Over the course of October, I shall be watching one horror movie a day and reviewing it right here for your reading pleasure. I haven't seen any of the films I'll be watching before and you can find the full list here. Minor spoilers ahead!
The Omen is one of those films that I was always determined I'd seen, it was so ingrained on my consciousness that I could tell you the entire plot and not blink. It took someone talking about a particular scene in the film to make me realise that no, I hadn't actually seen it, I'd just pieced it together in my head from 'Best Horror' clip-shows and pop culture references. It's a film that has seemingly been spoofed and alluded to just about everywhere and yet, the actual experience of watching The Omen still holds up. Because let's face it; Damien is as creepy as fuck.
Creepy children, when utilised effectively, are some of the scariest things that cinema can produce. For a person who isn't really all that comfortable with children (i.e. me), the effect can quickly be doubled. Harvey Spencer Stephens' Damien isn't just a little bit scary, he's actually terrifying. Mostly silent, unless he's screaming, usually blank-faced, unless he's grinning post-fatalities, he's the ultimate creepy horror child, the poster-boy for devil children and all who follow them.
It's Damien's followers who get to do the back-up scary roles and they do so very well, from Holly Palance (daughter of Jack) as Damien's cheerily ill-fated first nanny to Billie Whitelaw's Mrs Baylock, the supporting cast is full of people acting ominously whilst grinning like a maniac. They're well-matched by the people on the side of good too; Gregory Peck is ever-reliable and possessed of a suitable gravitas for Robert Thorn whilst Lee Remick is effective in what is essentially a role confined to either smiling serenely at her husband or screaming in terror as she falls off of stuff.
However, none of this would be the same without the consistently building atmosphere of unease that permeates the film. There are sudden shocks aplenty to capitalise on this tension and shake you out of your admittedly suspenseful comfort zone, but they are far more effective than they could have been without that build-up. Information is fed to the audience in dribs and drabs, allowing them to put the pieces together slightly ahead of the characters. We know something is up with Damien from the moment of his adoption, confirmed during his fifth birthday party when the nanny takes the phrase 'hanging out' a little too literally. It's a brilliantly shocking moment and one that clues the audience in to the idea that everyone in this film is expendable.
It would also be remiss to talk about how unsettling and effective The Omen is without mentioning the Oscar-winning score from Jerry Goldsmith. Back at the beginning, I talked briefly about how ingrained The Omen is in my consciousness; it's largely because of this very score, one of the first I ever had in my possession. It's simply brilliant. The opening track, Ave Satani, is one of the best horror score cues ever written, a deliriously macabre Latin chant (grammatically incorrect as a friend once gleefully pointed out to me) that sets the religious terror at the right tone for the rest of the film.
Having now seen the film itself, it's much better than The Omen puzzle edition that I'd put together in my head. I can easily understand why it ranks so highly still after all these years, but it still feels impressively fresh. Even the effects (the beheading!) don't feel all that dated for the most part, even though one fall rivals Abergast's tumble in Psycho for the 'Clearly Not Actually Falling' Award. Ending on one of the finest fourth-wall breaking evil grins ever, The Omen may just be my favourite film so far this month.
- Becky
You can check out the full list of Shocktober reviews so far here.
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Our look at Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves is part of a huge event organised by Forgotten Films to celebrate the films of 1984, a year in which a whole bunch of great films were released, and some not so great ones too. We've been fortunate enough to get my hands on one of the good ones and you check out what other bloggers have been writing about on the Forgotten Films site. You can also check out the hashtag #84athon on Twitter to find out who else is taking part.
"Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet."
Set within the dreams of an adolescent girl, Rosaleen (played by Sarah Patterson), The Company of Wolves is a dark and nightmarish trip through some of Angela Carter's fairytales, threaded through the main dream of Rosaleen and her Granny (Angela Lansbury). The various tales which appear throughout the film's puzzlebox structure are based on some of those which appeared in her short story collection entitled The Bloody Chamber (well worth a read). This includes the main narrative, based on The Company of Wolves short story which was adapted by Carter into a radio play and forms the basis of the film. All of the tales featured are centred around the image of the wolf, a beast which haunts the forest, sometimes hunting in packs, sometimes attacking on their own.
Fairytales have long held sway over the imaginations of their readers, remoulded and transformed depending upon the audience they are intended for. The tales of the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Andersen were originally cautionary morality tales, keeping children and women in line with their haunting messages of disfigurements, violence and loss. Since the Disney reworking of the fairytale into the 'Happily Ever Afters' we've come to be more familiar with, the genre has become something of a byword for light and fluffy tales of true love and rainbows and smiles.
The Bloody Chamber is a collection of tales that emulates the fairytale genre, though it has often been incorrectly described as subversive retellings of popular fairytales with a feminist twist. Whilst some of the stories are clearly based on existing fairytales, Carter's intention was 'not to do 'versions' or, as the American edition of the book said, horribly, 'adult' fairytales, but to extract the latent content from the traditional stories and to use it as the beginnings of new stories" (Carter, quoted in The Bloody Chamber Introduction). Carter's tales are filled with a macabre menace, focusing on the heroines and their sexuality and desires.
There are a few films in the 1980s that tap into this new, darker fantasy like Willow, Labyrinth or Legend. Particularly with Labyrinth and Legend, there is the latent sexual content throughout that threatens to derail their female protagonists. In The Company of Wolves, this undercurrent is carried across, much as it is in the original stories on which it is based. What connects the fairytales throughout the film is the idea of a loss of innocence, particularly at the point of burgeoning adolescence and sexuality. The various facets of this transitionary experience (the fear, the excitement, the danger) is encapsulated within the symbol of the wolf, a symbol which transforms itself within each story to represent something different for each of the stories' central female characters.
The nightmarish landscape is captured beautifully in the medieval forest in which much of the action is set. Branches loom over pathways, houses disappear into the trees themselves and a mist drifts across the sets. It makes for an imposing world, one in which threats can appear quickly and without warning. The production design captures that adroitly, as well as recreating the sort of villages, costumes and general rustic qualities that we expect from traditional fairytales. The colour palette builds into this; most hues are cold browns or dark greens with flashes of brilliant red, fitting in with the sexual symbolism of the stories.
Sex is everywhere in this film, overtly or otherwise, infiltrating every aspect of the unfolding narratives whether it's Rosaleen catching sight of her parents having sex in the dead of night just a few feet away from her or the sermon about the wolf lying with the lamb. The gift of the red shawl to Rosaleen is significant, situated just before she spies her parents and when she begins to pay attention to the village boy who desires her. Bringing forth the sexual undertones of the story's inspiration, Little Red Riding Hood, particularly in her relationship with the huntsman in this film, Jordan and Carter use it to symbolise Rosaleen's sexual awakening, culminating with her exceptionally creepy climactic encounter with the gentleman wolf.
As well as the constant foreboding atmosphere brought on by production design, the stories carry with them their own particular brand of horror. The story of the young bride and her travelling man groom is especially grotesque despite seeming fairly jolly at the start. Their marriage is a happy, pastoral affair that soon gives way to sadness when the groom disappears. However, after the bride's second marriage, her first husband returns and transforms himself into a wolf. The special effects here are fairly spectacular as well as horrific and whilst it may not be a lycanthropic transformation to rival An American Werewolf in London, it still cuts an impressively grotesque image.
The performances are routinely excellent across the board with key brief appearances from the likes of Stephen Rea and Terence Stamp (as the Devil no less). Particularly impressive is the young Sarah Patterson in the central role of Rosaleen. As the central thru-line for the stories, she is called upon to anchor the various stories as well as fill the role of the fairytale heroine. She does so well, offering a wide-eyed innocence to the proceedings. The character still falls into the trap that has befallen many a fairytale heroine in that she is quite a bland figure, despite Patterson's appeal.
The real star of the show though is Angela Lansbury's Granny, a mix of cuddly maternal figure and stern matriarch. She is given the most opportunity for comedy, booting a would-be admirer of Rosaleen up the backside and loudly voicing her disapproval. She also carries the right amount of menace when it comes to telling the nastier stories and offering warnings around sexual morality in amusing aphorisms. The film lifts whenever she is on screen, breaking the melancholy with a knowing nod and a cheeky wink.
Neil Jordan's direction allows all of this to shine throughout the film, no mean feat considering its fractured and layered structure and perfectly captures the dark atmosphere of Carter's tales. With the recent desire to revisit fairytales in films and make them more akin to their Grimm counterparts, it's refreshing to go back to one that succeeds in creating a deeply unsettling tale of female sexuality and those that threaten it.
- Becky
After last week's philosophical and visual feast, the third episode of Doctor Who left me feeling, if you pardon the appalling pun, a little cold. The Doctor and Clara find themselves on a Russian submarine as everything starts to go wrong. Led by an impressively bearded Liam Cunningham as Captain Zhukov, bothered by Tobias Menzies on fine weaselly form as Stepashin and threatened by a pressuring ocean, the submarine also happens to be carrying nuclear warheads. As if the situation weren't already bad enough, we're also in the 80s during the Cold War. So really, the Doctor and Clara could not be in a worse position. Well, until they find themselves dealing with an Ice Warrior who has been frozen for 5000 years and has been recently thawed by a cocky Russian with a blowtorch.
Now, first of all the good points, of which there are a few, despite my low temperature level response. Having been written by Mark Gatiss, I was filled with a certain amount of trepidation approaching Cold War as his previous Whoniverse record isn't exactly glowing; his last outing, Victory of the Daleks, still leaves a bitter taste even with the Jammy Dodger speech and a neat Where Eagles Dare reference. Yet for Cold War, he manages to be on good form, offering us a decent narrative about honour and restraint with some major Hollywood influences.
The episode was notable for its bringing back of an old Doctor Who foe in the Ice Warrior and it was a welcome return for the honourable Martian. Skadlak was an intriguing character too, a Martian out of his time, believing himself to be the last of his race. The parallels to the Doctor were clear, if not explored in great depth, but it was clear enough that a lot of the Doctor's respect for his foe stemmed both from that and his previous dealings with them. It's always good when the show-runners bring back an old foe that hasn't suffered from over-exposure. With the Cybermen showing up later (at the hands of Neil Gaiman no less, colour me excited) and the Daleks having already appeared in the first half of the series, I really enjoyed seeing an old fore back again.
Speaking of the Ice Warrior, I also enjoyed the return to a more traditional Monster of the Week episode without the constant questioning of who Clara is or a wider narrative arc taking away from the events of the episode. It meant that we got a focus on the supporting cast who were all excellent. I'm a fan of Liam Cunningham anyway and he brought the necessary gravitas to the role of a beleaguered submarine captain (with more than a few shades of Sean Connery in Hunt for Red October). Tobias Menzies is another one of those actors who crops up in everything (most recently in Game of Thrones) and he's on fine form again here, as the over-eager yet also slightly cowardly first officer. But it was David Warner is the Walkman-toting Grisenko who stole the show, right from the point in which he burst in singing Ultravox.
However, the major problem with the episode was that it held about as much tension as a lettuce leaf. With clear influences from the likes of Alien and The Thing, it could have been a truly suspenseful, claustrophobic and memorable episode. Alas, once again a victim of the run-time, there was no real build-up in the scenes where Skaldak was on the loose in the submarine. Instead, we got a couple of head-grabby scenes, a couple of off-camera screams and that was about it. The emphasis on the distress signal that the ice warrior sent out also meant that, at the back of your mind, you knew someone was on the way to pick him up.
Like the films it references, Skaldak held much more potential to scare people who hadn't seen the ice warriors before by skulking in dark corners, never to be seen or heard until someone dies. Think of Alien with its monster only being seen in flashes, bursting out of ventilation shafts or grabbing people from the ceiling. Skaldak did the same thing, though without any of the build-up or without the sense of peril. Granted, Doctor Who is going out at primetime on a Saturday evening, but it is a show that doesn't tend to shy away from scares - Blink still terrifies me. Here though, it just didn't seem to be trying.
The first disappointment for me of this new series run, Cold War was less than the sum of its parts though it was probably the best of Gatiss' episodes. Still we have a fair few more episodes to come and next week's looks like a cracker. It has Dougray Scott in it for one thing.
- Becky
You can read Jen's review of The Rings of Akhaten here.
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