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Scarecrow - Notes from the cornfield

This is where you'll find the brain squeezin's from Buzz DJ "SCARECROW'.

B E W A R E !

FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
Just think about how influential this film is. The look of Frankenstein's laboratory. The hunchbacked assistant. Boris Karloff and his subsequent career. The reveal of the monsters face. The girl in the water. The burning windmill. The "It's alive!" line. Truly one of the greatest films ever made.
Re-makes and appropriations may come and go, but nothing else will ever come close to having the same sense of wonder, horror and awe that James Whale captures here. Like Frankenstein himself, it's the feverish product of a twisted genius mind. And I love every minute of it.'Young Frankenstein' obviously owes its very existence to it (and just think how memorable THAT film is). Every monster to crawl forth onto the screen since then has had to live in the monsters shadow. No other monster has ever captured that peculiar mix of revulsion and pity in the same way. I can still hear Colin Clive howling at the storm-lashed skies and proclaiming himself agod now. As a cinematic icon of horror, the monster has no equal. Horror was born here and not even Dracula has the same impact.The Hammer remake was a good attempt to re-invent the legend, but you may as well try to re-invent the wheel. The DeNiro version has no right to even share the same name. It has a thousand times more intelligence and style in one long shadow than 'Van Helsing' had in its whole, bloated 2 hours. Because this is a true love and respect for the genre and the characters and not just a special effects showboat.What's particularly outstanding about 'Frankenstein' when you think about it, is that these guys were true pioneers. Cinema was still in its infancy and the likes of James Whale were the real trail-blazers. Influenced by German expressionism and 'The Golem', 'Frankenstein' is simply a marvel to look at. It has a richness to the black and white photography, the sets are stunningly rendered, the stormy night skys and the burning windmill are works of art and the make-up is without peer. Nothing has looked as shocking, as terrifying and as pitiable since. Especially at the same time.Karloff is majestic as the monster poking out the monsters humanity underneath his homicidal rage and Clive as the original mad scientist has yet to be bettered in his role either. But the true genius is Whale, creating a whole new shorthand for how horror movies should look. It's a blue-print still being copied today but with far less effect. And considering the kind of journey that the movie takes you on, it's astounding that this clocks in at just over an hour. Maybe they did know more about making movies in those days, as it never feels crammed or hurried.
Forget 'Citizen Kane', 'Frankenstein' has surely got to be the most influential film ever made. Ask anyone about the look of 'Citizen Kane' and you're likely to get some puzzled looks and shrugs of 'don't know'. Ask those people about the look of 'Frankenstein' and everyone is likely to nod their head in understanding. A magnificent work of art from some magnificent artists.

DRACULA (1931)
It is the most famous and best remembered of all Bram Stoker adaptations, and yet the 1931 “Dracula” is also the film that ventures furthest from its source material. The film has been criticized over the years for straying so far from Stoker’s classic novel (it instead depends mostly on the popular stage play of the 1920s), and yet these critics ignore the simple fact that on its own, the movie works. Oh, it more than works: it became a milestone, one of the most important movies in film history, kicking off an entire era of screen horror, leaving us with images that are forever burned in the pop culture subconscious.
Consider that in 1931, there were no supernatural horror movies being made. All thrillers at the time were given cheap finales to explain away the mystery. Not so “Dracula,” which stated quite boldly that the title character is indeed a blood-sucking, undying, mist-and-bat-turning-into, creature-of-the-night vampire. Audiences, of course, loved it, and quickly Universal worked overtime to follow their smash hit with a string of genre films that would later be hailed as a golden age, the era of the Universal Monsters. (And, let’s not forget, other studios were falling over themselves trying to duplicate Universal’s success.)While the film ushered in an entire new genre of filmmaking, it also worked to make a cinematic icon out of its star. Bela Lugosi, the Hungarian actor who also played the title role on stage when the show came to Broadway in 1927, would sadly never reach the heights of greatness promised in his film debut (although he would come very close in a few Universal follow-ups, most notably “The Black Cat”). And yet his performance here as the vampire count is one of the film’s main ingredients - remove Lugosi, and the movie collapses. Lugosi played the count not like the disturbing monster of “Nosferatu,” but instead as a seductive foreigner, an exotic man of mystery whose allure is impossible to escape.Indeed, it’s the sheer foreignness of Lugosi’s delivery that draws us in. Listen to his line readings, the cadence he brings, the way he places his accents. When other actors let loose with the immortal line “children of the night, what music they make,” it sounds like anyone else reading that sentence. When Lugosi says it, his rhythms are slightly off (perhaps intentionally, perhaps due to his shaky grasp on the English language); he puts an emphasis on odd words, like the “they” in “what music they make,” and the effect is an uncanny blend of seduction, mystery, and otherworldliness. Which is exactly how we’ve come to see the Dracula character over the decades.Main ingredient number two is cinematographer Karl Freund. Freund, who previously photographed such silent classics as “Metropolis” and “The Man Who Laughs” (and who went on to direct two of the best horror films of the 1930s, “The Mummy” and “Mad Love”), provides the film with its unforgettable atmosphere. His camera captures the creeping mist and dark shadows of Dracula’s castle, the chilling darkness of the boat to England, the terror of the sanitarium, and so on. And while his camera remains stationary for most of the film, it does get mobile for a handful of shots, some of the movie’s best, most notably that introductory shot of Dracula’s castle and the lonely coffins found within - it’s this shot that best sets up the cold, unnerving ambiance that is to follow.Side note: consider how we never see Dracula rise from his coffin. We see the coffins open, and in the next shot, Lugosi is simply there, standing, staring us down. The jump cut disturbs our logic, and by throwing us off, we’re set on edge. A simple storytelling device, and a highly effective one.In fact, “Dracula” works almost entirely on deceptively simple filmmaking tricks; the most famous is perhaps the repeated shot of Dracula’s face that finds a bolt of light falling across his eyes. As if Lugosi’s stare was not hypnotizing enough, Freund lets the actor’s face sit in shadow, only his eyes peering out at the audience, a glance that shoots right through us and allows us to feel the power of his character’s gaze.The final main ingredient in “Dracula” is director Tod Browning. The veteran filmmaker and longtime Lon Chaney collaborator (“London After Midnight” and “The Unholy Three” are among the pair’s most well-known works) brings to his third sound film an eye trained on years of silent moviemaking. While the script itself sticks closely to the stage-bound source material, which leaves the story as a series of one-room scenes, Browning elevates the material by allowing for an operatic look to the picture. Browning’s grandiose imagery is most effective in the early scenes, where Dracula’s castle (hats off also to Charles D. Hall’s art direction) allows for instant chills, but he also finds the right moments later on in the London scenes as well, such as the story’s visits with the demented Renfield (played by the outstanding Dwight Frye). And in the scenes that require little visual thrill (such as the interior scenes involving Dracula and Edward Van Sloane’s Van Helsing character), Browning finds the right tempo for his cast, working with the natural pacing of the stage play, letting the characters deliver their dialogue without feeling stagebound by the setting. Here is a director who finds so much with which to work in his material, and he uses every inch of it for maximum effect.Adding to this effect is the choice, not an uncommon one in the early days of talkies, to present “Dracula” without a musical score. The only music found here comes during the credits (as well as during a concert scene); the rest of the film is filled only with cautious dialogue and the occasional sound effect. The result is eerie, the silence drawing the viewer in even more, always on edge. It’s as if the silence itself was a character in the film. Again, deceptively simple.(In 1999, Universal released a version of the film that featured a newly produced musical score from Philip Glass. While the score itself is a good one, putting music in Browning’s film actually takes away from the ethereal nature of the film. Universal’s DVD release of “Dracula” allows the viewer to pick from either soundtrack; I highly recommend going with the original. Leave the Glass score as a curiosity piece.) You may have noticed that I have not yet discussed the plot of “Dracula.” There are two reasons for this. First, most of you are already familiar with the story, if not in detail, then at least with the basics, and repeating such information would only waste time. Second, let’s face it, plot is not of major importance to “Dracula.” In this telling of the story, the plot is merely something to get us from one set piece to the next; it’s paper thin and presented almost as an afterthought. This is a film that is more concerned with mood, with style, with characters - how they act, not what they do. By story’s end, we’re interested in this strange battle of wits between the man of good and the creature of evil. We’re interested in the otherworldly sexiness (and the fear that comes with it) found in Dracula’s seduction of Mina (Helen Chandler). With “Dracula,” it doesn’t really matter how we get there.
Modern audiences may have a hard time getting through “Dracula.” The pace is unlike anything found in today’s films, the horror is far more subtle, the entire tone is subdued, requiring more attention. And yes, I’ll admit to chuckling at the rubber bat technology when I first saw the movie years back. But once you get into the rhythms of the film, you’ll discover a masterpiece. Browning’s film was unlike anything that had ever come before it, and while it inspired many followers, the trio of Browning, Freund, and Lugosi keep “Dracula” from being unlike anything that’s come since. This is gothic chills at their finest, and one of the greatest horror pictures ever created.

HALLOWEEN (1978)
Fifteen years to the day after six-year-old Michael Myers brutally murders his older sister with a butcher knife on Halloween night, he escapes from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium and returns to the little town of Haddonfield to terrorize a teenage babysitter and her friends. The one man who truly understands just how dangerous Myers is, his psychiatrist, is the only person that stands between evil and the unsuspecting residents of the quiet community. It’s a bare bones plot that has been borrowed, imitated, and flat-out stolen by hundreds of other films of varying quality since, yet it remains as simple and powerful today as it was in 1978. Imagine yourself alone, on a dark night, looking out the window at a quiet street you’ve traveled a million times before. Now imagine someone on the other side of the street, someone just far enough away that you can’t quite make out their face, standing like a statue, staring back at you. Imagine the terrifying realization that death is in your neighborhood, right outside your door, and you’re the one it’s come for. This is the essence of HALLOWEEN. In the wake of six direct sequels (and one unrelated entry) which liberally add and subtract elements to and from the mythos at will, it is often debated by fans and film historians just what the real appeal of Michael Myers is. Is he an immortal, elemental force or a creepy voyeur in a mask? Is he supernatural or just deranged? Does his enduring power to terrify stem from his role as faceless, indestructible, mythical boogeyman, or from the notion that the murderer behind the mask could be your next door neighbor or your Chemistry teacher or some other ordinary person you might meet on the street and never suspect of being capable of truly evil acts? The answer is both, and much more. Michael Myers is death in whatever form it may take, the darkness within us all running free in the most innocuous of settings (and one where, ironically, it quite often rears its ugly head in the real world) - suburbia. Despite its reputation as the seminal “slasher” film, more than half of the original HALLOWEEN involves Michael slowly and deliberately stalking Laurie Strode and the people closest to her. His presence is utterly pervasive, the Shape (as the character is billed and referred to in the script) appearing in the background, foreground or just outside a window or door in virtually every scene involving the protagonist and her friends right up until his climactic attack on Laurie. Carpenter uses the image of his killer in much the same way that Steven Spielberg used the murky ocean in JAWS and James Cameron would later use futuristic technology in THE TERMINATOR – no matter where our heroes go, no matter what they are doing, death is always right there with them, watching, with the potential to strike at any second. The quiet tension of the first hour or so of the film is every bit as brutal and relentless as the final act of the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, but without any of the frenzied bloodletting or outright sadism. Though we don’t get a really good look at Michael until the end, we are never allowed to forget his presence for even a second, because we can physically see him throughout the entire narrative. This is an incredibly effective technique that few filmmakers who have attempted to cash in on the success of HALLOWEEN have had the skill or cinematic savvy to duplicate. Dean Cundey’s masterful cinematography is perhaps the most unsung virtue of HALLOWEEN, yet it is an absolutely essential element of the horror. An abundance of wide shots of still, mostly empty streets lined with ordinary houses create an ominous sense of dread that heightens the terror further when the Shape appears somewhere in the distance or in the immediate foreground to shatter the normalcy of the tableau. The camera often tracks characters as they move, allowing Michael to slip silently in and out of shots with such subtlety that the viewer might miss him if they aren’t watching closely. Nearly every frame of the movie could pass for a point-of-view shot (and many, including the fantastic opening involving young Michael and his sister, are just that), making Cundey’s camera almost a silent participant in the action and placing the audience right there in the middle of every scene. It would be impossible to overstate the value of this innovative shooting style to a film which is built on the fear of evil invading the safety of our everyday lives. The acting and characterization are as vital to the film’s realism as the quaint Pasadena locations. Jamie Lee Curtis (PROM NIGHT, HALLOWEEN H20) has played a lot of roles since becoming a star in the wake of this film, but her wistful turn here as the repressed Laurie is probably still the finest work she’s ever done on celluloid. She is natural and sympathetic without being clichéd, due both to an understated performance and a well-crafted script by Carpenter and Debra Hill which addresses her social awkwardness in a credible fashion. Rather than surrounding their heroine with a lot of partying adolescent stereotypes and having her embarrass herself in contrived situations (as most teen-oriented films would), the writers allow her angst to come out through brief, believable conversations with her close friends (essayed well by P.J. Soles and Nancy Loomis, respectively). In doing so, they perfectly capture the feeling of isolation common in real teenagers and expertly set the stage for her one-on-one, killer-and-victim showdown with Michael in the final reel. Donald Pleasance is magnificent as Doctor Sam Loomis, the psychiatrist who has been trying for years to convince his superiors that the killer is too dangerous to be treated like a normal patient. Fans have always held Pleasance in high esteem, but even his biggest proponents don’t seem to appreciate just how vital his performance is to the success of the original HALLOWEEN. Often wrongly characterized as “crazed” or “obsessed” (due in large part to his portrayal of the character in Parts 2 and 4-6), Loomis is actually just completely terrified by the notion that his long-catatonic patient is running loose. Mask, music and camerawork are all important to Michael’s ability to terrify, but it is the genuine dread in Pleasance’s delivery that really convinces the viewer that Myers is more than just your average escaped lunatic. The good Doctor tells us that what has escaped from Smith’s Grove is pure evil, and he is so convinced of it himself that we have no choice but to believe him. In fact, the variety of fears displayed by the central characters is as crucial to the cultural impact of HALLOWEEN as the central object of their terror. Young Tommy Doyle sees Michael as the boogeyman, a manifestation of phantom noises under the bed and strange shadows in the closet. Laurie views him as a sexual predator, the embodiment of her own fears about the opposite sex and intimacy. Loomis, having seen him up close, knows that the murderer exemplifies the deepest, most sinister depths of the human soul, and perhaps even supernatural evil itself. As noted, Carpenter intended Michael to be all of these things, and the different outlooks of these characters from different generations allow him to touch deep-rooted phobias across a broad range of viewer demographics. Whether you are a naive child, an awkward teenager or a cynical adult, Michael Myers represents something that you are afraid of. Though much of the movie’s strength lies in its real world approach to horror, Carpenter weaves some powerful supernatural subtext into his boogeyman. Michael moves like a phantasm, appearing one second and vanishing the next. He is seemingly indestructible, getting up time and time again after being stabbed, gouged, shot and knocked off a second-story balcony. When he skewers Bob to a wall with a knife through the belly, the victim’s upper body remains upright, defying gravity. Michael appears to open locked doors without keys, open and close windows and doors without touching them, and even make bodies suspended in dark corners fall out at just the right moment to terrify his next victim. Later slasher films would mimic these elements for cheap shock value (and to open up the possibility of sequels), logic be damned, but Carpenter and company use them in the original HALLOWEEN to quite deliberately lend mystic mystery to their killer. Death is no respecter of natural laws, and it cannot ever die. There are some tiny flaws in the film. Early on, Laurie mentions that the house where she will be babysitting is just “three houses down” from the residence where Annie will be, yet the two homes are later shown to be right across the street from one another. Though it is the last day of October in Illinois, the leaves on the trees are clearly green, and we only see a smattering of leaves falling to the ground. It also doesn’t get dark until after 6:30 PM, unlikely in late fall in the Midwest. Loomis is staked out in front of the Myers’ house for hours before he notices the station wagon Michael returned to Haddonfield in parked right on the same street, less than a block away. Observant viewers may also catch a few other technical gaffes, such as visible equipment or the occasional fleeting glimpse of a crew member. These are all very minor gripes, though, because they ultimately do not undermine the horror or effectiveness of the movie in the least. For a low-budget film directed by a relative newcomer to the industry, HALLOWEEN is a remarkably seamless and professional-looking endeavor. 31 years and countless viewings after its initial release, HALLOWEEN remains the only horror film I’m still hesitant to watch alone late at night. From its unrelenting score to its nightmarish antagonist, it still strikes the same kind of primal chord that PSYCHO and JAWS hit before it, while at the same time having an edge on those films in that it brings pure, heart-stopping terror into the realm of the mundane, everyday world in which most Americans live. To be eaten by a killer shark or hacked to death by a cross-dressing motel manager (or decapitated by a hockey mask-wearing mongoloid, or ground up into chili meat by inbred cannibals, or impregnated by an acid-dripping alien, etc., etc., etc.), you would presumably have to leave the safe confines of your own living room. Michael Myers, on the other hand, could be right outside your window anytime, standing in the freshly cut grass and staring right in at you while you live your life, oblivious to the evil mere feet away. You can stay out of the ocean or avoid road trips through rural Texas, but what if an inhuman monster found its way to your hometown? The ad slogan for the film informs us that HALLOWEEN is “The Night He Came Home.” That sums it up perfectly. What could be scarier than finding death on your own doorstep? Nothing, as far as this critic is concerned.

Scarecrow's Bloody Blog
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