Burnt Offerings (1976)

Title: Burnt Offerings (1976)

Director: Dan Curtis

Cast: Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Bette Davis, Burgess Meredith,

Review:

While watching Burnt Offerings, I couldn’t help noticing the similarities with a few horror films that came before and after it and how influential this film was in the horror world. Burnt Offerings is a horror film that was made with the intention of making a horror film that gave a lot of importance to characterization, Dan Curtis, this films director (and genre veteran) set out to make a film entirely carried by performances. I thought it was interesting how it is a supernatural thriller yet it never once uses visual effects, supernatural beings and ghosts are invisible to our eyes, but you definitely get the vibe that they are there. In this sense it reminded me of Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963) because we never really see a ghost or anything, the dread all comes from our imaginations and the mood set by the filmmakers and actors.

 In Burnt Offerings we meet the Rolf family, a family that’s looking forward to a beautiful summer vacation in the country. You see the Rolf’s have rented a mansion for the summer and apparently, it’s a real steal! For a mere 900$ they can have the house all to themselves for the whole summer! But of course there’s just one small catch: they have to take care of an old lady that lives alone in one of the rooms in the house. According to the owners of the house, they won’t even know she is there. All they have to do is take a tray of food up to her once a day. That’s it. And that they do. I guess they figure that for that price, and this house, taking food to an old lady really isn’t much of a sacrifice. Problem is that once they settle in, they realize that something is awfully wrong with this house. Small incidents begin to occur that start pulling the family apart. Is some evil invisible force making all these bad things happen? Why is everyone in such a dreadful mood all the time?

 So this is the kind of film in which a home is given human traits, characters talk about the house being “evil”, same way characters talked about the house in Wise’s The Haunting. In fact, same as The Haunting, characters get obsessed with the house, they want to be in it all the time, stay in it, characters get the feeling that this house is their destiny. Or is it? So the film that Burnt Offerings is most similar to is Wise’s The Haunting. It has that same ‘evil house’ vibe going for it, we never see any ghosts or evil spirits but the negative vibes let us know they are there. Sometimes it feels as if The Haunting was the blue print for every other haunted house film ever made. But Burnt Offerings isn’t built on influences alone, Burnt Offerings itself served as inspiration for films that came after it. For example, I also think that Burnt Offering’s influenced The Amityville Horror (1979) with this idea of having a haunted house destroy the family unit by having little evil incidents happen that pull them apart.

 I also caught similarities with Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm (1979). You see, in Burnt Offerings Oliver Reed’s character has these recurrent hallucinations and dreams of a hearse driving up to the house, and a mysterious, tall, skinny undertaker carrying a coffin around. Immediately I thought of the infamous ‘Tall Man’ from the Phantasm films. But the similarities don’t stop there, this film was actually filmed in the same mansion that they shot Phantasm! So on Burnt Offerings you will get these weird flashbacks of the ‘Morning Side Mortuary’ seen in Phantasm. One scene has the woods coming alive and attacking Oliver Reed same as in the Evil Dead films! So yeah, I would definitely say that Burnt Offerings was a very influential film, obviously it made quite an impression on a good deal of filmmakers.

 But is it a good horror film? Well, yeah, but only if you can take extremely slow paced movies. I myself enjoy a good slow burner, but I recognize many viewers will probably end up thinking that this movie is just too slow and that “nothing happens”. But that’s only because this is a film that focuses more on characterization than on special effects. The strength of this film lies on its cast, I mean I always considered Oliver Reed to be such a solid actor, he really adds weight to his performances, always bringing that special brand of Oliver Reed intensity to his characters. Karen Black is on this one and she was the scream queen of her day, in fact, to this day she still appears in horror films. If you guys remember, a couple of years ago she played Mother Firefly in Rob Zombie’s House of a 1000 Corpses (2003), so horror is in this actress’s blood! She’d worked with director Dan Curtis before in Trilogy of Terror (1975), a film that got her some big time recognition especially when we consider that she played four characters in that film! Burnt Offerings reunited her with director Dan Curtis and it was a successful reunion in my opinion, once again Mrs. Black gets the juiciest role in the film. Interesting tid bit of info: Karen Black was four months pregnant while filming Burnt Offerings. At times you can notice her belly in some shots, but most of the time they hid it with wardrobe tricks. Even curiouser: she ended up acting in Tobe Hooper’s Invaders from Mars (1986) with the baby that was in her belly while filming Burnt Offerings! That’s right, she ended up making a horror film with her own son!  

 Another plus on this films cast is veteran actress Bette Davis who plays the grandmother. Horror fans might remember her from such horror classics as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and The Nanny (1965). Burnt Offerings plays a lot with themes of being old and having to accept the fact that age is taking its toll and that time does not pass in vain. Davis has a wonderful moment where she begins to doubt her sanity and starts asking “I wouldn’t forget something like that now would I?” It made me think about how we are all going to be in that position someday, loosing our marbles, scared of the fact that death is literally knocking at our door. And speaking of death knocking at the door, the film has a wonderfully poetic moment dealing with that phrase. And another old timer that adds to the film is Burgess Meredith’s performance as ‘Brother’, one of the owners of the mysterious house. I wasn’t aware of it, but Bergess Meredith appeared as a creepy old man in a couple of horror films, last I saw him was in The Sentinel (1977), which I reviewed a couple of days ago. On Burnt Offerings he is the owner of the house, and he knows exactly what he is getting these new tenants into. A strange and eerie sort of vibe comes from his performance, quite effective.

Bette Davis (front) and Karen Black

 So, all in all, this was a creepy haunted house flick. It’s not as exciting as others I have seen, but still quite good. If you don’t go in expecting to see lot of special effects or anything and if you go in knowing that it’s a slow burner relying on characterization more than anything, you should find yourself enjoying a creepy haunted house flick. This one comes to us from director Dan Curtis a genre veteran who was responsible for many a horror flick. He was the guy behind a lot of episodes from the vampire soap opera ‘Dark Shadows’ that ran during the 70’s and a couple of successful made for television horror films like the aforementioned Trilogy of Terror and it’s sequel Trilogy of Terror II (1996). Obviously, this was a director who enjoyed the good ole horror anthology film! He directed quite a few of these in his day, another memorable one is Dead of Night (1977), which I will be reviewing soon. Curtis was the kind of director who loved old school troupes like cobwebs, giant grandfather clocks sounding off at midnight, old dark houses and stormy nights. He brought all this horror movie knowledge and love to his films, Burnt Offerings being one f them. If you like old school, slow burners with solid performances and characterizations, Burnt Offerings is the haunted house film for you. Stick all the way to the end for a shocker of an ending!

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5    

Poster in spanish. The title translates to 'Diabolical Nightmare'

John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) vs. The Thing (2011)

Okay, so how many people out there still haven’t seen John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982)? Well, if you are one of those unlucky few, trust me when I say that you’re missing out on one of the finest examples of a good horror/science fiction film in cinematic history and arguably, John Carpenter’s best film ever. Period. Carpenter’s film is great for many reasons, all of which I will get into in the coming paragraphs. My question is: why mess around with perfection? Was this new film necessary? Was an effort made to make a film worthy of its legendary predecessor?

Poster for John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)

 When Universal announced that they’d be making a new film that would connect with Carpenter’s The Thing, I was screaming “sacrilege!” Yup, I'm one of those guys. You see, to me the first film is so damn perfect that I just couldn’t even fathom the idea of a remake or a prequel or anything. I mean unless these guys were really serious about making a worthy film, more likely than not we would end up with another bad remake on our hands. But the question remained: would this new film be good enough to stand proudly next to John Carpenter’s film and say “I am just as good!”? My doubts were always there. In my mind, nothing could come close to what Carpenter and crew achieved with their film.

Rob Bottin (left) One of the many creatures in The Thing (middle) John Carpenter (Right)

 It is my opinion (and this is something that all sci-fi/horror fans and film buffs agree with) that Rob Bottin’s and Stan Winston’s make up effect work on Carpenter’s film remains undefeated to this very day. I mean, have you ever seen anything as remotely outlandish and monstrous as the creatures on Carpenter’s film? Nothing! The make up effects work on that film is indisputable! So my first fear with this new film popped up: would they put as much of an effort in making the make up effects work on this new film truly special? I mean, it’s been almost 30 years since Carpenter’s film, surely make up effects have improved by leaps and bounds? Surely they were aiming at making something that would surpass Carpenters film? I mean knowing how much everyone reveres the work done on that film?

Make up effects master: Rob Bottin!

 Here’s where we reach this new films first stumbling block. The make up effects work was nowhere to be seen. I don’t believe one single creature was practical. Nothing was tangible or real, everything, and I mean everything was done on a computer. It didn’t have that tangibility that Rob Bottin’s creations had. That glimmer, that sweat, the shine, that squishy looking yellow stuff pouring out of the creatures pulsating veins. I mean, there was nothing remotely like that on this new film. And that was my first real disappointment with this new film. But I will say this: the computer generated images where not bad, not bad at all. What the filmmakers attempted to do (and curiously enough it fits the theme of the film) was imitate Winston and Bottin’s make effects work and creations, but with computer effects. Damn knuckleheads!

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is this films 'Ripley' in The Thing (2011)

 I mean seriously, how hard could it have been to get a make up effects genius to come up with the creatures for this film? I mean what about the KNB guys? Surely they are still around? My point is they could have gotten someone to do something real, tangible and ultimately more convincing. It’s not that the computer effects were bad (they weren’t) it’s just that while watching the film we know they are computer images; we know that this image wasn’t even on the set with the actors, therefore, a lot of credibility simply goes out the window.

 But, to this new films credit I will say that they did manage to pull off a lot of gory looking images. And the stuff they did with the computers was fun to watch. There is one scene in which this guy rips open, we see his face and whole body splitting in half, I thought that was a pretty cool sequence. I mean, for things like that, sure, computer effects work wonders. But they didn’t have to go and do everything with CGI. They could have done what Guillermo del Toro does in his films, mix practical with CGI. Use CGI to enhance or fix certain things, but not do every single creature in the computer. But enough bitchin’ about the effects, when it all comes down to it, I didn’t think the computer effects were bad at all. It’s just that when compared to the work put into the original, and the legendary results, well, this new Thing pales in comparison.

 So what else? Was the suspense as nail biting as in Carpenter’s?  That’s one of the things that distinguished the original; you can cut the suspense with a knife. Carpenter set his film in such a dreadful place; you could literally feel the isolation and paranoia taking over these guys. The characters in Carpenter’s film felt like they were angry, on the edge. The actors conveyed that angst ridden feeling you get when you’ve been locked up in a place for so long.  You could tell that the harsh environment they were living in, the loneliness and xenophobia was really starting to get to them. Did this new film achieve that same level of intensity? Hell no it didn’t! And why not? I think it had something to do with the pacing of the movie which was pretty fast, and the choice to fill the film with an orchestral score. In Carpenter’s film, you never got the feeling that the music is telling you how to feel. The score on Carpenter’s film was very subtle and used sparingly. Some of the most dramatic moments in Carpenter’s film had no music whatsoever. What we did hear was the storm blowing outside making all sorts of spooky sounds. What we heard was the alarm blaring away; we heard these men screaming and fighting. We heard  the creatures alien screams. These were the sounds that inhabited Carpenter’s film. There was no place in it for a musical score because the setting and situations were spooky enough. And I think that this absence of music in Carpenter’s original was a key element that enhanced the isolation/fear factor. On this new film we have this music all the time reminding us we are watching a movie. It took away from the dread.

Kurt Russell wannabe

 Question remains: did this new film get anything right? At all? To tell you the truth, I didn’t think this new film was a bad one, I found myself walking out a satisfied fan. This new film isn’t a remake, but at the same time it is? Let me make myself clear here: this new film takes place before the events on Carpenter’s film, so we get to see what happened to those crazy Norwegians who first found the alien space craft. And to be honest, I enjoyed that whole aspect of the film, seeing what happened before. If you are a huge fan of the original and know it by heart, then you will get all the connections to Carpenter’s film. It feels as if these characters are once again walking in the world that Carpenter and crew created, so kudos to these new filmmakers for achieving that. It also goes places that Carpenter’s film never went, and that was awesome as well, trust me, there are a few surprises in store for fans of Carpenter’s film. Also, the creatures are pretty cool looking. Even though they were all computer generated images, I think they still managed to be quite impressive. It’s like, okay this isn’t a film that will impress you with it’s top of the line make up effects work (because there was practically no practical effects work) but it might impress you with its computer generated creatures none the less. So rest easy: you will be seeing some wonderfully grotesque creatures on this new film. And at least conceptually, they do go into the grotesque and monstrous territories that Bottin’s and Winston’s creations went to.

 You can see this new film and see Carpenter’s film right afterwards in a double feature and you will feel like you are watching characters inhabiting the same universe. I thought that was this new films major achievement; that cohesiveness. The only problem is that the film says it isn’t a remake, yet it feels like the same film. It goes through the same motions and situations, only slightly altered. There are a couple of entirely new situations, but for the most part this new film feels a heck of a lot like Carpenter’s film. Bottom line is that this new film wasn’t the disaster we all thought it was going to be. It’s a film that could stand proudly next to Carpenter’s film; only its not a better film. Carpenter’s classic is so awesome; such a perfect horror film, that there was no way it was going to be beat. The bar had been set to high by Carpenters film. But still, this new The Thing was an enjoyable monster movie, and one that a fan of Carpenter’s film can enjoy. Just don’t expect a better film.

Rating for The Thing (1982): 5 out of 5

Rating for The Thing (2011): 3 1/2 out of 5 

The Sentinel (1977)

Title: The Sentinel (1977)

Director: Michael Winner

Cast: Chris Sarandon, Cristina Raines, Burgess Meredith, Eli Wallach, Ava Gardner, Jose Ferrer, Beverly D’Angelo, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum

Review:

In Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead (1981) the suicide of a priest causes the doors of hell to burst open. After that, ghosts/zombies are set loose upon the world and the undead begin to walk the streets, people barf up their innards and maggots fall from the sky. But that’s the Lucio Fulci version of the gates of hell opening. Now that I’ve seen Michael Winner’s The Sentinel, I can see where Fulci might have gotten the idea for his City of the Living Dead, in fact, I’m sure Fulci was inspired by The Sentinel. Both films have lots of similarities in terms of plot, images and situations. This wouldn’t surprise me, since Italians were particularly well known for ripping off American horror films and making lower budgeted versions of them.

 In The Sentinel, we meet Allison Parker a young model living and working in New York City. She’s thinking about marrying her fiancé, Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon) but she still hasn’t given him the proverbial “yes”. Instead, she wants to find her own apartment and be an independent person; just to prove to herself that she can survive on her own in this big bad world. And find her own apartment she does; It’s in a beautiful building right smack in the middle of Brooklyn, New York. According to the landlady, Allison along with an old blind priest that lives in the fifth floor will be the only ones living in the apartment building. But is that the truth? Allison hears strange noises in the middle of the night and meets a bunch of weird neighbors. Could there be something more to this apartment building then meets the eye? And why is that blind priest always sitting by his apartment window staring at nothing?  

 So yeah, the similarities between this film and Fulci’s City of the Living Dead are pretty obvious. Girl moves into a new apartment, turns out it’s the gateway into hell. She starts seeing all manner of strange supernatural events. Suicide figures into the plot, as do blind girls. The only thing is that Fulci being Fulci, well he’s take on the “Gates of Hell” theme is way more graphic, and gory and over all, pretty freaking nasty. After all it’s not in every film you get to see a beautiful young girl barfing up her intestines. But such is the nature of a Fulci flick, always aiming to shock you. The Sentinel is a much more cerebral and moody film. It doesn’t aim for cheap shocks, or to gross you out with its graphic nature. Instead, it wants to creep you out with its atmosphere. The Sentinel is disturbing on a whole other level that City of the Living Dead (a.k.a. The Gates of Hell) isn’t. This difference between films with similar premise shows us just how much of a difference on a film a director can make. With these two films we have a similar premise, but two completely different films in terms of mood. Give a movie like this to Mr. Fulci and you get a maggot storm. Give it to Winner and you get human oddities as demons.

 If I had to compare The Sentinel to another horror film in terms of mood and atmosphere, it would be with Rosemary’s Baby (1968), the biggest influence on The Sentinel if you ask me. The Sentinel was made in the late 70’s the day and age of the supernatural horror film. Because of the resounding success of The Exorcist (1973), horror films dealing with the supernatural where the order of the day for Hollywood. So films like The Omen (1976), The Amityville Horror (1979) and The Changeling (1980) were getting made left and right. But in my opinion it was Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby that influenced The Sentinel the most. We have a female protagonist, who is not really right in her head. The film is all about a girl moving into a new apartment, in New York City. She is hounded by a bunch of weirdo neighbors, who may or may not have an evil purpose for her. No one is to be trusted, and just like in many Roman Polanski films, paranoia reigns supreme. The similarities with Rosemary’s Baby are all over the place with this film.

With it's evil old people, The Sentinel was obviously influenced by Rosemary's Baby!

Same as in many supernatural themed horror films, the Catholic Church is the one with all the answers and the powers to stop the evil. And yet again I notice how much these films are used to propagate the idea of Christian faith onto the masses. And once again this is a film in which an unbeliever is taught a lesson and made to pay for her sins. In one moment of The Sentinel the main character actually goes into a church to ask for forgiveness for having renounced Jesus Christ, you see, she’s been experiencing a lot of spooky shit and so she wants to be on Gods side, just in case. This is yet another film which brings Catholic fantasies to life. And a big fat fantasy it is, I mean the gates of hell are on the top floor of an apartment building in Brooklyn! The blind priest who lives in the top floor is supposed to be the guardian of these gates, unfortunately he doesn’t do a very good job at it because demons keep getting out and harassing poor Allison. Characters in this film talk about paying for their sins for all eternity and what not, so yeah, this one is all about Catholic guilt, and Catholic beliefs.

 But I will give this to The Sentinel, it does have some truly disturbing imagery in it. On this film, demons harass Allison, the dead visit her in the middle of the night and she has these weird dreams. And it’s the way that these undead entities are portrayed in the film that brings forth the disturbing and unsettling nature of The Sentinel. Director Michael Winner thought it would be a good idea to use real deformed people to portray the demons. So suddenly, whenever demons appear in the film we are treated to an avalanche of fat, old, deformed, handicapped, human beings.  This isn’t the first time that a film director uses human oddities for a horror film. Other examples of this can be found in Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932) and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre (1989); actually, any Jodorowsky film can be mentioned here because that’s something Jodorowsky always relied on for his films: the use of human oddities to bring forth a feeling of unease. The use of human oddities on The Sentinel cause some controversy when the film was first released. Is this exploitative? Should it be allowed in films? Is it wrong to use these kind of people in films? Is it ethical?

 Sexuality is also used as a means to convey ‘evil’. For example, amongst some of Allison’s freaky neighbors there is a pair of lesbians. When Allison asks them what it is that they do for a living one of them replies “we fondle each other”. Then Beverly D’Angelo’s character begins to masturbate in front of Allison, in what is without a doubt one of the most awkward moments in the film. A lot of the ghosts appear naked through out the film; in fact, at the crux of the film is a scene in which Allison catches her father in an orgy! So sticking pretty close to Catholic beliefs, sexuality is demonized on this film.

 Finally, something has to be said about the films cast. It’s interesting that the film is filled with so many good actors in extremely small roles. Some of the cast members were not particularly well known at the time, but they were going to be. Bit parts in this film were performed by the likes of Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum and Beverly D’Angelo; all unknowns at the time. The film also has bit parts for famous old actors like Ava Gardner, Jose Ferrer and Burgess Meredith, by the way Burgess Meredith always plays these nice old dudes in his films. I mean, I always remember him as Rocky Balboa's father like figure 'Micky' from the Rocky movies, but on The Sentinel he is this weird old man, he was obviously going for something against the type of characters he was used to playing all the time. We also get Chris Sarandon playing Allison’s boyfriend, I mean, we have a star studded cast for this old school spooky film. And old school it is; The Sentinel has a classic vibe going for it, it is not a film that relies on visual effects or cheap looking ghosts, the emphasis on this one is mood and atmosphere. And I must say that it achieves a spooky, unsettling atmosphere quite effectively. With The Sentinel, you get the feeling that something is not quite right, that there is evil in the air. The Sentinel is one of these ultra-serious horror films from the 70’s; the kind of horror film they don’t make anymore.

Rating: 4 out of 5 

Lady In White (1988)

Title: Lady in White (1988)

Director: Frank LaLoggia

Cast: Lukas Haas, Katherine Helmond, Jason Presson, Joelle Jacobi, Len Cariou, Alex Rocco

Review:

Lady in White was one of my childhood favorites; I remember seeing this one when I was about 12 or 13 years old and being spooked by it a bit, but at the same time intrigued enough to see it all the way to the end. It’s the perfect introduction to the world of horror films because for a horror film, it’s not too scary, it unfolds like a fairy tale and it’s told from the point of view of a child. It’s one of those movies whose mystery captures you and you know you just have to see it through to the end. To me Lady in White had a Spielbergian flair to it. Why? Well, the film takes place in a suburban neighborhood in New York, the kids go riding their bikes through the back woods, and part of the film takes place during Halloween, all elements that we’d seen before in a couple of Spielberg’s films, most notably E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982). Also, the film is told from the point of view of Frankie, a boy who ends up trying to solve a whopper of a mystery! Spielberg directed and produced many films aimed at the pre-teen age demographic. I’m talking about films like E.T., Richard Donner’s The Goonies (1985) and Joe Dante’s Explorers (1985). Actually, one of the young actors on Lady in White (the one who plays Frankie’s older brother) is Jason Presson, one of the three adventurous kids from Explorers. So this is a film aimed at kids, yet it's also a film that deals with some very adult issues.

 Lady in White tells the story of little Frankie Scarlatti, a kid who leads a pretty normal life. He lives with his family, his father, his grandparents, his older brother. It’s Halloween, and he’s got his Dracula costume ready to go, he’s carrying his hollowed pumpkin with him and his written a special Halloween story to read to all his friends on ‘Show and Tell’. But unfortunately, two of his friends decided to pull a prank on him and lock him up inside of the classroom closet. He spends the night there all alone and to his surprise, he witnesses the ghostly apparition of a little girl. The little girls’ ghost reenacts her murder and Frankie sees the whole thing! But who murdered her? At the request of the little girls’ ghost, Frankie decides to uncover who was responsible for her death all those years ago.

 What I like about nostalgic films is that with the right director, they can capture that magic, innocence and feeling of wonderment that one has at that age. Not only that, if you do this kind of film right, both kids and adults will be able to enjoy it. In my opinion, Lady in White did that to perfection. It is a very nostalgic film and obviously a very personal one as well. This is the kind of film where you feel that the writing was coming straight from memory, from little snippets and experiences that the writer had during his childhood. It has that nostalgic vibe that you find in films like Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me (1986), where the film is obviously siphoned through the memory of the writer. In Stand By Me, the memories came from Stephen King’s own life experiences. The film might have fantasy or horror elements in it, but the setting feels authentic because it comes from real life. Lots nostalgic feelings can be found in Lady in White; a film in which we hear the voice of an adult (a grown up Frankie Scarletti) talking in retrospect, remembering what it was like to be a kid growing up in an Italian American family, in New York during the early 60’s. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that the films main character is called ‘Frankie’, same name as the films writer/director Frank La Loggia.

La Loggia set out to make a film against the Hollywood system. The desire to make a film on his own, without any studio interference came from his experiences directing a supernatural horror film called Fear No Evil (1981), coincidently I saw Fear No Evil in theaters when I was about 6 years old and it scared the crap out of me back then. It was a film about a high school student who ends up being the anti-Christ; it was kind of like a low budget version of The Omen. La Loggia directed that film, but ultimately, the studio took it from him so it could be “reworked by others”. So when he set out to make Lady In White, he swore that he’d do it on his own terms without anyone telling him to do his picture this way or that way. And that he did. He got funding on his own (about 5 million dollars) and directed his film without any studio interference whatsoever. So what we get with Lady in White is a film that turned out  exactly how the director envisioned it from the very beginning. La Loggia says that he was trying to bring a truthful depiction of childhood to the film, I think he succeeded. Lukas Haas, the child actor seen in Peter Weir’s Witness (1985) gives a great performance as Frankie. He was probably chosen to play Frankie in Lady in White because in Witness, he also played a little boy who witnesses a murder. Haas lends an honest and charming performance in Lady in White; it has an air of vulnerability to it.   

   

 But aside from the nostalgia factor, this flick is a very spooky ghost story with some ultra creepy images. The effects might be a little dated, but honestly, the story was unraveling so well that it didn’t bother me at all. Lady in White also deals with some very adult issues like racism, familial bonds, child molestation and loss. If you look at this film, almost every character has suffered some sort of loss in one way or another. What I love about this movie is that it deals with all these themes and at the same time, it doesn’t forget to be a great ghost film. Spooky to the max! This is a perfect film to watch on   Halloween Night!

Rating: 5 out of 5    

The Haunting (1963)

Title: The Haunting (1963)

Director: Robert Wise

Cast: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn, Fay Compton

Review:

The modern haunted house film often times relies heavily on using special effects to tell their tales and spook their audiences. Examples of this are James Wan’s Insidious (2010) and The Haunting in Connecticut (2009), and that’s all fine and dandy because I love special effects in haunted films as much as the next guy. It’s one of the reasons why the Poltergeist franchise is one of my favorite horror franchises ever. There are those rare exceptions when a modern haunted house film will use old school storytelling techniques, for example Alejandro Amenabar’s excellent The Others (2001). But most of the time, modern filmmakers cant help and try to wow their audiences with visual effects in films of this nature. Yet once upon a time, horror films relied more on true slow burn chills and thrills. The kind of chills that slowly creep into your imagination, crawl under your skin and make your hairs stand on end! Robert Wise’s The Haunting is one such film.

 In The Haunting, we meet Dr. John Markway, a Professor of anthropology whose sole  interest is studying the supernatural and proving that it exists. He plans to stay a couple of days in what is reportedly one of the most haunted houses to ever exist: Hill House, a house that is supposed to have been “born evil”. In order to conduct his experiments he calls three individuals: Theo a woman with strong psychic abilities, Luke Sanderson a skeptic and future owner of Hill House, and Eleanor Lance a woman who’s had a couple of supernatural occurrences happen in her life. Dr. Markway’s wishes that together, they will all witness some form of supernatural phenomena. Will they see anything truly out of this world?

 So this is a great premise for a movie. I mean, four characters staying in a house that’s supposed to haunted, simply out of curiosity of the supernatural. In a way, they are defying their beliefs, trying to cross boundaries, trying to see if the afterlife is real or a lot of baloney. And I enjoyed that about the movie, characters are constantly having philosophical conversations about the supernatural and the afterlife resulting in quotes like: “Look, I know the supernatural isn’t something that’s supposed to happen. But it does.” And “It’s the same with the world of the supernatural, until we know how it works, we’ll continue to carry around this unnecessary burden of fear”. So ideas and concepts about the supernatural are constantly being explored.

The Film is based on Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House' 

 The film is inhabited by a great bunch of characters, the skeptic, the psychic and the psychologically troubled and insecure. The main character in the film is Eleanor, the most insecure lady on the planet. We follow “Ellen” through out the whole film, we even hear he thoughts all the time. She is a lady that is so bored and disgusted with her own life. So much so, that she’s willing to do anything that is different, anything that will bring a spark of excitement to her redundant existence. She also needs someone to love, someone who will cherish her. Can Dr. Markway be the one to fulfill these needs? Ellen is the unreliable protagonist, like the main female character in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965), Ellen is a lady who is a few cards short of a full deck, in other words pretty close to loosing it. The other female in the picture, ‘Theo’ is a bold character for a film from the early 60’s, her attraction towards women is hinted at on more than one occasion. Interestingly, Theo has all the security that Ellen needs. Luke is the college student, the womanizer, the jokester and also the unbeliever who will be taught to believe in the supernatural.

 The best thing about this film is the awesome atmosphere that permeates the whole film, that feeling of dread and evil hovering about the house. Robert Wise concocted a series of very effective images to pull this off. ;and speaking of Wise’s camera work, the kinetic and inventive camera work in The Haunting is one of the things that makes it stand out. Robert Wise was a great director back in the day. He was responsible for such classics as West Side Story (1961), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Audrey Rose (1977) amongst many more. This is one of the greats making a horror film; Robert Wise moved his camera like a mad man in a time when such camera work wasn’t really the norm. Films back then had a very static nature to them. But not Wise’s The Haunting! On this film the camera is constantly running behind characters, focusing on strange reflections in mirrors, zooming in and out, there are all sorts of camera tricks on this picture. There is no doubt that The Haunting was way ahead of it’s time; miles ahead of anything that was coming out during the early 60’s.

 This film and Robert Wise’s camera movement has influenced many directors. For example: when the time came for Sam Raimi to direct Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn (1987) a film that is essentially a haunted house flick, Raimi borrowed heavily from Wise’s The Haunting. You know that scene in Evil Dead II in which Bobby Joe feels that someone is holding on tightly to her hand and Jake says to her “baby I aint holding your hand” and then Bobby Joe realizes that she is holding a disembodied hand? Well, Raimi swiped that scene straight from The Haunting, but of course Raimi being Raimi, he gave it his own morbid twist. Another sequence in Evil Dead II in which we hear ghosts banging on the walls of the cabin, we see close up of the characters scared eyes as they look around the house and the camera zooms in and out with each bang…Raimi took it straight from this one as well! Hell, The Haunting even influenced the likes of Dario Argento! You know that scene in Argento’s Suspiria (1977) in which the two girls are holding each other in the middle of the night as they hear spooky footsteps and noises outside of their bedroom? Argento took it straight out of Wise’s The Haunting! So we’re talking about a highly influential film right here. Wise’s camera work made this film so watchable! The angles of Hill House, the stormy skies in the background, everything on this film was carefully planned and executed. The result is a beautiful looking and extremely kinetic black and white film.

 The Haunting surprised me in more ways then one. I had seen Jan De Bont’s remake before seeing this one. And honestly, I don’t hate the remake at all; to me it’s a well made haunted house flick with some excellent production values. That remake is a film that serves as a showcase for awesome visual effects sequences, but De Bont’s remake goes in direct contrast to what Wise achieved with his film: to tell a story that will knock the pants off of you, but without showing you anything! That’s right ladies and gents, on this one you wont see some cheesy visual effect of ghosts dangling in front of the camara. Nope, on this one Wise suggests everything. You are constantly walking the fine line between believing and not believing. It is a film that plays with our minds and imaginations to full extent, and it’s one of the things that makes it special. It’s no surprise Martin Scorcese calls The Haunting his favorite horror film. This is a film that doesn’t rely on jump scares or cheap thrills, nope, every one of the frightful moments in The Haunting is carefully executed and thought out. An awesome haunted house film, in fact, one of the best.

Rating: 5 out of 5 

French poster translates to "The Devil's Mansion"