Black Gate

House on Haunted Hill (Allied Artists, 1959)

In 2019 (aka “the Time Before”) one of the quintessential horror movies of our time celebrated its 60^th birthday. The House on Haunted Hill (1959) starring Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Alan Marshal and Julia Mitchum was not only critically acclaimed in its own time, but still has an 88% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes today. Filmed for $200K over the course of 14 days in 1958, the film has netted over $1.5M and counting, thanks to video rentals and streaming. Ironically, its 40^th anniversary remake in 1999, starring Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen cost $37M to make and has only netted $43M to date worldwide, making the original House proportionally the clear winner with fans.

What you may not know is the many ground-breaking elements of the film which still influence entertainment and promotion today. To start, director William Castle was the original master of guerilla marketing. His technique first appeared with his movie Macabre (1958) but due to its success, it was replicated with House a year later. Mr. Castle offered $1,000 Lloyd’s of London insurance policies for those brave enough to watch his horror film. However, if anyone with the policy by the died of fright during the movie, that person’s next of kin would be paid $1,000. In addition to this, Castle had select theater owners station nurses in their lobbies and park hearses outside. Castle himself said it was a shame no one actually expired during his movies as it would have been exceptional publicity. Today, directors such as J.J. Abrams (Super 8) and J.A. Bayona (Jurassic World; Fallen Kingdom) have taken such gimmicks even further to promote their films. Just Google the name of the movie and “guerilla marketing” to see the examples.

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I could not leave the topic of early aughts nightmare-inducing films without bringing up this one. As rife with symbolism as it is horrors, Guillermo Del Toro’s 2007 dark fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth is a simple story which explores complex and sometimes violent themes about human morality and free will. When I Googled “symbolism of Pan’s Labyrinth” I literally got back 35K responses, including several university thesis papers.

If you skipped this one because it is filmed entirely in Spanish, with English subtitles, I urge you to give it a go. Del Toro went to great lengths to avoid making this a main-stream English language film, including turning down several big-budget studios. He personally created the subtitles to ensure his meanings were translated perfectly, and gave up his entire salary, including back-end points, to see this film make it to production. The result is a visually stunning fairytale, which has been twisted for an adult audience. For example, after the first week Pan’s Labyrinth played in theaters in Mexico and Spain, signs were put outside the venues warning the audience about the graphic violence and urging parents not to bring children to see it.

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Last week’s robust discussion about the 2002 horror flick Ghost Ship, got me to thinking about the look of the genre in the early 2000’s. A peruse through Rotten Tomato’s top horror movies of the 90’s reveals a trend toward monsters in all their iterations. Werewolves, vampires and demons were primary themes, so it is interesting to see the change brought on by the new decade. With the new millennium came introspective horror of the psychological kind. Collider’s list has titles like Saw, American Psycho and The Orphan where the frights came from our fellow humans. Even Ghost Ship had the mortals onboard being the victims of their own human failings. Maybe what we learned by the end of the 20^th Century is that the human psyche is the scariest monster of all. So, when The Cell popped up on one of my feeds on its 20th anniversary this month, I thought it was worth looking at it again – especially if you haven’t seen it.

When The Cell hit theaters on August 18, 2000, audiences either loved it or hated it. There was literally no middle ground. On one hand Roger Ebert awarded The Cell four out of four stars, while dozens of other critics took issue with the subject matter and violence, not to mention the sympathetic slant the plot has toward an entirely deranged serial killer.

Now, 20 years later, The Cell, with its insane costume design, over-the-top production values and an Oscar-worthy performance by Vincent D’Onofrio, is well worth a look.

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Call it a phobia, but I am completely creeped out by things which seem too big to be allowed. I have no explanation for it, but as an example, I nearly drove off the road on a rainy night when I looked up to see a huge satellite dish looming over the intersection from behind the walls of a military installation in California. My heart also leapt out of my chest when I got an up-close look at a Kimoto Dragon (stuffed of course). And because this is something that unnerves me in real life, it stands to reason it is one of my favorite frights on the big screen. It’s probably why I liked Cloverfield, and Kong: Skull Island, and its most certainly part of the reason I liked Ghost Ship (2002) when it pretty much sunk at the box office.

If you haven’t seen it, a salvage crew discovers a cruise ship, lost for over forty years, floating lifeless in a remote region of the Bering Sea. When they attempt to bring it back to shore, they begin to discover there may still be “passengers” on board. Without spoiling anything, I will tell you that as horror movies go, it’s fairly predictable, though the twist at the end is pretty clever.

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There is no director for whom I have more mixed feelings than Ridley Scott. On one hand, he is responsible for some of my favorite movies of all time such as Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator. On the other, he is also responsible for several films on the rock bottom of my list such as Kingdom of Heaven, Exodus; Gods and Kings, and the two Alien prequels, Prometheus and Alien Covenant – neither of which I will likely ever forgive him for. I wish I could easily delineate and say as long as Scott sticks to science fiction, he’s generally good, but no joy.

So, it is with mixed feelings that I dig into his latest project, Raised by Wolves.

Originally created for Turner Network Television (TNT) the project was recently moved to the streaming service HBO Max as a 10-episode miniseries. This marks Scott’s debut on the American small screen as he is personally directing the first two episodes, while acting as executive producer for the rest.

Scott has done a fair job of keeping the plot of Raised by Wolves a secret. From what I’ve learned, you think you’re getting the gist from the trailer and the official synopsis, but from what I can piece together, the storyline goes much deeper and darker.

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Before I tell you about this, I need to make a couple of pre-emptive statements:

Yes, I know it’s only August.

You’re right. Halloween isn’t for weeks and weeks.

Yes, I’ve actually left the house when the sun is up / it’s warm / it’s summer, etc, etc.

Now that we have those items out of the way, I can gleefully report Netflix is definitely with me when it comes to launching their fall lineup, the moment there is a whiff of 70-degree temps in the air. And their first offering of the scare season is a doozy.

Premiering on September 16^th, The Devil All the Time is based on a book by the same name, by author Donald Ray Pollack. Telling the story of a religious community who takes their faith to often horrific extremes in rural Ohio, it was actually shot in Alabama over a short, but apparently very intense 10 days. Filmmaker Antonio Campos (Simon Killer, 2016’s Christine) is a little secretive about the nature of the film’s plot, but there is no hiding the star-studded nature of the cast. The film is brimming with big names including Spider-Man‘s Tom Holland, It Chapter One and Two‘s Bill Skarsgård, The Lodge‘s Riley Keough, and Pet Sematary‘s Jason Clarke with Robert Pattinson (The Lighthouse, The Batman) and Mia Wasikowska (Stoker, Crimson Peak).

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