The Shrine

It’s this again.

This year I’m already fairly deep into it. Episode 1 of Season 4 of Stranger Things. The most recent 7 or 8 Treehouse of Horrors - I generally like working backwards on these and like to watch the original on Halloween or early November… which realistically, is still Halloween season - many of the new Treehouse of Horrors episodes debuted in week 1 or 2 of November. As far as films go:

I began with three relatively bloody films

X (2022) - a porn studio goes to a remote farm in Texas to film their “Farmer’s Daughter” story, except they’re trying to make it artistic… a commentary on this indie slasher film itself. It has a very classic feel to it, like a 1970s film… it takes place in 1979. It was made on 1 million dollars, and did things differently than slashers generally do. Don’t let the thick accents at the beginning scare you, they make them much more mild shortly after those opening shots. The film takes place in Texas, but was made in New Zealand. This was my first time watching it, and I liked it!



Candyman (1992) - an old favourite. Probably the only horror film that ever kept me up at night. Of course, I was a kid when that happened. Candyman isn’t a particular scary film by today’s standards, but to a kid with a wild imagination in the early 90s, It rendered me unable to go into dark washrooms for most of my teen years. These days, it’s the mystery story that I love, also how it’s three different stories happening depending on whether you think Helen is crazy, Candyman is the killer, or that Candyman is manipulating and compelling the murders (that means three killers exist in the film. Either way you watch it, the story is interesting—and I think one of the few films that gets away with that kind of ambiguity… American Psycho is another? But the American Psycho book takes it to whole different level - although, ambiguity in books is significantly more common because of the existence of unreliable narration. I’ve seen Candyman many times now.

Jennifer’s Body (2009) is the third. This is a film that belongs beside Evil Dead 2, Heathers, Lake Placid, and Anaconda. It’s about 20% horror, 80% dark comedy. The film got bashed by critics in its time, probably because of the use of popular female actresses Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox - but the film has since become a cult classic. Basically, if you like the dark comedy Heathers (1988) you’ll probably love Jennifer’s Body - Heather’s is probably the main inspiration for Jennifer’s Body, but there’s also a lot of 80s horror homages. If you’ve ever read the classic 1872 vampire novella Carmilla (Le Fanu), it’s a loose retelling of that in the modern era.

I think it’s interesting that Episode 7 of Stranger Things Season 4 was the highest rated episode by fans. There was so much in it that other shows and films simply couldn’t do without getting slaughtered. This episode generally goes against what is considered good writing:
1. Exposition dumps to explain the story that already happened (and this episode had one of the longest in history)
2. Continuity errors and inconsistency.
3. Unnuanced and unimaginative on-the-nose storytelling.
4. Horrible CG and animation.
Yet the episode sits with a 9.6 on IMDB, the highest of any Stranger Things episode to date.

I don’t mean it in an ironic way. I actually think this is interesting. Given the high degree of pessimism in film/TV viewers, you’d think this episode would have been savagely shredded for its high volume of lazy writing. Other shows and films have been brutalized on these grounds for significantly less.

Honestly I love watching Scream 1 & 2.
....Hocus Pocus... lol, yes I said it. :^)
Nightmare Before Christmas
And last but not least Johnny Depp's Sleepy Hollow

No judgment here. I’m a fan of all sorts of horrors. And while I do tend to call slashers like slapstick comedy with blood and gore, it doesn’t mean I don’t like them

If you like the Depp/Ricci Sleepy Hollow, check out Bram Stoker’s Dracula from 1992 starring Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder. It’s directed by Francis Ford Coppola, but has a big Tim Burton feel to it… plus blood, nudity, and sex.

Some other films I watched in the past few days:
The Green Room - a punk band gets trapped inside a white supremacist club. It didn’t turn out to be a horror film even though it’s categorized in the genre and by A24, but it’s a good suspense-thriller.

Also returned to three recent favourites over the weekend: The Witch (Eggers), Hereditary (Aster), and Midsommar (Aster). Not much needs to be said about those other than they’re great rewatches.

I feel like X was a bit of a parody/tribute of the “Elevated Horror” movement. I don’t really consider “Elevated Horror” a genre, since it’s a mix of pre-existing genres like Metaphorical Horror (Get Out) and Art Horror (Midsommar and The Witch) although a lot of people do. I think it’s as good of a label as any for the recent wave of horror films starting from The Babadook and The Witch… although, IMO, the recent wave really started with Insidious a few years before that… James Wan films are excluded because of the “too many jump scares” thing, which I don’t buy—jump scares, or shocks, are a mechanic used to help aid in tension building, and James Wan does it with artistic precision. Anyway…

Been burning through Treehouse of Horrors backward throughout the month, getting close to the end, and will save Treehouse of Horrors 1 for Halloween night, as is the tradition.

Also, The Craft which was last weekend I think? That film did not age particularly well. The beginning is decent, but then I can’t say I enjoyed the rest of it as any more than a snapshot into mid-1990s culture (which, to be fair, it did decently). But the film felt like a clueless parody… It didn’t help that Breckin Meyer co-starred in both of them as virtually the same character.

Three other films.

Two of them are book adaptations.

Carmilla, the 2019 film based on the 19th century vampire novella by Sheridan Le Fanu. I highly recommend the novella, if you’re a reader. IMO, the second work in the vampire canon after Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 18th century poem Christabel. The book Carmilla is loosely based on Christabel, but Carmilla created the type of vampire Dracula was in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Anyway, on topic, the film is not a vampire film. It’s based on part of the story of Carmilla, mostly the middle part, and to be clear: no vampires are involved. The titular character Carmilla, is instead, a free spirited girl who starts getting romantic with Laura (the protagonist) — in Christabel and Carmilla, the lesbian seductuon by the vampires is seen as evil/corrupt, and that’s true in this film as well from the perspective of the society. If you want to watch the film, what I’ve given is not so much a spoiler as an anti-spoiler, because I’d guess most people would be highly disappointed with this adaptation given they’re likely looking for a vampire story rather than something about the romantic elements… and those looking for something more explicit—this one isn’t it, it’s more of an emotional romance with some physical stuff. If anything, the film is close to Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures. Not sure I’d recommend this one as it is a very niche type of film that’s low in budget. For what it was, I thought the film was alright (and this is coming from a fan of the book), but for people looking for a film adaptation of Carmilla that includes the main vampire story, it might be quite disappointing.

Under the Skin I thought was fantastic and I plan to watch it again, soon. I almost skipped this one because I wasn’t a big fan of the book, but I’m glad I didn’t. This film is a loose adaptation, but in a very good way.

It stars Scarlet Johansson who, as usual, puts on a great performance.

The film drops the viewer into a story, and doesn’t say anything going on—it’s kind of a silent film that doesn’t rely on dialogue to tell the story. But the viewer will figure out what’s going on soon enough.

Dialogue is interesting, it isn’t used to tell the story, so even if you don’t really get the Glasgow accents, it’s not particularly important for understanding the story since it’s never used as a means of advancing the plot or explaining anything. In the early part of the film, dialogue’s used as a tool for her task, and that’s all you really need to know about it. The dialogue then evolves into something more, along with her character.

The film kind of reminded me of a bleak Vertigo, in that Scarlet Johansson’s character (nameless in the film) drives around scenic settings searching for people. Investigating.

Unlike Carmilla above, the core element of the story isn’t changed. Although, unlike the book, the nature of Scarlet Johansson’s nameless character isn’t apparent for quite some time: the book does nothing to hide it. The book is more about a series of fucked up scenes, and otherwise isn’t terribly memorable (or mostly forgettable). The film is far more of an interpretive artwork, as I found it evoked a lot in me. IMO, one rare example where the film is better than the book… I generally like the book better than the film, not because I think the writers are better artists, but because of the medium. Books offer a richer insight into the minds of characters rather than being purely about sensory perception… a lot more works in books that doesn’t work in films (like massively long dialogues). This film is one of the rare cases where the film did more than the book… or at least, did something more artistically satisfying.

I can guarantee you this film won’t be for everyone. If you like silent films, art films, or French New Wave (especially Breathless), you’ll probably enjoy this one quite a lot.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a slasher film about three girls, two are roommates in a religious school who are late in heading home for the winter break and are left at the school with only a few people (the nuns) remaining. The third is a girl who is travelling somewhere without much context.

I wasn’t a fan of this one. This is an example of a film that I feel that complicates the story for complexity’s sake, and it added nothing to the art of it. While it no doubt has some good cinematography, I didn’t take anything away from it other than: But that’s just my feelings on the film. I’m not a religious person, so maybe religious sorts would take more out of this one. It wasn’t for me.