Seen Between Fingers - The Final Chapter...?

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly has reported back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. Having given the original My Bloody Valentine a whirl, it seemed appropriate for him to give the 3-D remake a go. What a trooper!

This will be the last installment of SEEN BETWEEN FINGERS for the time being. Chris has been a good sport, but I fear that if I don't give him time to rehabilitate and re-sensitize, he could wind up brandishing a pick-axe himself. Thanks to those of you who have expressed your enjoyment of this feature, perhaps we'll revisit it in the future.

WEEK 14 : My Bloody Valentine 3-D

My Bloody Valentine 3-D is, first and foremost, the least memorable film ever screened for an audience. Honestly, I would have written this review sooner, but I am continually forgetting that I actually saw the movie. It flew from my mind within minutes of leaving the theater. Despite occasionally excessive gore and intermittently interesting forays into the third dimension, it was by and large a waste of time for all involved.

Not that an effort wasn't made -- the film's opening goes out of its way to outdo its predecessor. Harry Warden, formerly just a ghost story, gets one hell of a prologue. Probably still bristling at the notion that nine gory minutes had been removed from the source material, the filmmakers pack the first nine minutes of their remake with the pick-axiest, eye-gougingest, head-shovelingest footage you have ever seen. Take that, MPAA. It was actually an interesting way to begin the story: without context or background, it was suddenly unclear who the main characters were. I had no formulaic plot devices to cling to: anyone could be the star, and anyone could be the next victim.

We then jump ten years into the future. This had potential to be a smart choice; the Valentine's Day Massacre is no longer a distant memory for our leads, but a formative trauma from their teenage years. Unfortunately, no one really signed onto this project to do any of that pesky acting, so we're treated to several open-mouthed gawks from the pouty heroines and brooding, flexy stares from the attractive-ish man-heros. We're also repeatedly told that mining is important to this town. (People have trouble articulating how, though, as no one under the age of sixty seems to be actually working in or around the mine.)

Just when all the talking and explaining and emoting are starting to wear you down, the movie remembers how to have a good time. Let me tell you, I might not recall 75 percent of what went down on that screen, but I will never unsee the three-dimensional projection of a naked, gun-toting blonde in porn heels parading her shaved vulva across a motel parking lot. Where 1981 viewers had to content themselves with a flash of bra, the new generation can use their depth perception to gauge just how fake those bouncing boobies might be. By the time the murderer has dangled an electrocuted midget from the ceiling, I was prepared to give this movie a second chance. I mean, at least we're trying something different, right?

Wrong. It's all routine from here, kids. Sure, the murders are gross. But though I had to close my eyes a couple times, the noteworthy fact is that I kept them open for most of it. Even with the benefit of three dimensions and an ever-loosening set of standards for acceptable on-screen violence, this one couldn't convince me (me!) to look away while people were beheaded and eviscerated for sport. There were also some decent attempts at plot twists, but the love triangle (square?) was kind of hokey and overdone, and in the end, do I really care who they're all sleeping with or which bland, biceped studlet did the actual killing?

I guess everyone did their best. The goal, to make the same mediocre movie with more red ooze, was more than achieved. Body parts jumped right off the screen, and that bespectacled dwarf practically chased her dog right into my lap. There was actual sex and constant, punishing death. People said words with ostensible meaning. A body was found in a dryer and a girl was tormented with coveralls, just like the last time OMG!!! But why does any of that matter if I found myself browsing a bookstore thirty minutes later, honestly unable to recall what I had done with my afternoon?*

*Full disclosure: I checked my shower for three days to see if the miner was there.

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Seen Between Fingers - Chris Kelly Wooed By Original Bloody Valentine

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. (He's also starring in a NYC revival of Torch Song Trilogy that opens next week, if you care to see him in his natural habitat.) In anticipation of My Bloody Valentine 3D, which I hope to inflict on him next week, I decided that a look back at the original slasher classic was in order. Surprise -- I think he liked it!

WEEK 13 : My Bloody Valentine (1981)

My Bloody Valentine was released less than a year after Friday the 13th, so while it is tempting to view it as just another slasher flick, it’s important to put the work in context. The many tropes that have since emerged (the teenagers murdered as punishment for intercourse, the faceless killer driven by childhood trauma, the disposable blonde in the first ten minutes) were fresher at the time. I’m having trouble seeing the piece as anything other than the continuation of a trend, but I’ll do my best to focus on the aspects that are better than, or different from, other selections from the youth-mauling genre.

Let’s start with the setting, which is bleak as fuck. This is a town in which the most romantic scene takes place on a cold, gray, windy outcropping littered with scrub grass. The best view for miles, the place where you bring your lady to win back her affection, has a view of what is probably a sewage treatment plant or other industrial blemish. Though we never see the inside of a local home, their exteriors suggest that they are little more than storage units. If you ever call PODS to move your belongings, consider what it might be like to forgo the relocation process and simply pack yourself into that sad metal rectangle. Perhaps this squalid hamlet’s depressing surface is what has driven the population to perform all sex acts underground; we are, after all, shown three instances of (or at least attempts at) subterranean copulation, without the faintest hint that one might pursue such an activity in, say, a bed in someone’s “house.”

The oppressive awfulness of daily life in a mining town does a great deal to temper the impact of the film’s many deaths. These are people who could not possibly care less. Consider the first victim, a woman whose only joy in life is to leave the listless Laundromat she runs to festoon the town with streamers in a futile attempt to erase the memory of a series of grisly deaths. If her entire life will be one long dryer cycle anyway, is she not better off dead? Look at this motley collection of mulletted, doughy, chinless halfwits. Working filthy jobs, drinking cheap beer, butting their interchangeable personalities against each other in some rudimentary attempt at conversation—it’s tough at times to say whether this is murder or mercy.

Which is not to say that there aren’t genuinely scary moments. Sure, the opener seems clichéd now, but I bet at the time, audiences were stunned when the titillation was interrupted by the total boner-killer of a pick-axe piercing through the heart (and, just to drive the point home, the heart-shaped tattoo) of the village’s most buxom inhabitant. And what about that scene with the mining coveralls descending from the ceiling? That shit was bananas. I expected gore, but I didn’t expect the mounting pressure and disorientation of that poor, piggy girl’s scramble for safety amidst flaccid replicas of her assailant. Good show!

Actually, while we’re on the topic of gore, now is a good time to mention the fact that this movie comes to us pre-sanitized. Nine awful minutes were famously excised by the MPAA. For a lightweight like me, this comes as welcome respite, but chances are that most of you are desperate for whatever craven splatters and slices you can get. In that case, we’re both in luck: I managed to squeeze this review in while the footage is still unavailable, and you can all treat yourselves to an extra-gross Valentine’s Day when LionsGate releases an uncut DVD next month (that is, if Wikipedia is to be believed, which it is sometimes not). I’m sure I’d have less jokes to make and more pants to wet if I had seen the original version in all its viscera-encrusted glory.

As it stands, this movie was a really fun guilty pleasure for me. It was occasionally intense, but mostly just hilarious. This is the kind of stupendous train wreck in which the lead stud’s Canadian accent makes him sound like a gay high schooler trying to hide his lisp and the only female to actually have sex looks like she’s maybe a dude. I encourage you all to invite your friends over for popcorn to watch this while playing “Who Dies Next?” or offering your own MST3K commentary. You won’t be disappointed.

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Seen Between Fingers - Don't Quit Your Day Job, Dracula!

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies (he's also one of the judges of my January Interview Contest). Chris always seems susceptible to atmosphere and storytelling, so when I found out he'd never seen 1992's Dracula remake, it was a no-brainer to assign it. Unfortunately the movie itself is sort of a no-brainer -- it hasn't aged nearly as well as one might hope...

WEEK 12 : Bram Stoker's Dracula

What confounds me about Bram Stoker's Dracula is how primed I was to enjoy it. The sight of Gary Oldman decked out in wrinkles and kabuki robes while licking a razor is forever seared in my mind as a new and invigorating take on an icon whose image had remained unquestioned for decades. The film holds a considerable reputation and has left a legacy of visual references and parodies. It was so prevalent in the '90s that I owned and regularly listened to the CD soundtrack even though I had never seen the movie itself. I was sure that a piece with such a strong reputation would bring quite a bit to the table. How, then, could it have run so far adrift from my expectations?

A number of hugely enticing and creative elements come together in this work. It's a credit to the costumer that the old man wrapped in gold fabric with Mickey Mouse ears for hair has become an accepted vision of our favorite vampire. The boldness of that redesign is practically equivalent to dressing Santa in a pin-striped suit, [Editor's note: see Palm Centro's accursed take on St. Nick here] and the fact that it seems justified is almost miraculous. The movie also sounds scary; from the swelling trumpets during the opening battle to the operatic soprano that precedes Mina’s first (we assume) taste of bestiality, it’s still clear that someone has created an ideal score to which to lose your mind slowly. The dialogue and acting aren't all bad, empirically speaking, and yet so much goes wrong.

According to IMDB, the script was initially envisioned as a made-for-TV movie. It helps to cling to this idea as you watch the madness unfold. I think Francis Ford Coppola might have had the word “theatrical” in mind for his direction, but “hokey” might be a more fitting description. The vivid colors! The cycles and repetitions! The bloody blood! Remember high school English class, when you had to find the symbolism in The Scarlet Letter? That’s what this feels like. I know camp when I see it, and I definitely watched a couple hours of it here.

With the exception of Keanu Reeves, Coppola assembled a pretty capable cast, only to have them take turns gnawing the scenery to bits. Anthony Hopkins commits the worst sins in this regard, using an accent as absurd and erratic as his line delivery. Winona Ryder was never the strongest performer in the world, and her presence simultaneously shouts “Hey, it's the '90s!” and “Wow, am I ever uncomfortable!” Gary Oldman gets a little more leeway by the nature of his role, and thus comes out relatively unscathed. Under that much make-up, you pretty much have to give the same performance whether you're playing an undead bat-count or Edna Turnblad. In hindsight, the unkindest hand is unfortunately dealt to Sadie Frost, whose “And introducing...” credit only serves to illustrate how few people in Hollywood wanted to meet her. This girl banged a latex wolf on a concrete casting couch and still barely ever managed more silver screen credits than costar Tom Waits. (Speaking of which: Tom Waits?)

The uniform lack of subtlety employed by all involved is supremely distracting. Almost every choice made in or about the movie raised immediate questions. Why has Winona Ryder worn six dresses in the exact same shade of mint green? Why are Dracula's eyes superimposed on fucking everything? The landscape is so red -- is his castle on Mars? Has no one thought to make Sadie Frost a dress capable of restraining both her breasts at the same time? Does she really wear that slutty red nightgown to bed even when she's on the verge of death? Has the "loose wolf"subplot really existed entirely so we can watch the lead characters pet it for a while? No, seriously, Tom Waits? Is anything scary going to happen? Am I watching TBS right now?

I couldn't help but feel as though the whole fiasco was being run by my high school theater teacher. Each atmospheric element that could have been creepy if the audience was trusted to notice it on their own was instead turned up to eleven and thrust in our faces. Sure, it's a nice touch that Dracula's shadow doesn't always line up with his motions perfectly, but after ten minutes of watching the actor and his projected image polka around each other, it gets a little tiresome. Similarly, it's enough (too much, really) that Winona Ryder plays dual roles: we don't need constant dissolves between her two characters. More and more, I got the impression that the production team thought I was pretty stupid. And that's the thing: if you have to tell me I'm frightened, then I'm not really frightened.

When the credits began to roll, I was left largely confused. I can't for the life of me figure out why we collectively remember Dracula so fondly. What was it about the previous decade that allowed us to believe that we enjoyed this film? I kept waiting for the big awesome thing that would make me want to keep watching. In the end, it was a big win for Eiko Ishioka, who snagged herself an Oscar by turning the onscreen fiasco into a runway for her evocative fashions. Without her visionary stylings, I find it hard to believe that we'd still be talking about this movie today.

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Seen Between Fingers -- The Castration Revenge Fantasy With A Thin Candy Shell

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. After spending so much time in the spooky 1970's, I decided to jolt us back to the present day and test Chris's appetite for this 2005 indie hit in which a pedophile's prey also becomes his predator (spoilers ahead!):

WEEK 11 : Hard Candy

In keeping with the hopeful spirit of the season, I'll start by saying that Hard Candy could have been so much worse. A movie with an interesting concept and riveting lead actors is not exactly easy to come by, and even if this production completely loses control of itself by the end, we can be thankful that the people involved were striving for something ambitious. So I'm going to keep up the holiday cheer by giving the film credit for all the parts that scared me.

Like I said, the actors deserve serious praise here. Ellen Page, giving an angsty, too-witty performance that she would later scrub and refine to create Juno, makes a more effective monster than you would think. Even when she's not saying anything worth listening to (and this becomes more frequent as things carry on), she looks intelligent and calculating. Her remorseless conviction unnerved me and created real tension: I never doubted that she intended, and could figure out how, to make her prey hurt in creative ways.

Patrick Wilson seems similarly sure of his own fate, and his best moments come when he is reacting to veiled (and later not-so-veiled) threats. His mounting horror and varied ways of expressing it gave me goosebumps. There's nothing worse than sharing someone's anticipation of something horrible. As the movie crawls toward its forewarned violent emasculation, Wilson writhes, reddens, howls, and contorts, adopting the bristling physicality of a bound animal. Watching gave me deeply unpleasant sympathy pains.

The pacing of the movie's first half is also pretty perfect. We're given just enough time to worry about the helpless teenager before the tables turn, and then it's a long slog to the promised at-home surgery. The only thing worse than having your arm cut off is being told that you're going to have your arm cut off in an hour, and Brian Nelson clearly knew this when he penned the script. My insides were tied in endless knots while I waited for them to just get it over with already.

[Editor's note: My own insides were tied in knots holding back laughter. From the whimpering sounds coming from the seat next to me, you'd think Chris was being led through age-regression child abuse therapy.]

Then Ellen Page cuts Patrick Wilson's balls off and the movie entirely loses its mind. It's as if the choice was made to actively and deliberately avoid continuity, because everything we are told is systematically thrown out the window as we proceed. Those balls? Still attached. The murdered girl from the useless subplot? He did kill her after all. The lumbering suspense? Replaced with knife chases. Witty dialogue? Nah, let's throw in some clumsy exposition. And remember when Sandra Oh made a random cameo with the sole purpose of revealing that the roof is not a safe place to hide? How about we end things with an extended showdown on... yep, the roof.

Clearly, nobody knew what to do after carting out the notion of a tabletop castration. Not that they didn't make the effort; there was so much visible trying going on that my DVD player practically broke a sweat. Sadly, all that trouble was wasted, because the end result is half watchable and half pitiable. To continue an earlier metaphor, it's tough to feel menaced when the dude who cut your arm off is now threatening to drive a staple into your leg. Particularly when it's revealed that he didn't cut your arm off after all. And still he stands there, waving the stapler and screaming as loud as he can.

Essentially, by failing to follow through on its promises, the film neuters itself. The final scenes just dangle there, flaccid. The audience, seeing the story's impotence, no longer feels any sense of danger. I started out feeling genuinely afraid, but got over it once I realized that everyone was shooting blanks.

As an aside, I will say that Tom and I had a blast wondering what would have happened if this movie had fulfilled its B-grade destiny by casting other, less skilled performers. Seriously, imagining just about anyone else saying those lines makes for hilarity. What if this had been a breakout for Miley Cyrus and another Oscar bait from Robin Williams? Or a '90s classic starring Gary Sinise and Alicia Silverstone (with a surprise cameo by Rosie O'Donnell)? It's a fun game, you should play along at home. You pretty much can't go wrong.

[Editor's note: Sean Connery, Chris Crocker, surprise cameo by Zelda Rubinstein]

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Seen Between Fingers -- Human Sacrifice Via Corn Rigs, Barley Rigs and Burstyn Wigs

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. One of our commentors pointed Chris toward the 1973 classic The Wicker Man; I was afraid it wouldn't be scary or gross enough, but noting Chris's extreme susceptibility to atmosphere, I figured it was worth a shot. We also watched highlights from the misogynistic 2006 blowfest remake (which I finally caved in and bought on DVD, in light of how often I've rented it to show off the mind-boggling awfulness). The original should be watched, re-watched, and committed to memory -- if you're a virgin, however, beware the major spoilers ahead:

WEEK 10 : The Wicker Man

The Wicker Man surprised me in a number of ways, both good and bad. For every immensely atmospherically tense moment, there's a completely inane, mood-breaking blunder. Each intelligent acting choice is matched with an utterly bewildering one. The plot is at once compelling and hugely hokey. But despite the contradictions, I found myself intrigued and even frightened.

Evidently eager to hide any early signs of high quality, the movie starts out nice and slow. The establishing shots, following a plane's journey to a northern Scottish isle in what feels like real time, are actually made jarring by the concurrent music. The two songs (a single song wouldn't be nearly expository enough) seem to go together only by force; it's as though we've been treated to random selections from the iTunes playlist of a college freshman who brings up Wicca in every conversation.

Then, just when the Celtic lullaby and lyrically absurd folk mash-up has lulled you into complacency, the movie kicks into high gear. Apprehension sets in immediately as Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) emerges from his plane and is greeted by the residents of Summerisle with the rather benign disinterest that proves to be the story's greatest strength. While the remake (which I hesitate to mention, as it is best forgotten) expends Herculean efforts trying to make each moment scary and important, the original is smart enough to play most everything fairly lightly. The result is far more unnerving.

The island's population proves to be the most pleasantly unhelpful group of people on the planet. Even setting foot on land is something of a hassle. Stranded on his seaplane, the sergeant's repeated requests for a dingy to shore are met with friendly refrains of “afraid not.” His investigation's dark impetus – the disappearance of a young girl – does little more to pique interest. As a picture of the lost child is passed around, the locals generally react as though they're speaking to a toddler who has misplaced his imaginary friend. “That's nice, dear. Run along now.” That no one much cares about a disquieting crime is intensely disquieting.

Lest the audience become too invested, we're then offered some more incongruous music. After walking to the local pub to truly absurd accompaniment, Sergeant Howie is gifted with two full musical numbers. Their inclusion is baffling; perhaps the implied rehearsal period is meant to foreshadow how well the island dwellers had prepared for the officer's arrival? First, the bar patrons sing an exceptionally suggestive song about Willow, the inn owner's daughter who Britt Ekland portrays as thoroughly delighted by choral harassment from a crowd of old drunks. Later that night, she offers a little melodic naughtiness of her own, shedding her clothes and seducing Howie through a wall with a rump-shaking scene that would bring a tear to Sir Mix-A-Lot's eye.

With all that out of the way, the movie hits its stride. The sergeant's hunt, while short on relevant clues, exposes him to the libertine culture that has flourished among the residents. Nude dancing, frog licking, late-night graveyard romps, fertility rituals, and polytheism run rampant on the isle. Perhaps during the movie's initial release 35 years ago, it all seemed quite shocking, but today, Howie's frequent freakouts paint him as a bit of a prude. He is thrown into a frenzy by every practice and belief that deviates from his expectations, seemingly unable to let go of the hope that somewhere on this outcropping, Jesus is being worshiped with appropriate reverence and chastity.

As I said, it's all about tone here. Sure, these folks are unconventional by some standards, but to them, it's just business as usual. Nobody behaves as though they're breaking standards or stepping outside the lines, and indeed they react with a sort of pitying tolerance when their guest is forever unable to grasp their way of life. Rather than stomping around like the Cloverfield monster (I'm looking at you, Ellen Burstyn), they simply take a deep breath and explain yet again how they roll. The threat remains that this is a cult bent on ritually sacrificing a preteen, but it seems somewhat possible that this is a misunderstanding being driven into the ground by a closed-minded cop asshole on a power trip.

Or not. Christopher Lee's expository history lesson and dulcet baritone serenading aside, it becomes clear that the missing child does truly exist and is really going to be killed. In quick succession, we're treated to a burning hand, a parade, a bit of a drag show, a faux beheading, and an entire keg emptied onto the ground for our fallen homies. It's all fun and games until someone wants to murder a kid, however, and Sergeant Howie is there to save the day. His heroics are muffled only slightly by his ridiculous costume, as well as the several cuts back to the even more ridiculous man from whom he stole it.

Then, without warning, things get pretty anxious again. Turns out the islanders have themselves a little plan for Officer Buttinsky. Still grinning like sales associates at a JoAnn Fabrics, they calmly inform him how important it is that he die for the good of local agriculture. He's understandably perturbed by this suggestion, but his protests and duress go unheeded. It's a highly creepy moment, watching one man argue for his life while a mild-mannered horde politely soldiers on, barely hearing his pleas. Into the sacrificial wooden cage you go, friend! They're so confident in the efficacy of this choice that they join together in song (of course) as their unlucky guest meets a fiery fate. One wonders if, during his increasingly desperate appeals to the Lord, the sergeant began to regret not forming a better rapport with his hosts earlier. Maybe they would have felt worse about burning him alive if he hadn't been such a consistent choad for the past couple days.

Overall, this is one of those flawed diamonds of the cinema. It tackles some amazingly pertinent themes concerning religious and sexual freedom. (It's unclear why these concepts, which were what made the movie interesting in the first place, were entirely missing from the remake.) The early '70s wasn't a good time to make something that future generations would take seriously, so some leeway must be allowed. While there are plenty of sections in this film that induce unintentional laughter, it elicits enough genuine discomfort to make it worth viewing.

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Seen Between Fingers -- Attack of the Moon-Themed Soundtrack

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies.

WEEK 9 : An American Werewolf
In London

An American Werewolf in London is remembered largely for its transformation scene, and rightly so. The image of a man screaming and writhing in agony as his body contorts quickly and unpleasantly cements itself in one’s mind. Despite the hokey soundtrack applied to the proceedings (I groaned when I realized that every single song would have “moon” in the title), the event plays out like an overlong nightmare, offering grotesquely convincing close-ups of how truly horrible it is to become a man-hound.

Unfortunately, this small percentage of insanely watchable celluloid allows us to collectively forget that the rest of the film kind of stinks.

It’s clear pretty early on that this movie isn’t going anywhere exciting. From the moment our good-looking hero (the hunky, dull David Naughton) and his goofy sidekick (the gnomish Griffin Dunne) extract themselves from a truck full of sheep, you can tell that the comedic aspect of this horror-comedy hybrid is going to fall short. The ongoing banter between the two leads reeks of effort: everyone involved is trying to create a funny moment, and no one is succeeding.

The young travelers, who incidentally are worse planners than the trio in The Blair Witch Project, stumble upon what proves to be the most intense village in creation. All acting that happens inside the village pub is turned up to eleven. The extreme tension and charged pauses suggest that somewhere a crucial line about the off-screen sniper was edited out, leaving behind only the clenched, dire delivery of a set of characters who we didn’t realize are all about to be shot in the head. While this makes sense after the two men exit and are clearly in danger of losing their lives, it is less plausible when they are, for instance, ordering tea.

As it turns out, these people do have some cause to worry: pretty soon, a horrible beast is unexpectedly eating Griffin Dunne. The shock of his death is mixed with relief: it’s nice to think that he won’t be around to extract laughter from me the way a student dentist might extract a molar. Sadly, he will make several subsequent appearances as a corpse in limbo, getting uglier but not any funnier.

As the newly-bitten protagonist wakes in the hospital, we’re introduced to a breath of fresh air in the form of Jenny Agutter’s Nurse Alex. The sheer competence of her performance suggests that she stumbled onto the wrong set; while Naughton limply recites his lines as if he’s still at the first table read, Agutter lays down layers of nuance that I doubt anyone else in the production even noticed, let alone intended. Sadly, despite her intelligent reading of the script, her character is an idiot: she’s quick to encourage her patient to live in her apartment even though he is a total stranger who has suffered serious trauma, behaves erratically, tells her he’s in love with her after less than a month, and claims to be a werewolf. She’s the kind of girl who ought to die first in a flick like this.

We get Next, we’re given an impressive attempt at rationalizing everyone’s fairly casual reaction to David’s repeated assertions that he is a werewolf. The whole business is unconvincing, wordy, and lacking in the horror and/or comedy that would make it feel like a viable use of our viewing time.

Finally, after some more bland exposition from the locals back at the High-Intensity Pub (seriously, those people are stern and impassioned. They need backrubs.) the film delivers what we’ve all been waiting for: actual werewolfery. As mentioned previously, the metamorphosis is handled quite well. Unfortunately, David Naughton is no more interesting as a monster than he is as a man. Though several murders occur in quick succession, nothing especially scary or even gory happens. We spend all this time watching a werewolf being created, but then aren’t shown the finished product or what it’s capable of. It’s something of a let-down.

The third quarter of this movie is a blur to me. I know that Mr. Naughton frolics bare-assed through London for a while (note to Tom: more male nudity, please), and then he talks to the undead in a porno theater (an arbitrary choice of location that I accept only because it allowed for the one joke in the entire script that made me laugh). Inevitably, the moon comes out again, and the werewolf eats some people who presumably just wanted to masturbate in peace. His subsequent escape into Piccadilly Circus, while light on individual bite-induced death, causes something of a vehicular holocaust. It’s a total Monster Truck Rally. Apparently, the release of a single wild animal onto the London streets would cause untold carnage and mayhem. More hilarious still: while the patrons of the provincial bar to the North are busy trying to perfect the technique of murder by emphatic tone of voice, the city folk calmly label the unfolding twisted metal apocalypse as a “disturbance.” When we finally get to see the dog-man, the finished product isn’t nearly as exciting as the work-in-progress.

Then he gets shot, Jenny Agutter gives a better crying take that this project deserves, and the movie ends. It’s abrupt.

Bottom line: amusement and fright seem to be on opposite ends of the playing field. I neither laughed nor felt the need to cover my eyes during this movie, and it’s easy to make me do either. By trying for both, the makers of this movie ended up engaging in a tug-of-war that left them decidedly in the middle, never managing to achieve either aim. What’s left is a sketchy plot, lame dialogue, shoddy performances, and mediocre direction. Without Rick Baker’s innovative prosthetic work, this dud surely would have faded into obscurity long ago.

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Seen Between Fingers -- Finally, a Beheading Everyone Can Enjoy

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. We've been a little frivolous in our selections over the last couple weeks, so I was excited to return to the stable of classic horror show-ponies. I thought Chris seemed nonplussed during the viewing, so I was pretty surprised to read what he had to say about Damien's debut...

WEEK 8 : The Omen

So often, my work for this column makes me think that my readers have completely lost their minds. I simply can't imagine a group of sane individuals finding a film like The Midnight Meat Train tolerable, let alone enjoyable. I have suffered through two Hellraiser movies shaking my head. Even The Fly and Suspiria, while largely pleasant, still felt deeply and campily flawed at times.

The Omen has proved that either you all haven't gone crazy, or I'm just starting to go there with you.

This movie works because it clings so closely to real-world logic, a choice that grounds the otherworldly plot in a believable way. Early in the film, after Damien's first nanny commits suicide for him as a misguided birthday present, a replacement caretaker arrives in the house. Though Mrs. Baylock seems nice enough, Damien's parents promptly realize that neither of them has requested this woman's presence. As the scene changes to follow the new nanny's trip to the little boy's bedroom, I turned to my viewing companion and mocked, “I love how they're just going to let her--” My witticism was cut short when, just like it would happen in real life, the concerned mother and father jointly swept down the hallway to ask just a few more questions.

The filmmakers were also extremely lucky in getting Gregory Peck to play Damien's father. A compelling actor with a rich, commanding voice, he could convince me of just about anything. If he says this is a good movie, then it's hard to disagree. He really elevates the material. Watching him learn that his wife has died, it's evident what a mess this could have been if some high school drama club reject had been given the role. Instead, we're treated to scene after scene in which his rich baritone and thoughtful eyebrows ensure us that this is a rational man thrown into irrational circumstances. Even when he decides to murder a toddler with ancient knives on a church altar, you're inclined to assume that he must have a perfectly good reason. (Though the cops seem less convinced of this.)

Smartly, the movie offers little in the way of gore. Despite that, among other things, a man gets skewered right down the center with a ten-foot spike, we're shown only scant drops of blood here and there. In fact, comparatively little time is spent with spectacular deaths. Again adhering to the idea that reality is scarier than fantasy, the longest depiction of violence is a dog attack, a situation in which the audience can easily place themselves. On the other hand, the film also contains (and I am frightened to find myself typing this) the most awesome beheading I have ever seen. The decision of whether or not to watch it happen was so difficult that I nearly split my face in two trying to do both.

If anything, I would have liked to see the dramatic tension of the plot taken even further. I mean, for all the realism, we're still dealing with a story about a boyish incarnation of the devil. And while the characters in the story have their doubts about this conclusion, we as viewers never do. It might have been interesting to see a movie in which the child wasn't obviously demon spawn. While I adored Billie Whitelaw's wild-eyed take on Mrs. Baylock, it would have been all the more intriguing if she hadn't introduced herself to Damien with the kind of intensity that only Satan worshipers seem able to muster. What if, in the end, we really did have to question whether we trusted Gregory Peck's choice to murder his son? Slaying evil is scary, but killing an ordinary kid is even scarier.

Overall, this movie serves as a nice counterpoint, or even antidote, to Apocalypto. That picture proved that a lot of blood can amount to only a little horror; this one proves that a lot of horror can come from only a little blood. I'm going to give The Omen my seal of approval. It's a well-crafted little nugget. And honestly, any movie that can get me to compliment a decapitation must be doing something right.


Next week: An American Werewolf In London.

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Seen Between Fingers -- Chris Kelly Sidesteps Mel Gibson's Apocalypto Boobytrap

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. We've been waiting for The Omen to arrive via Netflix; in the meantime, Chris casually mentioned to me that he'd rather die than watch Mel Gibson's orgiastic bloodbath Apocalypto. Like an evil genie, I couldn't help but make sure that within 24 hours, his worst nightmare came true...

WEEK 7 : Apocalypto

You're probably as confused as I am about the choice to include Apocalypto in this series. No one involved in making this movie set out to create a horror film. None of the audience viewing it expected a horror film, and a horror film is not what they received. Though the finished product has an impressively high body count [editor's note: 114, to be exact], and though the gore is unflinchingly depicted, and though the deaths are increasingly creative, the fact remains that this is a pretty typical action movie.

It's also, in my opinion, a steaming pile. The fact that the first shot is of a tapir's wobbly ass isn't an accident: it's a warning.

I was asked to see this movie because it was assumed that I would be grossed out. I sure was. People meet some grisly fates. In fact, it almost seems as though Mel Gibson became bored at some point during the process and dreamed up new murders simply to keep himself amused. He loses interest after the third or fourth beheading. How about a panther? A fall from a great height? Poison darts? Bees? Spiked traps? It's in there. With just a little more faux-moralizing, this could have been a Saw prequel.

Yet the gut reaction of seeing a death feels muffled, because none of the characters strike me real people. Striving for archetypes, Mr. Gibson manages only to present us with paper cut-outs. The shrill mother-in-law, the unflinching hero, the heartless enemy, the prophetic toddler: each thinly scripted portrait carries about as much depth as a guest star on Full House. When they die (and most everyone does), it's almost a relief: one less melodramatic cliché to keep track of.

I'd say the movie is worth seeing for the production values. About a third of the way through we're treated to a breathtaking view of a Mayan city. To watch these scenes divested from the rest of the plot (and muted) would probably be best. Look at the people covered in white dust! The men painted blue! The women with crowns made from their own hair! The wildly costumed religious leaders! The crowds! The creativity and spectacle of it all nearly justify the $40 million that was apparently spent to execute this otherwise dull, artless slog of a misbegotten metaphor.

I'll save you the trouble: We start with the hero and his wife. They live in a peaceful village where life is simple and everyone laughs at jokes about balls. Then the army with En Vogue hair kills, rapes, and/or enslaves everyone. Once they get to the city, hit play. You'll get to see this dude, that guy, and OMG these ladies. As soon as the sacrifices are about to begin, you can just stop the DVD and put it back in the Netflix envelope. After that, pretty much everyone dies except for the aforementioned hero and his aforementioned wife (who rockets a baby out of her crotch in the most vigorous depiction of a birth perhaps ever).

So, that about sums up Apocalypto. It's historically inaccurate, overlong, completely implausible, and not scary. Don't bother.



Next week: The Omen, for real this time.

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Seen Between Fingers -- Chris Kelly Begs, "Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?"

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. I figured David Lynch's slimy and grimy debut would really upset someone as sensitive and imaginative as Chris -- I had no idea he'd turn out to be even weirder than the film itself...

WEEK 6 : Eraserhead

Sorry, guys, the joke's on you.

I'm the first to admit that I am a total lightweight. My sunny outlook and distaste for even the suggestion of physical pain leave me ill-suited for viewing most horror movies, not to mention many mainstream titles. On the other hand, the same innocence that prevents me from looking at the horribleness on the screen can also prevent me from recognizing it.

That's where Eraserhead comes in.

I'll admit to being slightly unnerved at first. The abstract opening moments, followed by the long, eerie silences and gritty, claustrophobic imagery generally made me feel as though I was literally trapped inside David Lynch's head. It made a certain amount of sense to assume that his brain is run by a confused, tall-haired man-child and a he-goblin pulling levers. In fact, the movie even supports this assumption once the characters begin speaking: they deliver wholly plausible lines in implausible and sometimes unpleasant ways. It's as though the tall-haired, angelic man on Lynch's right shoulder wrote a light melodrama about a couple with a baby, and the knobby demon on his left shoulder decided to direct with the black-and-white, pseudo-sexual mania of Suddenly, Last Summer as performed by a cast of zombies.

Unfortunately for those of you who hoped to see me crumble, I clung steadfastly to the bringing-up-baby angle of the story, which smoothed over the rest of the creepy nonsense. Sure, that hysterical blond girl apparently gave birth to a partial calf fetus. Sure, the man with the hair has a tumorous Betty Boop impersonator living in his radiator. Sure, the landscape is apocalyptic, the people are foul, and the apartment is crawling with oversized sperm. But there's a baby!

Others with whom I have consulted have assured me that I was supposed to find the baby unquestionably awful. You underestimate the depth of my blind empathy. It was sweet and little. Listen to the cute little burbling noises! As the movie progressed, I found myself increasingly concerned with the lack of attention and care being provided to this child. Clearly, this is a special needs situation, and if Sarah Palin can be trusted with Swatch or Brisket or whatever she named this one, then Henry and Mary can manage with their lump of joy. I watched the movie thinking about the changes needed to make the apartment suitable for raising an infant. You know: transfer the baby from the kitchen table to a crib of some sort, take the houseplants out of the mounds of dirt they're lying in and put them in actual pots, sweep up the mountains of hair lying everywhere... the little things.

In the end, I was mostly unsettled by the shameful parenting displayed in this narrative. I don't care how many times you dream about your brain being made into pencil erasers. That's no excuse for cutting up the bandages that seem to be the only thing holding your offspring together. You brought it home from the hospital: the fourth-trimester abortion is not an option.

I'll give you one thing, though: the girl in the radiator is one gross bitch.



Next week: I dunno. The Omen? Okay, The Omen.

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Seen Between Fingers -- Stop The Midnight Meat Train, Chris Kelly Wants to Get Off

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. I'd promised you all Eraserhead for this week, but the Landmark Sunshine Cinema wound up hosting a midnight screening of Clive Barker's bedeviled new film The Midnight Meat Train, so we took a short detour. No spoilers ahead for those anxiously awaiting its DVD release...

WEEK 5 : The Midnight Meat Train

The Midnight Meat Train is one of those movies that I should absolutely never see on the big screen. The goriness of bludgeonings, when paired with the realistic claustrophobia of a late-night subway ride, is way too much for my small tolerance. Luckily, I didn’t see this movie in the theater.

I mean, I was in the theater when it was showing. I just didn’t see it.

You get the sense from its title alone that a high ratio of violence is going to occur on said "meat train" (a term that I’m surprised wasn’t snatched up by the porn industry first). This gave me a good indicator of when to watch -- or not watch -- the film: as soon as the subway rolled into the station, I clasped my hands firmly over my face, allowing only a tiny crack through which to view the blurry corners of limbs and faces that had possibly already been detached from their owners. The resulting scenes presented me with only the vaguest idea of what was going on, supplemented with an array of admittedly skillful shrieks, groans, and squelches associated with the rendering of humans into their composite parts.

I have to say, the crowd was going wild as I sat there trying not to hyperventilate. If you’re into this kind of thing -- and I assume you are if you’re reading this column -- then whatever happened in those trains is probably going to thoroughly entertain you. I can say for certain that a man in a suit rides the train. He’s got a leather valise. In that valise is the largest, shiniest hammer I have ever seen. As the train enters the tunnel, he approaches unsuspecting riders menacingly and… whoops, look at that, the screen went black. Auditory cues indicate that they do something other than exchange business cards and plan to meet later for a networking luncheon.

Unfortunately, without the “benefit” of the many scenes in which people’s innards are revealed, MMT had only its scripted lines with which to entice me. As it turns out, no one making this film cared quite as much about dialogue, pacing, or internal logic as they did about hammer murder. Most of the scenes outside the subway drew unanimous laughter from the crowd. In particular, conversations that did not involve the subway killer fell flat. The further we got from the possibility of bloodshed, the worse it became. A confusing and unexpected sex scene, a viciously overacted visit from Brooke Shields, and an increasingly unbelievable series of choices from our lead characters all conspired to remove the horror from this horror movie, ruining the mood and leaving the audience scratching their heads or giggling. I won’t even talk about the ending, not because I want to avoid spoilers but because I find it too ridiculous to dignify with a straightforward description.

In the end, I’m glad for MMT’s flaws; if the tension had continued to build skillfully and insidiously manner, I might have died of a heart attack before the credits rolled. Instead, I was treated to a fun, mildly frightening melodrama interspersed with surreal, kaleidoscope-esque images viewed through my barely-parted fingers. If you have the opportunity to catch this one in the theaters (which most of the country will not), then go ahead and see it. Fans of the genre will enjoy the whole thing; wimps like myself will find that there’s a surprising amount of comedy buried in there if you’re willing to close your eyes and pretend that every subway ride sounds like... that.


Next week: David Lynch's Eraserhead (No, really, we swear!)

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Seen Between Fingers -- Chris Kelly Takes Argento's Ballerina Challenge

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. I decided that by suffering through two Hellraiser films, Chris had earned a break from the ordinary. It seems that Dario Argento's 1977 classic struck quite a nerve...

WEEK 4 : Suspiria

Well, score one for horror fans. As it turns out, I genuinely liked Suspiria. It is a frightening, engrossing, all-around well-made film. I'm still going to mock it, as that is my job, but I thought you should know that it comes from a loving place this time. Like when a ballet teacher makes you dance until you hemorrhage: she just wants to see you grow as an artist.

I knew from the first moment that I was going to enjoy this one. Before anything really happened, I was hooked in with the eerie accompaniment of Goblin's score. The music plays over the entirely mundane depiction of Jessica Harper walking hesitantly through a German airport. It's normal in every way, but the haunting chords and rhythmic open-and-close of the automatic doors highlight the tension of being alone in a foreign country in a palpable way. I was clenching my fists so tightly I almost bled, and this is before anyone in the movie has even considered razoring someone in the face. In general, the soundtrack is best used when nothing all that scary is happening: it's baffling how alarmed I became at the pointless story about an old lady snoring.

Harper's character proves to be a helpful foil during the film, because she behaves much as I would if I were thrown into a ballet school run by occultists. And that's the thing: no one is working too hard to put up a front here. Madame Blanc, who runs the school, exudes the kind of practiced politeness described by the neighbors of serial killers in televised interviews. Her best teacher, Miss Tanner, is built like a ham-hock in high heels with a voice like an automatic garage door. Pavlo, their servant, has a rapist's leer that is, despite assertions to the contrary, only worsened by his false teeth. These are the first three people Suzy meets at the school, and yet what is a person to do in these circumstances? I've met lots of creepers in my day, and the inherent politeness in most of us forces us to play along. Suzy's activities, sleeping arrangements, and food consumption are taken over in short succession, but it all seems so plausible. Who goes around accusing people of being witches? They're German artists, after all, which is probably the most airtight cover story they could have dreamt up.

Dario Argento knows that to scare people -- or at least to scare me -- you need to toy with expectations. It's not enough to surprise or shock; you have to undermine reasonable assumptions. There are few deaths in this movie, but the ones that are there are spectacular and sent me instantly covering my face and howling like a toddler. Surely if you're above the third floor, you can lock the door and rest assured that no one will magically teleport through your window! (You can't.) Of course when you jump to safety from a raised ledge, the floor below won?t be a teeming mass of barbed wire! (It will.) Certainly a blind man with his seeing-eye dog in an empty courtyard will be able to hear his attacker coming! (He won't). Every time you think you know what's next, you're wrong, and Argento is all too happy to rub your nose in it, allowing the camera to linger lustily on the gore that results from guessing incorrectly.

Another smart trick is to provide the viewer with only as much information as one of the protagonists would have. And bear in mind, Argento didn't stage this story at a MENSA retreat. Out intrepid investigators are distressed, perhaps brainwashed, definitely malnourished ballerinas: they're graceful as swans, with about the same cognitive capacity. The conceit works, however. We're given just enough input to pique our curiosity, but never enough to answer the questions being posed. Maggots are eating through the ceiling, people are disappearing left and right, and that horrible Miss Tanner continues to shoot white-hot hatred from her eyes, but everything terrible that happens is quickly glossed over by the faculty. The students are left to accept the propaganda or explore at their own peril, and it's unclear which choice is worse. As the film's finale proves, by the time you realize you're surrounded by witches, it's a bit late to be asking questions about their master plan. It's fight or flight, and the movie is positively triumphant in its ability to convey that dire anxiety.

And yet, the tension I felt throughout the film broke to laughter almost instantly as the credits began with the redundant announcement: YOU HAVE BEEN WATCHING SUSPIRIA. It was at this exact moment that I realized how silly the movie might look upon review. To truly grasp its level of nonsense, I had to try to explain the plot to a friend who had never seen it. Most of it sounded like this:

So wait, the witches run a ballet school?

Well, yeah.

But they kill all the students.

No, no, most of the students they just teach to dance. They only kill a few. Just the nosy ones, I guess.

So you're telling me that they legitimately teach lots of people ballet but occasionally kill with witchcraft?

Um, yes.

When the movie ends, the gaps in the story that seemed insignificant as people were dying suddenly seem glaring and insurmountable. What exactly were they feeding Suzy? Why did it make her tired? What was the deal with the maggots in the attic? Why did the directress sleep among the students and keep everyone awake with her vile wheezing? Do the witches really support their school through the occasional sacrifice of a student? Is that a viable business plan? Why are they so committed to the arts, anyway??

I recommend that you see Suspiria. Just turn it off as soon as it's over and never think about it again. You're much smarter than Suzy and her friends, and the burden of that intelligence will ruin the movie forever. And if that doesn't, the planned remake sure will.


Next week: David Lynch's Eraserhead

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Seen Between Fingers -- Chris Kelly Returns to Hell, Fires Decorator

For this new regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly will be reporting back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. Two weeks ago Hellraiser left him cold. Considering how crazy-bananas the sequel is, I figured one bad turn deserves another...

WEEK 3 : Hellbound: Hellraiser II

OK, horror fans, you’ve officially lost me.

It’s not that I don’t understand the appeal of a trashy movie, a scary movie, a gross movie, or even an outright terrible movie. All of these indulgences have their place. What I don’t understand is how anyone could willingly subject themselves to a viewing of Hellbound: Hellraiser II, which is easily one of the crappiest pieces of so-called entertainment I have ever seen. That it was chosen for me as viewing material suggests that it enjoys continued popularity despite being an unsalvageable mess. So incoherent is the work that I cannot review it. I give you, instead, a list of completely unanswerable questions suggested by the events depicted (which I hesitate to dignify with the term “plot”).


1. What’s so terrifying about flying hooks?

Is anyone going to defend the blatant overuse of this completely un-scary tactic? This movie starts out pretty much exactly like the last one (ignoring, of course, the rehash of the first film’s ending, which must have looked dated even to audiences seeing it only a year later). It’s less thrilling the second time around. Sure, they added nails, but we’ve already seen Pinhead, and it’s otherwise pretty much the same flesh-fishing as before. Later, the Cenobites punctuate their interrogation of Kirsty with a little menacing swing of the chain, and interestingly, we learn that Pinhead pre-gores his hooks: even though he only hits the wall, his weapon still drips blood. It’s more odd than it is creepy. Then there’s the disappointing showdown nearer to the end of the movie -- all it takes to kill a Cenobite is a flying hook? Within ten seconds, the movie’s four most ominous characters are neatly dispatched with the same tool that one uses to lure a cod to its pan-seared grave. The law of diminishing returns has rarely been so effectively illustrated.


2. How much murder-blood does it take to rebuild a human body?

This is a question from both movies, really, but Hellbound in particular seems to make inefficient use of its resources. To resurrect Julia from the mattress, Dr. Channard brings home a mental patient and allows him to mutilate himself in the most awful scene of the film (it goes on forever and I’ll admit to fast-forwarding through half of it). Before the dude is even close to dead, his plasma has provided enough material for our favorite ‘80s antivixen to build an entire skeleton, including cartilage and supporting muscle structure. Six murders later, however, she’s still missing quite a bit of flesh. What gives? How much blood does it take to create a square inch of skin? We’re eight bodies deep before she’s fully formed. I feel like that’s just wasteful.


3. Where did Dr. Channard learn to decorate?

The time spent at chez Channard fills the viewer with disquiet, and not only because he has fallen in lust with an undead mass of viscera (more on that later). Let’s examine his choices as an interior designer. His study is painted in lush forest green, populated with tasteful wooden furniture, lined with books and pictures, and generally adorned in an austere-yet-homey fashion. That is, if one can ignore the old soiled mattress he eventually hauls into the center of the room. The rest of his house, on the other hand, is white and empty -- literally. I don’t think I saw a single piece of furniture anywhere else in the place, despite the fact that the external shots clearly establish it as a veritable estate. Does he really spend so much time in that one room that he never felt the need to furnish the rest of his living space? Sure, that left him with plenty of open area in which to savage his patients, but he can’t have planned for that when he moved in. Better still: at the end, there’s suddenly shit everywhere to pack up. Where did the moving men find all those chairs? What’s in all those boxes? This house was a wasteland.


4. Why is Julia so irresistible?

Yes, the scene where Channard bandages her is kind of arty and unnerving, but really? His first interaction with her was to watch her bloody, half-formed corpse wriggle across the room to eat a mutilated lunatic alive. Even his unhealthy obsession with Hell doesn’t quite make it plausible that he’d be sexually compelled by a woman whose entire body is a gaping wound. She does look less icy this time around, but then again, maybe that’s just because it’s such a relief when we finally see her with skin.


5. What were the writers thinking?

It was nearly impossible for me to write this column because of Hellbound’s exceptionally low level of quality. It makes no fucking sense at all. It’s long, and it clearly doesn’t need to be. The most nauseating bits, namely the inmate’s self-inflicted razor wounds and Julia’s mummification, are dispensed early: it’s beyond me why they didn’t just clock this one at 75 minutes and call it a day. I’m also still completely in the dark about the purpose of that cube. Sometimes it calls Cenobites, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you need it to enter Hell, while at other times you can just go there because you feel like it. Sometimes it’s a different shape, which makes people act as if life is suddenly more difficult, though nothing seems immediately worse. Oh, and how did Channard manage to keep a basement full of filthy howling nightmare people secret for so long? Where did he learn to drape a bedsheet like a Grecian dress? Since when is it possible to wear someone else’s skin as a convincing disguise? God, I could go on and on.

I’m disappointed that this is considered a classic of the genre. It does not give me high hopes for my future assignments.


Next week: Dario Argento's Suspiria

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Seen Between Fingers -- Cronenberg Claims Another Cobbler

For this new regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly will be reporting back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. Hellraiser didn't seem to affect him much, so I was starting to doubt his sensitivity. Time to bring in the big guns:

WEEK 2 : The Fly (1986)

To provide a bit of context for this review: just before the movie began, I popped a rhubarb cobbler into the oven. My idea of a good film involves the preparation and consumption of baked goods.

Cronenberg’s The Fly started with its fair share of hurdles to jump. As with Hellraiser, it had the misfortune of being made in the 1980s, a time when, like a proud-maned lion, one's power was asserted through the overall size of one’s hair. As well, it is a remake of a classic and an icon in its own right, and I thus already possessed knowledge of the general plot and several key scenes. With these supposed disadvantages in mind, I hit play on my DVD player, secure in the belief that I could happily consume a warm dessert during the next hour and a half.

The opening scenes upheld my lowered expectations. Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum, all styling mousse and shoulder pads, launched onto the screen without introduction, chatting benignly for only moments before jetting off to his apartment. In a modern-day fiction (or fact, for that matter), a woman brought to a strange man’s back-alley residence would escape with a torn dress and an STD if she escaped at all. In this movie, she got a breakthrough news story. Then again, the reveal of Goldblum’s scientific discovery was no reveal at all to the audience, so this haste was forgiven.

From here, the movie slowed. I’ll admit to having to put my fork down momentarily when they accidentally inverted the babboon. But that was over quickly, and otherwise I was mostly looking at a lazily-paced romance between our two stars, with John Getz as an imbalanced ex-lover thrown in to raise the level of conflict just beyond benign. Even when the long-anticipated teleportation finally occurred, I was provided not with the shock of a fly-headed man-menace, but a new, leanly muscled Jeff Goldblum. I can totally eat cobbler while watching him do gymnastics.

Here’s where things began to get dicey for me. Goldblum’s physique came loaded with an intensely erratic new mind, and his beady-eyed mood swings were beginning to unsettle me. His initial physical improvements were rapidly undermined as well. It seemed only vaguely unwelcome, though: I know lots of people with blotchy skin and back hair. Then, just when I was wondering what adult onset acne had to do with insect DNA, his ear fell right off into his hand. He, Geena Davis, and I shared a moment of stunned silence; they then conversed in a contained panic while I noticed for the first time how gory cooked rhubarb looks. Bit by bit, Brundlefly began to rip off his human vestiges, and bit by bit I began to regret having eaten at all that entire day.

I was granted a brief respite during Geena Davis’ pregnancy scare (mostly, I was shocked by how frankly the script tackled the subject of abortion, but that’s a topic for another review). I'd already heard about her maggot dream, so while it was gross, it wasn’t unexpected. What I didn’t see coming was Jeff Goldblum’s Kool-Aid Man impersonation, but the initial shock of his entrance wore off quickly. (Do flies do that, by the way? Shouldn’t he have just rammed against the glass over and over and over and over again?) Still, I was reluctant to pick my cobbler back up.

That’s when the final scene showed up and ruined my whole day. Oh dear God, he’s vomiting acid onto that man’s hand. Still! He’s still doing it! And now his foot! Listen to the screams! Will this never end? OH SHIT HE’S FALLING APART! WHAT THE FUCK IS INSIDE OF HIM? THAT’S HIDEOUS!! JESUS CHRIST! UN-COBBLER!!! ABORT!!! ABORT!!!

Seriously, that was messed up. Props to whoever designed the effects for the last ten minutes of the film, because they accomplished the impossible and made me wish that I was watching someone pull off his own fingernails again instead. The amount of creative awfulness packed into that finale clearly demonstrates why you horror fans have given The Fly its place in the pantheon must-see movies. Even I can understand the attraction. I’d recommend it to anyone with an empty stomach.


Next week: Hellbound: Hellraiser II

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Seen Between Fingers -- Chris Kelly Is Man Enough For Hellraiser

For this new regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly will be reporting back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. We're talking about a guy who kept his eyes covered during much of Pan's Labyrinth (leaving just enough room between his fingers to see the subtitles) so if there are films you'd like to see inflicted on this tender soul, please leave them in the comments. Click below to read:

WEEK 1: Clive Barker's Hellraiser

I am not the target audience for horror films. A gentle soul at heart, I prefer for stories to end happily and for others to experience as little discomfort as possible. I am afraid of needles, intolerant of pain, and squeamish at the sight of blood. Paper-cuts incapacitate me; scary movies are likely to cause permanent emotional scarring.

It was thus with some confusion that I ended my viewing of Hellraiser with little discernable distress. I’ll give credit where credit is due: that opening is no picnic. Eschewing all pretense of plot and character, our film-making team went straight for hooks and dismemberment, offering twisted death to a hirsute stranger. Hands were quickly clasped over eyes.

When my fingers parted, however, I was greeted not with a horrifying movie, but a horrible one. The plot, doubling back to explain the doom dealt to he of the buff torso and Kenny Loggins beard (Sean Chapman), quickly collapses on itself. Our lead actress Clare Higgins, who is sharper and colder than fan-favorite Pinhead by a country mile, is unconvincingly portrayed as an irresistible seductress. Almost all of the human men in this film strive to have sex with her, despite her frigid cragginess. There’s also the mysterious puzzle box, which is the plot’s keystone and its central problem. Its powers are numerous and frequently relied on, but never fully explained. Then again, this tool’s function is apparently so obvious that a teenager on the verge of a nervous breakdown can wield it masterfully without instruction, so maybe I’m the dumb one here.

In the end, the parts of the movie that scared me the most were given short shrift. The Cenobites, which exist as Hellraiser’s most memorable legacy, prove to be its least effective offerings. Their initial visual presence certainly earns a visceral reaction, but their actions seldom back the costume. Beyond a vacant description of their desire to explore the limits of pleasure and pain, they seem to do little more than linger in moody lighting and occasionally throw hooks at people (a trick that was creepier out of context in the beginning than at the movie’s climax). I was more frightened by the concept of an undead refugee from beyond willing to murder his own brother or niece for the love of his icepick of a sister-in-law, but this psychological awfulness took a backseat to showier, less compelling setpieces.

I recognize that I’m coming at this movie twenty years too late. The Cenobites have been referenced too often to shock with their appearance any longer, and their torture techniques have been rendered tame by a new generation of Saw ripoffs. 1987’s styles and production values make it difficult to take anything in the film too seriously; it’s tough to watch our anti-heroine murder her victim with a hammer without feeling that her choice of eyeshadow is still the more serious crime.

Clive Barker, it seems, understands that two decades have taken the teeth out of his most revered screen work. Reports indicate that he and a new production team would like a second chance to scare the pants off of me in 2009, when a remake is scheduled to be released. If this column proves to have lasting appeal, I’m sure I’ll be shipped off to a local theater in a pair of absorbent undergarments, forced to see the story’s potential fully realized. There’s a foul nightmare hidden just below the surface of the original, and while I don’t expect the remake to be applauded by either fans or critics, I do expect it to deprive me of a weekend’s worth of sleep.

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