Dead and Buried (1981).

Was Dead and Buried adapted from a short story? It certainly plays out like it. Despite being a slow burner it is incredibly well paced, with nothing extraneous added at all.

The plot is one we are used to: a lone person in a community feels something is amiss and sets about trying to investigate it, only for everyone to doubt and dismiss him and his "crazy ideas". Is he insane? Is everyone else insane? Could his schoolteacher wife (the gorgeous Melody Anderson) possibly have anything to do with all of this?

The character who is doing a lot of running around and confused face rubbing is Sheriff Dan Gillis (James Farentino).

We follow him from one gruesome murder scene to another in the previously sleepy town of Potters Bluff (one minor complaint is why the Sheriff has only just noticed all the weirdness, considering it seems to have been going on for some time with him living there). In any case, we watch as he learns more and more startling things about certain townsfolk.

It's a tightly plotted tale, and it builds nicely until the final act when Sheriff Gillis finally learns the whole macabre truth. The film ends on his screaming.

Though not a "shocker" by any means this film grew on me the more I thought about it. Given that it is 28 years old (it was released the year I was born, aww) it doesn't show its age as much as many films of that era. This is mostly due to the fact that Potters Bluff seems stuck in a bit of a time warp itself; the local waitress has a 1940s hairstyle and the town mortician listens to big band music while he works. This all sounds very twee, but it gives the film an air of the unreal and makes it even spookier. We aren't distracted by bad 80s hair and stone washed jeans here - we're just creeped out by how strangely placid everyone is and, if I'm honest, by the sight of a young Robert Englund.

The two best things about this film are a) the growing sense of dread as the Sheriff is given reasons to suspect that his town is seriously fucked up, and b) Stan Winston's special effects.

In fact, Stan Winston blew me away. Again. But in a totally different way to how his work on Pumpkinhead did. Listen, I know I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it took the trivia section on IMDb to tell me that someone I assumed to be an actor in one scene, was in actual fact a life size animatronic creation of Winston's. Amazing. I mean, the guy is a burns victim in a full body cast, so you expect him to be moving a little awkwardly... but this thing is just so intensely creepy. Winston you genius-like bastard.

Ouch!

Culling the trivia page again, I just have to mention my relief at learning that the one really lame effect in this movie was nothing to do with Winston.

It involves a doctor being killed by acid being pumped into his head (heh, cool) and the resulting mess is... well, a mess.

Horrible in that it's a big screaming rubber face - but not at all realistic, I think you'll agree.

As IMDb states:

...but they could not get Winston back to off the doctor, so another FX team was used on that one sub-par effect.

The effects team who created the "dissolving head" for Doc's murder mentioned in an interview that the director had originally told them that he wanted to do the scene in one unbroken shot, meaning they had to build a head that was both convincing and also would "melt" the way they wanted it to. They lamented the fact that, while they did the best they could with what they had, the director ended up using a cutaway shot anyway, which would have given them the opportunity to make the scene much more realistic.

I don't know who I feel more sorry for; Winston for not getting to play with a liquefying head, or the poor saps who had to stand in for such a talent for one literally lousy effect.

But no matter, what Winston does do, he does spectacularly. There is one scene where Dobbs, the mortician, is shown to slowly rebuild a murdered hitchhiker's smashed in head. I have to wonder if the hands featured in it are actually Winston's.

It is a beautifully creepy montage, actually very representative of the film as a whole in its stillness and uncomfortable, under-your-skin type of horror.

This isn't a film to put the fear of god into you - but in a way it is much worse. It stays with you and the next time you enter a dimly lit room, or see someone approaching in the street at dusk, your mind flits back to Potters Bluff and its terrible secrets. That type of horror is far scarier than cheap jump-scares. This little gem will have you thinking about it as you wait for sleep to come. Good stuff.

Children of the Corn (1984).

This film didn't scare me. It wasn't the worst thing I have ever seen, but it was laughably poor in places. Look, I know it was a Stephen King adaptation and the yardstick is rarely very high for those - but it is possible to do something successful with his material. I saw The Mist over the xmas holidays so I know this to be the case.

Well maybe not in 1984 - unless Firestarter is any good, I haven't seen it.

For this post I am going to walk you through some screencaps I have taken from Children of the Corn, and discuss what is scary, not scary, scary in completely the wrong way and... whatever damn else I feel like mentioning. I was actually given the boxset of all three Corn films, so perhaps I'll do this with all of them, who knows? It really depends on how bad they get to be honest.

Okay, let's start with the image-heaviness.

Scary: Creepy looking children staring menacingly through windows.

Not scary: Bad "poisoned" acting by old ladies.

Scary: Meat cleavers being waved around in a coffee shop.

Not scary: Children's drawings. I know a children-slant on horror can have great results (child's voices, nursery rhymes etc), but the drawings in this film didn't work. In fact they just pissed me off because she kept getting her S's the wrong way around.

Scary in the wrong way: Linda Hamilton singing and dancing. For a long time. In fact it even cuts away from her doing so, and then back again. Twice.

An aside: I'm not sure it is fair of me to mock this obvious dummy-work, as I only noticed this shot when I had the film paused, progressing frame by frame. Still, funny.

Scary in the wrong way: How pointy those trainers are.

An aside: I like this shot. Although it has to be said there are a lot of "hand holding weapon looming into frame" shots in this movie, which dampens their impact a bit.

Scary: Zombie children! Well, it was a good jump moment anyway.

Scary in the wrong way: Bad "laugh" acting by young children.

Not scary: Corn on the cob crucifixes.

Scary: I love the composition of this. One of the rare moments this film gets something very right.

Scary: Advancing armed child gangs.

Not scary: Corn-based vehicle vandalism.

Not scary: Histrionic child-acting.

Scary: Rotten crucified cops. Maybe more cool than scary, but it works for me anyway.

Not scary: Corn-haired and pink lipsticked Jesus.

Not scary: Obviously fake knives. Where is that blood coming from exactly?!

Not scary: More histrionic child-acting.

Not scary: More histrionic child-acting.

Scary: Deserted towns.

Scary: Sinister religious rituals at dusk.

Scary: Surprisingly genuine acting. He looked utterly petrified.

Not scary: Climatic reveal of much talked about monster results in some truly shitty CGI...

Not scary: ...and the corn crucifix taking off like a rocket? Against a sky which is lighter than in the previous shot.

Not scary: Corn "attacking" (and overpowering) a grown man.

Not scary: More shitty CGI. Looks like marshmallows.

Not scary: The grimacing face that seems to appear in this explosion.

Scary: Backseat assailants.


So the tally is closer than I suspected at:
Scary: 10
Not Scary: 14
Scary in the wrong way: 3

The problem is mainly in the pacing. After an introduction showing the children turning against the adults of the town, the focus switches to Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton driving through it three years later. For almost an hour, nothing of any consequence happens. By the time the decently scary moments started happening, it was a little too late for me to care. On top of this the bad computer effects and startling lack of continuity with regards to what time of day it is! Harsh but fair, I assure you.

Wish me luck with the sequel...

he'll conjure your undoing.

As a horror fan I have made my peace with the fact that I am too young to have experienced a lot of the "classics" when they were first released (just call me a late bloomer. Hell, I am only now working my way through the Friday The 13th and Nightmare On Elm Street franchises). This said, it still leaves me more than a little sad when I only really start to appreciate something due to the death of who created it.

I knew the name Stan Winston, but I never really knew the extent of the man's work until I read that he had passed away earlier this year. I started looking into just what he had been involved with, and my jaw dropped. I have a relatively new fascination with make up and special effects, work but it's a fascination all the same and MY GOD was Winston talented. Particularly considering that we have now entered an age where it is cheaper (I presume?) and easier to make an effect using wholly CGI work. It is fine and everything... but just like vinyl versus CD, something is lost. A little bit of heart gets left behind when prosthetics, latex and hard graft are replaced with a shiny computer composite. It just ends up seeming colder.

All this is basically just a lead up to saying that I rented Pumpkinhead (1989) the other day.

Keep away from Pumpkinhead,
Unless you're tired of living,
His enemies are mostly dead,
He's mean and unforgiving,
Laugh at him and you're undone,
But in some dreadful fashion,
Vengeance, he considers fun,
And plans it with a passion,
Time will not erase or blot,
A plot that he has brewing,
It's when you think that he's forgot,
He'll conjure your undoing,
Bolted doors and windows barred,
Guard dogs prowling in the yard,
Won't protect you in your bed,
Nothing will, from Pumpkinhead.

I am pretty sure I always assumed the demon actually had a pumpkin for a head, so it was a bit of a shock to see that the thing was pretty scary looking in an Alien kind of way. The fact we often see it in a full length shot of its body is also very cool. Yes, it goes against "first rule of monster films: never show the monster", but this one was directed by a special effects genius, so we can allow him some showcasing, by all means - at least we know that what we are going to see is going to impress.

The plot concerns a countryside-dwelling single father, Ed (Lance Henriksen) seeking vengeance for the killing of his son. The little boy gets mown down and left for dead by a dirt bike riding utter arsehole by the name of Joel (as he's speeding along in his sports car in his establishing scene, he tells his accompanying girlfriend to hand him a beer. Oh yeah). I had to look up who played this guy: his name is John D'Aquino and I used to have a crush on him in my teens when he was in seaQuest DSV! As well as Jonathan Brandis - but I digress.

Wracked with pain at his son's death, Ed seeks out an old hag in some spooky woods. She lives in a cabin full of animals and sits in front of the fire all day. She's my hero. Anyway, she brings about the rising of a vengeance demon who goes by the name of Pumpkinhead.

From here.

Ed soon regrets his decision however, when the demon starts slaying this Joel fellow and his assorted city folk friends - one of whom was so the Final Girl she practically wore a T-shirt with it printed on (hmm, I want one of those).
Due to the nature of the ritual which brought about its rising, Ed is connected to the demon and its exploits, and finds himself unable to go about grieving for his son in peace - instead deciding to help the teens to stop the bloody rampage...

One of the things that struck me about this film was the lighting, as it is often amazingly effective. It is seen rather unnaturally pouring in great shards from windows and doorways, but it works. Outside is cold and tinged blue; inside is lit by flickering candlelight and is almost cosy - even though the characters are rarely doing anything other than cowering in fear. There is a lot of dry ice, a lot of back-lighting and a lot of shadow, but this just serves to make the already freaky tale seem even more surreal and otherworldly.

From here.

Pumpkinhead himself? There are no words really. That creation is truly a thing of beauty. The way it moves (the ease at which it seems to be able to, more specifically), the detail and the imagination behind it are all simply wonderful. I kind of ended up feeling a bit sorry for old 'head to be honest. I mean, he was just trying to do his job. We aren't given long enough with the annoying city kids to bother caring about them, so to be honest you find yourself rooting for the demon who simply wants to put in his hours before heading back to the pumpkin patch (a GREAT set by the way) for another snooze before he's needed again. Joel and his friends did, in essence, kill the little boy. They bloody well deserve to be held aloft by a great big demon with a fantastically creepy gait.

The ending suits the nature of the film extremely well, playing more like the continuation of the fable rather than a groan inducing set up for a sequel.

Good on you Stan. Please accept my apologies for the posthumous appreciation, however heartfelt!

Stan Winston R.I.P.

I look forward to watching and re-watching all of your incredible work.

question:

I am English. I want to see À l'intérieur. Is this possible, I wonder...? Cannot find it anywhere and it's driving me mad.

My writing cogs are all rusted up again, and I am panicking. All I need is some time to watch a horror movie that leaves me wanting to write about it! You wouldn't think that would be too much to ask, would you?