Halloween Guest Feature: Five Films That Scare… Rob Belote

by Rob Belote

I’m not the kind of guy who enjoys watching movies whose primary objective is to scare me. Some guys enjoy it, but I don’t. Some of the other lists you’ll see in this article series are going to have more of the traditional scary movies, but not from me. I won’t watch the Nightmare On Elm Street films or anything from the Friday The 13^th series. Exorcist? Out of the question. Does that make me less of a man? Perhaps, but I’m guessing the fact that I run GuysNation – which provides plenty of good sports, movies and hot women content somehow makes my avoidance of certain movies something you can overlook.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t seen some movies that scared me. Here’s a look at a few, leading up to my Top 5.

Castaway – can you imagine the horror of being a volleyball amidst all that sand… and there’s not enough people for a game? Talk about torture…

Three Amigos – not only were there Hollywood careers drawing to a close, but a small town in Mexico tricked them into fighting a warlord for them. Put yourself in their boots, throw in the insane singing bush, and the fact that they had to wear those outfits? I think you’re getting the picture here.

Basic Instinct – a smokin’ hot blonde wants you… but she just might be a serial killer, and you won’t find out until you have sex with her – during which she might stab you to death? Not to mention the lovely ex-girlfriend you have to see every day at work that still wants you, and it turns out she might have a killer streak in her as well. Where’s a guy supposed to get laid anymore?

In all seriousness….

Honorary Mentions:

Poltergeist – I can’t fully put this one on the list because I couldn’t watch all of it… and I don’t know which one of the films in the series I saw. What I can tell you is that when I was younger and I saw that creepy guy show up in the mirrors? I avoided looking into mirrors for like 2 weeks. Legit

Arachnophobia – Never saw it, never will. The commercials creeped me out more than anything you can understand unless you, like I, have arachnophobia. Just typing this out brings back terrible memories.

The Sixth Sense – after getting to the end of the film and knowing what’s going on, it’s not as scary, so it doesn’t actually make the list. The couple of times that things pop up and give the “jump” factor definitely catch me every time, and I find Mischa Barton to be scary in all of her roles.

Psycho – to this day, I don’t like showering if I can’t see past the curtain. On the plus side, that means when my wife showers…

#SilverLining

The Top 5 Films That Scared Me

 

5. Zodiac – the randomness of the killings, the scene in the basement where they were supposedly alone in the house, and the reality involved in the end of the film (which I won’t ruin for anyone) are just a bit too much for me.

4. Silence Of The Lambs – all in all, it wasn’t Hannibal Lector who scared me. Sure, there was a slight jumpiness involved in the ambulance scene with the dead skin mask, but that’s not what put this on the list. The final scene with Jodie Foster being followed around in the dark still haunts me a bit anytime the power suddenly goes out in my house and I’m walking around, searching for a flashlight.

3. Halloween – this was one of the films that cemented the idea for me that I shouldn’t watch this kind of movie. He’s a relentless killing machine who somehow has supernatural powers to be able to disappear? I can’t even hear the awesome theme song to this movie without getting seriously creeped out.

2. Scream – I have a love-hate with this film. It’s such an entertaining film that does a great job of including all of the common horror movie elements while overtly explaining them on screen. A few of the scenes are some of the most clever I’ve seen on film. And yet, the lack of supernatural element, the gore involved and the choice of killers that totally blew my mind? It just gives it a more REAL feel, which makes it feel like it could actually happen.

1. JAWS – for years after seeing this movie, I had trouble going into water. I’d stay in the shallow part of the ocean, and even sometimes in the swimming pool the theme song would hop into my head and I’d get to the side for an exit as quickly as possible.

Rob is the founder of GuysNation.com, which brings together writers from across the internet to provide content in areas that guys enjoy discussing: sports, women, movies, beer, women, television, wrestling, women, snacks, comic books, women, video games, women…  He’s also working on building an app to promote movie reviewers and predict which movies people will like based on common interests, and he’s currently looking for more people to be involved. You can follow GuysNation on Twitter (@GuysNation) and you can also like them on Facebook.

Jaws (1975)

by Steve Habrat

Throughout my film courses at Wright State, one of my professors (who will remain nameless in this review) argued that Steven Spielberg’s 1975 thriller Jaws was not an important motion picture but rather the bane of their very existence. He rarely had a kind word for the film (or Spielberg himself) and it was just downright perplexing. On the one hand, there could have been bitterness there because Jaws was such a commercial success, the first summer blockbuster marketed on a large scale and he was stuck on the smaller scale art house fare, reluctant to give anything with an explosion in it a chance. On the other hand, he could have just been in love with his own pretention and too stubborn to realize that Jaws had some very important things on its mind, mainly reflecting the Watergate scandal that gripped the nation at the time and exploring class relations among its three main protagonists. My professor liked to argue that Jaws, and the imitation blockbusters that followed, chose not to deal with real world consequences to the violent actions within the films themselves, glossing over the cold hard truth. He is wrong, folks. Jaws DOES deal with some real world grief, fear, and the heaviness in the heart of everyman hero Brody. And if what is going on underneath all the mayhem isn’t clever enough, Spielberg makes a film that is an absolutely flawless example of how to perfectly build suspense and follow through with a delivery that will have the viewer’s heart in their throat. Maybe Jaws isn’t such a piece of garbage after all…

Considering everyone and their mother have seen Jaws at least once, I won’t dive into too much detail about the plot. Jaws opens with a group of free-spirited teens partying on the beach. Two of the drunken teens slip away and decide they are going to go skinny-dipping. The boy passes out while in the process of undressing but the girl makes it into the water, only to find herself getting tugged around by an unseen predator that proceeds to rip her to bits. The next day, police chief Martin Brody (Played by Roy Scheider), who has just moved from New York City to the scenic New England island of Amity, finds the remains of the girl on the beach. The medical examiner concludes a shark killed the girl, prompting Brody to close the beaches down, just when the summer crowds are starting to pour into Amity. Overruled by the mayor, the beaches reopen with the promise that there is nothing to fear in the water. Pretty soon, two more people are dead and Brody quickly brings in Marine biologist Matt Hooper (Played by Richard Dreyfuss) to help find the shark swallowing tourists whole. Brody and Hooper join forces with a blue-collar professional shark hunter Quint (Played by Robert Shaw) and they board his rickety boat the Orca, setting out to find and kill the predator before more people are killed. They soon catch a glimpse of what they are going up against and they quickly realize that they are going to need a bigger boat.

No matter how tough you think you are, Jaws, which is based on Peter Benchley’s novel of the same name, has at least one moment that will send you flying out of your seat. Yes, it is a rollercoaster ride caught on film but Spielberg keeps us on our toes for the entire runtime of the film. He is aided by the iconic score by John Williams, which adds to the stomach-knotting tension found woven through Jaws. I dare you not to jump when you get your first good look at the aquatic beast that rears up to show off its pearly white fangs. You’d be lying if you said your pulse didn’t quicken when Brody, who is well aware a shark killed the girl, sits helplessly on the beach while people pour into the water for a cool-off. Each playful shriek has Brody inching closer to the edge of his beach chair. I guarantee that you mimic him each time you watch the film. All of this suspense is aided by the fact that we don’t see the shark until more than halfway through the film and this glimpse is one of those reveals where if you blink, you’ll miss it. By keeping the monster off screen, our imagination runs wild with, “How big is the shark?” “What does it look like?” “Are our heroes equipped to do battle with this monster?” Between the score, the concealment of the shark, and the slowly rising tension, Spielberg crafts a film that still sends people fleeing from it to this day while the brave ones who remain scream their heads off.

While Jaws may be a big budget studio picture, Spielberg refuses to dumb the entire project down and treat us like blithering idiots. Jaws is eager to address the Watergate scandal, which the country was still trying to wrap their heads around at the time. Tricky Dick’s resignation was still fresh in the mind of most American citizens and the fear that we may not even be able to trust our own leaders is touched upon in Jaws. Throughout the first half of the film, the honest everyman Brody is pitted against Mayor Larry Vaughan (Played by Murray Hamilton), a liar done up in flashy suits who jumps on television to reassure the edgy tourists that there is nothing to fear in the waters of Amity. He breathlessly tells Brody that he can’t close the beaches down because the citizens of the area depend on the money that the tourists bring in. As the body count racks up, the slippery politician is caught up in his fib that everything is okay and out of disgrace, he allows Brody to hire Quint to track down the shark. The film uses Vaughan’s dishonesty to infuse the film with some stinging grief that really sticks with the viewer. The mother of one of the victims approaches Brody and scolds him for opening the beaches when he was aware that there was a shark in the water. This confrontation shakes Brody to his core and his character is never the same again. He seems quieter and a bit dazed as a result, seeking refuge in a bottle of wine.

When Jaws isn’t making us feel Brody’s pain, Spielberg is allowing us to really get up close and personal with the three different protagonists. Middle class Brody wanted to escape the violence of New York and live a peaceful life only to stumble into more violence where he least expected to find it. His reveal is most certainly a reflection of the violence that America was still trying to recover from throughout the 70’s. Quint is a blue-collar WWII veteran who likes to poke fun at Hooper, who has a college degree and happens to be wealthy. The group bickers with one another and they have a hard time working together at first but they are able to put aside their difference over drinks and lengthy explanations about past experiences. Quint and Hooper, who butt heads the most, are able to level with each other by comparing their scars, first physically and then psychologically. Quint’s reveal is the standout, a deeply disturbing account of being stranded in shark infested waters at the tail end of World War II. Then, to celebrate their understanding, they engage in drinking and singing, only to be yanked away from bonding by their aquatic nemesis. This bonding sequence happens to be one of my favorite scenes in the film. I love it when Spielberg cuts to the outside of the boat and up pops our antagonist, a common enemy for the uncommon trio.

Perhaps one of the most influential thrillers next to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (my professor’s favorite film), Jaws hits gold with its equal parts action, adventure, horror, thrills, and comedy, all while giving us three characters we grow to deeply care about. Unlike Spielberg’s later work, Jaws doesn’t have such a happy ending to soothe us. He is bold enough to kill off one of the protagonists, a shock to someone who is only familiar with his projects that came in the wake of Jaws. He also doesn’t shy away from graphic violence, a staple that was immensely popular in the horror films of the 1970’s. To say that Jaws isn’t a classic film worthy of study just because it was the film that “invented” the summer blockbuster and was heavily marketed by the studio is ridiculous. While marketing Psycho, Hitchcock used a gimmick that forbid anyone into the theater once the film had started. This gimmick is okay but the marketing for Jaws was a major crime? Maybe I’m the only one who sees something wrong with that argument. Jaws remains one of the best American movies ever made by a big Hollywood studio, one of the best thrillers of all time, and the quintessential summer blockbuster. An undisputed classic that will make you never want to visit the beach or go into the water again.

Grade: A+

Jaws is available on DVD. It hits Blu-ray this August, a must purchase for any fan of cinema.

Bates Motel (1987)

Maude isn't the old lady in the window...

by Charles Beall

There is a little-known (and thankfully little-seen) TV-movie/pilot based on the Psycho franchise called Bates Motel.  This was to be an anthology-type series, much like The Twilight Zone, with plot lines revolving around the guests who check into a refurbished Bates Motel for the night.  The movie aired on NBC in 1987 and thankfully was never picked up for series.

This movie is BAD.  No, I take that back- “bad” would be a compliment.  This movie is UNWATCHABLE.  Yes, I know I have said I like to give movies a fair shake but this one does not deserve it.  The plot revolves around a freakshow named Alex (Bud Court) who inherits the Bates Motel from his friend in the asylum, Norman Bates.  When he is released, Alex wants to reopen his friend’s motel and help rebuild its image.  How noble!  With the help of a sincerely fucking annoying tomboy named Willie (Lori Petty), Alex proceeds to reopen the Bates Motel, but, Mrs. Bates (who is now named Gloria!  WTF?!) will have none of that.  So, “scary” shit happens, the motel is reopened, a girl tries to kill herself in the bathtub, blah, blah, blah.

As I stated, this movie is unwatchable.  Sincerely, this is a horrible, horrible movie that doesn’t even deserve to be aired on midnight television.  It doesn’t even deserve to be called campy- you have to earn that.  This movie does not deserve to exist; it is lazy, stupid, and an insult to the brand of Psycho.  You can check it out on YouTube if you’d like, but be aware, this is 90 minutes of your life that you will sincerely be pissed you wasted.

I’ll leave the last word to Anthony Perkins (from the excellent documentary The Psycho Legacy)…

Grade: F

Psycho (1998)

Sorry, Anne. Portia de Rossi is way hotter.

by Charles Beall

I don’t like Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Psycho, yet I respect it.  We can bitch and moan about the sanctity of remaking a classic and the hollowed ground Van Sant trampled on, but that won’t get us anywhere.  Psycho ’98  is an experiment, pure and simple, as to whether or not a great film can be remade shot-for-shot (albeit with a few teaks) and it still have the same impact, Van Sant has proved that it cannot.  His experiment was a success.

I find it hard to review this Psycho; it has the same plot as the original and has the same, well, everything.  In a necessary documentary on the DVD, Van Sant states that he looks at the screenplay of Psycho as any other classic written work that can be performed, much like a Shakespeare play.  The actors are all different, and I give him kudos for thinking out of the typecast.  However, we the audience are at an unfair advantage (and are unfair to judge Van Sant) because the original is so engrained in our minds that it is literally impossible not to compare this film with the original.

Sorry, Vince. You're just too cool for Norman.

So there you have it- I don’t know what to say about this Psycho.  As a film, it doesn’t work because we know and love the original; it is comparing apples to oranges.  But, you have to respect the experiment that Van Sant performed.  It is interesting, and quite indeed fascinating, but it just does not work.

Grade: D+ (but an A for effort!)

Tomorrow, we wrap up the Psycho franchise with a made-for-TV movie that I do not find fit to wipe my ass with: Bates Motel.

Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)

by Charles Beall

Collect three sequels, get the fourth one free!

There is a good movie in Psycho IV: The Beginning that is dying to get out, yet never does.  The premise (for the fourth film in a series) is promising: what was life with Mother like?  The problem is that there is a lot of good material here, but the film is so campy that you can’t take it seriously.

It is interesting to look at the progression of the story of Norman Bates through the Psycho series.  We know that the original Psycho is a more “serious” film“ (albeit with a lot of dark humor), as is Psycho II, and to an extent, Psycho III, but this installment walks a fine line of seriousness and camp, falling into the latter category.  This is a shame, because with Psycho IV, we have a screenplay by Psycho’s original screenwriter Joseph Stefano, another spirited performance from Anthony Perkins, and enthusiastic direction from Mick Garris.  What went wrong?

The film starts off with a solid concept.  Late night radio host Fran Ambrose (the amazing and underrated CCH Pounder) has a show dealing with boys who kill their mothers, and of course, a now married and “rehabilitated” Norman Bates calls in.  This is an instance where the movie flails between the serious and camp.  There is potential and Pounder and Perkins take their roles seriously, yet the direction of Garris seems to take the performances to a campier level.  Through his phone call, we meet Normans’s mother (the hot Olivia Hussey) through narratives about their life together, with young Norman played by Henry Thomas of E.T. fame.  I give credit for Garris for choosing Hussey to play Mrs. Bates; she is gorgeous and not at all the image one would think of for Mrs. Bates.  However, Hussey camps up her performance and I believe it is because of Garris’ direction.

That isn’t to say that Psycho IV isn’t well-made.  The film is bursting with color, giving an idea of life back in the era at the time of the original film.  But, much like Norman Bates himself, this film is at war with itself.  It doesn’t know how to treat its material, and instead of being firmly on one path, the movie straddles the serious and the campy, leaving this viewer satisfied to an extent, but disappointed at what could’ve been.

Grade: C

Tomorrow…ugh, Gus van Sant’s Psycho remake.  Although, this is a pretty sweet trailer.

Psycho III (1986)

by Charles Beall

I'd like you to take a guess where my hands are right now.

Psycho III was a mandatory sequel, much like all the Halloweens, Friday the 13ths, and Nightmare on Elm Streets of the mid- to late-1980s.  However, mandatory does not equate to necessary and Psycho III (as well as its predecessor) does not escape this label.  However, if we are going to have it, we might as well make it a good one and I believe that there was one person who had this belief: Anthony Perkins.

As I stated in my review yesterday, Psycho II wasn’t entirely a bad movie, per se, but an uneven one.  So when the call to Tony Perkins came from Universal about the plans for another installment of Psycho, I believe he thought that it should be done right this time around.  And who better to direct a film such as this than Norman Bates himself?  The end result is actually a film that stands on its own (albeit in the shadow of the original) and I feel the credit is all due to the direction of Perkins.

What we have in Psycho III is an amateurish, yet brave film that attempts to stand above the crop of slasher sequels it is a member of.  The film picks up about a month after the events in Psycho II, but even before we get into the mundane and quiet existence of Norman Bates, we are treated to an interesting prologue.  In fact, Norman Bates doesn’t show up until about fifteen minutes into this 90-minute film.  Over a black screen, we hear the words, “there is no God!” screamed out by a distressed nun named Maureen (Diana Scarwid).  She is kicked out of the convent after a Vertigo-esque incident and hitchhikes with a guy named Duke (Jeff Fahey), with the two of them (via separate means) eventually ending up at the Bates Motel.  Also thrown into the mix is a pesky reporter (a poorly-written part played too over-the-top by Roberta Maxwell) who is on to Norman and the suspicious occurrences that happened in Psycho II.  Again, like its predecessor, Psycho III has a handful of main characters that drive the film’s story and underlying themes without being too overbearing.

Bitch, I'm taking Psycho to another dimension...the third dimension (as in making an attempt to make a decent movie, none of that gimmicky crap that involves a third movie in an unnecessary franchise being in 3D).

An interesting theme that is, I believe, the main drive of this film is the theme of redemption.  Maureen is trying to redeem herself after the events at the beginning of the film and Norman is trying to redeem himself from everything he has become.  They are both trapped in their lives, and much like the connection Norman had to Marion in the original, he has one with Maureen and what is unique about Psycho III is that it expands on the human connection we saw between Norman and Marion.  Norman realizes this connection and tries oh-so-hard to develop it and break free, but, alas, someone is holding him back…

Yes there is gore because this is the mid-80s and a horror film is not allowed to not have it.  Yet one may be surprised about how tame Psycho III is and how legitimate it tries to be as an exploration of the mind of Norman Bates.  Those who are killed are not the main characters (at least in the run-up to the finale) but are rather filler for the demands of audiences who thirst for buckets of blood.  Take out the murder scenes and what you have is, at its core, a psychological character study.  As I stated earlier, Anthony Perkins is really the only one who knows Norman Bates, and much like his on-screen counterpart, it was hard for Perkins to break away from this typecast.

Psycho III is incredibly personal; Norman is wrestling with his identity and trying to break away from his past.  However, he will always be Norman Bates.  I believe Tony Perkins felt the same way and tried to convey his innermost feelings about playing Norman Bates through the character of Norman Bates.  What comes to mind when you hear the name Anthony Perkins?  Yep, Norman Bates.  Both the actor and the character are trapped, for lack of a better term, with this persona and whatever they try to do, they can never break free.

Wait, so tell me this again. You're going to remake the original in twelve years and have Vince Vaughn fill my shoes? WTF, dude!

The ending to Psycho III, while at face value is corny, is actually quite tragic.  Norman cannot break free of Mother.  Anthony Perkins can’t break free of Norman Bates.  Norman is humanized in this film to an extent that we have never seen a villain in film played before.  There is a force that has taken hold of him, but he just isn’t strong enough to break away, and when you think he has, Mother just shows up again.

Psycho III is the best of the Psycho sequels for the sheer fact that it was directed by, essentially, Norman Bates.  Perkins feels for the dilemma Bates is in he because he too is typecast in the real world as the psychopath.  This unique aspect is what makes Psycho III work regardless of its flaws (and there are quite a few).  On the surface, it is seen as just another horror sequel, but deep down, it is actually a moving film about trying to break free of the demons that haunt us and the redemption that so many aspire to receive, but ultimately fail to achieve.   All of the credit goes to Anthony Perkins who, unfortunately, did not direct another film; he was a legitimate talent behind the camera and it is unfortunate that he was unable to direct again.  However, I hope that viewers delve into Psycho III and sincerely listen to what Perkins is trying to say.  One may see a slasher film, whereas I see an autobiographical piece of a character and the actor who plays him.

Grade: B+

Tomorrow, we milk the Psycho franchise even more with the made-for-TV film Psycho IV: The Beginning to find out what Mother was really like (she was actually kind of hot!)

We Hope Your Stay Is Enjoyable…

“A boy’s best friend is his mother…”

Charles hangs out with Norman Bates all this week and we sure do hope he lives to tell about it. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Night of the Living Dead (1990)

by Steve Habrat

Before the unnecessary 1998 remake of Psycho, a film that certainly was not begging to be remade, the 90’s saw the altar of George Romero desecrated by make-up artist turned director Tom Savini’s utterly pointless carbon copy of Night of the Living Dead. To this day, every time I sit through it, I can’t help but ask “why?” To be fair, I suppose we are still asking that very question today, as we’ve seen every classic remade or re-envisioned. Astonishingly, Romero is listed as an executive producer here, further making this finely tuned machine even more enigmatic especially today due to his outward disapproval of the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. Tom Savini’s Night of the Living Dead slips up from its perfect execution, maddening tweaks to the story, and, well, the use of color. The film is vacant of any real terror and it seems touched by Hollywood, especially the electric guitar and synthesizer score that distractingly bellows over the arguing between the iconic characters. What made the 1968 Romero classic such a landmark was it’s rough around the edges presentation, never shying away from what it really was: an unapologetic horror film with attitude. Savini misunderstands that the film itself posses the anger and the characters were there simply to guide it along its path. Here, Savini makes every character angry, while the studio grabs the film by the hand and leads it along, leaving it’s furious independent sensibilities behind to be eaten by the make-up heavy undead.

Night of the Living Dead ’90 has no place in the era that it was made. It wasn’t a time that was gripped by panic, fear, violence, and uncertainty. Stripped off all its political and social relevance, there is no reason for the dead to walk other than for Hollywood to showcase their latest special effects. The storyline for Savini’s contribution is basically the same, a dysfunctional brother and sister, Johnnie (Played by Bill Moseley) and Barbara (Played by Patricia Tallman), take a road trip to visit their deceased mother’s grave. Upon arrival, several ghouls instantly attack them and the irritating Johnnie imitation bites the dust. Barbara frantically makes her escape to an remote farmhouse where she bumps into zombie killing juggernaut Ben (Played by Tony Todd), testy Harry Cooper (Played by Tom Towles), Harry’s cooperative wife Helen Cooper (Played by Mckee Anderson), and the young Tom (Played by William Butler), and his frizzy haired girlfriend Judy (Played by Katie Finneran). The bickering group attempts to board up and defend the farmhouse from the restless corpses who lurk outside. The group soon falls victim to their own unwillingness to work together, forcing them to make a desperate final effort to survive until morning.

About the only contribution this film makes to the annals of the horror genre is a profession approach to the source material versus what Romero, then a novice filmmaker, produced in 1968. Everything here is a notch more ornate, which makes the events seem preposterous and inane. Some of the zombies border on demonically possessed human beings much like what was found in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. They wear cloudy eye contacts and have yellowed skin. Some have their stomachs sewn up while other animated corpses loose their garments due to the slits cut into the back of the clothing so they could be easily dressed. It looses the “they are us” echoes that resonated through the original. The film attempts to drive the “they are us” idea home, giving the line to Barbara who slips it in at climax. Romero’s zombies were never this intricate, making the ghouls assaults all the more unfathomable. What has happened to these individuals? These are our families, friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. Here, they seem like filler background characters. They are the furthest things from “us”. The ghouls resemble Halloween decorations you toss out into your front yard.

If the fact that you are sitting through the remake of Night of the Living Dead is maddening enough, the acting will send you through the roof. No one in this film brushes a subpar performance, with characters that find themselves frenzied who shouldn’t be and characters making drastic turns in their personality. Barbara, who in the original film was sent to a state of shock and never fully returns, snaps out of her catatonic state and becomes a pistol packing sex symbol. It’s awkward. Ben is all melodramatics, shrieking to the heavens when he dispatches a contorted zombie heap. Why would he be kneeling out in the front yard shouting at the sky? You’re going to attract more zombies, you dumb ass. Ben also appears to be looking for a fight in this version. I preferred him as the calm and collected individual who pushed back only when he was pushed far enough. Helen Cooper remains largely the same given she is only a minor character and Harry is still his difficult self. He insists everyone stay in the cellar and refuses to help board up the windows. Judy and Tom, the confused youths caught in the middle of the warring pairs, act like dimwitted hillbillies. Judy is always blubbering yet somehow she pulls it together to drive the getaway truck to the gas pump on the property. Don’t get me started on the alteration made to how the truck is engulfed in flames. In 1968, it’s an accident. In 1990, it’s just plain stupidity.

Night of the Living Dead 90 is amusing for all of the references to the 1968 original. The alterations still make reference to the original film, the most obvious is the scene where Harry and Helen’s daughter Sarah (Played here by Heather Mazur but made famous by Kara Schon) rips her mothers throat out with her teeth opposed to dispatching her dear old mum with a cement trowel. As she eats at her mother’s neck, blood splatters across the cellar wall where a cement trowel hangs. It doesn’t help that Sarah resembles as large colonial doll done up like a vampire. It’s not nearly as traumatic as the original death scene. The film also relies on more gore to keep the horror fans glued to the action. There are more infected wounds on the zombies, more gunshots to the head that end with a shower of brains leaking down their foreheads, and charred bodies are munched on. The original only showed brief glimpses of the savagery, mostly leaving the truly vile stuff to the imagination. Savini, who was a photographer in Vitenam and did gore effects for Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead opts the sadism to be up close and personal.

This film is largely forgotten for a reason. I’d bet money on the fact that many do not know a remake of the Romero classic exists. This film lacks any attention-grabbing camera work, every shot remaining immobile. Romero may have been a new kid on the block in the filmmaking neighborhood, but he filled his work with artistic camerawork and some fairly bizarre Dutch tilts at inimitable times. Romero knew how to creep us out and make his film an atypical nightmare. There is none of that here and it’s as if Savini was reading from a “How To” book on filmmaking. It’s a simple wide shot, medium shot, close-up, repeat. He never takes a risk and the only brush with risk is the nod to Dawn of the Dead at the end, in which Barbara joins a merry gang of hillbillies hunting the ghouls and making a party out of it. The film is also sluggishly edited together, another departure from Romero’s classic. He applied frantic, pithy editing that bordered on visual nails on a chalkboard. It honestly made me squirm the first time I saw the original. It added another layer of intensity. This film wouldn’t know intensity if it bit it on the ass. Night of the Living Dead ‘90 is flat, artless, and minimal, banished to the murky depths of horror for good reason. Hopefully, it never rises up like on of its undead protagonists to see the light of day or the black of night again. Grade: D-

Scream 4 (2011)

by Steve Habrat

There is something intoxicating about a director who helped pioneer a certain genre way back in the day once again jumping behind the camera. I don’t care if he was making Alvin and the Chipmunks 6, if George “Night of the Living Dead” Romero is promised to direct, it’s a must see for me. But with the horror genre, it becomes something more of an event. It morphs into a holy pilgrimage for fans of the genre. Back in 2005, George Romero emerged from his crypt and served about a hearty dose of gore and stuck it to the hoards of wannabe zombie directors with Land of the Dead. Sam “Evil Dead” Raimi conjured up some demonic spirits in 2009 with the superb throwback Drag Me To Hell. There is just something about the living legend that gets me inebriated on excitement. That’s what I felt when I entered the theater to see Wes “Nightmare on Elm Street” Craven’s newest addition to his Scream franchise, Scream 4. If we stop to review Craven’s resumé, we will find it to be quite hit or miss. Name me a person who saw 2005’s Cursed and I’ll be pretty impressed. Or even last year’s 3D opus My Soul to Take! Yet the man has also provided the horror genre with the grungy grind house flick Last House on the Left and the clammy mutant extravaganza The Hills Have Eyes. Just to remind you, those came out in the 1970s. He’s also the man who is responsible for what I believe to be the most overrated horror film ever made, Nightmare on Elm Street, but that is an entirely different conversation all together.

It’s been eleven long years since Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson have crafted a self-aware stabbathon know as Scream for horror fans. I’ll be frank, it was long overdo, as horror is in such a sorry condition and the Scream films always seemed to be a cut and slash above the rest. So where did we end up in those eleven years that ol’ Ghostface wasn’t stalking a pretty young face around an empty house? Well, we are stuck in a perpetual cycle of reboots, remakes, and torture porn. Thank you, Saw. Funny enough, Scream 4 sets it sights on the Saw franchise in the first five minutes of the movie. It seems like Craven and Williamson were fed up with them too. But the film manifests itself into something else entirely: A brutal and bitter meditation on the current zeitgeist and Hollywood’s refusal to give something new to audiences. It’s just recycle and reuse according to Scream 4, but it also presents some spiffy little homages to the films that started it all and a true master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.

The film commences with one of the worst opening bloodbaths of the series and then jets off to Woodsboro, the place where all the mayhem began. Sidney Prescott (Played by Neve Campbell, who is aging remarkably!) has returned home after eleven years to promote her new self-help book, Out of Darkness. She bumps into her now married old pals Gale Weathers (Played by Courtney Cox, also aging remarkably!) and Dewey Riley (Played by refined thespian David Arquette). Gale is a has-been journalist struggling with writers block and Dewey is now the dim sheriff of Woodsboro. Upon Sidney’s return, someone has donned the Ghostface mask and is taking aim at Sidney and her little cousin, Jill (Played by Emma Roberts). Of course, Jill and her group of friends are keen on horror films and the new rules to survive them. She gets lots of help from the horror-obsessed tomboy Kirby (Played by Hayden Panettiere, with what could be the worst haircut since Anton Chigurh stalked helpless victims in No Country for Old Men.) and two film nerds who run the film society at their high school, Charlie and Robbie (Played by Rory Culkin and Erik Knudsen).

Scream 4 ends up being a mixed bag. The film relentlessly globs on the self-awareness to the point where it becomes sickening for the audience and it’s more interested with being a comedy. There is barely a scare to be found this time around. Craven, however, lived up to his title of the Master of Suspense and does provide some brief moments of pure tension. But the film makes the grave mistake of confusing tension for scares and the tension is fleeting. The film’s most fatal error is the fact that it spouts off the formula for the new generation of horror films but rarely utilizes them. The characters constantly spew hollow mumbo jumbo about how the sequels and the remakes have to go a step further than the original. That’s all fine and dandy if Scream 4 actually took things a step further. Instead, it plays it safe and rarely strays from the original formula.

While the self-awareness weighs the film down, Scream 4 further self-destructs from it’s misguided profundity. It thinks it has something intelligent to say about social media, but instead it just becomes shameless plugs for iPhones. It’s clear that Williamson had absolutely no clue how to actually incorporate it into the film. The film further suffers from the fact that it has no idea what to do with Dewey and Gale. They appear to have only been incorporated to please the die-hard fans of the series, as they are given little to do. Gale stomps around spouting off flimsy one-liners about how she still “has it”. Dewey is reduced to rushing from crime scene to crime scene while looking horrified. The film also implies that they are having problems with their marriage—problems that are never revealed or that we could actually care about. The most glaring problem with the characters is Panettiere’s Kirby. She has to be the most unconvincing horror buff on the face of the earth. She rattles on about Suspira and Don’t Look Now when she seems like the type of girl who would know more about The Grudge 2.

For all of its flaws, Scream 4 gets a few things right. The film has some truly gruesome death scenes that are the best since the original film (This is a Scream film, people!). One scene in particular has a character get stabbed in the forehead and then trying to flee from Ghostface, who calmly walks along side watching the character bleed out and die. Unfortunately, the horror of the scene fizzles out with a crappy one-liner. The film does prove that it can run with the new line of splat pack gore fests. Italso comes equipped with snappy nods to classic horror films. One scene pays blood-spattered tribute to Hitchcock’s Rear Window and another scene tips it’s knife to Psycho. One character is even named Anthony Perkins! One scene in a hospital is eerily similar to the original Halloween II. This entry is probably the most successful in capturing the spirit of the original 1996 film that started all the slashing and gashing. The film refuses to conceal the bitterness from Craven and Williamson, as one character snarls to another, “Don’t fuck with the original”. It’s a line of dialogue that elicits some giddy snickers but also mirrors some frustration that I’m sure Craven has felt, as three of his classics have been remade for modern audiences.

To be fair, Scream 4 is a descent time at the movies. You will not walk away disgusted you just spent nine bucks on the movie. It provides some fun moments and it’s a blast to see Campbell chased around by the iconic killer again. I’m glad Craven and Williamson had the good sense to keep her front and center in all the bloody chaos. The outrageous finale also makes up for some of the film’s weaker moments. Scream 4 is a viciously average time at the movies and if Ghostface should return, as I’m sure he will, let’s hope that Williamson tweaks his script and shrinks his focus down, as this is an overly busy scattershot of a product. GRADE: C+

 

Scream 4 is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Prevues of Ghoulish Coming Attractions…

Psycho (1960)

Over the next few weeks, we will be posting the trailers of all the horror films that are contenders in our Halloween Day Horror Movie Review. YOU control what fright flick will be chosen…

Do YOU want to see Psycho reviewed on Halloween? If so, head over and vote in our Halloween poll. Click on the poll link under Category Cloud and Michael Myers will direct you from there. All votes must be cast before October 20th. Anything after will not be counted.

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