Session Nine
“Fear is a place.”
Man, they got that tag line right. The Danvers State
Mental Hospital served as the Massachusetts locale for filming this absolute
gem of a horror movie from Brad Anderson. Peter Mullan plays the
struggling owner of Hazmat removal company bidding on the job to clean up the
old abandoned hospital which contains some horrifying secrets. Also part
of the team are David Caruso, Josh Lucas, Stephen Gevedon, and Brendan Sexton
III. As the team draws closer to their deadline for finishing the job,
things begin to unravel for the team.
David Caruso gets hacked on quite a bit for his work, but he
is perfectly cast in this role. Alongside Peter Mullan, both turn in a
great performances playing off each other as they struggle for control of the
group. This is one of the Josh Lucas’ earlier roles before he gained a
measure of stardom, and his philosophical and morally conflicted role as Hank
is dead on as well. There are plenty of unsavory undercurrents and
sub-plots between the characters to add some context to the unfolding events
that transpire. Director Brad Anderson really nails the atmosphere and
tension, and his sets and location almost serve as another actor in the film
itself. Lots of tension and skin-crawling moments in this one.
Check it out!
Jim's Comments:
Chilling movie, kind of reminded me of Kubrick’s The Shining in the way
that it was filmed and scored. Don’t see this one when you’re home alone like I
did.
Halloween
“The night he came home.”
In 1978, John Carpenter gave my generation the boogeyman.
Babysitting on Halloween has not been the same since. We were
introduced to Jamie Lee Curtis and the presence of Donald Pleasance lent a
credibility to the cast of relative unknowns. No doubt about it,
Halloween (with an assist from Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre) gave
birth to the slew of slasher films that invaded theaters and late night
television for the next decade, but what Carpenter managed to do was create an
effective film without gratuitous gore and left much to the viewer’s horrified
imaginations. This film had audiences quaking with a building tension and
dread, leaving us all to wonder what lurked within every shadow. A
classic that remains the standard bearer of the genre!
Jim's Comments:
Became the most successful independent film ever made. I’m not convinced
that this is the “classic” that many regard it to be, but there’s no denying
it’s effectiveness. It could be held up as a model for low-budget filmmaking
technique. My favorite part was when we see the station wagon that Myers is in
drive past the girls, stop, then start off again as if he is biding his time.
The Thing
“What you fear most is among you.”
After Halloween, John Carpenter moved on to do an Elvis TV
biopic, The Fog, and Escape from New York before releasing The Thing to an
unwary public. Kurt Russell headed a great cast for Carpenter, who went
away from his usual style by letting the special effects crew go wild.
Some of the most grotesquely horrific sequences in the history of movie
cinema are captured in this film. Combine that with the moodiness,
isolation, and paranoia that this film delivers the stuff of nightmares.
My parents actually claimed that I woke up with nightmares for about two
weeks following a viewing of this movie as a child. Yes, it is that
scary.
Jim's Comment:
A critical and box office flop when it was released in the summer of 1982,
this has gone on to become one of the most popular horror films of all time.
Rob Bottin fills the screen with one eye-popping makeup effect after another
(the “spiderhead” sequence still makes my jaw drop) and John Carpenter fills
the running time with a sense of menace. Unlike the 1951 original (another
great movie), these research scientists clearly don’t like each other.
1408
“Some rooms are locked for a reason”
John Cusack delivers a fine performance as the somewhat notable
author of books such as “Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Castles” and “Ten Nights in
Ten Haunted Houses”. His works seem to be a fruitless search for hope in
an afterlife, following the tragic passing of his daughter to sickness, which
has destroyed his marriage and left his own heart and soul barren.
His next work’s material leads him to the Dolphin Hotel in New York City
and the events that transpire are far beyond anything he would ever expect.
This was John Cusack’s show the whole way, as for much of the movie, he is the
lone character. Samuel Jackson provides some support as the hotel’s
manager very effectively. But clearly this is Cusack v one incredibly
evil room. The director (Mikel Halfstrom) amps up the tension, and the
repeated soundtrack use of the Carpenter’s song, “We’ve Only Just Begun” is
brought towards a terrifyingly maddening effect. Pull your loved ones
close when watching this one!
Jim's Comments:
Saw
this one a few years ago. I don’t remember much about it, but I remember liking
it.
The Fourth Kind
“There are four kinds of alien encounters. The fourth is abduction.”
“There are four kinds of alien encounters. The fourth is abduction.”
Generally not a fan of viral campaigns and found footage
movies, this one happens to be a very big exception. Milla Jovovich stars
as psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler. The setting is Nome, Alaska where a
series of disappearances have afflicted the frontier community. As Dr.
Tyler begins to see some similarities in her patients experiences during
hypnotherapy sessions, she digs deeper to find the ultimate truth of some very
sinister happenings in their quiet community. Parts of the movie
juxtapose “actual” footage with re-enactments from the actors in an attempt to
help the viewer believe all that they are seeing. And what we do see is a
very convincing and disturbing display of otherworldly phenomena. White knuckle
syndrome is sure to hit you at points of this movie. I am a sucker for a
good alien abduction story (loved Fire in the Sky too…check that one out as
well), but I also have to say that this is the best acting we have seen yet
from Milla. On top of that, Will Patton appears as Sheriff August and
Elias Koteas as Dr. Tyler’s colleague, Dr. Abel Campos. A superb cast,
and a thrill of a movie for sure, in spite of the panning it received from
critics.
Jim's Comments:
Well-acted and intense. I wasn’t a big fan of the “faked” footage vs. the “
real”---both cross-cutting and split screen. Such a presentation can’t help but
call attention to itself, with the effect of it taking me out of the movie. I’m
also not infatuated with the harsh, fast editing of many horror films today.
But you can do far worse than this film for a nerve-wracking 90 minutes. There
are some extremely intense sequences (my phone rang during one of them and made
me jump) and a somber and eerie mood is kept throughout.
Check back tomorrow for Jim's Top Five!
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