Ghost Upon the Floor

 Last night I visited with what is without question one of the modern era’s greatest contributions to scary movies: Alejandro Amenebar’s 2001 Nicole Kidman led ghost story “The Others.”

 This is a great film, and I don’t think you can set the mood for October better than you can with this film. The desolate mansions in the Welsh countryside, the lone graves, what lies in weight in that creepy old house, the music—all incredible. The script is fantastic, and so smart, and led by a cast of brilliant actors, with the great Nicole Kidman delivering one of her best performances as a woman trying to keep her children safe on her own after the war. The young actress Alakina Mann is also incredible beyond her years as Kidman’s daughter Anne, who’s performance has such wicked sass, and biting comedic timing.

Like other films we’ve visited this October, “The Others” has plot developments that stand on their own—and even deepen—upon repeated viewings. This script is so tight, with not a word or scene or dark corner wasted. Rounding out the great cast is Fionnula Flanagan as Bertha Mills, one of the new old servants who come to the aid of the house. The character work her between Kidman, her children, and the servants who show up one day to help is so good on, on so many levels.

Good ghost stories are hard to come by. They have been told for time immemorial, and rarely does a great modern work like “The Others,” come along. This film is absolutely one I have watched countless Octobers, and will watch countless more.

 What is there to say about Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” that hasn’t been said? Of course I would watch it as part of my 31 Days of Scary movies. The Disney film has become such a cultural touchstone and juggernaut that it has become synonymous with the holiday it was created to celebrate. Tim Burton has famously said that he took inspiration from the film when he was Halloween merchandise in a store being mixed with Christmas merchandise; and the story that image sparked has become the ultimate love letter to Halloween. 

The characters, created to represent so many of our spooky greats—the skeleton, the Frankenstein’s monster, the trick or treaters, the boogey man—are used in such brilliant, character driven ways. It is no wonder that the film has become immortal and holds such a special place for people. There isn’t a limit to how many times I can watch skeleton Pumpkin King Jack Skellington become disenchanted with his holiday and life, and wonder if there isn’t something more—and watch as he goes along on his journey to find what he was looking for was all in front of him the whole time. On their own, Danny Elfman’s score and songs are brilliant. With so many Disney movies having been turned into Broadway shows—especially ones that needed more songs to be stretched out to a full length musical—it’s always astounding to me that this has not yet been, with its perfect songs and score that are already the length of a full size musical. Not to mention even, the boundless creative opportunities to bring these characters to life. And, perhaps most of all, such a show can be popularly run throughout the Halloween and Christmas seasons.

 This time, as always, I was struck at the versatility of Catherine O’Hara in her multiple roles in this film—and how good her take on Sally, the film’s Frankenstein’s monster is. I love that she is finding new scores of fans from her work on TV series “Schitt’s Creek.” 

 “A Nightmare Before Christmas” will always be the right nightmare to have on Halloween, and before the Christmas season.

 Last night was—finally—time to watch a film from the King’s of horror body of work. I wanted to chose more films based on his fiction—IT? Part 1 or 2 or both?—but ultimately decided on 1989’s “Pet Semetery.”

The novel by Stephen King is honestly one of the scariest I have ever read. The subject matter in here is disturbing, and there is so much in here that is personally among the most disturbing a tale you could tell- the deaths of close family members, the loss of a pet—and the 1989 film version, directed by Mary Lambert, plays that up to great horror movie success. There is so much good in here, most notably Fred Gwyne as neighbor Jud Crandall. The cat, Church, is also so good, and even by modern standards, it is hard to tell when the cat is a real cat and when it is an animatronic.

It had been many years since I’ve seen this film—though I did see the 2019 film when it was released—and it struck me how solid the performances are all around. Dale Midkiff as the father, especially, does so much to sell this story. In the wrong hands—script and acting wise—and story like would be easy to become off putting to the point of stopping the film. But when the characters who are put through such misery and awful situations are as good and relatable as they are here, we force ourselves to stay along for the horrific ride with them, as they good into horror explored in such pieces as “Frankenstein” and countless zombie tales, but do so in a revolutionary, and more personal, way.

As a horror film, you can’t get scarier than “Pet Semetery.”

     Tonight, I visited a newer friend in the autumnal film rotation: 1963’s “The Haunting.” I had read Shirley Jackson’s novel, “The Haunting of Hill House,” and loved that for years, and even seen the 1990s version with Liam Neeson. I had even seen Mike Flanagan’s 2018 miniseries “The Haunting of Hill House”—which, while being wildly inventive with the elements of the novel, I adored. But last year. After reading Jackson’s novel again for Halloween, I decided to finally watch the 1963 film version. I could not believe it took me so many years. 

 “The Haunting” is a wildly successful, and daring film, which is shockingly faithful to Jackson’s novel. Working from a screenplay by Nelson Gidding, director Robert Wise, just a handful of years before he’d go on to direct “The Sound of Music,” created an immortal classic film based on Jackson’s story. The atmosphere is excellent—creepy, Theremin drenched horror film music, and beautiful old haunted house sets only add to the real fear, and equally real human and psychological drama. The cast is phenomenal, anchored by Julie Harris as Nell and Clare Bloom as Theo. Both understood their assignments beautifully, and have great chemistry together.

 Wise’s film, too, seems at once of its time and before its time. The black and white photography, the music, all scream the early 1960s—but so much of what is discussed, hinted at and even shown seems appropriately transgressive for Jackson’s work. Jackson herself apparently had mixed views on the film, stating publicly that she found it terrifying, but privately didn’t appreciate some of the editing of the script. The script is incredibly faithful, thought; not shying away from implying things like Theo’s lesbianism, which is also heavily implied in the novel. The murkiness between whether Nell is imagining things or if Hill House is truly haunted is also beautifully explored in the movie, giving proper room for all possibilities to breathe.

 One of my favorite things, of so much, in the film is actor Rosalie Crutchley’s performance as Mrs. Dudley. An accomplished stage actor who most famously appeared as Madame Defarge in the 1958 version of “A Tale of Two Cities,” Crutchley plays Dudley, deliciously, delivering lines about how in the night, the town being too far away, no one will be around to hear them scream “… in the night… in the dark.” While even the film has a few nervous laughs at her character, her performance is so good that it still manages to be one of the creepiest moments in the film. 

If you have not seen this film—or if it has been a while—do yourself a favor and revisit “The Haunting” this Halloween.

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. 

 Next up in the film project, I watched something that has a special place in my heart— and is likely a very large part of why I am writing this blog here now. “Disney’s Halloween Treat” was a 1982 Halloween episode of Walt Disney, that went on to be updated and broadcast throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. The special features some of Disney’s most classic and Halloween appropriate clips— and watching it again, as always, takes me right back to being a child at Halloween. 

 The special is anchored by a terrific theme song s a child of the 1980s, “Disney’s Halloween Treat” was such a major event in my Halloween life. One of the first Halloween specials I saw and remember, the timeless, classic, beautiful images that it put in front of captive audiences of kids every year captured the imaginations of generations, and will go on to do so. The segments from the Haunted Mansion, paired with the Queen from Snow White becoming the Witch, alongside the immortal “Night on Bald Mountain,” are so direct, and so perfect; and so Halloween. “Bald Mountain,” especially, says so much about the appeal of Halloween; one night a year, when the dark forces release ghost and goblins from their tombs to dance and celebrate the ending of the year, observing the harvest festivals of death: that is the absolute very essence of Halloween.

 The special was, according to the Internet, updated and changed over the years it aired. First narrated by a pumpkin, and later the Mirror from Snow White, the segments appear to have changed and been shuffled around. Some remember the sequence with Donald and his nephews and the witch Witch Hazel as the final act; other’s the conclusion of 1949’s Bing Crosby sung “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

 While it many years ago was released on VHS, “Disney’s Halloween Treat” is one of the very few Disney programs that are not available on the mammoth streaming service Disney +. And people online only speculate why. Having watched the version available on Youtube for (at least) the last ten years, I was excited when I first got Disney + to be able to see a properly restored version of the show; still, I am waiting for that. Be they copyright concerns, or the fact it was one episode of weekly programming released over the years, Disney doesn’t seem to be aware of the nostalgia filled audience that is just waiting to watch this somewhere other than Youtube.

 Maybe children of today won’t appreciate the wise-cracking Mirror, the talking pumpkin, and the animation that goes back further into history every year. Maybe today’s kids will have their own specials they yearn to watch again in 50 years. But I think just maybe the audiences of today, who have never seen these clips paired with the theme song that is to me and so many others of my generation quintessentially Halloween—maybe they would have their haunted hearts kindled for Halloween by “Disney’s Halloween Treat,” too.

 “The Old Dark House” is a film I only more recently discovered. Last year during the pandemic, when I subscribed to the exclusively horror film streaming service Shudder, I was browsing some of their older titles when I came across a film from 1932, starring Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton and Gloria Stuart, featuring a stormy night and a creepy old house. As a fan of old school horror, finding this film— directed by James Whale no less! — was such a gift. I loved its old-fashioned charm, and quickly the novel it is based on “Benighted” by J. B. Priestley, and read it. 

 And so last night we watched this film. The plot is simple: during a storm, strangers find their way to a creepy house in the Welsh country side, where the rain forces them to spend the night. The family who lives in the home— Ernest Thesiger of “Bride of Frankenstein” fame— is odd and unusual— and their hulking, bearded, silent servant played by Boris Karloff the stuff of legends. I loved seeing the birth of so many horror characters, tropes, novels and film in this story; Karloff’s character, especially, seems to have given birth to the Addams Family’s Lurch. 

 Now in my Halloween rotation, I feel that I will watch this film for— I hope— many Octobers to come. This film is a gorgeous, visual treat of Hollywood visionaries of the macabre from so many decades in the past— the rain, the lighting, the windows banging in the wind, the creepy characters with dark family secrets. “The Old Dark House” is a perfect film for any October night.