So... How's Priesthood Workin' For Ya?

While we're on the subject of both classic horror and religious horror, I would be UTTERLY remiss if I neglected to mention William Friedkin's 1973 horror Magnum Opus, The Exorcist.

This movie had me OBSESSED as a kid.  I always wanted to watch it and this was the one that my horror-hound mother would never let me watch and I never understood why.

After finally seeing it in my late teens, I understood why, but I'll get into that later.

Once again, this is a classic so I'm not particularly worried about giving away spoilers but consider yourself warned, anyway.  The movie IS almost 40 years old, after all. 

So, anyway, it starts with Max von Sydow (Father Merrin) hanging out at an archaeological dig in Iraq and discovering that a demon he'd already fought, Pazuzu, is out for revenge.  Then we peek in on a younger priest (Father Karras) who is going through a crisis of faith following the death of his mother.  And finally, we get into the action with Chris MacNeil and her daughter, Regan.  Regan's been going through some... changes... since she decided to fuck around with a ouija board.  (Because ouija boards are the cause of every spiritual problem EVER.)  Changes like soiling herself at grown-up parties, developing a mouth on her like a fucking longshoreman, some SERIOUS acne and Carrie-like tendencies to toss her bed around the room.  She's also developed a new imaginary friend by the name of Captain Howdy.

Somebody needs some fuckin' Pro-Activ.

Of course, Mom puts Regan through a shit-ton of medical tests and they find nothing that can be cured but they DO find out that she can speak backwards in Ancient Sumerian and walk backwards down the stairs on all fours.  Puberty just keeps getting better and better. It also appears that no one taught her how to masturbate because she and a crucifix are totally doing it wrong.

 

Those Gymboree classes TOTALLY paid off.

And then the whole thing blows up when Regan is under suspicion of killing Mom's boy-toy.  She totally did it but the cops aren't convinced so they're "investigating". 

So, on the doctor's advice (wait.. really?), mom hunts down Father Karras who initially refuses to take the case but changes his mind after he sees "HELP ME" carved into Regan's skin.  He gets help from Merrin and they go to town, dealing with pea-soup vomit and the physical impossibility of a head turning 360 degrees.

 

OK, so maybe Gymboree worked TOO well...

They actually fail on the first go-'round.  Merrin kicks Karras out but when Karras checks in on Merrin, he finds him dead, so he has to complete the exorcism himself.  He basically dares the demon to take him and leave Regan alone, so it does and he kills himself by jumping out the window.

WOO!  The day is saved and Regan doesn't remember a second of it... or so she says.

 

Curses!  Foiled again!

Now, let's talk about why my mom didn't want me to see it when I was young.  It wasn't the violence or gore.  It wasn't the creepy masturbation scene (which was cut out for a long time and only re-added recently).  It wasn't the language Pazuzu uses.  It was this:

 

I wouldn't understand it.  There is entirely too much about the movie that is SO wrapped up in Christianity that, unless you have spent your entire life, from birth, in a monastery, a small child just cannot comprehend it.  Hell, I had to do some research after the fact to figure out a lot of what happened in the film.  Then again, I'm a dork that way.  This is obviously the premiere "exorcism" film and it's certainly what a lot of folks base their vision of an exorcism on and it was very deeply researched by William Peter Blatty before he wrote it.

 

DAMMIT!  STOP FLOATING!  BAD REGAN!  BAD!

 

The Exorcist is one of those "based on true life" movies that has only a very tenuous connection to actual events, but I'm OK with that.  I don't believe in demonic possession due to my being an atheist but it certainly raised questions like any good movie should.  It's because of the imagery included, the rumor of subliminal imagery, the rumor of a movie "curse" and the utter divisiveness in theological doctrine vs secular humanism that this movie is an indispensable part of any horror fan's collection.

Frankly, this movie takes a long time to get where it's going but once it gets there it doesn't stop.  It's not as slow a burn as Rosemary's Baby but be prepared for a numb butt. 

Totally funny story, though... I went to see this in the theater when the uncut version was released.  I was in my thirties.  A young couple in front of me apparently thought this was an appropriate movie for an 8-year-old.  I thought it was hilarious when they up and left during the crucifix-twat-stabbing scene.  Apparently, they didn't think this life choice through.

Idiots.

 

GET A SITTER!

I swear, some folks need to pass a test before becoming parents.

Don't Expect Any Child Support, Lady

Since this appears to be a week of classics, I thought I'd cover something a little more cerebral.  There's no gore, no on-screen kills, nothing that would satisfy your average gorehound AND it's an INCREDIBLY slow burn so I'm not even sure it would hold the attention of today's young audience.  And it's a personal favorite.

In 1968, Roman Polanski (pre-statutory rape) directed the sublime and waif-like Mia Farrow (pre-Woody Allen and HIS freaky Asian adopted daughter shit) and John Cassavetes in Rosemary's Baby.  An adaptation of Ira Levin's bestselling novel of the Anti-Christ. 

It starts with sweet, naive housewife Rosemary and her husband moving into the Bramford, an old but charming apartment building in New York (actually, the Dakota, which is infamous for being the location of John Lennon's murder).  Of course, the first people they meet are the Castevets (Ruth Gordon and Sydney Blackmer) who are nosey as fuck but seem nice.

She's watching you.

Always watching.

Rosemary makes another friend with a necklace that smells funny but she decides to take a nosedive off of the building which is all sad and shit.

So, then, the creepy, old people invite the couple to dinner.  Over Dessert, Rosemary passes out and then she has awful, awful sex dreams and wakes up naked and covered in scratches.  Her husband tells her "Oh, it's OK, honey.  I just raped you while you were unconscious because I REEEEEALLY want a baby." (I'm paraphrasing.)

Turns out it worked and her due date is June 6th, 1966.  Coinkeedink?  Not a fuckin' chance.

Call the police, bitch.  Yo' man done you wrong.

She chooses an obstetrician on a friend's recommendation but the creepy, old neighbors insist that she see THEIR guy, even though it's patently obvious that Minnie hasn't had the cobwebs swept from her cooch in a few decades.  And she listens to them.  Because she wants to be an all-natural hippie.  This drink the doc makes her take is better than vitamins, or so they say.  Tannis root...  That doesn't sound suspicious.  And for the first 3 months of pregnancy she drops a shitload of weight and craves raw meat.  Raw.  Meat.  I'd be getting a second opinion.  And she does.  Because she's naive but she's not stupid.  Well, mostly not stupid.

The second opinion doc decides to investigate and is about to release his findings to Rosemary when he slips into a coma.  Just before he dies, though, he gives a book to his secretary to give to Rosemary.

It's all about this guy.  YAY!

So, blah, blah, blah, things happen, Rosemary gets suspicious of her neighbors and her husband (something she probably should have done a while ago), she tries to fight back but they manage to get to her and deliver the baby on time.  They tell her it died but she can hear it crying.  She goes in all ready to find creepy people ready to kill her kid but then she looks at the kid and "His eyes... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIS EYES!?!"

Step away from my kid, bitches.

Like I said, this is an INTENSELY slow burn and that was kind of expected for any psychological thriller in the 60s.  Polanski was known for it, in particular.  This movie couldn't be made today and that's kind of awesome.

Oh, they've TRIED to do it.  The lackluster Blessed comes to mind immediately and it was OK but not great.  THIS is pretty much the penultimate "I Had Satan's Baby" movie.  The Omen was more about the kid after it was born.  This was about the hell the mother was put through.

Obviously, this movie shines a laser pointer on the general fears that women face during pregnancy.  "What if I'm doing something wrong?"  "What if I screw this child up for life?"  "Why am I bringing a child into an overpopulated world?"  "How do I get my hair to look that cute?"  "What if I'm giving birth to the next Hitler?"  And considering that this came out shortly after the Thalidomide deal, "What if I'm having a flipper baby?"  All valid questions and the reason why I suggest every pregnant lady, ever, watch this flick.  Not to make them question themselves but to realize that those fears are valid but not really to be dwelled upon, plus, there's always somebody that has it worse than you.

Because this is a classic, I LOVE watching it but because it's so slow-paced, I really have to be in the mood for it.  It's a long one, too, at 2 Hours 17 minutes.  I say make the popcorn in bucketfuls and settle in.  This is a bumpy ride.

What's This Button Do?

YAY!!  It's Wednesday!  I heart Wednesday!  

Today on TropeFest we're going to continue exploring the idea that horror movie characters are lacking in cognitive functionality by digging into a sub-trope that tvtropes.com calls "Curiosity Killed the Cast".

There's something about horror movies that, as I've said before, turns characters into gibbering idiots.  They might not LOOK like gibbering idiots but gibbering idiots they are.

No one in their right mind goes looking for trouble.  We just like to live our quiet lives and go about our business without a care in the world because we know that we aren't going to do something monumentally dumb.

Not in a horror movie. 

Now, we've already covered doing stupid shit for doing stupid shit's sake but what about when we think we're going to learn something?  We're all curious.  It's how we discover things and grow as people.  It's how we pick up silly little bits of trivia and how we find out how things work.  It's how we release horrific demons who possess our sisters and make them puke blood all over our friends who then proceed to remove half of their face and... you get the point.

Wrapped in barbed wire for a REASON!

For as long as horror has been around, some smart-ass has been around to read the unprintable name of an elder god or send a crack team of military specialists in to investigate a situation.  It's not that they don't expect trouble but they always seem so surprised when it shows up.  And this, again, basically boils down to stupid primates in horror movies are stupid.  

In this case, it's CLEARLY a matter of not being able to think things through to a logical conclusion.  It's like people don't even notice that the wind kicks up and candles get blown out when they start reading the creepy book in the windowless attic.  "Oh, hey.  I no longer have light with which to read.  Maybe I should STOP READING".  And, really, if they're sending in a military team to investigate why there are only two civilians surviving the raid on the Umbrella Corporation and one of them is infected with the T-Virus, maybe someone should actually be aware of what the T-Virus does so a team of trained professionals isn't killed and eaten.

But, no.  In a fit of Scooby-Doo-ness, this omnipresent asshole has to do SOMETHING that unleashes a Hell on earth. 

Yes, Evy, I'm talking about you.

You stupid bitch.

It's understandable, of course, that without these people, there would be no movie but it's not like these people are tricked, coerced, or dragged, kicking and screaming, into making these silly life choices.  (Unless there's Nazis involved... those guys kinda live for the apocalyptic tome-reading and ancient relic opening.)  And it's not even always about actually learning something, it's doing really dumb shit like investigating the noise in the woods at night.  No, children.  No, you do not go traipsing about the woods at night.  You stay in your cabin or by your campfire until the noisy thing goes away and you don't make a fucking sound or you get eaten by something large and horrible.

Pretty much the penultimate example of this sub-trope, as pictured above, is any one of the Evil Dead films.  As psuedo-comedic as the original was (and actually comedic as ED2 and Army of Darkness were), those idiot kids would have been a hell of a lot better off if they had left the book covered in human skin alone, Cheryl (Mia in the remake) could have avoided vagina-widening, splinter-ridden tree-rape if she'd have just stayed indoors and, for serious, Professor Knowby knew better than to read that shit out loud and RECORD IT so that the experience could be repeated.  In the remake, the book is wrapped in barbed wire and kept in a room filled with dozens of mummified cats.  This is probably a clue that something isn't right.

So, yeah.  If you find yourself in a creepy situation and you hear yourself saying to another person "You PROBABLY shouldn't be doing that/reading that/translating that/watching that/whatever," just do yourself a favor and stab the asshole who is obviously not listening to you in the throat.  You'll save yourself a lot of stress headaches and probably save the world at the same time.

IWANNANEASTEREGG!

In 1979, 20th Century Fox, director Ridley Scott and artist H.R. Giger brought us a tale of interstellar horror that had been previously unmatched in cinema history.  This blend of science fiction and horror is still used as a benchmark for suspense films and this film began one of the most successful franchises ever.

Originally pitched as "Jaws in Space", Alien is a Hitchcockian suspense film, a slasher film and a science fiction epic rolled into one beautiful package.  Ridley Scott and Dan O'Bannon (who will deny this and, in fact, settled out of court with author A.E. Van Vogt) at the VERY least took inspiration from Van Vogt's Voyage of the Space Beagle and Discord in Scarlet (which is actually PART of Space Beagle but was originally a short story) in that a space station crew on its way back to Earth is stalked by an alien menace.  Alien is also a more serious retelling of O'Bannon's earlier work, Dark Star.

If you HAVEN'T seen Alien, SHAME ON YOU!!  Bad horror fan!  No cookie for you.

You all know the story.  A space refinery crew is on their way back to Earth when they get a distress call.  Like idiots, they respond to a transmission of unknown origin.  Because if they didn't, they would have paid seven strong actors for doing nothing and it would basically be a French art film.

During the course of their investigations, they discover a room full of what appear to be eggs.  They appear to be eggs because they are, in fact eggs.  The contents of one of these eggs burns its way through a spacesuit helmet to give John Hurt a face full of alien wang.  No kissin', no lube, nothin' because Alien is pretty much entirely a rape metaphor.

 

Not even dinner first...

So, eventually, the facehugger falls off and the dude gets up and he's all chatty and happy to be alive and he feels OK and they all sit down for a wonderful meal of space glop.  And then the screaming starts.  Because I'm fairly sure that's what Veronica Cartwright was bred specifically to do.  Scream.  She does it a lot.  In most movies that I've seen her in.  She needs a new hobby.

Anyway, she's screaming because of this:

Are you my mommy?

Yep.  Dude just gave birth to a bouncing, baby penis.  With teeth.  And, of course, like any sensible space crew, they let it escape.  It grows up very quickly, leaving a trail of discarded skins and alien goo behind it until it stalks and rape-kills pretty much the entire crew including Tom Skerritt and his fantastic mustache with it's tiny mouth penis inside it's bigger mouth on a penis-shaped head with lots of sharp teeth.

Mouth-Dick.

For an extra added level of intrigue, the ship's resident android and science officer, Ash (Ian Holm), is ordered to bring back the organism at any cost and goes all schizo so they have to put him down like the filthy robot dog he is.

Mmmmm.  Corn starch.

It's up to Sigourney Weaver (in her first role) and her tiny bikini underwear to save the day.  And she does so with the help of a grappling hook and thruster engines.  WOOHOO!!

As with An American Werewolf in London, this movie was groundbreaking.  Not for special effects, although the alien design is artistically stunning and certainly a step above anything we'd ever seen before, but for Scott's decision to make Ripley a woman.  Science fiction, up until that point, was very male-dominated and since 1979 was still very much in the middle of the Women's Movement, that choice, to bring the movie audience a very strong, very motivated female lead has long been praised. 

Ultimately, though, what makes this amazing is the suspense.  I think that many audience members forget that Alien is, first and foremost, a horror film, specifically, a slasher.  It just happens to take place in a science fiction setting.  Ridley deliberately made this movie a slow burn instead of a fast-paced thriller and that gives it a tension that's unmatched in a lot of modern horror films.  Ripley is considered a "Final Girl", a phenomenon introduced to movie-goers by such films as Black Christmas and Halloween, but because she is older and more experienced, she gives the concept a certain richness that's hard to duplicate with a younger character.  This also brings directly to mind the "rape survivor" metaphor.  A mature woman who has overcome horrifying adversity.

Another thing that made Alien memorable is that it's not representative of the "clean, crisp science fiction" of the decades before.  The ship was used.  It was dirty.  It needed work.  And the characters weren't innocents tossed to the slaughter, they were real people.  They were not explorers, they were blue-collar workers.  Yeah, the "dirty ship" concept had been used in Star Wars the year before but Alien took it to a very gritty place and that was appreciated.

The most AWESOME thing, I think, about Alien is the thought process that was put into the Alien life cycle.  Much like Leucochloridium paradoxum, the complexity of the cycle, from egg, to facehugger (which implants the embryo), to chest burster, to full grown Alien is fully realized.  And Giger's design is so iconic that it's almost impossible to imitate, although plenty of people have tried.

All of this adds up to a realistic experience and one that is, and will continue to be, remembered by generations of movie-goers. 

So, I know I've said this type of thing before but Alien needs to be a part of every good horror movie fan's repertoire.  I watch it a couple of times a year because it's that awesome. 

No Warren Zevon? Seriously?

One of the benefits of growing up with a gorehound mom is that I got to watch some really cool shit as a kid.  The coolest of those cool things is John Landis' seminal 1981 horror-comedy, An American Werewolf in London.

If you're a GOOD horror fan, you've seen this already but for the newbies, I'll give it a once-over.

David and Jack are backpacking across Europe (because this was TOTALLY safe to do in the early 80s only, you know... not) and are crossing the Yorkshire Moors (which are always depressing... no, seriously, DEPRESSING... like Edgar Allen Poe on heroin depressing... BLEAK) when it starts to rain.  They stop into the Slaughtered Lamb, which is inhabited by creepy locals who are all, "We hate you and we're scared of you so leave but be safe and keep off the moors and GAWD you tourists suck."  And, of course, since it's right there in the name, they get mauled by a werewolf.  Because they didn't listen.  Because they were idiots.

So, Jack dies and David is in a London hospital suffering from not only his physical wounds, but his nightmares which are increasingly bizarre.  On top of THAT, he's also a suspect in Jack's murder.  PLUS, Jack keeps visiting him as a reanimated corpse (not a zombie... there's a distinction, here) who delights in telling David "Oh, hey... you're a werewolf now, you should probably just kill yourself."

 

Worst.  Best friend.  Ever?  Maybe?   

I mean, his advice DOES eventually become useful.

On the upside, David manages to get naughty nurse Alex poon.  She likes him SO much, she lets him stay at her place.

 

Jenny Agutter.  Her rack got a lot of horror fans to buy stock in lotion.

And, because this is a werewolf movie, of COURSE, Nurse Alex is called away on the night of the full moon and David is all "Fuck that noise, I'm not a damn werewoAh... AHH... AAAAAAHHHH!!!  The things!  The hurty things!  The shifting of bones and muscles and sinews and OMG what happened to my dick!  My knees aren't supposed to bend that way!!  WHYYYYYYYYYAWOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

No, seriously.  Where is my dick.  I LIKE my dick.  I'm rather attached to it.

In one of the classic comedy scenes in a horror movie, he wakes up in the wolf cage in the London Zoo.  He, through the course of the night, slaughtered 6 people but doesn't remember what happened, natch, and manages to get home without an indecent exposure charge.

No, you don't get more.  You know how this works.  First hit's free.

ANYWAY, this movie is the shit.  When you consider that John Landis was primarily known for comedy, he blended the two seamlessly, to the point of incorporating Frank Oz and the Muppets into the narrative.  On top of that, the movie, unless you're actively paying attention to fashion and the landscape, is kind of timeless.  This story could happen any time.  In fact, I hear there's been talk of a remake but I'm kind of hoping they don't go through with it. 

This in CGI.  Booooooooooo.

But, in any case, David Naughton's transformation sequence is the mothafuckin' DEAL.  That sequence ALONE made me a lifelong fan of  Rick Baker.  This scene single-handedly changed the face of special effects makeup.  The fact that it WON the inaugural Oscar for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup is amazing in and of itself but knowing that the rest of the cast and crew danced around David Naughton  singing "Wouldn't you like to be a werewolf, too" (teasing him about his days as a Dr. Pepper schill) just makes it even more awesome.

I say this a lot but I think what makes me love this movie is not just a wonderful memory of time with my Mom but the amount of heart in it.  It's not just hack, gore, slash, there's genuine character development and there's affection between these characters and you feel for them and you can FEEL the love and warmth and humor that Landis and his cast and crew put into this picture, as horrifying as it is.  The man put himself in a stunt, for cryin' out loud.  And, personally?  I love a downer ending that shows us true loss.

If you have never seen this movie, know that it is a slow burn but when it starts ramping up, it kicks.  This is a classic for a reason.