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One of the message boards I frequent was running a horror movie challenge in honor of Halloween this year. The objective: watch 31 horror movies over the 31 days of October. The catch was that 16 of those viewings had to be new. What the hell, thought I, it will be an excuse to watch a ton of horror movies. Of course, I watch a ton of horror movies during October anyway, so it should be a walk in the park. Right? Yeah, right. It turned out to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. Not only that, but by mid-month, I was starting to get burned-out. I wanted to watch something OTHER than a horror movie. A Western, perhaps. Or a musical. Even a boring art movie from Iran. Anything. Some of the participants crossed the hundred movie mark. I don't have any idea how they did it. Obviously, they weren't actually working during this period. In any event, here's how my month went. New-to-me movies in blue. Some of these have longer reviews linked to them.

October 3:

Constantine (2005, d. Francis Lawrence)--better than expected, though a disappointment none the less. Things to like: Tilda Swinton in full-swing androgyny (hubba hubba), Rachel Weisz. Keanu Reeves (no, really). Things to dislike: the movie was edited with a chainsaw. Lame plot (at second-hand, no less). Ah, well...the shelf at the video store is still stocked with movies I'm SURE will be much, much worse than this one.

October 4:

House of Usher (1960, d. Roger Corman). The first of Corman's Poe adaptations. Elegant. Moody. Kind of boring, actually. Not much actually HAPPENS in this movie. But it sure looks nice. Roger began a long tradition of weird hippie-shit dream sequences in this movie. The burning barn Corman filmed for this film was fresh and new. Opulence on a budget.

October 6:

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1972, d. Brian Clemens). Late Hammer weirdness. Can't for the life of me figure out why there are no scenes at night in this movie. Cheaper to film during the day, I guess. Maybe some of the daytime scenes were supposed to be day for night shots. If so, they needed to adjust their filters.

October 7:

Acacia (2003, Ki-Hyung Park). Beautifully shot horror movie from Korea. Plot's a bit of a muddle, but it's creepy throughout. One or two of the setpieces in the middle of the movie don't work, but the endgame is pretty good.

October 8:

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963, d. Mario Bava). Interesting proto-giallo from Bava. It's a shame he abandoned black and white for color around the time of this movie. He had a talent for it. Alas.

October 14:

The Fog (2005, d. Rupert Wainwright). A disaster. Selma Blair is the only reason to see this, and she's not on screen nearly long enough. Longer Review.

The Haunted Castle (1921, d. F. W. Murnau). A bit of a stretch, this one. An "Old Dark House" mystery a la The Cat and the Canary (it even has the clutching hand). But hopelessly stagebound. Is this the same director who made the deliriously cinematic Sunrise? Go figure.

October 15:

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005, d. Nick Park and Steve Box). A pure delight, especially sure to please horror fans. An old-style monster movie, done in clay. Gromit is the most expressive silent comedian since Buster Keaton.

Nang Nak (1999, d. Nonzee Nimibutr). The premise of this Thai film reminds me of Ugetsu, which gets me wondering whether or not this is a pan-Asian archetype. The execution is about as far away from Mizoguchi as you can get. Edited faster than I expected, and beautifully shot. Strange, strange film.

October 16:

The Corpse Bride (2005, d. Tim Burton and Mike Johnson). A lot of reviewers have called this The Nightmare Before Christmas Redux, but what they have neglected to mention is that this movie is enormously better than Nightmare. The romanticism of this film is what makes it, in the end, as well as that delicious undercurrent of necrophilia--The Bride herself is hotter than any corpse has a right to be...Strange, and magical in the end.

October 18:

Toolbox Murders (2004, d. Tobe Hooper). Much better than expected. Better than anything Hooper has done since the 1980s. It ain't TCM, but then, what is? Refreshingly mean-spirited. Love the circular saw scene. Longer Review.

October 19:

Vampyros Lesbos (1970, d. Jess Franco). Ooooh...I knew I was going to regret this from the get go. How, I ask you...HOW does a movie with a score THAT cool and with copious vampire lesbian nudity wind up being SO boring? Oh, wait...it was directed by Jess Franco, that's how. Sheesh.

October 20:

Seance (2002, d. Kiyoshi Kurosawa). Made for television, but that doesn't matter. Creepy and philosophical reworking of Seance on a Wet Afternoon acts as a kind of dry run for Kurosawa's recent cinematic offerings. It trumps those for chills. Kurosawa's films get under my skin for some reason. Longer Review.

October 21:

Blackenstein (1973, d. William A. Levey). I knew I was going to be bottom-feeding during this exercise, but little did I know just how far down the scale of cinema I would be travelling. First Jess Franco, now THIS! I'm counting this as a new viewing, even though I saw this many years ago. I remembered absolutely nothing about it. Turns out that selective amnesia was a defense mechanism. The horror...oh, the horror.

October 22:

The Island of Lost Souls (1933, d. Erle C. Kenton). The first screen version of The Island of Dr. Moreau, with Bela Lugosi as The Sayer of the Law and Charles Laughton as Moreau. Laughton is my favorite Moreau, possibly my favorite scientist from the 1930s because I see in him an impish delight in dissecting animals to discover their inner workings. He gives the audience a wink at one point. Show me another "mad" scientist with that kind of delight in his work...

Throne of Blood (1957, d. Akira Kurosawa). Kurosawa gets to the core of MacBeth as primal myth. The scene where Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane is one of the greatest phantasmagorias on film. A fever dream of a movie.

October 23:

Street of Crododiles (1986, d. The Brothers Quay). Man...puppets are creepy. This is the raw stuff of nightmares, uncut by the limitations of literal reality. Disturbing.

October 24:

Fait d'hiver (2001, d. Dirk Beliën). The IMDB has this Belgian short subject listed as a "Comedy," which isn't necessarily wrong so much as it is disingenuous. This is as black a comedy as you are likely to see, in which a man stuck in traffic calls home and gets some bad news from the child that answers the phone. Deeply twisted, palpably horrific, and absolutely satisfying. It's the kind of comical horror story that might have been written by John Collier or Fredric Brown. Highly recommended.

October 25:

At this point in time, I bought the recent Hammer Horror box that Universal put out this October. I don't recommend this package to anyone who has an older DVD player. The compression issues that Universal had with their "Legacy" boxes last year recur here. The second feature on each side of each disc caused my (relatively old) DVD player problems. A word to the wise. However, this is the first time Night Creatures has ever been on video, so it may be worth it for that alone.

The Brides of Dracula (1960, d. Terence Fisher). Arguably the most accomplished of Hammer's Dracula movies. Peter Cushing is great as usual as Van Helsing. Personally, I miss Christopher Lee; David Peel is not in Lee's league. By contrast, the next film, Dracula: Prince of Darkness omits Cushing in favor of Lee, and Andrew Kier is more than up to filling in for Cushing. The sets, held over from Horror of Dracula, are a bit over-familiar now, but the movie does look nice. Plays fast and loose with Hammer's established vampire mythology, which is annoying, and it's a bit on the short side at a mere 86 minutes.

The Curse of the Werewolf (1961, d. Terence Fisher). Allegedly "based" on Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, this film is conspicuous for NOT being set in Paris, nor ever setting foot in France. It takes precious little else from its supposed source novel, too. Still, a pretty good movie. The most richly textured of Terence Fisher's horror movies, this has mood to burn. It's nice to see a werewolf that becomes a werewolf in the old-fashioned way (i.e. not by getting bit by one). One wishes that the cheapskates in Hammer's production office would have funded more werewolf mayhem. The title character gets precious little screen time. Also seems too short for what it wants to do.

October 26:

Night Creatures (aka: Captain Clegg, 1962, d. Peter Graham Scott). This was completely new to me--I've never even read a description of this film. To my immense surprise, this was another version of The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, with Peter Cushing in the role of Dr. Syn (renamed "Dr. Blyss" for legal reasons--pesky Disney lawyers). It's a pretty good version, too, and gives Cushing the chance to stretch his acting legs. The usual Hammer cast of supporting characters get props, too, especially Michael Ripper and Oliver Reed. Great fun.

The Evil of Frankenstein (1964, d. Freddie Francis). An anomaly in Hammer's Frankenstein series. Peter Cushing returns, again, as the good doctor, but this ignores the chronology of the rest of the series. Universal is to blame for this. Universal barred Hammer from referencing its classic Frankenstein films in Hammer's other outings. THIS film, though, was distributed by Universal, so alone of Hammer's Frankenstein films, this one looks and feels like the classic (and not so classic) Frankenstein films from the 1930s and 40s. The cinematography is nice--as would be expected in a film directed by Freddie Francis--but the story is a mess. More in line with The Ghost of Frankenstein than with The Bride of Frankenstein. Hammer's make-up department never did get the look of the creature "right" after the first film in the series. They REALLY blew it this time.

October 27

Spider Forest (2004, d. Il-gon Song). Another mindbending, genre-busting Korean production. Confusing in parts. Impeccably well made. I suspect this is a love it or hate it kind of movie. I'm going to need another viewing of this one to fully appreciate what the hell I'm seeing. Longer review.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, d. Tobe Hooper). Seen on the big screen at a crumbling old movie palace. This was a swell time, but the "gimmick" behind this showing was a new score performed live with the film. Which begs the question, why does TCM NEED a new score?

October 28

The Kiss of the Vampire (1963, d. Don Sharp). Hammer's non-Dracula vampire films were often more adventurous. Case in point, this tale of a vampire cult. This has a place in my affections as the "inspiration" for Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers (right down to the dress Sharon Tate wears to the ball). In spite of some nice elements, the cheapness of the film shows--particularly in the casting budget. Successfully dodges a lot of the cliches of the subgenre. Dynamite opening scene. Deranged closing scene.

Nightmare (1964, d. Freddie Francis). Is this Freddie Francis's finest hour as a director? It might be, though that's faint praise. The story is transparent from the get-go. Unusual for Hammer: this has a contemporary setting (in 1964) and is shot in a beautiful black and white.

October 29

The Night Strangler (1973, d. Dan Curtis). The second outing of reporter Carl Kolchak finds him in Seattle on the trail of an undead doctor who is killing his way to his elixir of life. Superb supporting cast featuring the indefatiguable Simon Oakland, Scott Brady, Wally Cox, John Carradine, Al Lewis, and Richard Anderson. Like Session 9 many years later, the setting came first. Screenwriter Richard Matheson saw Seattle's underground city whilst on vacation and wrote the story around it. Great fun. Best line: "You grovel nicely, Mr. Kolchack."

October 30

The Phantom of the Opera (1962, d. Terence Fisher). Yet another Hammer film that seems rushed at the end. Would it have KILLED them to run the film to an hour and forty-five minutes? Some nice sets and photography in this one, but I hate the mask The Phantom wears, and I hate the dwarf who does all the killing (relieving The Phantom of the Mark of Cain). On the plus side, Michael Gough is positively loathesome as the villain of the piece. Herbert Lom was a more entertaining Phantom in The Pink Panther Strikes Again, though he's not bad here.

Burn, Witch, Burn (1962, d. Sidney Hayers). The best screen adaptation of Fritz Leiber's oft-filmed Conjure Wife. Peter Wyngarde is superb as a rational college professor whose grip on reality is unravelling after discovering that, not only is witchcraft very real, but his wife is herself a witch. Credit Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson with a crackerjack screenplay.

October 31--Halloween

I suppose this is appropriate:

Halloween (1978, d. John Carpenter). A machine of a movie designed to say "Boo!" I've written about this film at length in the past. I don't have anything new to say this time out. If you want a full recap, I would direct you here.

The Thing from Another World (1951, d. Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks). Always a great pleasure, this film. It's been superceded in the hearts of many horror fans by John Carpenter's remake, but this one has pleasures the remake doesn't even come near. Prime among those pleasures are both the Hawksian dialogue and the way the characters are arranged in the film frame. Nyby takes the screen credit, but they aren't fooling anyone. Replace Kenneth Tobey with Cary Grant and you have Only Angels Have Wings in the arctic. The scenes on the ice are still fantastic, and the scene with Dr. Carrington and the baby things is unexpectedly creepy even now. Keep watching the skies, indeed!

The end. I made it! 31 movies in 31 days, with 16 new to me! Woot!

In any event, I'll be revisiting a number of these movies--the Korean movies and the Hammer movies, probably in that order--in the very near future.