Dave's Top Five Horror Films!

Since today is Halloween, I thought I'd have some fun and give you my top five favorite horror films of all time. First - some noticeable absences. THE EXORCIST? Love this film, but the idea of Satan inhabiting the body of a human being is more supernatural to me and less "organic horror". I prefer the classic match up between one good guy and one bad guy, both within the constraints of this world. THE SHINING? Classic! Masterpiece! Wonderful! One of my favorite films of all time! BUT this movie is a cinematic "all-you-can-eat" and to merely define it as horror would be a shame. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET? The original is good, but by now the idea of a bad guy chasing teenagers was becoming old hat. FRIDAY THE 13TH? A clear Halloween rip off! And I've never been a Jason Voorhees fan. CANDYMAN? Hmmmm...interesting (especially since I was a UIC student when this was being filmed in Chicago). Maybe top 10 or 15, but definitely NOT top five! NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD? Like CANDYMAN, it narrowly missed this list.

So now that we've got that out of the way, I'm sure you'll disagree with a few of my choices, but take a look anyway. You might be surprised!

5. DIABOLIQUE

Scary 1955 French film with English subtitles. Black and white, which only adds to the creepiness. Great use of shadows and build-up of suspense.










4. PHANTASM

A cult classic directed by Don Coscarelli. Mike, Jody and Reggie go to battle against "The Tall Man", who steals corpses, puts "yellow blood" in them, crushes them down to dwarf-size and ships them to a hot, red planet and uses them as slaves. Make sense? No, but it's still a great film! And don't forget the "flying ball" that bores into people's heads!



3. PSYCHO

I am a Alfred Hitchcock nut! Psycho is just beautiful film making and story telling and served as a trendsetter for a score of horror films that came later. Perhaps what I love most about this movie is how the "spider" has set up a web to catch the "fly", but instead of waiting with the spider we instead follow the fly into the web. It was a very different way to tell a story. To this day I keep an eye out whenever I take a shower!

2. HALLOWEEN (1978)

It was VERY hard for me to put John Carpenter's cinematic masterpiece in second place. VERY hard. Michael Myers is the smoothest on-screen serial killer of all, with exception to one other person! (which I will reveal momentarily). Forget Jason, Freddy, Chucky and the rest. Mike is a bad boy! He always knows what angle to stand at to keep out of sight, when to turn up the speed and when the precise moment has arrived to step out the shadows and attack. There is no one better, except...

MY BOY DR. HANNIBAL LECTER!!!

1. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

I've read the books. I've seen the movies. Sorry Mike! Love you, buddy - but even YOU have to take a back seat to Hannibal. Dashing, debonaire, worldly, has a flair for the finer things in life, brilliant and absolutely (as Martin Lawrence would say) CRAAAAAAAAZY! DERANGED! My favorite lines from this movie come when Lector is challenging Clarice Starling to think about what Buffalo Bill is after when he kills.

HANNIBAL LECTER: First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?

CLARICE STARLING: He kills women...

HANNIBAL LECTER: No. That is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does? What needs does he serve by killing?

CLARICE STARLING: Anger, um, social acceptance, and, huh, sexual frustrations, sir...

HANNIBAL LECTER: No! He covets. That is his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort to answer now.

CLARICE STARLING: No. We just...

HANNIBAL LECTER: No. We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don't you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice? And don't your eyes seek out the things you want?

SEE THIS SCENE!!!

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And there you have it! My top five of all time. Do you agree? Disagree? Let me hear from you!

"Balloons" by David T. Boyd on Zombie Coffee Press

Greetings to one and all. I'm proud to announce that my short story, titled "Balloons," has been selected for publication by Zombie Coffee Press, an online magazine, in their December 5th edition. Their website is www.zombiecoffeepress.com.

I will send a reminder notice as the date nears. Needless to say, I'm very excited and grateful for this opportunity.

Sincerely,
Dave

"The Thing" copies well, but still is an imitation.

As a fan of John Carpenter's films (I've seen all of them) the one thing that has always drawn me to them is his unique ability to manipulate our senses. Whether it's Snake Plissken (in "Escape from New York") looking for a fictitious president somewhere beneath the rat-infested Beacon Theater on Broadway or John Nada (in "They Live") wearing over-sized black glasses, walking among skinless martians from outer space or Laurie Strode (in "Halloween", still his best work) hiding from psychopaths in narrow closets, Carpenter's brilliance has always been his ability to place a thin, invisible overlay of dread and claustrophobia in a scene, then gradually thicken that dread with mounting tension that forces us to look even when we don't want to. I don't want to look, but I don't have a choice because I've figuratively been strapped to my seat, my eyes taped open as I'm being force-fed a healthy dose of terror. To me, his films are cinematic "castor-oil" where you're forced to take every spoonful, but feel better once it's over and are glad you were made to take it.

Hence we have "The Thing" 2011, a well-meant "imitation" of it's original that does some really cool things but falls short in the area that counted the most: Carpenter's spiraling sense of dread and fear that hits us from all sides. First of all, to the credit of the filmmakers, they truly did their homework - especially in the area of continuity. Given the fact that this is a prequel, not a remake or a sequel, everything that happens here must link directly to Carpenter's film. Therefore, from the design of the original space ship to the block of ice that contained the Thing itself to the Norwegian who shoots at the dog and even the frozen man who took his own life and is discovered later by Kurt Russell, this film pays attention to every detail and gives us clues along the way. It also provides an insight as to how the ship was originally discovered, who the people were in the videos and photos discovered by Kurt Russell and tells a believable, stand-alone story that is one-half of a total piece. After seeing the prequel in the theaters I came home and immediately watched the 1982 film and was shocked at how well these pieces fit. For that, I give director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and writers Eric Heisserer and Ronald D. Moore a LOT of credit. I also give them credit for discovering something that Carpenter never picked up on - the inability of the Thing to recreate inanimate objects. In other words, if I break my arm and have screws put in to hold the bone in place, then get devoured by the Thing, it cannot copy the screws. This concept becomes the lone source of tension that resonates through the film.

Beyond that, this movie is good, but not great. The special effects are cool, but there's something about seeing CGI versus Rob Bottin's organic prosthetics that took away from its intended result. Don't get me wrong - the various contortions of the Thing were every bit as disturbing as they were in Carpenter's film, but - not that I've ever seen a "thing" up close - it didn't appear as realistic, if that makes any sense. Carpenter is an expert on how to use space and it appeared the compound in the 1982 version had a lot more places for the Thing to hide. The original also had more scenes of isolation where someone wanders off alone, completely out of ear-shot, so when they returned to the larger group you were left wondering if they've been infected. That's missing from here. The transformation scenes come too soon and too fast to build any real suspense. A more slowed-down approach by the filmmakers would have made a world of difference here; but then again, that was what made John Carpenter such a genius. He understood the longer we didn't know what was going on, the greater the payoff when something eventually happened. Ironically, the filmmakers of this chapter failed to "copy" that aspect of Carpenter's vision, and in all honesty, the Master of Horror should have made this himself.

If you're a fan of Carpenter, I think you'll appreciate - as I did - the amount of thought that went into making this film. But also, if you're a fan of Carpenter, you'll understand exactly where I'm coming from in terms of my critique.

I give this movie 2.8 stars out of 4. See it, but save the money and get it on Blu-Ray.