Look At Me Damien, It's All For You: The Omen (1976)

As I am approaching the actual date of Halloween I am realizing that there are so many real classics of the horror genre that I have completely failed to watch, particularly some of the works from the seventies, and a whole ton of the films from the eighties.  As such I am going to try to sneak a few more of them in in these last few days before Halloween, and who knows maybe next year I can undertake an entire new set of works and focus specifically on some of the major holes in my viewing list.  The Omen is one such film and I was quite excited to undertake the work, because something about Gregory Peck dealing with demonic children just seemed to be a great concept to me, however, I must admit The Omen was considerably underwhelming when the entire product comes together.  Sure the famous moment of the nanny committing suicide and some of the frantic cinematography lends nicely to a horror vibe, but it is clear that the film has become somewhat dated and despite my adoration for Gregory Peck, it is clear that he phoned this performance in, but I may just chock it up to his age at the time of performance or a lack of general direction to the film.  While I can applaud the movie for being transnational in its concept, it manages to take a great concept of the devil's child and blow it way out of proportion to the point where some brilliant commentaries on evil within politics, the philosophical nature of faith and the problem of assuming the necessity of a child are outdone by laugh inducing beheading scenes and one of the worst replicas of a baby skeleton that has ever been produced.  Of course, The Omen is not all bad, it is generally a better than average movie and I can certainly see why it has accrued such a reputation, I was blown away by at least a few scenes and their cinematography and the message they are attempting to posit is quite ambitious, unfortunately the sum of all The Omen's parts just does not equal what it could have.  For a film about a demon child, Damien factors in quite little into the plots movement.

The narrative of The Omen begins in Rome with the birth of child for husband and wife Robert (Gregory Peck) and Katherine Thorn (Lee Remick).   Tragedy strikes though when Robert is informed that his baby has not made it through the night and has died, but that the church had another child born at exactly the same time that could easily pass as their own.  Not wanting to destroy his wife's happiness Robert agrees to take on the child and the two raise a new boy who they unknowingly name Damien (Harvey Spencer Stephens).  During Damien's fifth birthday party his then maid yells from a window of their house that everything she does is for him and then proceeds to jump off the balcony with a noose tied around her neck.  This dark and unusual moment leads to a spiraling of equally bizarre events beginning with the emergence of Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw) who claims to have been sent by "The Agency" to take care of Damien, along with her comes a scary dog who was by no coincidence preset during the suicide.  Robert is then approached by Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton) a maniacal Irish priest who warns Robert that if he does not seek salvation that he will die.  A photographer who works closely with Robert catches images of this priest at another event only to discover that whenever he takes his picture an unusual black line pierces through his body, something that eventually foreshadows the priests death by impalement.  It is during this point that Robert realizes he is dealing with something larger, particularly after his wife's pregnancy and eventual miscarriage are visioned by the priest prior to his death.  This realization leads Robert, along with the photographer, who fears for his own life, on a quest to find the origins of Damien's mother, a quest that takes them all about biblical locations and through the deepest bowels of satanic attachments to the church.  The climax is intense and suggests some rather intense things about the state of global politics and would be extremely brilliant were it not for the films roundabout methods.

While I mentioned the political commentaries in this film multiple times, I am more concerned with the films statements on birth and motherhood as they relate to Damien's presence.  One almost feels bad for Damien throughout the movie because the ways he reacts to being near a church or the defeated looks he gets on his face when the animals at the zoo flee at his presence almost seem to suggest that the young boy is merely a vessel in a greater evils actions.  Even the one scene in which you can attach direct blame to Damien for a violent act is set up in such a way as to suggest that it was an outside force literally causing the boy to break out of his orbit and attack his mother.  Perhaps this set up suggests that it is not Damien to blame for the actions, but, instead; Robert for thrusting the child in a situation in order to placate a worried Katherine.  It is obvious that these grandiose issues of demonic presence and evil afoot would have been avoided were Robert to simply be honest with Katherine and tell her that their child had not made it, particularly since we learn he is murdered.  Furthermore, the emphasis that Katherine have a second, sort of replacement, child alongside Damien adds another layer of issue in that one can assume that Robert and Katherine's answer to fixing their familial issues is not to address the issue at hand, but instead to add another body to the problem.  Ultimately, of course, this is completely undermined by the films end as not only is the new child exacted from the situation, but (SPOILERS) so are Katherine and Robert, leaving the troubled Damien to exist in a world in which he is destined, arguably, against his will to do evil.  If only the Thorn's had not been so focused on having a child all would be well.

Key Scene:  It is hard to top the iconic suicide scene, but the cemetery scene sure comes close.

I am not completely enthralled with this film, but to tell you not to watch it would be to ignore its incredible historical presence, and I am sure the bluray looks way better than my watch instantly version did anyways.

Death Has Come To Your Little Town, Sheriff: Halloween (1978)

From that ever iconic musical score to the commentary on repressed sexuality, right down the the awkward placement of jack-o-lanterens a revisitation of Halloween was a long time coming for myself. I have not seen this film since I was quite young and I only recalled it being incredibly scary, particularly the heavy use of POV shots to help intensify the actions and chases undertook by the films iconic killer Michael Myers.  Now that I have a far deeper understanding of cinema than the one I did as a child, I can better understand exactly why this film is hailed as one of the horror cinema classics.  From a psychological example the films combination of great editing, pulse heightening music and just the right amount of stagnant pausing camerawork to intensify discomfort in the viewer.  Not to mention that it is an incredibly cinematic film, particularly in its early use of solar flares, something that has become all to common and nearly unbearable in contemporary movies.  I had not realized how low of a budget Halloween was recorded on initially, because when watching it John Carpenter manages to make a film that seems far more intense and grander than many of the films from the same period that had far grander budgets.  It always amazes me when I find out that films that not only I love, but many other people seem to enjoy, suffer from almost falling to the wayside in the politics of film production, this was certainly the case for Halloween which as conversations show was, ultimately, funded purely on the realization that Carpenter was quite passionate about making the work.  Long sentences aside, one can quickly pick up on Carpenter's passion in the work as it is a seemingly flawless film, everything happens so perfectly and the suspense rises and falls with such magnitude that one would be hard pressed to find a reason not to love this film.  It is Halloween for Christ's sake it is a classic of horror and cinema in general.

Halloween begins with a point of view shot of the murdering of a woman named Judith Myers (Sandy Johnson) on Halloween night of 1963, only to quickly reveal that murder was undertaken by a young boy, Judith's brother Michael, the younger version played by Will Sandin.  The narrative then flashes forward to a few days before Halloween in which one Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Peasance) along with the assistance of a nurse returns to an insane asylum where the older Michael Myers (Tony Moran) is staying to bring him to a local penitentiary as part of his sentence changing.  Unfortunatley, while stopping off at the asylum it is evident that not all is right when one sees many of the patients roaming the fields, in a matter of moments it is revealed that Michael Myers has also broken free and manages to steal Dr. Loomis's car and drive away.  It is then revealed that he is returning to his hometown to continue his murderous rampage.  At this point we are introduced to the narrative's heroine Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) a chaste young woman who has decided to spend her Halloween babysitting local kids, instead of boozing and sexing it up with her less than respectable friends.  After a request by her father to drop a key off at the old Myers house a newly returned Michael begins to follow Laurie, assuming she has some attachment to the location.  In a creepy game of cat and mouse Michael incessantly follows Laurie about town and eventually around the house where she is babysitting, killing off her friends one by one, interestingly enough while they are all engage in sexual activities.  By the films closing scenes it is left to Laurie to fend off Michael, an act that is incredibly intense because Laurie assumes victory on more than one occasion only to realize that the pyschotic killer is seemingly immortal.  With the eventual help of Dr. Loomis they are able to exile Michael from the house, however, upon going to find his body outside it is revealed that he is gone yet again, setting up nicely for god knows how many sequels have followed.

Despite the many dismissive statements on the part of John Carpenter the sexual nature of the violent acts within Halloween cannot, and should not, be overlooked.  From the very onset of the film, Michael kills his sister after she has engaged in sexual activities with her boyfriend, suggesting some level of repressed sexuality that inevitably acts out in violence.  Sure if this were the only case of this occurring in the film then perhaps it could be seen as a misreading, but one only needs to continue analyzing the murders in the film, his killing of the nurse after exposing her breasts adds a layer of sexuality, and while he stripped the man for his work outfit, it, nonetheless, suggests a sexual action.  Furthermore, the victims he is able to kill throughout the narrative are inevitably engaged, had been moments earlier, in sexual acts.  Perhaps this triggers a particular form of violence within the killer that makes him punish those engaged in that which he has particularly negative connotations.  It then is no coincidence that he is incapable of punishing, via death, Laurie, because the film suggests her virginity and as such he has no ground for murder thus explaining her ultimate survival.  Furthermore, it always adds a lovely layer of phallic imagery to Michael's possession of  knife, as well as a means of observation in Laurie's refusal to possess the knife for more than a few fleeting moments.  With this sexual commentary in tact, perhaps the most interesting scene arises when Laurie attacks Michael Myers with a coat hanger, an attack that is ultimately botched...I will let you delve into the possible metaphors with that act.  So while I am at no liability to say with certainty, it is hard to believe that Carpenter did not fully realize the suggestions latent in his film.

Key Scene:  There is a segment where Michael Myers is following Tommy (Brian Andrews) in a car and the camera simply pans back and forth from the backseat of the car...it is perfected cinematography if ever a moment existed.

I bought the bluray on a whim a couple months back and have just now cracked into it and was more than amazed by its quality, the film pops nicely on the screen and makes some of the films lingering shots on Michael that much scarier.

A Naked American Man Stole My Balloons: An American Werewolf In London (1981)

Quick you guys let's make a werewolf movie, in which every song used within the film has "moon" somewhere in the title...I imagine this is what John Landis said to producers when creating An American Werewolf in London.  Where Evil Dead begins humorous and spirals into a considerably scary movie, this work begins humorous, considers being scary and then decides just to continue being absurd instead.  I am not sure if you are supposed to laugh as much as I did while watching an American Werewolf in London, but it goes without saying that the wry humor and somewhat mockingly over-the-top special effects lend to a comedy more so than a horror film, but, after all, it is John Landis, the guy made Animal House.  Living on the edge of the late seventies which were witnessing a thriving punk rock movement and the early eighties which emphasized a focus on capitalist conservative values, An American Werewolf In London manages to deal with both these cultures with great zeal and a maddening silliness that makes the movie incredibly watchable.  I was wondering why the guys over at Filmspotting felt so adamant about this being included in their top films of 1981, but after viewing this work I can see why it made their list, and more importantly managed to land right outside of the AFI's top 100 films of all-time, a pretty surprising feat, even if the list only includes works by American directors.  While all of the films I have viewed throughout this month of horror movies, I have enjoyed most everything I have watched, however, I can say with some certainty that this work has proved to be the biggest surprise so far in means of its enjoyability, as well as cinematic fervor.  An American Werewolf in London epitomizes everything that a cult classic film should.

Beginning with two young men, David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne),  getting off of a sheep herders truck to begin backpacking across Europe.  While their adventures begin with them traveling through the English countryside both express a great desire to arrive in Rome where they assume a large amount of hot women will await them.  However, their trip has just begun and they find themselves stopping by a local pub, aptly named The Slaughtered Lamb, initially unwelcome the two begin banter with the bar patrons only to discover that they are hiding a secret about some creature roaming the hills of the area, unfortunately, they discover this far too late and Jack is killed by a creature, while David is scarred before being saved by the locals.  David awakes in a London hospital with wounds and bizarre nightmares of running through the woods naked.  It is explained to him by one Dr. Hirsch (John Woodvine) that his friend Jack has died and he was attacked by some sort of lunatic person.  David adamantly believes that he was attacked by some sort of furry creature an exclamation that only receives the support of an attractive young nurse named Alex (Jenny Agutter).  As David's visions worsen he even begins to see the undead corpse of Jack who explains that he has become a werewolf and as such will desire human flesh and all those he kills will only continue to rise unless he commits suicide.  After release from hospice, David movies in with Alex and continues to kill people during full moons, ending up waking up in a zoo after one particularly bad night of killing.  Revisiting Jack in an adult cinmea, David comes face to face with all his victims as they plead once more for him to end his life, after another spree David is surrounded by cops and a pleading Alex, who apparently gets the turned version of David to have a brief change of heart, yet the bestial nature takes form and attempts to attack her, resulting in his being gunned down dead.  In the middle of her tears, the film cuts dramatically to the credits with yet another moon related song playing loudly.

An American Werewolf in London could be read in a few different ways, perhaps commenting on othering, sacrifice or cultural decay.  However, my reading of the film could not help but focus on the element of tourism and miscommunication that results.  Of course this is an absurdist representation of that, considering that much of the plot is predicated on David not being told the truth about werewolves, but this can serve as a metaphor of the lack of knowledge many tourists have to social customs when they enter a new place, in this case David, nor Jack, were knowledgable enough about this foreign culture to understand that they were in werewolf country and thus subject to attacks.  Perhaps this can serve as a reflection to when a foreign traveller, or more appropriately tourist, crosses certain borders to a place that are unwelcome, often with disastrous results.  It reflects nicely to the occurrence a year or so ago when American hikers unknowingly crossed into Iran only to be arrested by the police, as they were unwelcome.  While this is a very real tragic example of such actions, perhaps Landis is reflecting on this action.  Furthermore, An American Werewolf in London is one of the best post-modern horror films I have ever seen, trumping even Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead in its cult epicness.

Key Scene: David's turning scene is quite excellent, although the cut to credits is so jarring that it cannot be ignored.

Everyone should have a copy of this film, it makes for a great horror/Halloween screening and I am sure it has a fair share of drinking games floating around the internet.  Get the bluray whenever finances allow.

Only A Witch Cat Can Close A Door: House (1977)

A film that is constantly referenced on my blog, Nobuhiko Obayashi's House is hands down one of the most insane and logic defying films to ever come about, and as one of the guys on Criterion Cast put it, House is one of those films that Criterion releases in which you have no idea you wanted to see, but love watching it once it becomes available.  A film that is wholly experimental, staunchly within the horror genre and yet still not quite capable of categorization, Obayashi's work exist as an example of what is possible in cinema when one truly drops all notions of traditional filmmaking and instead focuses on making a work unique, as well as a celebration of their past work, in the case of Obayashi work on commercials, something that Japanese autuers deemed lowly.  Perhaps no movie deserves to be called trippy more so than House, as it's technicolor backdrops, schlocky after effects and unbridled use of sexuality as a means to advance plot all suggest it as having a place right next to the classics of b movie horror, yet again though, this placement manages to overlook so much of what is being created both in terms of genre hybridity and the way in which cinema is viewed and consumed.  A blatant, and self-proclaimed answer to Steven Spielberg's Jaws, House manages to capture the exact same sort of unconventional zeal and enthusiasm of the classic American horror film, in that we can clearly see that the film is not made by a master filmmaker like Ozu or Kurosawa, but by somebody who is still finding their footing as a director, however, this footing is clearly to be grounded in the absurdist tradition, far more indicative of the work of Seijun Suzuki, than a Mikio Naruse.  I often place House on as many top ten lists as I can because quite frankly it is one of the few films I could countlessly revisit, as well as something that I feel required to share with the rest of the world.

House certainly has a plot, figuring out exactly where it comes and goes is admittedly a bit troublesome.  Suffice to say the film's main protagonist is a young woman nicknamed Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) who is still adapting to the recent announcement by her father that he will be remarrying after the death of his wife, and Gorgeous's mother over eight years earlier.  Frustrated, Gorgeous asks her Aunt (Yoko Minamida) if she can stay at her mother's former home for the summer...along with her group of friends from high school, which include an eponymous group of women like Kung Fu (Miki Jinbo), Mac (Mieko Sato) and Melody (Eriko Tanaka).  Sending a cat named Blanche as an aid to fetch Gorgeous and the other girls, Aunt is ecstatic to have them stay.  Informing their school teacher that they are headed there the girls pack and travel to the house, only to discover that it is in the remote portion of a rural village and has become quite dilapidated.   Aunt, a much older woman now, explains that she cannot move as well any more and that is why the house is not only in such ruin, but also seems to take on a life of its own.  However, it become evident quite quickly that the house is possessed by a demonic spirit of sorts, one that begins attacking the various girls, often in ways that reflect their personalities, Mac is killed via food, while Melody is killed while at a piano.  All of this crashes together in a bloody climax that defies explanation and is certainly not benefitted by spoiling, suffice to say you will come out of the ending probably knowing a little less than you did going in, but in this situation it may well be for the better.

House is a horror film, one could comfortably place it in that genre with little or no confusion.  Yet when it comes down to explaining why this film is creepy, many a critics find themselves explaining that it is far more comedic than scary, and after screening this to my film club during my undergraduate it would seem to be the case with the amount of laughter that occurred throughout.  Despite this the movie does have a very tense and creepy quality about it, in its lack of explanation.  Every scene that exists within the film, even before it becomes a horror narrative, suggests no sort of linear composition and has the viewer perked up in anticipation and at some points dread of what will occur next, and in my mind that is a major necessity in a horror film.  This notion that it is scary is furthered when on realizes that Obayashi recruited the aid of his daughter, who at the time was ten, to help create some of the scenes in the script, particularly the one that occurs in front of a vanity mirror.  In an interview regarding its relationship with Jaws, Obayashi explained that things like bear and giant ant attacks were horrors created by the rational adult mind and he wanted something far more surreal and imaginative with his work and he felt his daughters freed mind could provide such occurrences.  I find this fascinating and it certainly helps to elucidate why the horror seems creepy, without altogether being grotesque or unbearable.  It is a horror movie of a different conception and different execution and one that its scary in its unpredictability.

Key Scene:  Anything involving the piano is magical.

Buy this move...here's a a link.

It's Hard To Age Gracefully In The Game, And Still Stay In The Game: Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror (2006)

I could not begin to explain what inspired me to include this bit of movie in my horror movie reviews for the month aside from the inability to ignore a horror movie that not only looked nearly unwatchable, but also had Snoop Dogg, or Snoop Lion as he now refers to himself, as a narrator and character within its plot.  I clicked play on this expecting it to be god-awful only to be surprised by some surprisingly good production value and interesting story concepts.  Of course the acting is not great and many of the messages being propagated throughout the film are all too on the nose, to steal a phrase used buy the guys over at Battleship Pretension, you can "see the strings" all over this film, but considering that the film aims to be a B-movie and nothing more, this blatant use of metaphor and message is at the very least tolerable.  If we take a film like Hood of Horror's at face value it could be much worse, say in the realm of some of the Leprechaun sequels, yet between the anime style connecting scenes, a hip soundtrack and what can only be describe as an earnest attempt to make a set of horror shorts, this is a rousingly good time as far as schlocky contemporary horror is concerned.  Were it not for the absolute thrill that The Host has proven to be, I would gladly place Hood of Horror's at the top of the horror films for 2006, although with the exception of the previously mentioned films it was not a particularly stellar year for horror regardless, or films in general, unless you found yourself living in a foreign country, say Spain or Germany.  I am sure as this months ends and I return to watching non-genre films, Hood of Horrors will become lost in the past, but for the moment I want to relish in its simple enjoyment.  One could say that Hood of Horrors is almost Shakespearian...almost.

As noted Hood of Horrors exists as a set of short films within a larger narrative centering around the experiences of Devon (Snoop Dogg/Lion), also known as HOH, a ex-gangsta turned demon who sold his soul in order to bring back the life of his sister, whom he accidentally murdered.  His life as a demon requires that he go about taking the lesser spirits of the world back to hell, of course allowing them first to die on Earth.  The first story focuses on Polsie (Danielle Alonso) a young girl who is a graffiti artist with a penchant for avenging the murder of her mother at the hands of her insane father.  In order to gain this she obtains dark powers from a warlock named Derelict (Danny Trejo) that allows her to use her spray can to literally x out people from living, often in very grotesque ways.  yet when her love for killing becomes an obsession, Derelict takes away her power and she  is visited by the zombies of those she has killed, eventually leading to her death against a church wall that she had agreed to paint, making her, as Devon suggests an example of life imitating art.  The second narrative, less horror oriented focuses on a racist slumlord named Tex Junior (Anson Mount) who attempts to take a shelter created by his father for black Vietnam veterans and turn it into his own den of iniquity.  After the death of a member of the group the veterans exact revenge on their Tex Junior, in yet another gory moment.  The third story focuses on rapper Sod (Pooch Hall) making a deal with God to become a famous rapper, which leads to him meeting Quon (Aries Spears) and becoming famous instantaneously.  However, power and fame goes to Sod's head causing him to become prideful and envious to the point of killing Quon and act that leads to him being confronted by one of God's servants who uses a television to help him realize the err of his ways, as well as calling upon an apparition of the dead Quon  to cause Sod to kill his guard/henchman Jersey, played by over the hill professional wrestler Diamond Dallas Page.  Eventually, in paranoia Sod takes on an entire police squad only to die in a hail of bullets, alone and abandoned by God.

Revenge, pride and racism all inhabit the rhetoric of the stories told within Hood of Horrors, sure they are a bit on the nose and laughable in their construction, but I find it to be reflective of many of urban black films and their attempts to rationalize urban black experiences.  Whether it be in the serious and cinematic manner of Menace II Society, or in the satirical and exploitative ways of something like Black Dynamite heavy handed metaphor seems to be the route used to approach such narratives.  Hood of Horrors, while certainly entrenched in notions of the gang lifestyle and rags to riches rap rhetoric, seriously condemns the acts that have become all to common in urban neighborhoods, such as those of Southern Los Angeles, the home of none other thanSnoop Dogg/Lion himself.  The problem with these films is that they become a bit essentialist in how they portray black lifestyle in this particular section of the United States as being incredibly nihilistic and promote escapism over activism and change.  Compare it to the self-reflective manner of something like Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, or Julie Dash's experimental portrayal of an African-American community in Daughters of the Dust and you have a film that is less than stellar in its social critique of hood life and its problems.  Of course, I would never imagine that this film set out to be the harbinger of commentary and demand for change in urban black communities, yet it attempts to say some considerably pertinent things and, as such, its methods must be critiqued.

Key Scene:  The anime-style scenes are gory in a simulation manner that makes them somewhat fun to watch without being absurd or sickening.

I am in no way leaping at the opportunity to recommend this movie as a must watch film, but should you find yourself with a hour and some change of free time then by all means check out Hood of Horrors, if only for Jason Alexander's terrible British accent.

Being Normal Is Vastly Overrated: Halloweentown (1998)

I promised to give a vast study of horror films in my themed month for October and certainly intend to deliver on that promise, which helps to explain the next film on my tour, the 1998 Disney television movie Halloweentown, a pick by my girlfriend for the list and probably the biggest genre stretch on my list.  However, to say that it is a stretch is not an attempt to undermine the work in the slightest, there are moments in this film that I recall from my younger days as being genuinely scary and ones that could still be frightful to the right group of youngsters.  It was fun to revisit this film, as I only had fleeting memories of the plot and had no idea the film included the consummate Debbie Reynolds.  Of course the plot is a bit fractured, but one can expect such occurrences when, firstly the film is made for television and secondly it is directed towards a youth audience.  Many of the characters exist a plot devices and manage to have a very cursory place in the brief movie, only clocking in at a bit over eighty minutes.  The plot it does possess though is well-executed and contains some moments of comedic brilliance as well as a few genuine scares, all culminating in a great commentary on embracing ones uniqueness and accepting even against stalwart reasoning that some things are, in fact, magic.  Finally, the make-up and costuming in this film are stellar, particularly the various beasts and creatures shown throughout the film and one scene of exceptionally good stop motion animation.  It is probably going to be the only family friendly movie blogged about this month, and one of the few I have blogged about to date, but it is certainly a movie for persons of many age groups as its humor ranges from simple slapstick, to some clearly adult oriented humor.

The story in Halloweentown begins on Halloween, as should be little surprise as three kids look longingly at the festivities from inside their house.  The children include a young girl named Sophie (Emily Roeske), an incorrigible nerd named Dylan (Joey Zimmerman) and the oldest daughter and eccentric Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown).  Despite their constant pleas to partake in trick or treating, their mother Gwen, played by Judith Hoag (who is likely better known as April O'Neil in the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film), denies their request.  She feels adamantly that they will be somehow ruined by the events of such a day.  Viewers are uncertain as to her concerns, until it is realized with the entrance of their grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds), that they are related to an ancient family of witches.  Despite Aggie's less than subtle hints at their unique nature, Gwen denies them the right to explore this alternative life, instead wishing for them to have a "normal" life, despite being without a father figure.  Upon overhearing her mother and grandmother argue about her right to be a witch, Marnie follows her grandmother to Halloweentown via a flying bus to another world, only to be joined by Dylan and Sophie who share an equal curiosity.  Upon landing the group attempts to find their grandmother, but not before running into Calabar (Robin Thomas) Halloweentown's mayor.  He aids them in transportation to their grandmother's house via a taxi ride from a wise cracking skeleton named Benny, voiced by Rino Romano.  It is at this point that the children discover that trouble is afoot in Halloweentown and their grandmother is attempting to stop its occurrence.  Followed hot on the tail by an irate Gwen, the children and grandmother end up in a theater where it is revealed that Calabar is behind the evil in the town, freezing all who disobey him.  In the process of confronting Calabar, Gwen and Aggie are frozen by a spell and the children are left to complete Aggie's spell, which requires obtaining ingredients such as the hair of a werewolf and the sweat of a ghost.  They succeed in doing so and finally get the means to confront Calabar, and with a little help from a town local the group beats him and everything is returned to normal, with a suggestion that the three children, despite their mother's original denial, will indeed be trained in the dark arts.

The movies commentary is rather simple, as it should be considering that it is essentially directed at children.  However, the lesson taught is a very important one, especially for young adults and children. Instead of simply being a horror/comedy family film, Halloweentown posits something much greater in its suggestion that one should embrace uniqueness even if certain groups in society claim it to be, in this case, demonic.  Gwen represents a troubled single mother who holds falsely onto an idea that somehow by denying her heritage and identity that her children will exist in a better world, when it is clear that her disconnect and denial are only bringing more questions up within her children and arguably raising them to be social outcasts, as an early reaction with some of Marnie's friends suggests.  Aggie, in a maternal, and somewhat ancestral sense, claims this heritage and struggles desperately to keep her grandchildren practicing long after her passing.  The film also embraces a feminist ideology in that many of the spells require a group of women to unite together to make it more powerful, made all the more pertinent in that these women are of different ages.  The brief film also tackles notions of beauty and friendship, as occurs between Marnie and Luke (Phillip Van Dyke) a "dashing" young boy in Halloweentown who takes a liking to Marine, only to betray her, in what viewers come to discover was a Devil's bargain with Calaber to make him look better.  Essentially, Halloweentown contains a series of life lessons for young viewers and even a few reminders to parents on embracing their familial identity and heritage, even if it is not the mainstream idea of normal.  If anything the film denies denial.

Key Scene:  The obtaining of ingredients montage is quite fun and probably the funniest moment in the film.

I want to tell everybody to go out and buy this film, but I know it is for only a select few, not to mention that it is unusually expensive for what it is and, furthermore, it seems to sell out quickly after being stocked, at least that is what happened repeatedly at the Target near my house.

History Prefers Legends To Men: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

For the remainder of October I am going to focus my blog in a slightly different direction and jump on the blogosphere bandwagon of blogging about horror movies specifically.  I plan to, or at least hope to, run through a slew of different horror films from genre hybrids, to country variations and hopefully a few historically important ones as well.  I plan to even revisit a few of my personal favorites with the hopes of reflecting on my love of them in written form.  Ideally, my reflections will cover films that you as readers as heard of, but touch upon a few that are not familiar to mainstream audiences, and who knows maybe a few of the films I plan to focus on will have even myself reconsidering what I include in a horror oeuvre.  As always, I am fully open to suggestions for viewings and hope to blog about a film each day through the actual celebration of All Hallow's Eve.  This focus will maybe even help flesh out some research projects as I begin to draw connections of theory and criticism through various films, as well as serving as a means to see a few more horror films in theatre, a specific genre that I feel strongly benefits from big screen treatment.  With all this being said, I begin my October Horror Blog Wonder Extravaganza with a solid bit of absurdly terrible post-modern horror with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  I went into this film knowing full and well that it would be quite terrible and those in the theater with me clearly shared my views as they laughed at the films genuine attempts to be a bad-ass appropriation of a honored historical figure.  However, I did not expect some of the liberties taken by the writer and director about comparisons of slavery to evil creatures to be quite so problematic, but then again from Hollywood it should not have come as a surprise.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter for those inept at reading context clues, is about an alternative history in which America's sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) undertakes the job of being a vampire hunter, as a means to revenge the death of his mother at the hands of the monsters of the night.  To some extent this job is thrust upon him by an expert vampire hunter named Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper) who engages in the act, as a means of revenge himself.  Lincoln must keep this act of hunting vampires a secret as he engages with other notable historical figures, whether it be his historical friend Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson) or Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), as well as one Stephen Douglass (Alan Tudyk) and Jefferson Davis (John Rothman) whom the film cast in the light of being similar to the vampires.  As Lincoln struggles with the question of slavery and an imminent war, his engagement with vampire hunting comes to the fore front after he confronts the lead vampire Adam (Rufus Sewell) only to fail to defeat him initially.  In a purely Hollywood move the final confrontations lay upon the battlefields of the Civil War, most notably that of Gettysburg, in which Lincoln requires that all silver be move to the battle front to help kill the vampires who have become soldiers for the Confederate Army.  This is where history coalesces, and the North wins, slaying the vampires in the process, Lincoln delivers his famous Gettysburg Address, but in this filmic narrative it has a edge towards condemning the vampires as well.  The film then fast forwards to present day where we are shown a man of African-American descent sitting at a bar being approached by Henry to become a vampire hunter for a new age...

If that closing scene does not prove problematic there are certainly a list of other problems in the "message" of this film.  First off, like Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, AL: VH takes liberties to condemn the entire south as evil, going so far as to suggest that the vampires are fully responsible for the trading and abusing of slaves.  This action results in dismissing the true scar on American history by suggesting that it was enacted by some demonic force.  Similarly, the film suggests that at some point during the war the entire Confederate army was that of vampires making their being killed a moment of glorious celebration, at least that was the case in the theater where I viewed the film.  I had trouble with this scene specifically, partially because it was just ungrounded cinematic bloodshed, but also because it  dehumanizes the deaths of soldiers in America's bloodiest war, which indeed witnessed a very real amount of human bloodshed.  Finally, the gumption of the film's director to reconsider such important speech as Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as a means to condemn vampires, or that Jefferson Davis himself dealt with the dark lords, is in bad taste.  Such scenes could have proved as a means to get viewers not familiar with historical rhetoric to truly consider that ethical problems of slavery and human oppression, but instead it just serves as a stepping stone for another set of stylized vampire killings.  Finally, regardless of political leanings the blatant connection between Lincoln and Obama in the films closing shot is egregiously problematic.  

Key Scene: The stampede battle is quite well-crafted and paced ending in a explosive manner that was deserved of the applause it received.

To dismiss this movie completely would be incredibly unfair, however, one must take it very critically to realize the problems the rethinking of a troublesome portion of American history visits.  It is not intended to be a political commentary, but an argument could be made that the film does not do enough to deter the possibility for interpretations.