31 Days of Dread--Day 28

Jacob's Ladder; 1990; written by Bruce Joel Rubin; directed by Adrian Lyne

Jacob Singer is literally having a hell of a time.

Played by a young and vulnerable-looking Tim Robbins, Singer is a wounded Vietnam vet and postal worker living in New York City. If those two things weren't bad enough, he finds himself lost in a creepy subway, attending a party where a demon seems to ravage his girlfriend, suffering from a strange fever that brings on terrifying hallucinations, haunted by memories of another life and family, part of a group of men who were possibly given an experimental drug without their knowledge, and taken to a hospital filled with monstrosities and operated on without anesthesia. In between, reality seems to be cracking open all around him, spilling out its rotten insides.

What truly makes this slippery tale worth watching almost thirty years after its release is the vision of director Adrian Lyne. Made before anyone had ever heard of CGI, the special effects of Jacob's Ladder were all practical and created "in camera," with no post-production work to sweeten them. As a result, they pack a visceral punch, delivered from a fist with real blood on its knuckles and dirt beneath its nails.

Lyne cited the artwork of Francis Bacon as an inspiration for Jacob's Ladder, and the film went on to influence the Silent Hill video game and film franchises. It shouldn't come as a surprise that a remake is in the works for 2019; it will be interesting to see what the filmmakers do in an effort to surpass the original's power.

Jacob's Ladder is available on Amazon Prime (hurry!--only until November 1) and streaming rental.

31 Days of Dread--Day 27

From Beyond; 1986; written by Dennis Paoli, adapted by Brian Yuzna & Dennis Paoli & Stuart Gordon, from a story by H.P. Lovecraft; directed by Stuart Gordon

Of the two H.P. Lovecraft adaptations Stuart Gordon directed in the mid-1980s, the one everybody seems to remember is Re-Animator. Maybe because getting head from a severed head really makes an impression on people. But for my VHS rental dollar, From Beyond was always the more enjoyable film.

When two scientists create a machine called a Resonator, which allows those within its range to perceive a reality beyond our own, things go wildly wrong and one, Dr. Edward Pretorius, is killed. The other, Dr. Crawford Tillinghast, is taken to a mental hospital where he meets Dr. Katherine McMichaels. When she discovers that Tillinghast's pineal gland is enlarged due to the effects of the Resonator, she returns with him to the lab in order to check out his story. Eventually she, too, falls under the machine's infernal spell and madness ensues.

Trust me, it plays a whole lot better and more smoothly than it reads.

From Beyond came out the year before Hellraiser, and preceded a lot of its story elements and themes. Both feature mechanisms that open the door to other dimensions. Within them are (former) humans whose experiences there have warped their physical bodies, and who return to our plane extolling all the other-worldly sensual pleasures to be had. And both feature some extreme body horror effects that were A-game at the time and still have the power to make you go "Eww."

Why From Beyond isn't better known and more celebrated is one of those cinematic mysteries that may never be solved. But it's possible that oversight is being corrected. After thirty-plus years in relative obscurity the film seems to be finding a new audience and greater critical appreciation. There's no sense in waiting any longer to see it, for the first time or again.

From Beyond is available on streaming rental.

31 Days of Dread--Day 26

It Comes at Night; 2017; written and directed by Trey Edward Shults

I suspect It Comes at Night was given that name primarily for marketing purposes. It makes for a compelling title, a great-looking poster, and the trailer does a fine job of giving the impression that something dangerous is out there, pressing against all the doors and windows.

However, a more accurate title might be It Gets Inside. Because what's out there isn't limited to the night hours. It can get inside at any time. Inside a secluded house deep in the woods. Inside the characters' heads, leading them to lie and steal and murder in order to protect their families. And inside their bodies, causing a terrifying illness that's already killed most of the population.

But that criticism aside, It Comes at Night is still a powerful and moving post-apocalyptic thriller that preys on the minds of both its characters and viewers. The story centers on a family who's managed to survive a global pandemic only by adhering to a strict set of rules, and the second family they reluctantly take in after one of its members shows up at their door.

Of course, if the title was It Gets Inside, that would probably be a bit of a spoiler. Because eventually the fragile trust between the two groups dissolves, their tight security measures fail, and the deadly pathogen they've been trying so desperately to avoid eventually claims them all.

To anyone who watches these kinds of movies that shouldn't really come as much of a surprise. The bad thing--monster, slasher, demon, you name it--always manages to break past all defenses and wreak some havoc. That's pretty much the whole point. 

The question is, does the bad thing in the story also manage to get inside you? And in It Comes at Night, it does.

It Comes at Night is available on Amazon Prime and streaming rental.

31 Days of Dread--Day 25

The Cured; 2017; written and directed by David Freyne

Hordes of zombie films (and books and television shows and comics) have spread unchecked since George Romero unleashed the first bunch in 1968's Night of the Living Dead. With a few exceptions (1985's Return of the Living Dead, 2002's 28 Days Later, and 2013's World War Z to a lesser extent) the formula has remained pretty much untouched: something creates zombies, zombies run rampant, survivors keep trying to survive, rinse and repeat.

The Cured, however, is unique, and possibly the world's first post-zombie film. Set in Northern Ireland after a cure for the "Maze virus" has been found, it explores what happens when the formerly infected return to what's left of their friends and family. Complicating matters is that the cured remember everything that happened while under the virus's control, each bite and kill, leaving them with an especially grievous form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ellen Page stars as a mother of a small boy who's agreed to take in her cured brother-in-law, played by Sam Keeley. As he tries to reintegrate after four years of infection, he finds the world has become suspicious and often openly hostile to the cured. Echoes with the aftermath of the Irish Civil War, and the AIDS crisis to a lesser extent, are not incidental. In fact, they're kind of impossible to miss.

This isn't to say The Cured comes off as a cross between your average zombie flick and NPR's Morning Edition. (Would that make it Mourning Edition?) There's plenty of rising tension as the characters grapple with each other while the threat of another wave of infections grows, and plenty of zombie action once both sources of conflict reach their inevitable boiling points. 

But it's handled with a degree of intelligence and sensitivity that's new to the genre, making it a zombie film with... brains.

The Cured is available on streaming rental.

31 Days of Dread--Day 24

A Dark Song; 2017; written and directed by Liam Gavin

Grief may be the most terrifying emotion--the most terrifying experience--known to humankind. The pain and darkness are so profound, we instinctively turn away from imagining them. Worse, once grief has us in its clutches, the desire to find some relief from it, no matter how short-lived, can drive us to do things that are likewise unimaginable.

That's the truth beating at the heart of A Dark Song, in which a mother whose child has recently died hires a practitioner of dark magic to bring that child back, if only for a stolen moment. What follows, in an old, empty house in the middle of Irish nowhere, is a months-long ordeal of rites so physically and emotionally punishing they nearly match grief's suffering. 

As the mother, Catherine Walker is equal parts determined and skeptical. At times she's committed to seeing the hellish process through no matter what; at others she's caught in doubt, unsure if the man she's hired is more interested in helping or torturing her. Steve Oram strikes just the right balance as the occultist. Beneath his ordinary appearance he's by turns sympathetic, callous and often terrifying in his demands. Occasionally what he requires of both Walker and himself begins to resemble the dynamics of an unhealthy sadomasochistic relationship.

The work of calling back a child from the dead is treated as a process, with each separate stage involving new levels of mystery and danger, with consequences both supernatural and emotional. It takes its time building up to a shocking end, but it's definitely time well spent.

A Dark Song is available on Netflix and streaming rental.

Creature Feature

31 Days of Dread--Day 23

Berberian Sound Studio; 2012; written and directed by Peter Strickland

I once had a friend who worked in the film industry and passed along this surprising bit of advice: "In film the image quality matters, but the sound quality matters even more."

Berberian Sound Studio makes that same point in a most unsettling and entertaining way. It's a horror film about a horror film, in which the sound of what's happening on screen takes precedence over the sight. Though bodies are tortured and splattered and ripped apart and all other manners of mayhem occur, we only ever hear it, often in the most stomach-churning detail.

Toby Jones plays a British sound editor named Gilderoy, whose well-received documentary on birds has led to a job on an Italian film he believes is about horses. And it is, nominally speaking. Because The Equestrian Vortex is a 1970s giallo flick about witchcraft at an all-girls' riding school--something akin to Suspiria set in the stables.

The clash between Gilderoy's gentle nature, the seedy oddballs completing the film's post-production, and the blood-soaked style of The Equestrian Vortex puts the mild-mannered sound editor at odds with everyone and everything around him. As the scenes he's working on become ever more gruesome, his sense of reality begins first to stretch, and then to tear itself to shreds.

Along the way viewers are treated to some truly astounding set pieces that celebrate the artists who work behind the scenes in order to make those scenes so successful. There's one in particular, in which an actress gives voice to a witch rising from her grave, that will have you wondering whether to laugh or scream, or do both at the same time--a feat which the actress accomplishes quite well. 

However, if you're looking (or hoping) for giallo-style gore--which Berberian pays loving tribute to--you're likely to be disappointed. One of the film's great achievements (no doubt the result of budgetary constraints) is that you never see a single drop of blood. Unless, of course, you've got a very vivid imagination.

Berberian Sound Studio is available on Hulu and streaming rental.