UPDATE: This article was meant for Premium members, but we're having a tech issue, so it's available for everyone right now! The archive for Spookin' With Scoops is up, too.
The goal of Shocktober is to watch 31 films, but it never happens. If I'm lucky, it's a little more than half. But I love the ambition behind trying to watch so many, and when I'm forced to compile the list, it makes me to dig deep and find a selection of movies that might not have otherwise float up. No matter how many movies are watched, it's actually really helpful. It's not like I stop watching movies after October.
We're a week into Shocktober, which seemed like a good time for a checkup. I've watched four movies--Alien, ABCs of Death 2, Annabelle, Honeymoon--which puts me on pace.
Let me know what you've watched in the comments, especially if you've deviated from the list. There were plenty of other movies mentioned in the original article, some of which will show up in Shocktober 2015.
Alien (1979) by Ridley Scott
There's a scene that gets me every time in Alien. Dallas has volunteered to enter the vents in search of the creature, but it's nowhere to be found. Beep beep beep, beep beep beep. The crew is screaming at Dallas to make his escape, since it's clear the creature is heading towards him. Beep beep beep, beep beep beep. As he heads down a ladder, clutching a flamethrower, he breathes a sigh of relief, and puffs the fiery weapon to his left. The alien is there, it's boney arms waving, and it screams.
There aren't many times Alien gives you a proper glimpse of what's hiding in the dark, and it's because the suit actually looks pretty stupid. We're acutely reminded of this fact during one of the film's final shots, as the alien clutches to Ripley's shuttle, and it becomes clear it's a man awkwardly inside a suit. Because the suit looks goofy, the filmmakers were forced to be creative and selective with their shots, only giving us fleeing glimpses at what was terrorizing the crew of the Nostromo. The few times we see the xenomorph in its fully glory, we're so awed that we aren't able to digest that it looks weird.
Without getting all old man and aw shucks, it underscores what modern films, especially horror films, have lost. The advent of cheap computer graphics means we've lost a creative restraint. Working within restraints can be freeing. It's why, as a writer, I often enjoy word counts. If Alien were remade in 2014, it's hard to imagine the director wouldn't be tempted to show us what the talented folks at ILM have come up with. It would look scary, but it wouldn't last, because it'd show up over and over again.
Alien works as well as it does because it leaves us begging for more. We want to see the alien again because we don't know what the hell we just saw. How tall is it? Does it really have a tail? How'd it get so damn big so damn fast? Each encounter provides a tiny bit of new information without painting the whole picture. It doesn't matter if those choices were made because Ridley Scott understood less is more or because he realized saw a man walking around in an alien suit and sighed. The best monster movies take advantage of the knowledge that what audiences slowly dream up is far scarier than what really exists.
ABCs of Death 2 (2014) by Various Directors
The world could use more anthology movies. There's an alternate universe where John Carpenter got what he wanted with Halloween, and that franchise became an annualized celebration of new stories, rather than a tired exhaustion of the same killer. Some of my favorite stories came in smaller packages, whether we're talking about anthologies (Trick 'r Treat, Creepshow) or short stories (Stephen King's Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Clive Barker's Books of Blood). Horror lends itself to brevity, as the beginning and middle sections tend to be the strongest. The ending is where most have trouble sticking the landing.
ABCs of Death 2 is a little gimmicky, but in a way I can appreciate. 26 directors were asked to film extremely short pieces (some of them are only a minute or two long) based on a word in the alphabet. I don't want to spoil what the words are, since wondering where the story is going is much of the fun here. You could make a decent drinking game out of guessing them, and you'd be pretty drunk by the end of it.
Just don't come to ABCs of Death 2 looking for subtly or scares, as there's little of either to be found. Instead, ABCs of Death 2 celebrates the absurd, giving the viewer cinematic whiplash, as the stories contort in tone, execution, and presentation at a breakneck pace. There's even a claymation bit, one of the film's highlights. The moment you've fallen in love with one story, it's over. The moment you're hoping for things to move along, they do. The level of quality is all over the place, but it's all over so fast, anyway.
I wouldn't consider myself a "gore-hound" (read: someone who particularly enjoys the way horror movies will often portray and exaggerate injury), but if you're looking for a movie to make you go "oh, what the fuck!" a few times, ABCs of Death will do that. Every time a bone sticks out of a leg, you'll get me to yelp.
Annabelle (2014) by John Leonetti
Let's keep this one short 'n sweet, since there's a huge caveat about my impressions: I'd been drinking. When a horror movie passes the halfway mark, it's when everything starts coming to a head, and the tension continues to ratchet up. For a hot minute, I almost got up and went to the bathroom, but I miscalculated the extent to which my bladder had become full, and I eventually crossed a point of no return. My desire to relieve myself was equivalent to my desire to see the end of the movie, which backfired spectacularly, as I could barely pay attention without grimacing in pain.
That said, there's not much to say about Annabelle. Director James Wan has greatly contributed to horror cinema's last decade, responsible for the original Saw; the underrated Dead Silence; the overrated but generally great Insidious series; and last year's surprise blockbuster, The Conjuring. Wan was a producer on Annabelle, but didn't direct, and his longtime writing partner, Leigh Whannell, wasn't involved. It's telling The Conjuring's sequel is still a ways off. When Annabelle was announced, it felt like a movie studio trying to capitalize on a hit. Annabelle does this without really tainting the potential for The Conjuring 2.
If you're looking for a cheap scare, Annabelle will hit the mark. I jumped a few times. The story is unremarkable, despite a interesting opening involving the Manson family, but you'll have trouble remembering it after it's over. It's nothing more than a few "gotcha" moments better saved for a cheap arrival on Netflix and Redbox. You can do worse than Annabelle, but you can certainly do better, too.
For the record, my wife really liked it. What do I know?
Here are my notes about the movie, by the way. I wrote them the morning after.
Honeymoon (2014) by Leigh Janiak
While we're only a week in, Honeymoon has a chance at being the most surprising film on my list. Charming, scary, sincere, and unexpected, it's a gem. A word of warning: do not watch the trailer.
Trailer editing in the modern era is infuriating. Perhaps the data shows more people show up to a movie when so much is shown. I'm more inclined to believe movie distributors are terrified at how many different options consumers have when it comes to spending their time, so trailers try to make the movie sound as exciting as possible by spilling all the money shots up front. But as someone who loves secrecy and surprise, it means trailer viewing's a minefield, rather than a way of building early excitement.
It's hard to talk about Honeymoon and why the trailer doesn't work without spoiling what the movie's about, but trust me. When I watched the trailer after finishing Honeymoon, I was shocked. Every major beat in the film, including the ending, is there, and surprise is critical here.
Honeymoon is a slow burn, and maybe that explains why the trailer is so tonally different. Paul and Bea just got married, and have dashed off to Bea's family cabin for a honeymoon. It's implied the two don't have much money, and are happy to get away from the busy city. The two are your cliched newlyweds, lustful and nervously excited about the future. We spend half the movie with the main characters before anything weird starts happening. Even then, the first tinge of something being up is brought up and moved on so quickly, it's unclear what it actually means. The movie is fine with allowing the mystery to linger, rather than immediately showing its cards. Honeymoon slowly reveals its true nature. The fun (and terror) of Honeymoon is working out what's happening, and smiling (and screaming) when you're totally wrong.
Relatable, interesting characters tend to elevate the best horror movies, which Honeymoon recognizes. The movie sacrifices huge chunks of time in establishing who these people are, and why they're in love with each other. You don't see their whole lives, but it's easy to fill in the gaps. Paul and Bea may not be your relationship, but you know someone like them, and it's what makes the inevitable unraveling emotionally raw. So many horror movies are obsessed with the "horror" part, in which archetypes become fodder for some beast in the night, and forget to use the characters as a way to immerse the viewer.
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