Knight at HOME at the Movies
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A Month of Halloween Movie DVDs Keeps A-Comin' as Day of the Dead Approaches!
Three more titles for the witching season -- some little known but decidedly atmospheric movies worth picking up.
Three more titles for the witching season -- some little known but decidedly atmospheric movies worth picking up.
How perfectly delightful to recommend three more creature features on none other
than Friday the 13th! As frequent readers of my recommendations may know, I’m
not a big fan of gore and certainly not the excessive amount (dare I pun by calling it
"overkill"?) to be found in the current crop of slasher pictures. But that’s not to say
that I’m completely adverse to it – when it’s used within the framework of a great
story or for comedic effect (as in the Evil Dead pictures). But I’m not one for
gratuitous gore – the sort of gore porn that’s to be found in the current crop of
slasher pictures ("overkill" again). I’m much more intrigued (and frightened) by a
movie that works on my imagination. These pictures often seem to move too slowly
for audiences groomed on scenes of bloody violence that occur every ten minutes
like clockwork in most slasher pictures. But there’s nothing like an undercurrent of
unease to get me worked up and scared and I'm not alone because there are a LOT
of them. Pictures like The Haunting, Silence of the Lambs and The Ring are strong
examples of the atmospheric horror genre. Let’s Scare Jessica to Death
recently released by Paramount Home Video on DVD is another.
This little seen 1971 gem revolves around Jessica (Zora Lamphert in her one
starring role), her husband Duncan and Woody, their single male friend. After
recovering from a serious nervous breakdown, Jessica and Duncan along with the
help of Woody have relocated to a large farmhouse in the Connecticut countryside
which they are planning to restore. They encounter Emily (Mariclare Costello), a free
spirit and transient who has been staying at the farmhouse after finding it empty.
Charmed by her hippie ways, they ask her to stay but soon Jessica is seeing things
and hearing voices and each time the bewitching Emily seems to be part of the
cause. Then one day while swimming in the nearby lake something grabs Jessica
underwater and from that point, all bets are off. Is the farmhouse haunted? Is
Emily a ghost? Are the nearby townspeople involved? This creepy tale provides no
answers and ratchets up the atmosphere as it moves to its open ended conclusion.
Lamphert gives a tour-de-force performance as a woman questioning her sanity and
she is ably supported by Costello. There’s also an undercurrent of lesbian eroticism
between the two women that adds another level of mystery to the movie. The DVD
doesn’t include any extras.
Neither does The Other, another example of atmospheric terror, out on DVD from
Fox Home Video. Based on the debut bestselling novel of the late gay actor and
novelist Tom Tryon (he also penned "Harvest Home" and "Crowned Heads"), the
1972 movie was a rare foray into the realm of horror for To Kill A Mockingbird director
Robert Mulligan. The story focuses on the adolescent Perry twins, Holland and Niles,
who race about the large Connecticut (again!) family farm during the Depression
getting into all sorts of trouble. Unstated but present is the burgeoning sexual
awakening of the blond teens that seems just one of the unspoken bonds between
them. Holland and Niles are doted on by their reclusive mother (Diana Muldaur) and
their German grandmother, (the great stage actress Uta Hagen in one of her rare
film roles) who has taught them what they call The Game – which involves an out of
body experience (an example of which is beautifully photographed). But it quickly
becomes apparent that this is a Cain and Able story – a twisted East of Eden – in
which one of the twins is REALLY, REALLY bad while the other does what he is told
(there are also elements of the Leopold and Loeb relationship between the two).
Soon the pranks and misuse of The Game lead the entire extended family
(including a young John Ritter) into a nightmare from which they won’t soon
awaken. The eerie story has plenty of twists and turns that modern audiences will
quickly guess and again moves at a methodical pace but this supports the fine script
and acting. The Other is also strongly helped out with a marvelous score by the late,
great Jerry Goldsmith.
The great Boris Karloff also played good and bad twin brothers. This was in the little
known but very watchable The Black Room from 1935. This period piece, a sort of
horror riff on The Man in the Iron Mask, finds the good brother at the mercy of his
black hearted mirror self and before you can say “Mary Kate and Ashley” finds
himself tossed into the locked room of the title, a triumph of the art department with
its torture pit. There’s plenty of other gothic atmosphere in this Creature Features
staple. The movie is the part of the 2-disc Icons of Horror – Boris Karloff set
from Sony Pictures. There are three other pictures included. The first two are classic
B-pictures in which Karloff plays a mad scientist trying to discover the secret of life.
The Man They Could Not Hang from 1939 and Before I Hang from the following year are
similar in plot and tone and aren’t really scary but they’re nice little programmers
and the kiddies (of all ages) will enjoy them. Less remarkable is the not particularly
funny comedy The Boogie Man Will Get You from 1942 in which Karloff costars with
Peter Lorre as innkeepers who involve their guests in their mad experiments but one
spoiled pumpkin out of the patch shouldn’t scare fans of the classic B&W creepers
away. No extras.
than Friday the 13th! As frequent readers of my recommendations may know, I’m
not a big fan of gore and certainly not the excessive amount (dare I pun by calling it
"overkill"?) to be found in the current crop of slasher pictures. But that’s not to say
that I’m completely adverse to it – when it’s used within the framework of a great
story or for comedic effect (as in the Evil Dead pictures). But I’m not one for
gratuitous gore – the sort of gore porn that’s to be found in the current crop of
slasher pictures ("overkill" again). I’m much more intrigued (and frightened) by a
movie that works on my imagination. These pictures often seem to move too slowly
for audiences groomed on scenes of bloody violence that occur every ten minutes
like clockwork in most slasher pictures. But there’s nothing like an undercurrent of
unease to get me worked up and scared and I'm not alone because there are a LOT
of them. Pictures like The Haunting, Silence of the Lambs and The Ring are strong
examples of the atmospheric horror genre. Let’s Scare Jessica to Death
recently released by Paramount Home Video on DVD is another.
This little seen 1971 gem revolves around Jessica (Zora Lamphert in her one
starring role), her husband Duncan and Woody, their single male friend. After
recovering from a serious nervous breakdown, Jessica and Duncan along with the
help of Woody have relocated to a large farmhouse in the Connecticut countryside
which they are planning to restore. They encounter Emily (Mariclare Costello), a free
spirit and transient who has been staying at the farmhouse after finding it empty.
Charmed by her hippie ways, they ask her to stay but soon Jessica is seeing things
and hearing voices and each time the bewitching Emily seems to be part of the
cause. Then one day while swimming in the nearby lake something grabs Jessica
underwater and from that point, all bets are off. Is the farmhouse haunted? Is
Emily a ghost? Are the nearby townspeople involved? This creepy tale provides no
answers and ratchets up the atmosphere as it moves to its open ended conclusion.
Lamphert gives a tour-de-force performance as a woman questioning her sanity and
she is ably supported by Costello. There’s also an undercurrent of lesbian eroticism
between the two women that adds another level of mystery to the movie. The DVD
doesn’t include any extras.
Neither does The Other, another example of atmospheric terror, out on DVD from
Fox Home Video. Based on the debut bestselling novel of the late gay actor and
novelist Tom Tryon (he also penned "Harvest Home" and "Crowned Heads"), the
1972 movie was a rare foray into the realm of horror for To Kill A Mockingbird director
Robert Mulligan. The story focuses on the adolescent Perry twins, Holland and Niles,
who race about the large Connecticut (again!) family farm during the Depression
getting into all sorts of trouble. Unstated but present is the burgeoning sexual
awakening of the blond teens that seems just one of the unspoken bonds between
them. Holland and Niles are doted on by their reclusive mother (Diana Muldaur) and
their German grandmother, (the great stage actress Uta Hagen in one of her rare
film roles) who has taught them what they call The Game – which involves an out of
body experience (an example of which is beautifully photographed). But it quickly
becomes apparent that this is a Cain and Able story – a twisted East of Eden – in
which one of the twins is REALLY, REALLY bad while the other does what he is told
(there are also elements of the Leopold and Loeb relationship between the two).
Soon the pranks and misuse of The Game lead the entire extended family
(including a young John Ritter) into a nightmare from which they won’t soon
awaken. The eerie story has plenty of twists and turns that modern audiences will
quickly guess and again moves at a methodical pace but this supports the fine script
and acting. The Other is also strongly helped out with a marvelous score by the late,
great Jerry Goldsmith.
The great Boris Karloff also played good and bad twin brothers. This was in the little
known but very watchable The Black Room from 1935. This period piece, a sort of
horror riff on The Man in the Iron Mask, finds the good brother at the mercy of his
black hearted mirror self and before you can say “Mary Kate and Ashley” finds
himself tossed into the locked room of the title, a triumph of the art department with
its torture pit. There’s plenty of other gothic atmosphere in this Creature Features
staple. The movie is the part of the 2-disc Icons of Horror – Boris Karloff set
from Sony Pictures. There are three other pictures included. The first two are classic
B-pictures in which Karloff plays a mad scientist trying to discover the secret of life.
The Man They Could Not Hang from 1939 and Before I Hang from the following year are
similar in plot and tone and aren’t really scary but they’re nice little programmers
and the kiddies (of all ages) will enjoy them. Less remarkable is the not particularly
funny comedy The Boogie Man Will Get You from 1942 in which Karloff costars with
Peter Lorre as innkeepers who involve their guests in their mad experiments but one
spoiled pumpkin out of the patch shouldn’t scare fans of the classic B&W creepers
away. No extras.
