by Sam Juliano
Post Halloween means chillier temperatures, leaves all over the place, and Election Day. The mid-terms are an urgent proposition and Wonders in the Dark urges all of our readers to support the Democrat candidates top to bottom. Here in the Garden State we have a tough fight to get Senator Bob Menendez elected again but the pollings are looking very good. School weill be close on said Election Day and on Thursday and Friday for the New Jersey State Teacher’s Convention.
Our great writers Jim Clark and J.D. Lafrance have again published superlative reviews this past week, Jim on Winter Light in his continuing Ingmar Bergman series and J.D. with his piece on the original Halloween.
Caldecott Medal winner Brian Floca appeared yesterday afternoon at the 84th Street uptown Books of Wonder to discuss his 2018 picture book gem “Hawk Rising” (authored by Maria Gianferrari along with author Gary Goglio and illustrator Rudy Gutierrez (Carlos Santana); author Leslie Kimmelman (Write On, Irving Berlin!); Illustrator William Low (The Sinking of the Vasa) and author illustrator Meghan McCarthy (All That Trash). Lucille and I were happy to chat with each of the artists, though we are friends with Floca for a long time.
Following on the heels of the third, and by far weakest, film in the Invisible Man series, The Invisible Woman (1940), Invisible Agent is akin to style of Horror that wouldn’t really appear for another 35 years or so, the Horror mash up film. Where Horror could be blended with other genres overtly, being as much a say, romantic comedy and Western as it could a Horror film. Generally I’m talking about films that are least three genres, as dual natured Horror films had essentially been around since the advent of Horror in cinema. Of course you’re generally talking the late Hammer films of the mid 1970s—The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is a true original—which would fully see themselves realized in the Hong Kong wave of the Shaw Brothers and what not, where Horror mixed with kung-fu, comedy, erotica, gore, drama and action adventure (The Boxer’s Omen, Encounters of the Spooky Kind, Mr. Vampire, etc). Eventually America got around to it in the 1980s, offering the highly entertaining Ninja III: The Domination and the Stallone feature, Cobra, that many people would never see as Horror, but they certainly sort of are.
A film work for BBC television written by acclaimed playwright Nigel Kneal, The Stone Tapes is today mostly known as a cult phenomenon in deep Horror circles, many calling it one of the scariest works they’ve ever seen. I certainly wouldn’t go that far—but what is here, is indeed interesting, if a little dated in its thoroughly 1970s State TV presentation. The script is tremendous and on a shortlist of Horror works I’d actually like seen redone under a bigger, modern budget (no, we didn’t need new Halloweens, Surpira’s, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc). It’s the tale of a group of brilliant scientists and computer programers looking for a new (perhaps landmark) digital alternative to magnetic tape, working in a remodeled centuries old estate now under corporation control. There seems to be a ghost lurking, and while that is where most Horror films would continue and end, this one starts. We have inquiring, brilliant minds, and they want to figure out the nature of ghosts—soon discoveries are had, is the ghost merely recordings in the stone building and our subconscious? They track if further into computer printout, but are they all just really going mad? It’s a really interesting film that I’d urge any Horror fan to check out, it may be slightly dated, but of the celebrated TV Horror works from the golden era (1970-1986ish) I’d be more than comfortable going Top 5 or so with this one.
Unsane (S. Soderbergh… 2018) psychological thriller
Soderbergh, long an established director, still wants to play like he’s an undergrad student. He has a whole website where he reedits famous works to interesting alternatives, and in his new one, he plays further: shoot an entire film on an iPad Pro. It looks like a real work—a good lightning rig and an established cinematographer ensure that—but you sort of wonder, what does the limitation offer the concept in terms of the plot? I’m not sure, and think it may actually take something away. It’s about a women (Claire Foy) who has moved to a new job 400 miles from her home for a new start. It’s revealed she’s also escaping a man who is stalking her and she’s placed a restraining order on, and has developed a distressed mental state because of it. When she seeks a therapist consultation for help, soon she’s trapped in an insurance scam and held against her will in a psychiatric hospital where her stalker, under a different name, now works. It’s all sorta gripping and interesting—Soderbergh can certainly construct a film—if nothing major, but I’m glad I did it. Seeing as how Claire Foy may become one of the It Girls this year with big parts in First Man and the new reworked Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, it’s fun to see her work against budget in something as assuredly made as this. After this you’ll be wanted to do Fuller’s Shock Corridor, one of the great American works of the 1960s.
Ah, here’s a real gem. I’d never heard of this one, but in my searching came across it. It’s a highly unique spin on the classic gothic romanticism of the Vampire, where a doomed lover must live out a deathless existence in a world where generations rise and die around him everyday. Lean, blonde Julian Sands plays the vampire Alex, who spends his days in an old campus library working on a thesis on religious martyrs, when he meets Anne (the ever English beauty Suzanna Hamilton) who is a new employees in the understaffed library. Soon their love is blossoming, but ever retracting, he badly doesn’t want to turn her into a deathless monster too. Soon a Vampire Hunter of sorts follows, adding additional intrigue. The work is shot in a small minded approach, but still updating the atmospheric gothic turn of all the vampire classics.
Here was one watched on a lark on a lazy Saturday night, I’m sure everyone knows it well so I won’t go to long. Needless to say it’s one of my favorite guilty pleasures; smart, very funny (in plot and characterization) and spooky at time (Jerry Goldsmith’s wonderful score does most of the heavy lifting in this regard) and embracing the Horror genre completely. To me, perhaps Joe Dante’s best work, a director I’ve often said I’d take his popcorn output over Spielberg’s (popcorn output).