31 Days Of Horror--2013 Edition!

It's one of my favourite times of the year--the run-up to Halloween, which, as always, sees me watching 31 horror movies over the course of the month. At least 16 of them have to be new to me, if for no other reason than it gives me a chance to cross some movies that I should have seen already off some invisible list. My friend (and a fellow horror nut for as long as I can remember) Scott Rogers got me started doing this marathon four years ago now, and I look forward to it every year (check out Scott's Letterboxd page for updates on his progress!). Anyway, I am usually way more diligent about blogging my own progress (blogress?), but this year I started a new side project to this whole endeavour. I've been drawing some of favourite horror monsters and maniacs and posting one a day throughout the week over at my Tumblr, so if you've got a taste for more creeps & critters, go check 'em out. Doing those alongside my usual 31 Days program has slowed things down somewhat on the blogging end of things, but better late than never, I guess. Here are my thoughts on what I've watched so far.

1. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999): People turned on this one pretty quickly in the wake of its initial theatrical success, but I've always defended it. It's a great example of low-budget ingenuity--one where the nonexistent budget and DIY approach are all part and parcel of the concept. It's also a terrific case of horrors that are implied rather than overtly shown, which can be much scarier when done properly. I saw this one on opening night back in '99 and it absolutely terrified me--I'm actually pretty sure I haven't been camping since! This was the first time I'd gone back to BLAIR WITCH in over a decade and, while its impact may have been a bit blunted by all the found-footage knockoffs in its wake, it's still a pretty unnerving film and a very clever exercise in making scares on the cheap.

2. CARRIE (1976): I covered this one last year, but we were showing it at The Thrillema (a cult movie night I help curate with my pals Lauren and Jess) and I figured I could get away with dropping it into my list again. I wanted to revisit it in anticipation of the Kimberly Peirce remake anyway, and now, having watched Brian DePalma's version twice in as many years, I've lost interest in seeing a new filmed adaptation of Stephen King's first novel. I mean, what could a new filmmaking team, no matter how talented, possibly bring to the table? Every time I watch this movie I find myself hoping things will turn out better for poor Carrie White--that she'll make some friends, move out of her crazy mother's house, and go join the X-Men or something. Sadly, it never quite seems to work out that way.

3. IT LIVES AGAIN (1978): Larry Cohen's sequel to his own 1974 killer baby flick IT'S ALIVE picks up where the last movie left off. The mutant Davis baby may have gone done in a hail of bullets last time, but the first movie ended with a report of another killer tyke being born. This sequel ups the ante by letting loose THREE of the monstrous children. John P. Ryan reprises his role as the dad from the first film, while APOCALYPSE NOW's Frederic Forrest plays a not-so-proud papa this time around. This sequel is pretty dull, focusing mostly on the government's efforts to isolate and kill the babies at birth, while Ryan tries to save them and...I dunno, civilize them somehow? Maybe next year I'll get around to Cohen's three-quel, the awkwardly-titled ISLAND OF THE ALIVE.

4. ALLIGATOR (1980): Robert Forster's appearance in the penultimate episode of BREAKING BAD inspired me to revisit this monster mash, which logically follows up on those old rumours of kids flushing baby gators down the sewers when they get bored of them. Medical waste from a sinister research corporation causes one such lizard to grow to enormous size under the streets of Chicago. Forster plays a disgraced cop investigating the body parts that are turning up at sewage treatment plants. The movie really gets going when the title beast busts loose, culminating in a wedding massacre that has to be seen to be believed. John Sayles' tongue-in-cheek script keeps it light (an early sewer-worker victim is named Ed Norton in a tip of the hat to The Honeymooners), and the monster effects are a lot of fun (even if the miniature sets built for the regular-sized gator to crawl around in aren't always entirely convincing).

5. THE BURROWERS (2008): In this horror-western, a frontier family is kidnapped--presumably by marauding natives--and a posse goes on the hunt to get them back, only to learn that the real culprits are a nasty breed of pioneer predator that likes to bury its prey alive and feast on them at their leisure. A movie that's kind of a mix of THE SEARCHERS and TREMORS should be more up my alley, but THE BURROWERS lurches along slowly to a deflating, unsatisfying conclusion. Not even a terrific cast that includes Clancy Brown, Doug Hutchison, and HOUSE OF THE DEVIL's Jocelin Donahue could save it for me.

6. EXORCIST III (1990): This is one of my all-time favourite horror movies, an underrated gem that was unfairly dismissed at the time as an inferior sequel. In reality, it's a quietly disturbing slow burn of a supernatural detective story with tangential ties to the 1973 original (although to be fair, the studio did play these connections up as much as possible, even shoehorning in a late-game exorcism--William Peter Blatty's novel was actually titled LEGION, but 20th Century Fox wanted that name recognition in there). EXORCIST III is a body-swapping tale of serial killings in and around a catatonia ward, investigated by the first film's Lieutenant Kinderman (George C. Scott, taking over from the late Lee J. Cobb). Few scenes have ever scared the living crap out of me like the one with a sheet-covered killer, armed with a giant pair of shears, stalking a late-shift nurse). Highest possible recommendation.

7. THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973): This haunted house flick, based on a story by Richard Matheson, is clearly the inspiration for the DON'T trailer, Edgar Wright's contribution to 2007's GRINDHOUSE. A group of paranormal researchers investigates the sinister manifestations at the Belasco estate, which drove a previous research team to madness and death (Roddy MacDowall plays the only survivor of the initial investigation). Everyone in this movie is magnificently sideburned and turtlenecked, and director John Hough (THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS) keeps everything suitably warped with a never-ending array of oddball perspectives and crazy camera angles.

8. GHOSTBUSTERS (1984): Honestly, what can I say about this one that everyone doesn't already know? Like many a Shakespeare play, almost every line in this movie is a classic. Bill Murray is still the quintessential '80s wiseass, Sigourney Weaver is still the quintessential '80s babe, Rick Moranis is still the quintessential '80s dork, and the whole movie is still hilarious from start to finish. The Richard Edlund effects are terrific, Elmer Bernstein's score is perfect (and contains the most romantic use of the theremin in cinema history), and Ray Parker Jr.'s theme song is as catchy as it ever was. Surprisingly, I'm not opposed to the possibility of a GHOSTBUSTERS reboot--I just think whoever does it needs to start fresh with a new cast of the funniest people in Hollywood and go for the same tone Ivan Reitman nailed this time around. Hey, it might work! Maybe...? New to me: IT LIVES AGAIN, THE BURROWERS, THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE 31 Days: 2010 Edition 31 Daya: 2011 Edition 31 Days: 2012 Edition