horror
February 26, 1920: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Premiers
Kids, you might not know this, but I run a little Halloween horror site when I’m not filling in here at the glamorous basement offices of Superficial Gallery. So when I started throwing something together arduously researching for today’s post and saw that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, known as the first horror film in history, premiered on this day in 1920, I knew I would have to make you all suffer through it write about it for this week’s column.
Although tame by today’s standards, this turn of the century German Expressionist silent film tells the bizarre tale of Dr. Caligari, a creepy carnival performer with a near-mute sidekick, the prescient sleepwaker Cesare. Add in a string of brutal murders, a sinister asylum, dark, distorted visuals, and an eerie twist at the end, and you have all the elements of the modern horror story. Got an hour to spare? Make some popcorn, turn the lights low and watch the full film right below.
I don’t care what people way about how played out “found footage” movies are or how locked room mysteries are boring of that Spain doesn’t have real firemen. Rec is scary and if you only watch one scary movie this Halloween season this is the one it should be. The premise is simple. A local news team is doing a ride along with the fire department and they get sent to an apartment building.
From there mayhem ensues of course but the whole thing seems..better than you would think. The shocks are great and the creeping weird dread at the end as they dig through the layers of wtf’ery to kind of set up the creepy creepy ending is pretty effective. And if you are one of those girls people who get all cozy under blankets and then fall asleep it is NOT THE MOVIE’S FAULT! Sit up ffs and pay attention. There is creeping dread!
And I challenge people to tell me that the ending is not creepy and scary and messed up. Even if you don’t put all the pieces together as to WHY what happens happens you can at least get the gist of something being really wrong with what happens. I was legit scared and then later that night after I was done being cool and tough I laid in bed thinking about what I saw and hoping I never saw it for real. Then I realized that if I didn’t have night vision goggles I would not see it. But THEN I realized that if I didn’t have the goggles I wouldn’t see anything and that would be wicked worse.
Watch it. Then come back and tell me what you think. And if you say you fell asleep we will fight.
So I was reading about what shows we’re being canceled this season and it made me think back to all the shows I’ve enjoyed over the years. Many of those never made it past the first season or were canceled prematurely, leaving fans angry and saddened. Then I thought it might make an interesting post. I’ll be posting my favorites from numbers 10 to 1. After reading please leave comments about your favorite shows that got canned. By the way, I only went as far back as 1990 for this list. Enjoy!
Brimstone (Fox)
(1998-1999)
I know that you are probably used to watching a lot of American horror movies, which makes sense because you are all so racist. But our neighbors to the south know a little something about horror, too. And down there, they apparently use wrestlers to fight their battles. Which makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Who would you rather have next to you if a monster was coming at you: some dusty old professor with a smelly book and a briefcase full of potions or The Rock?
I thought so. The Rock’ll lay the smackdown on Dracula. But since these posters are from Mexico they don’t have The Rock in them. Maybe Rey Mysterio? Is he Mexican? Whatever. Just look at the posters. They are very cool. Posters today sort of stink I think. This one below doesn’t. And neither do the ones after the jump.
Fury of the Wolfman
Why are they digging up a grave? Is the werewolf also a zombie? If a werewolf got bitten by a zombie, would he also stay a werewolf? Only Mexico can say!
I would rather get in this van than listen to that unicorn anymore.
Thanks to Leonidas for creeping around stores and finding the most disconcerting thing I’ve seen since I gave up LARPing. I want to point a couple things out on this, then I’ll let it speak for itself.
- It’s a pocket unicorn. All of a sudden my pocket unicorn is not looking so bad, is it?
- It says on the package: “Use for happiness”.
- It says on the package: “Use for happiness”.
- The unicorn says that if you’re sad you will make it cry.
- It says on the package: “Use for happiness”.
OK, so then I assume this is for like, little kids. But then I realized that for little kids, it might be sort of complicated. I mean, if you look closely down on the left it says it is “removable”. From what? The package? Why do you need to point that out? Why would you want to keep it in the package?
Why would you want to keep the “Pocket Unicorn” that specifically orders you to “Use for happiness” in the plastic wrapper? Seems silly to me.
I guess if this were TV news I would be putting my hand up to my head as some producer chatters frantically in my ear explaining how stupid I am. But I don’t have that, so my question stands. Please help me. If you can’t explain it, help me kill it. Please?
This, according to science, is the Scariest Movie of All Time. I had to go back and watch it again because of course there is going to be controversy and I wanted to be able to defend the outcome. I thought when I was compiling the list that The Exorcist would be number one by a walk. But heeeeeeere’s Johnny! But why? What makes this movie so scary (and not scary)? Well, here’s a list.
- Jack Nicholson’s performance. You could probably just stop here, but I can actually quibble with the beginning of the movie. If you think about what the movie is supposed to be about, Jack should not have been crazy at the beginning. The hotel was supposed to make him crazy. But he was kind of a freak to start with. Even during the interview. If I were Mr. Ullman I would totally have not hired him. Weird creep.
- Steadicam. It might seem dumb now but at the time, following Danny all over the place on his big wheel was a huge deal. The smoothness. The ability to create really long scenes with no cuts. The ability to make the viewer vaguely seasick. All of these things brought to you by the Steadicam.
- Being like the book. Well, other than the basic premise, there were not a lot of details retained from the books. The names? Random bits of dialog. I guess the fact that, at least in my opinion, this is the best novel that Stephen King ever wrote (or maybe the only one) made it a good framework for a scary movie.
- Not being like the book. I suppose that since people think it’s so damn scary tha the axe has to have something to do with it. In the book it wasn’t an axe he was whomping people with. It was a roque (why didn’t he just say croquet?) mallet. So while the shock value of killing people with an Axe is good, he really only killed ONE person with it. Poor Scatman Crothers. He didn’t even die in the book. So instead of smacking people with a hammer for a whole night, he just CHASES people with an axe and all of a sudden that’s more scary? BAH!
- Old lady in the bathtub. She was pretty gross. Not as gross as your mom, but pretty gross.
Now that I think about it – this movie had the creepy twins and Jack Nicholson acting or overacting or something. What the fuck. The Exorcist got so screwed. Stupid Olive Oyl Wendy! Trailer after the jump.