy Wirkola

Starring Charlotte Frogner, Stig Frode Henriksen, Bjørn Sundquist, Ane Dahl Torp, Jenny Skavlan

            A friendly bunch of Norwegian medical students goes to the Alps for some drinking, skiing, and debauchery.  They are busy getting down when a mysterious hiker knock on their door.  He tells them about this mountainside’s history.  Nazis occupied through WWII, taking the precious valuables of all those who lived there.  The Nazi's greed is said to be so great, people still see them looking for all the gold the residents hid from them.  The students brush off the crazy story and get back to their partying.  Everything is fine until they find a box of gold hidden in the floorboards.  When the riches are discovered, all hell breaks loose.  The cabin is beset by undead Nazis, working as a unit to take down their meager defenses.  These friends will have to start fighting back or face the wrath of a long dead evil. 

            Nazi zombies, much like werewolf cowboys and vampire investment bankers, are the stuff of horror gold.  It is that perfect combination of antagonistic forces into one supreme monster.  Any movie with Nazi zombies, no matter how terrible it may be, gets brownie points for picking their source of terror.  The look of the aforementioned baddies is lovingly detailed.  The uniforms look authentic and authentically worn out.  The zombie makeup makes frostbite and rot look good.  And even though they look great, some of the scariest moments are when we do not see them.  The first fourty minutes or so treat the zombies like the shark in Jaws: we only see hints of them in the cold darkness of night.  Wirkola and company understand the inherent scares that can spring from the idea, but also see the wonderful comedic opportunities that it brings.  People cauterize wounds only to find undead things gnawing on sensitive areas, or have a prolonged fistfight end with a regiment of zombies waiting.  While not as slapstick as Evil Dead 2 or Dead Alive, Dead Snow has a wickedly dark sense of humor that never stops abusing its subjects. 

            The character work in Dead Snow is top notch.  These people are likeable and intelligent, recognizing early on that these things attacking them are zombies.  This inspires them to follow the movie rules and come up with some rules of engagement.  All the actors do a fine job, but Jeppe Laursen nails it as Erlend.  The movie nerd of the group, Laursen’s Erlend is both endearing and hilarious all the way to his horrific end.  Plus, he wears a Brain Dead t-shirt and that counts for something.  A word of warning to any potential viewer; Dead Snow is brutal with its characters.  It is not too much of a spoiler to say that things do not end well for anyone involved.  However, the ways these characters meet their ends are astounding.  The practical effects are nothing short of jaw dropping.  They are both a pleasure to watch and difficult to sit through. 

            Dead Snow is a new classic.  It is unrelenting, mildly disturbing, and amusingly twisted.  For the horror fan with a taste for the nasty, check this out and brush up on your Norwegian death-screams.  

9 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: From Dusk till Dawn

From Dusk till Dawn (1996)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Starring George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel, and Juliette Lewis

            Seth and Richie Gecko are running from the Rangers, the FBI, and many other law enforcement agencies.  To help slip across the Texas/Mexico border, they take a vacationing family hostage.  With everyone crammed into an RV, the group heads into Mexico and toward freedom.  The Gecko brothers are thrilled, all they have to do is wait at a bar for their contact to pick them up in the morning.  Together with the hostage family, they sit back and get ready for an evening of drinking and strippers.  Or so they thought.  Soon enough, the bar gets a little too rowdy, even for hardened criminals.  The bar staff and strippers want more than money.  They are vampires and every night they trap unsuspecting patrons inside to feast on them.  Once again, all the Gecko’s and the family have to do is make it until the morning. 

            This is not a great movie, but that is not the point.  The point is that From Dusk till Dawn is a lot of fun and not ashamed of it.  What starts out as a 70s road movie ends in a 70s horror flick.  With Rodriguez directing a script from Tarantino, this movie is everything you could want from their idea of a vampire story.  It combines all the scripting wonders of Tarantino with Rodriguez’s fast paced sensibilities to become a lean, mean, beast of a horror movie.  The dialogue is fantastic, with characters spouting memorable lines every minute.  Seth specifically gets a lot of gems which sound even better with Clooney’s cool barely controlled anger.  The characters have just enough meat on them to make their actions mean something and their deaths hurt.  You feel for these people after just a few minutes of screen time and that is an impressive feat for a splatter fest.

The vampire makeup and effects do the job just fine.  They are not the best in movies, but the look of them and how they die work.  The action is well staged and easy to follow without being oversimplified.  You can always tell where everyone is and do not lose track of the progression of the scene.  The actors all do a good job of bringing these people to life in a very unlikely situation.  Even better, the cast includes cult movie mainstays Fred Williamson and Tom Savini in memorable roles.  Special mention should go to Cheech Marin who plays three different characters in the movie.  All in all, this movie is a job well done. 

There is nothing really wrong with From Dusk till Dawn; it just does not want to be anything more than what it is.  You will not find social commentary, metaphors for us, or any other underlying sense of meaning in the story.  It is there purely to scare, thrill, and make you laugh.  Enjoy From Dusk till Dawn for what it is: fun. 

8 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Lifeforce

Lifeforce (1985)

Directed by Tobe Hooper

Staring Steve Railsback, Mathilda May, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Patrick Stewart, and Michael Gothard

            A joint space venture between America and Great Britain stumbles upon an alien vessel in the tail of Halley’s Comet.  They find that the ship is filled with the corpses of alien life forms that look like giant bats.  Three clear cases are discovered containing three naked humanoid aliens.  The astronauts take the cases aboard their ship and head back to earth.  When the ship stops its return entrance and remains drifting in space, another ship is sent to investigate.  They find the ship burnt out from an onboard fire and return the cases to earth.  Once the specimens are secured and ready for dissection, the female comes to life and sucks out a guard’s life energy with a kiss.  She escapes the British Space Center and creates a trail of destruction in her wake.  It is up to an SAS Colonel, a scientist, and the original mission’s commander to stop her from spreading space vampirism across the country. 

            Space vampires should make for an awesome cheese ball movie.  The concept is ripe with campy possibility.  There are plenty of wonderful little moments of terrible fun, but not nearly enough to cover its near two hour runtime.  Lifeforce misses a lot of that potential fun and replaces it with exposition.  The first problem is one that persists through all of the film: the movie likes to tell, not show.  There are images that should make a lasting impression on the viewer, like an alien spaceship dwarfing a shuttle in the tail of Halley’s Comet.  But that is not shown.  Instead, we see an away team of astronauts told by their shipmates through a radio that this was happening.  There is even one character whose sole purpose is to spout exposition and hypnotize the main character…into revealing more exposition.  For a movie about space vampires, it is awfully chatty.  Also, the villain of the film is a gorgeous naked lady who walks around as such for most of her screen time.  Your suspension of disbelief has to be thrown out the window to continue viewing Lifeforce.  It makes for some hilarious moments and turns the scariest part of the movie into a running gag. 

            The effects are handled well in parts, but most of the time they look very cheap.  The opening mercifully gets right into the alien vampires when a ship of astronauts finds a strange vessel.  The shots of the alien craft look fine until we see it a little closer.  The detailed surface is a good painted background, but it is unimpressive.  The whole scene is made worse when the astronauts go floating by.  It looks like four actors in space suits were told to stand very still while the camera panned, with the background added in later.  It is like watching paper cutouts being moved across a picture.  Plus, the vampire victims are some of the worst puppets and animatronics in film.  There is not even the illusion of it almost being real, they look like deranged Muppets.  The life force energy draining, the death-explosions of afflicted humans, and a space vampire ravaged London are the only special FX that look remotely good. 

            The thing to realize about Lifeforce is that it could have been fantastic if the filmmakers fully embraced the campy angle and played it up.  As is, there are far more awkward laughs created from it than there are scares.  If you skip all the exposition and just focus on the FX scenes, it is not that bad.  If you watch this movie with friends and turn it into a drinking game, it is the best movie ever made.  But as it is, Lifeforce will have you laughing at it within the first two minutes for all the wrong reasons.  Stay with it past the endless exposition, the constantly naked antagonist, and the idea of a functional British Space Program.  You will find a few hints of an interesting movie in here. 

5 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Near Dark

Near Dark (1987)

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Staring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton

            Caleb Colton (Pasdar) meets a pretty girl named Mae (Wright).  This attractive drifter gets along with Caleb just fine.  But then she bites his neck.  Caleb flees and as the sun rises, his skin begins to crackle and burn.  He is rescued by Mae and the group she travels with, a rag tag outlaw gang.  It is a small family of sorts consisting of the father figure Jesse (Henriksen), mother type Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein), creepy uncle Severen (Paxton), and little brother Homer (Joshua Miller).  They bring along Caleb and Mae shows him the ropes.  They kill, steal, and drain people of blood.  The more Caleb sees, the more he knows he has to leave.  But Caleb is like his captors now: he needs blood and has some particular issues with the sun.  How can he escape their clan when he is one of them?

            A vampire movie and a western blended together to great effect, Near Dark is an awesome experiment in combining genres.  All the troupes of both genres are at play, influencing each other and changing your expectations along the way.  There is an ambush at the gang’s hideout which follows a traditional western movie.  The authorities show up and start shooting into the building, catching the outlaws of guard.  But then the vampire movie comes into play.  The gang is not in a lot of danger with bullets, but the holes they make in the walls bring in sunlight.  Suddenly, the familiar stuff makes for something new.  All the action scenes are done very well, showcasing Bigelow’s expert handle on action. 

The scares are also handled very well.  There is a scene in a bar highlights what makes these characters terrifying.  They kill everyone in the place methodically, taking their time to thoroughly frighten each victim before the grisly end.  The cast does great breathing life into their characters.  The two shining examples would have to be Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton.  Henriksen’s Jesse is a confident hunter and leader, instilling fear in all around him.  Paxton is at his best with Severen, behaving like a raving maniac that feeds on scenery. 

            For the vampire enthusiast in search of something new, find a copy of Near Dark.  It takes the monsters seriously and remembers to give them a human face.  It balances action set pieces and scares quite well.  The word "vampire" is never mentioned.  Also, it has a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream.  All of that and so much more make Near Dark a must for any horror fan.

9 out of 10