100 Scariest Movie Moments: #86 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

I try to start all of these off with a plot summary. Even if it's a well-known film, I feel that leaving a plot summary out would hurt the feeling of continuity between posts. That being said though, this time, I just can't do it. Attempting to summarize the plot of The Wizard of Oz would be not only redundant, but insulting to the reader.

That said, this movie probably means a lot less to me than it does to most people. While I have seen it multiple times, I'm fairly certain I saw the 90s cartoon long before I saw the movie. I remember a period in my life when that show represented my understanding of The Wizard of Oz, and my default version of the song was “We're off to save the Wizard.”

For that reason, along with the fact that it's been years since I've watched either version, I look on this movie with fairly fresh eyes. I really expected to have to look hard to find the fear. I was ready to try hard to put myself into the perspective of a small child to try to understand how anyone could possibly find it scary... and amazingly, I didn't have to. The witch (Margaret Hamilton) and the flying monkeys manage to be scary, even for an adult.

Comparing movies to dreams is something that gets thrown around in film criticism a lot. It seems to be code for “I like this film, despite it making no logical sense, so I'm going to pretend it's like a dream.” For this film, though, I can see the comparison as valid. The idea of an evil witch telling you that you'll be killed when an hourglass runs out is exactly like something that would happen to me in a nightmare. She has no logical reason to give Dorothy any amount of time to live, but she does it anyway to create a sense of dread. The story runs on emotion rather than logic.

The flying monkeys, meanwhile, seem surprisingly realistic for a film made in the 1930s. In fact, many of the effects, the costumes not withstanding, are surprisingly not dated. I can only attribute this to the use of practical effects in an era long before the notion of a computer capable of generating a still image, let alone a space battle, had even been dreamed of.

There's an ongoing debate about how old Dorothy (Judy Garland) is supposed to have been in this adaptation, with many claiming that the 16-year-old Garland was playing a 12 or even 8-year-old. Shirley Temple, who would have been 11 at the time of the film's release, had apparently been considered for the role. Personally, I prefer to think of Dorothy as Garland's age. Granted, she would be an incredibly naïve 16-year-old, assuming that the Wizard (Frank Morgan) can arbitrarily do anything without any rhyme or reason to his powers, but I find it hard to believe that a totally innocent 12-year-old from Kansas would be able to adapt to the situation she was in, or even fully comprehend it.

While it doesn't directly relate to the fear aspects of the movie, I would like to note that I approve of the ending. For anyone unaware, the idea of Oz being a dream was forced on the film by studio executives who thought that 1939 audiences couldn't deal with the idea of a literal fantasy land. Many people today feel that this was a misstep. I, on the other hand, feel that making it a literal place close enough to Kansas to travel to by Tornado would have simply been too idiotic to accept. Maybe I'm too logical, especially after praising the movie for running on emotion over logic, but that would have just bugged me. Fantasy lands are traveled to by portal, or concealed by magic. You don't get to them by physical movement without supernatural help!

Recommending this film would be like recommending oxygen: There's no way that you've lived long enough to be literate, and not seen it. So, why bother?

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100 Scariest Movie Moments: #87 Black Christmas

“There is always the moment when the killer is unmasked and spews out his bitterness and hate and vindictive triumph over his would-be victims. I find it a wonder this obligatory scene has survived so long, since it is so unsatisfying. How about just once, at the crucial moment, the killer gets squished under a ton of canned soup, and we never do find out who he was?” - Roger Ebert (from his review of Saw)

Evidently, Mr. Ebert had never seen the original Black Christmas, as his wish was fulfilled in the 1970’s, but minus the canned soup. As a matter of fact, minus the death. The killer in Black Christmas survives and escapes, with only hints as to his motives. Not that we need those motives. He's a lunatic attacking sorority girls. He isn't a messiah, nor does he believe himself to be one.

At one point early in the film he calls the sorority house while masturbating and tells them all the lewd acts he wants to do to them while threatening to kill them. He isn't taken very seriously. Other times he calls to recite what are implied to be scenes from his past. It seems to be roughly implied that he killed his sister... or possibly raped her... but whether this is true or a fantasy is never elaborated upon. Over the course of the film, his calls become increasingly unhinged and disturbing. And yes, the calls are coming from inside the house. This movie beat When A Stranger Calls to the punch.

It's also of note that the police in this film are portrayed as quite competent, barring one who doesn't know what “fellatio” is. Comparing this to the Saw films in which Jigsaw is able to casually dispatch police officers with the same ease as any other victim, you get the distinctive feeling that if this killer was in a direct confrontation with the police, then his murder spree would be brought to an abrupt halt. In the end, he is only able to get away with it due to his own dumb luck and the police suspecting an angry boyfriend (Keir Dullea) is behind the entire mess. Actually, this is a fairly realistic plot-point, since quite a few serial killers were able to continue operating for long periods of time because they had no connection to their victims.

The movie is quite terrifying in its novelty, even as it’s dated. The killer is not some polished Hannibal Lector, nor some tormented soul. The fact that we never get a good look at him is likely a factor in his failure to attain iconic status like so many other slashers. Likewise, he is not superhuman. He's not romanticized in any way. And the events are portrayed in fairly realistic fashion. I could not imagine anyone cheering at any of the deaths.

The movie is worth watching, if nothing else, for its apparent resistance to cliches that had not yet been invented at its time of production. That is not to deny that the film is disturbing, it most definitely is. I find it truly shameful that the remake seems to be better known than the original.

Wednesday Review: Sinister 2

Before seeing this moving, my feelings on the matter went through something of a roller-coaster:

• Initially, I thought a sequel to Sinister was a terrible idea. We knew Baghuul's pattern of killing, and he's a supernatural entity whose entire existence seems based around this pattern. He isn't going to just up and decide to take Manhattan. Either the sequel would repeat the exact same events, or it would attempt to shake things up by breaking the pattern that's already been established. Either of these options seem bad.

• Then, I saw the trailer, and I began to have hope. It appeared that the film would focus mainly on a child being seduced by Baghuul. This actually seemed like a reasonable direction to go in. The previous film was all from the adult perspective, so we could legitimately get more information by following the child instead.

• Finally, before seeing the movie, I checked the rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and was distraught to see it was 10%. I expected the worst.

Now, the problem with Rotten Tomatoes is that it only grades how many critics rated a film “good” versus “bad.” It makes no attempt to distinguish between mild and extreme levels of “good” and “bad.” So, if there's a strong consensus that a film is only slightly “good” or slightly “bad” we can end up with a much stronger rating one way or the other than with a divisive movie.

Reading over the blurbs on RT now, I think that's the case with this film. Most critics found it to be inadequate, but not truly awful. I fully agree that it's a bad film, but it does have it's moments, mostly in the middle and later parts of the film.

For anyone who's forgotten: The original Sinisterwas about a family under assault by the pagan deity Baghuul. The father from the previous film moved into a house in which a grisly murder of an entire family, minus the still-missing youngest child, had taken place. The twist was that Baghuul had enchanted the youngest child to kill his family, and then spirited the child away to a demon dimension. We also found out that rather than haunting a single house, Baghuul follows a chain. He haunts a family until they flee a house, kills them in their new home, and then haunts the new home until the next family arrives. Moving house-to-house makes Baghuul significantly harder to track for those who don't know what to look for.

Our connection to the previous film is Deputy-turned-ex-Deputy So & So (yes, that's how he's credited, and if the movie gave us another name I missed it), a minor character from the previous film. After the events of the first Sinister he somehow found out about Baghuul's pattern, and decided to stop him by burning the houses before new families can move in (there are apparently now multiple chains of Baghuul-infested houses). However, he arrives at one house too late, with a mother and her two sons taking refuge there from her abusive husband. If they leave, Baghuul goes with them.

The film is split between the sons, and So & So. Baghuul's children are trying to seduce one of the sons, Dylan, as his brother Zach grows increasingly jealous of their affection. The scenes with the children are easily the strongest point of the film. The child actors aren't anything special, but they do their jobs adequately. The twist is predictable, but I don't want to directly spoil it. I think there are darker implications at play that I love: Baghuul and his children will say or do whatever it takes to corrupt an innocent. The details are irrelevant, as long as that singular goal is achieved. Although I do think Baghuul in this movie is the master of “I meantto do that!”

So & So, on the other hand, is a definite weak point. James Ransone can't compete with Ethan Hawke's performance in the last film. While both are somber and melancholy, Hawke backed it up with a level of passion that kept you engaged. Notably, when So & So gets into a physical confrontation with the abusive husband I found myself kind of rooting for the husband, just because he was more charismatic. It didn't help that, with all the talk of his physical abuse, his on-screen crimes in this movie consist of throwing mashed potatoes at a child, and beating up a man who was trespassing on his property after sleeping with his wife.

I was a bit concerned the movie would overuse Baghuul based on the trailers. The move does, Baghuul definitely has more appearances, and is more clearly visible than in most of his appearances in the first film. However, it's not nearly as egregious as I feared it would be.

I could see this movie being edited down to great effect. I'd love to see a fan-cut of it at some point. It does add some interesting information about Baghuul. For some reason he's now a widely-known boogie-man figure, rather than the obscure mythological figure the first movie established, but that's the only real contradiction I caught. This movie is just barely below the “worth your time” bar. If anyone ever edited a 45-minute fan-cut focusing on Zach and Dylan, I preemptively highly recommend it.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #88 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

This is not an easy movie to objectively assess. It was released in the days when most sci-fi films were B-movies. Coming out 3 years before The Twilight Zone, I don't think there's a single scene with production values high enough to allow an otherwise ignorant viewer to determine that it was from a theatrical release, rather than a work of Rod Serling.

My personal view is that this movie hit a cultural nerve because of the time it was released. Much of the population saw this movie as a commentary on Communism. Still others saw it as satirical, sarcastically mocking McCarthyism and the Red Scare, with the suggestion that good law-abiding American citizens were going to sleep one night, and evil Communists were waking up the next day. That does indeed appear to be all that the original is remembered for. Personally, I find this to be a bit of a stretch. The film was neither the first nor last to suggest that inhuman monsters looked exactly like normal people.

The setup for the film is that Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy), a Doctor, has been called back early to his small town practice from a conference, due to a large build-up of patients. When he arrives, however, they all mysteriously cancel their appointments. He and his former lover (Dana Wynter) then begin to hear reports of citizens claiming their loved ones have been replaced by impostors. It gradually becomes clear that this is in fact the case. Duplicates of the originals are being grown in mysterious pods, which then absorb the memories of the originals, replacing them.

What I find interesting about the film is the creatures themselves. In most films about humans being assimilated into a collective there are scenes that establish the assimilated as monsters. This film doesn't seem to have that. While they try to prevent the protagonists from leaving town, the Pod People never seem hateful or malicious. In fact, they try to negotiate the humans into surrender. To me, this suggests that they don't see themselves as invaders, but as symbiotic. By absorbing the memories, they believe that the original human lives on. In this sense, the conflict is of two creatures with fundamentally different ways of thinking: Collectivism vs. Individuality (I'm not saying the Communism metaphor doesn't work, by any means. It’s just that I doubt it was intended.).

The obvious comparison to this movie is The Thing. Both films deal with aliens replacing humans, and are based on two separate works on literature that have both been adapted multiple times in film. The major difference that gives The Thing a definitive edge is that John Carpenter knew the real horror of assimilation was complete uncertainty in regards to who is friend or foe. That's the great weakness of this movie. While that element is used in passing, we come to understand that the aliens cannot mimic the personalities of the original perfectly, thus anyone who knows the original well will be able to distinguish an impostor with fairly little effort. So, once the villains are established, there's little real effort to keep their identities secretive.

One thing I have to give the writers credit for is that the book-ends of the film, forced on by the studio at the last possible second, do not weaken it. In the original ending Bennell, the last unassimilated person in the town, makes it to the Highway, but no one is willing to pick up the crazy guy ranting about aliens, let alone believe him. The film would then have closed on him looking at the camera, and telling the audience that they were next.

The studio felt this ending was too depressing. And so instead, scenes were added to the beginning and end, showing that Bennell was picked up by the government and told them his story. The government initially assumes that he is crazy, but then found out about pods being shipped from the town. This was actually a fairly good choice. Because rather than ending on clear defeat or victory, the movie ends with uncertainty, and it works.

I recommend this movie about as strongly as I would recommend a really good episode of The Twilight Zone. It's certainly not a film anyone needs to rush out to see. But likewise, I can't imagine anyone demanding that the sparse 80 minutes of their lives be refunded to them. It's not like the film is hard to find.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #89 Alice, Sweet Alice

I’m uncertain if the title of Alice, Sweet Alicewas intended to be ironic, or if the movie was named by marketing people who’d never actually seen it. Given that the original title was Confession, I find the latter explanation more plausible. The movie was re-released two years after its initial premiere to cash in on Brooke Shields' popularity.

Shields plays Karen, the younger sister of the eponymous Alice (Paula Shepard). Karen is better behaved, and the favorite. Alice, feeling unloved, acts out, stealing from Karen and generally being a little bitch. Then, Karen is killed at her first communion and Alice is found with her veil, leading to the suspicion that Alice is the killer. It certainly doesn’t help her case that her hated aunt is then attacked by someone in a raincoat and a mask identical to a mask Alice wore earlier in the film to scare her sister.

It’s a bit difficult to pin down the exact protagonist of the film. A great deal of screen time is given to Alice, but we’re never given a great deal of insight into her mind. We also see her parents (Niles McCaster and Linda Miller) and the police trying to understand what’s going on.

The fact that Alice is innocent is a foregone conclusion. She’s clearly a red herring, and who the actual murderer is seems largely unimportant to me. The movie is an exercise in empathy, intended to make you feel as miserable as possible for all of the characters. Everyone speaks slowly with many sighs, unless they are yelling. Alice creates havoc wherever she goes. Hell, they make the landlord (Alphonso DeNoble) a fat pedophile just in case a murdered child wasn’t sufficient.

We are led for a while to believe that Alice is insane. Under a lie detector, test it comes out that she believes her sister attacked her aunt. She clearly believes that Karen is punishing her from beyond the grave. Whether that punishment is for being a bully, or being a murderer is the real question.

This movie is indeed extremely scary, but it’s quite difficult to pin down why. The attacks themselves? The death of a child? The threat of Alice being institutionalized? The fat pedophile? In general they all seem to combine into a sense that the universe is a miserable place to live in, and life is nothing but suffering.

The final shot of the movie seems to imply that Alice, while not guilty of the murder of her sister, is in fact destined to become a murderer herself anyway. She’s shown with the knife of the killer, which she conceals in a shopping bag, and examines with a resolved face.

So, life sucks, and then you become a murderer. There is no escaping, and there is no happy ending. The movie's constant use of religious imagery against such a tragic story underscores this idea, with religion serving merely to help these poor, deluded fools move on with their lives. The killer, before being taken away by the police, demands communion, and stabs the priest when he refuses to give it to her. The movie could almost be called Lovecraftian thematically, even lacking any supernatural elements.

The movie, while cheap, is effective. It feels a bit assembly-line, as if the director wasn't so much telling a story as designing a product specifically to manipulate the emotions of his audience. That said though, it worked. So, yes, this movie is definitely worth checking out.