Ghost Upon the Floor

   For the 31 Days of Scary Movies project, I tried not to repeat too many different types of movies, and was careful to avoid series. The “Halloween” films being the exception. With last weekend’s “Halloween Kills” having just been released this year, I wanted to at least revisit the original 1978 film, because I never wouldn’t at least once in October. And with the hype around the 2018 film and its now sequel, I wanted to revisit Jamie Lee Curtis’ original return to the franchise, in 1998’s “Halloween: H20.”

 I have watched a lot of “Halloween” films this October. But none have the spot on my list the original John Carpenter film from 1978 has. Last night, it was finally time to revisit the classic that launched a thousand horror films—and quite a few of its own sequels and reboots of its own. Much ink has been spilled over the discussion of the sequels to this film—but for all the debate over which sequels are the best, or even good, even though I enjoy many of the sequels (Halloween 2, H20, the 2018 film)—the first absolutely can, and often should, stand on its own. 

 

I have watched this film more than a dozen times, and will watch it more than a dozen more. Young Michael Meyers murders his teenaged sister in cold blood; is institutionalized for it, and breaks out years later to return home and terrorize his small town of Haddonfield, Illinois. For all the fear in the films that come after, nothing will ever be scarier than Meyers stalking Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie and her friends through the streets of Haddonfield on Halloween night. While the low budget film which became a mega smash hit was famously shot during the summer in California—with leaves on the trees and fake fallen leaves littering the ground—I can’t think of many other films that get the feel of Halloween night as right. While the main action with Laurie takes place on a lonely street between two houses, the tension and terror is genius, and not only holds up, but delivers every time. As someone who first saw this at home and much later at the theater, this is one of the best horror films to watch in a theater; no matter how many times you have seen in, there is nothing like the rush of an audience after Michael Meyers sits up behind Laurie’s back after she thinks she has killed him.

 

Things that struck me again watching, as always, is how good Donald Pleasance is in this as the doctor who tries to get the world to believe Michael is evil—only to be constantly dismissed. Also, especially with the more recent sequels, what stands out most powerfully about the original is how scary Meyers is as the unknown; all we know about him is what people see as he stalks and terrorizes him, and absent of any narratives telling us he is or is not supernatural, Laurie’s question to Loomis at the end, “Was that the Bogeyman?” lingers. We don’t know if Michael  I’m ok Meyers is the bogeyman, supernatural or not; we only know that he has terrorized us, and that he is still out there. And that is the way Michael Meyers should be.

 

 

  You didn’t think I wouldn’t go back to the Universal Monster movies this October, did you? I began the month with earlier Universal monster classics like Dracula, Frankenstein and his Bride; and now I watch my last official one of the project, with the star studded “The Wolf Man.” The film has a cast that reads like a who’s who of Universal Monster Movie stars. It of course has Lon Chaney Jr as the title role, but rounding out the cast in supporting roles are Bela Lugosi himself as the first Romani werewolf who passes down the curse, and also the Invisible Man himself Claude Rains as Chaney’s protective father. 

 Tonight, we did something different for the film project. The Ghost and the Witch got together and watched the brand new “Halloween Kills,” the sequel to 2018’s David Gordon Green sequel/reboot of John Carpenter’s immortal classic “Halloween” from 1978. I was a huge fan of the 2018 film, and watched it as part of our film series in preparation just a few nights ago. And so the Ghost was super excited to see what the sequel would be like. What could be better than a new, Jamie Lee Curtis led Halloween film in October?

 “Halloween Kills,” was such a mixed bag. There are portions of it that are amazing and justify the film’s existence, but there are other parts—that ending—that make me wonder if this shouldn’t have been simply the 2018 film and not a whole trilogy. A warning for a newer film, I don’t plan to discuss all out spoilers, but will discuss plot points that some may considered spoiler territory.

 The high point for the film for me was the opening flash back to the very ending of the 1978 film. These events are newly created for these new films, but the feeling, atmosphere and the look of the film are amazingly believable as part of the 1978 film. The actor who briefly plays Donald Pleasance’s Dr. Loomis is amazing; we thought it had to be some kind of computer-generated trick. I also loved the flashback’s concluding shot and call back to the film’s opening.

The other good here come from the sequences early on; any scene Jamie Lee Curtis touches is fantastic, and while her character is in the hospital recovering from her injuries of the first film and she can’t believably run around as much, the side lining of her in the film nonetheless hurts the movie as a whole. It’s fantastic to see Kyle Richards back as Lindsey; her sequences in the film are great, and help justify its existence. While Brian Andrews unfortunately couldn’t play Tommy Doyle, I actually loved the casting of Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy, and thought he was used interestingly in the film. Other good comes from some of the jokes this movie has; noticeably dialed back from 2018, the humor in here—such as the kids running around on Halloween night stealing candy and unphased by Michael Meyers or the gay couple that has rehabbed the Meyers house—is organic and good.

 

What I didn’t like so much about the film was the ending. The last sequences are very weak, and commit the sin so many of the mid-franchise sequels did, in explaining too much about Michael, and taking the mystery away from him. Without his mystery Michael is so much less scary, and the very last shots of the film don’t even seem to be from the same movie.

Is “Halloween Kills” woth watching? Absolutely. It is far from my favorite of the franchise, however, and I do think that the 2018 film maybe should have been left to stand on its own.

John Carpenter’s 1978 film “Halloween” stands large over most other horror films in my opinion. It is, far and away, my favorite slasher film, and one of my most loved scary movies. The atmosphere, the anxiety, the fear—it is all as Halloween night should be. Last night I watched not that film, but it’s 2018 sequel; the sequel which disregarded all the sequels that came before it, choosing only the original 1978 film as its jumping off point. While I love the original, and enjoy the sequels—most notably the 1998 “Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later”—I was game for a sequel that started fresh. I loved 2018’s “Halloween,” and revisited it last night.

 David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” is, as the tried saying goes, a love letter to the Halloween series. Callbacks and references abound, and, in all the best ways, this film is a reworking of the original. The attention to detail put in each frame shows, as the film pays tribute even to the sequels its timeline ignores; Halloween masks from “Halloween 3: Season of the Witch,” a sequence in a gas station restroom that calls to mind “H20.” The film is not perfect, but what it gets right it gets right and its such a treat that it exists.

 Among its best assets is, unquestionably, Jamie Lee Curtis returning as the heart of the series Laurie Strode. So much of the original’s success is due to Curtis’ appeal and performance, and while “H20” gave us a Curtis who was dealing with the trauma of the events of 1978, this film delves even further into a trauma survivor’s psyche, exploring the life and nuances of someone who narrowly escaped being murdered by a psychopath along with all her friends in high school. While “H20’s” Laurie showed us a woman who has her life together and was suppressing trauma, 2018 shows us a Laurie who’s life has been devastated by what she lost as a teenager. She still wears her hair the same, has the things from her high school bedroom on the walls of her bedroom all these years later, and has spent her life in a survival mode that led to her losing her daughter to the foster care system. While Laurie is devastated, she is not broken, spending her days training—with target practice and home security systems—for the day that is inevitable: when Michael Meyers breaks free and comes after her and those she loves again. Curtis excels here, and gives an amazing performance, which carries the film and delivers huge payoffs the likes of which many thought would never again come from the series. As her daughter, Judy Greer is excellent, providing one of the best lines and moments of the film.

I don’t think I watched this last year; it absolutely will feature on the rotation of years to come. 

     Late one rainy spring pandemic night, while scrolling through social media, the Ghost recently came across a post asking horror fans what modern film remakes-- from the 1970s through the 1980s-- were the best. For an even less discernible reason, I decided to marathon watch those I had not seen, to be able to answer such a curious question.

     The films listed were "Halloween," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Friday the 13th," "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Child's Play."


     Previously, I had seen the remakes of  Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. How did they all fare? What worth could there be in determining how well films that remade modern horror classics over the last decade or more had succeeded, failed and everything in between? I could not answer the question-- so I set out to find answers.

"Halloween" (2007)

     John Carpenter's 1978 film Halloween is, without hyperbole, my favorite horror film. It links the spirit of more old fashioned, Universal monster movies with very modern fear and horror, and does so, beautifully, to the backdrop of All Hallow's Eve. There is a reason why it has endured, and been imitated so often, and will continue to be so for years to come. No fear film holds up better for me; no matter how many times I watch Michael quietly stalk Jamie Lee Curtis and her friends in the waning afternoon before dusk falls on Halloween, I will always have my anxiety surge and heart beat fast as Laurie tries to run away after darkness falls and her friends have been killed.

     This is all to say that I avoided seeing the remake of Halloween for a long time. I did not see it when it first came out at the theater. I remember seeing a DVD for sale at a now long extinct Blockbuster shortly after it was released on video, and I snatched it up and put it on my shelf, where it stayed for a long time. I don't know how long I waited to watch it. But when I finally did, it was not what I was expecting, and it was not good.

    For me, Rob Zombie took everything that worked for the original film, and made it the opposite. The anonymity of Michael in the original, not knowing him, his motives, or even seeing him for much of the film, gave such a build up of dread and wonder; the kind of fear that lasts long after the last shot. In Zombie's film, Michael is given a paint by number sympathetic backstory, which is as predictable as it is ridiculous. And the charismatic actors of the first film-- the teens in Curtis and PJ Stoles, as well as the adults anchored by Donald Pleasance-- are replaced by unmemorable actors who struggle to stay with us as the characters and events of the first film did so beautifully.



     I only saw the movie once, and I have no desire to ever watch it again. The updated score is worth listening to as Carpenter's brilliance is timeless, but other than that, Rob Zombie's Halloween is something of an unsuccessful elseworlds story that I am comfortable leaving in the discount bin for all the years to come.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

     Since first appearing in 1984, Freddy Kreuger has had a long and varied legacy terrorizing teens in the A Nightmare on Elm Street films. He's fought Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th, had offspring and even been brilliantly reinvented in 1994's New Nightmare. The one constant, however, until 2010's remake, was that the character of Freddy was played, always, by Robert Englund.


     I went into the remake of Nightmare with as much of an open mind as I could. I have long enjoyed the series and Englund's performance, but it had been many years since I saw a Nightmare film. Obviously, the most divisive thing about this remake is the recasting of Englund. Jackie Earl Haley's casting was blessed by Englund himself-- and, I found, the casting is actually the least of the film's problems. I didn't find Haley's performance problematic, and it is one of the reasons to see the film. This version of Freddy is darker (in terms of lightning, performance and story), and Haley's performance extends that, and works incredibly well. This Freddy is darkly menacing, and the fine line the production walks between having Freddy appear more like a burn victim but not too boldly associated with real-life burn victims is walked reasonably well. Freddy, like Michael Meyers and Jason, are our modern day monsters, and they will be recast for years to come, as Count Dracula and Frankenstein have been-- and will continue to be, as well.


      The script is good to average. There are some lines to be cringed at, but the younger actors are competent, and the older actors who add some weight to the production-- we're looking at you, Connie Britton-- do the best with what they can. The controversial decision to make no qualms about the fact Freddy was a child molester is not a bad one. It increases his malice and evil a great deal, and makes the actions of the parents more understandable.

     The end result is not a bad film-- and it is actually an affecting horror film in parts. The shadow of the original looms large, however, and it is never quite lived up to. If all we had was this remake, it was be hard to imagine we would have been given one sequel, let alone a whole film series spanning over thirty years. For fans of horror and the Nightmare series, this remake is respectable, and well worth watching. It is a shame we have not-- yet-- been given a proper sequel with Haley returning.


 Friday the 13th (2009)

     When the remake of Friday the 13th was first announced, I had every intention of going to see it. And I always meant to. When I embarked on my journey into the remakes, I knew it had been a few years since the movie had come out, and I'd had every intention of getting around to seeing it sooner or later.
     I was somewhat shocked it took me more than ten years. 2009's Friday the 13th, for apparently legal reasons, straddles the line between remake and sequel interestingly-- if not always deftly. The remake proper, or the rehashing and re-shooting of the story, happens in the first several minutes, before the title sequence. It wouldn't take much to have the script refer to the happenings of the first two films, and jump off from there as a sequel.

     Nevertheless, this is a remake the succeeds more than it fails. With Jason almost entirely masked by makeup or his iconic hockey headgear, the problems of recast actors that plague other films like Nightmare have never faced the Friday  films. There is not much original in this film-- younger people at a lake camp being butchered by Jason-- but there's also not much that is terribly bad. For the most part, the film feels like an unsteady, near return to form, that should have set off a few more modern sequels.


    Why it's been more than a decade and Jason has appeared in movie theaters is something I find curious.


Child's Play (2019)

     I have many opinions on the Child's Play films, and they are all over the place. The original trilogy decreases in quality, from an admittedly cheesy but effective starting point. The image of a killer's soul possessing an already creepy child's toy doll and running a murderous muck is a winner. In the 1990s, the later sequel  Bride of Chucky embraced the camp in a way the previous films hadn't-- to great success. The addition of a Frankenstein's monster's bride for Chuck in the way of Jennifer Tilly's character is a brilliant success, the kind of which the films in the franchise which came after never quite achieved.

     I was interested to see what would be done with the first legitimate remake of the Child's Play films. When your iconic horror star is an actor's voice in a doll, it doesn't seem to make sense to recast that voice; but, if you have to, you can't do much better than Mark Hamill. I was also excited to see what the comic talents of Aubrey Plaza, as the mother, would do in such a campy horror film.


     Apart from Rob Zombie's Halloween attempt, Child's Play was by far the worst of this crop of remakes. It swings big, often lazily, and misses all the same. I was willing to be game for this effort, but the film makes it nearly impossible to stay game. Done away with is the possessed serial killer angle, and in its place is a smart technology turned sentient and/or evil story, straight out of (but nowhere near the quality of) the Netflix television series Black Mirror. There may have been opportunities for a Bluetooth Chucky to be scary and entertaining, but this film does not find them.



     The script is at points laughably bad, such as when an entirely wasted (in terms of talent) Aubrey Plaza tells her son to go play outside, in the very urban city, at night under the street lights. This film also makes use of one of my least favorite horror tropes-- the murder of a family pet as an early sign to the threat's danger. The way in which this is done is so tasteless it turned me off from the film completely. Mark Hamill pardon the pun hams it up and tries to chew every last piece of scenery, but there is nothing in this film worth watching. Especially poorly done is the climatic brawl in a department store.

 Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

     Disclaimer time. Of all the horror franchises here discussed, the one I maintain the least fandom in is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films. I first saw Tobe Hooper's 1974 original film when I was a kid, and the impression wasn't a lasting one. I remember being disturbed by the images of slaughtering people as farm animals are (and worse), and how images of people being placed on hooks were not one I would want to relive by re-watching the films every October, as I do with many of the original films on this list. However, the original TCM movie remains a titan in horror and has spawned countless films that have attempted to do what it did.

     Which brings us to the 2003 remake, which I did see at the time of it's release. Without having a huge love for the films or the character of Leatherface, I found the film a surprisingly effective horror movie in its own right, managing legitimate scares and gross outs that rivaled the original; or, at least, stood on their own from the original. I found it incredibly interesting that the original's cinematographer returned to work on the remake. While Daniel Pearl's work in the original is realistic and almost documentary like for the 1970s time in which it was made, his take on a darker, more stylized cinematography for the film in 2003 adds intriguing dimensions of fear to the work.

     All in all, I still find the Chainsaw remake the most effective remake of this lot. Keep in mind the original I am not a huge fan of, and I appreciate passionate fandoms, as I myself am a part of many of them.

John Wolfe

The former Buffalo State Hospital, now the Richardson Olmstead Complex, in Buffalo, NY

Rolling Hills Asylum, Genesee County, NY

     Welcome, October. We turn around, and it is gone. A world of winters, cold, shovels and snow, quickly becomes life. Turn around, and the spring has broken, when the world rains on muddy ground and the first seeds begin to grow. The sun shines brighter, and longer, and the world opens into summer. In summer, the autumn seems like a long ago dream. And then we turn around, and it's here.