Horror Is Where You Find It, or It Finds You -- Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

 

  The past week's seen me hitting Hulu more with something of a seasonal emphasis, as they've branded it "Huluween."
   Sketchy '80s horror is back, modified with new millennium tech infusions, in the Clive Barker anthology film Books of Blood. The film runs 107 minutes, and in classic anthology film style opens and closes with a bookends piece, and a shared universe element.

   "Gratuitous" comes to mind more than once as I roll it back over in my mind. It has its moments, but it cheats a bit as we weave between reality and what's perceived, all the more so with scenes involving a character who decided to just stop taking her psych meds.
   Injury and threatened injury, including threats of a night terror variety where the victim is aware but unable to move, are in play here. Where cruelty and mercy intersect and bleed together were the most disturbing moments for me.
   I did enjoy that while I'd thought they'd ended one of the stories with an anticlimax, leaving me to wonder what the message was supposed to be, it turned out that we picked up on the story again a little later.
  Books of Blood is much like so many things out there: approaching it with low expectations increases the chance you'll enjoy it. Yeah, that's bland, generic advice. When I see a film like this, I remind myself that it's difficult to see things with fresh eyes, but that there's someone out there who'll see this without a body of other works in mind for immediate comparison, and who'll remember it fondly as an original-for-them set of experiences.

   I originally had a bit of comic book history to lead into the next piece, but decided to bury most of that as leading into an anticlimax.
   Instead, let it suffice to say that as the North American comics biz rolled into the '70s, many elements of the supernatural came back into comics for the first time since they were banished as part of an overzealous public cleansing in the 1950s.  Bringing us back to now, a heavily-altered version of one of these characters is the core of Helstrom, with a 10-episode season landing on Hulu just last week, on October 16th.
  In comics, a character named Daimon Hellstrom (subtlety was not on the menu) was introduced in the summer of 1973. Daimon's core concept, looking backward through the lens of pop culture, was something like "What if Rosemary's Baby grew up and decided to use his birthright to fight against his father's plans?"
  The adaptation to a series took multiple steps down from that, becoming a show about demonic possession, serial killers, and those mostly trying to either fight or to simply survive that.
  Helstrom is the last gasp of an entertainment development structure under Disney, Marvel TV, that was effectively swept away in 2019 when they simply moved it under the control of Kevin Feige and the highly-successful machinery that's produced the big screen Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is the last greenlit project which was carried through by the momentum of time already spent and general contractual obligations. Originally part of a planned group of shows that were intended to be a darker, supernatural area existing in the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, one which the larger universe would generally remain blissfully unaware of, it's become an orphaned artifact; a footnote with some potential points of interest. Parent company Disney seems to want this scrubbed of any overt connection to their Marvel properties, and the likelihood that any of these versions of the characters will be seen anywhere else after this 10-episode run seems particularly remote.

   I'm only about four episodes into it, taking it slowly in part because it's been a week of work distractions, and in part because, well, I'm not sure. Most of the edge and potential bite of this seems to have been dulled during development as part of trying to make higher-ups happy, higher-ups who were never going to really support this project. There's something a little sad about that, like a child that warps their life trying to please a parent who will never, ever approve. Compromise without reward.
  Now, all of that development background gloom out of the way, the series has its appeal if it's taken as its own thing.
 The damaged family dynamics work, as do some of the extended, adoptive ones. Several nice performances in the mix. Mom (Elizabeth Marvel) - especially her voice - there in her padded room, is effective. Once we get past her defensive glamour, Daimon's sister, Ana (Sydney Lemmon), gets to be interesting, too. Series lead, played by Tom Austen, works mostly by being a largely restrained role, allowing the other cast members to stand out a little more. Wire alum Robert Wisdom plays Henry/Caretaker, one of several characters whose emotional scars from their work have joined with necessary determination in a way that can make it difficult to decide who's really good and who's really evil.
   Now, from a series with supernatural foundations to a movie with all too human ones:
   Elijah Wood and Stephen McHattie (and others) arrive with an interesting, if ultimately brutal turn in Come To Daddy (technically a 2019 film, but released in 2020; currently on Amazon Prime)

   Wood plays poorly-aged, spoiled, but in recovery for substance abuse, 30-something man-child Norval Greenwood. Norval received a letter from his father - a man who walked out on him and his mother when Norval was five. The letter was an outreach, letting the son know where his father is, inviting him to come seeking answers. Norval has come from the Beverly Hills mansion (where he still lives with his mother) traveling to the remote location, uncertain of what he'll find. It gets stranger from there. It's a black comedy horror mystery.
  As mentioned before the trailer, the film involves some brutal scenes, including mutilation and torture. They're not a main focus of the film, but they're decidedly there, and knowing that at least one reader here is sensitive to that aspect I wanted to give fair warning.
  Eccentric characters and suitable performances keep it moving, even if much of the time one's uncertain of who, if anyone, to root for.
  The location for the film is almost as interesting to watch as the characters. I was thrown by the remoteness and that New Zealander Ant Timpson produced it, but it turns out it was shot in and around Tofino, a small town on Vancouver Island off the coast of British Columbia, and I missed the cues in the film that within the story it's set to be in Oregon. The opening scenes of the film cover the last legs of Norval's trek, which only helped convince me this was someplace on the other side of the planet.

  The final week of October begins this Sunday, so I want to highlight some of the seasonal films that will be showing up on Turner Classic Movies. This isn't in any way meant to be a comprehensive list, and I fully expect some who look at the full listings to be taken aback by omissions.
   1951's The Thing From Another World is a late-night Friday airing, technically 12:45 am Saturday here on the East coast.

  A justifiably fondly-remembered science fiction horror film, with a desperate battle between a small group of humans and an alien menace at a remote, arctic base.
 That it's a terribly compromised adaptation of the 1938 novella Who Goes There? shouldn't color one's appreciation of this Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks film. If you want a proper adaptation of that story, jump 31 years ahead to 1982, and watch John Carpenter's The Thing. (No, this later film isn't on TCM this upcoming week, but both Showtime and Flix have it in their current inventories, and so among their On Demand options.)

  Back to TCM, overnight into Sunday morning, they have a couple schlocky werewolf flicks I have tagged. One I don't think I've seen before is The Werewolf (1956), which I'm expecting will be an item to remind us that Ed Wood wasn't the only one making bad movies in the 1950s.

  So, note, that one wasn't really a recommendation, just a note.

  Following that is a film that I know hasn't aged well, but one which I'll always fondly remember because of the werewolf transformation prosthetics: The Howling (1981). That and An American Werewolf in London (the latter not currently appearing on TCM) brought us advances in "practical" (physical, as opposed to the computer-generated and overlaid effects that have gradually taken over) makeup in 1981, including what a werewolf looks like. This wilder, more bestial and full-snouted look has, happily, become the norm for most werewolf depictions.
   If you happen to make it through that, or more likely are just up early (5 am Eastern) Sunday morning, that's followed by 1932's Boris Karloff feature, The Mummy.

  Okay, okay, it may put a modern audience back to sleep, but it has a good atmosphere. Aside from television viewings I got to see it some years back in an old, local theater, and it held up even if it's paced not much more quickly than the mummy walks.
   A different variety of horror comes around rough 12 hours later (5:30 pm Eastern) with What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962)

 That's a film that involves elements of captivity and cruelty that I'm just uncomfortable with, more often than not making it a film I find difficult to sit though.
  Monday night (8pm Eastern) brings Nothing but the Night (1973), a film that has often been overlooked because its subtle title wouldn't draw horror fans to it. It stars Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Diana Dors and Georgia Brown in a mystery involving children and suspected ritual murder on an island off Scotland. Notable in part as it's an instance where Christopher Lee is playing a heroic role, investigating an evil plot.

  That kicks off an overnight of films starring or at least including featured star of the month, Peter Cushing.
   TCM draws back a little from the theme for much of the week, but leans in again come Friday, which I'll cover here rather than try to do it at the last minute in next week's piece.
   The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) Friday 8am, this is one that has to be taken as a creation of its own time, setting aside both broad, sinister and demeaning characterizations of Asians, and of an era when making people up to look "oriental" was common practice. Karloff is delightfully evil in the lead role of this Sax Rohmer adaptation.
    Eye of the Devil (1967) Friday 9:15 pm involves a supernatural blood debt owed to restore a vineyard's fortunes. Starring Debora Kerr, David Niven and Donald Pleasance, it marked the feature film debut for Sharon Tate.

    The Devil Rides Out (1968) Friday 11 pm. Alternately marketed (as in this trailer) as The Devil's Bride which was how it was marketed here in the states.

 As with Nothing but the Night, here we see Christopher Lee in the role of hero. In this story it's as a strong-willed nobleman battling satanic forces to save the life and soul of the son of an old friend. Reportedly Lee held it as a favorite, and would have been keen to reprise the role, possibly in a remake with a bigger budget and taking advantage of better special effects, allowing him to play the role as a more mature man. Alas, no one decided to do that.
    Finally, at 12:45 as it rolls into Saturday morning, there's The Wicker Man (1973) which I covered as the lead feature back in early July... which feels so much longer ago.   
     That should be enough for this week, even if you sleep as little as I seem to.
     Take care.  - Mike