Halloween Movies and Memories

Black cats and goblins and broomsticks and ghosts,
Covens of witches with all of their hosts,
You may think they scare me you're probably right, 
Black cats and goblins on Halloween night...

Halloween means different things to different people. There are those who loathe the entire enterprise and can't wait for it to end. There are those who build a bonfire and run naked around it hoping to connect with druid overlords. Those are the extremes. Most of us enjoy it for the bit of fun that it is and every now and again something happens... a smell, a noise... but every year something happens to remind me of that feeling I had as a kid when the day arrived. I loved the whole thing because I was all about ghosts and monsters and the promise of sweets didn't hurt either. These days we put up the decorations and come Halloween night we hand out sweets to kids who are just as excited about Halloween as we are! I used to hand out treats wearing a Michael Myers mask. I've had to downgrade to a Jason Voorhees mask because the Michael Myers one was too scary for some of the kids. True story!

                                                      It is a horrifying mask
                                

Michael Myers took a thoroughly enjoyable night for a kid and made it terrifying. But then, that was the point wasn't it? We wanted something to scare us and it never really did. It was the hope of being scared by something that made it special. When Michael Myers finally delivered on the promise I didn't sleep properly for a long time! And, of course, I loved every second.
I'll try not to beam about Halloween in a technical way because it's been done to death. Rather, I'll tell you how I came to see it for the first time and how that impacted on me.

                                                         Finglas, Dublin 1982
Halloween hit cinemas in 1978 and aired on television in 1980 but I was too young to know about it. However in 1982 at the tender age of 6 (coincidentally the same age Michael committed his first murder) my oldest brother, Colin, was bragging about watching it on Saturday night (Oct 30th) while the rest of us (my other brother and two sisters) would be in bed and my parents were on a date night. Now, by this stage I'd already seen Jaws and had become a bit of a Hammer Horror fan. I figured this couldn't be any scarier... So after listening for the umpteenth time to my brother's continued bragging, I went to my parents and asked could I stay up and watch it. In fairness to them, they played it perfectly. They didn't make a big deal out of it, just said "No, maybe next year" and told me to be in bed by 9pm. If they'd made a big deal out of it, I'd have snuck down but, like I said, they played it cool and it went off my radar... Until about 10pm...

I was tucked up in bed on the edge of sleep when I had my first experience of John Carpenter's Halloween. The scariest score in cinematic history was 5/4ing its way into my semi conscious state and after a few bars of it I heard my brother shout up the stairs at me, "Graham, do you want to come down to watch it? Mam and Dad will never know." This wasn't Colin doing me a favour. Oh no! Colin's role as the oldest brother was torturer and chief. But I heard something in his voice... he was pleading. The fact was, the opening of the movie had frightened him and he wanted company... any company. Even me. His youngest brother. My company was never requested, unless there was a trick involved. There was never a treat at the end of Colin requesting my presence. So that, coupled with the terrifying music, I did what any self respecting 6 year old would do... I pretended to be asleep. To Colin's credit, he stayed down stairs and watched the whole fucking thing. Poor guy was bombarded with questions from all of us the following day. He answered all of them. His use of description made me want to see it...

                                                   Blanchardstown, Dublin 1984
Back in the 80's when a big movie was shown on television, it was a genuine treat. We didn't have a VCR so screenings of Super-man and its sequel, Jaws and its sequel, Star Wars, Indiana Jones  etc. were to be savoured. They generally didn't hit the television until Christmas time and part of me misses the feeling of excitement I'd get when RTE, BBC and UTV would show adds for their Christmas movies. Halloween was no exception. It was a movie that everyone was talking about but I suspect only half the people had the balls to actually watch and even though it was made in 1978 it was still a huge talking point in the mid 80's. I kept my mouth shut when I saw the television listings in the paper on October 27th 1984. There it was. I forget what channel it was on but there it was and I already knew my parents were going out. Off they went about 9pm and I was watching the movie with my sister and a friend of hers by about 10pm. It won't come as a surprise to anyone to read that it scared the living piss out of me! I'll attach some of the shots throughout this blog that stayed in my head and haunted my dreams for years after. Starting with this one: 

                                                Michael watching Laurie in school

As previously stated many people were still going without VCR's in the mid 80's. We just didn't have the money. Times weren't particularly tough but disposable income was minimal. This is why days like Halloween were such a treat. They truly were (and still are) a great distraction from the norm and while I was really, quite badly frightened by the movie I was also instantly obsessed. Of course by the time I got to see Halloween, the sequel had been doing the rounds since 1981 but I'll come back to that. I began reading the television section in the papers every Saturday in the hope that it'd be on television again. The following year, I was certain I'd get a screening... I got The Fog. I was so disappointed that Halloween wasn't on but as it happened, The Fog turned out to be a whole lot of fun and absolutely dripping with atmosphere. It didn't impact on me the way Halloween did but it was certainly more treat than trick.

                                                   Michael watching Annie and Laurie

It was about this time that I started looking at who was making these movies. Names like Irwin Yablans, Deborah Hill, Moustapha Akkad, Tommy Lee Wallace and of course John Carpenter were in my head, ingrained into my brain like a tattoo on grey matter. The Fog and Halloween shared most of these names and so my curiosity grew. Who were these people? Again, back then, information like this was at a premium in Ireland and it wasn't until I hit my teens and started buying movie magazines that I got to know a bit about them. But for years they were heroes of mine and I knew nothing about them. Imagine the frustration! Even now, when I see any of these names it triggers something in me. Just a tiny feeling in my gut to remind me that at one point, seeing these names on my television screen meant the fucking world to me.

                                              Michael watching Laurie in her bedroom

It was probably about 1986 when I first got to see Halloween 2. I've managed to stay away from the technical prowess of Halloween so I'll try to do the same about Halloween 2's shortcomings. It's not that it's bad, it's just that it's ever so slightly lazy at times. Still, at 10 years of age I didn't give a shit about lazy writing or excessive gore! I was getting another Myers movie and truly nothing else mattered. By now, my parents had accepted that their youngest boy loved movies and in particular he loved horror movies. They had let me watch The Fog so they let me watch this. And it was fine. I mean, I was scared... just not "oh my fucking God Michael Myers is going to come in the window and get me" scared. I'd been out to visit my grandad that day and I dared him to watch it. On the phone the following day I asked him if he had watched it. "I did son." "And did it scare you?" "Not really son." We talked for a while about the movie. I was testing him to see if he had actually watched it. Afterwards I told my Mam about the chat and she reminded me that grandad had fought in World War 2. He'd seen a lot worse and up close. As for me, I was getting far too used to slasher flicks for one so young. Halloween 2 served as a nice little addition to "the night he came home" and I was satisfied when I watched it.

Which way is he looking?

 

A Franchise on the wane

By the time Halloween 4 came out it was 1989 and I was positively gagging to see it. Halloween 3 was a fun movie but had nothing to do with Michael Myers or Haddonfield. Part 4, however, had Michael Myers all over the advertising. It was called Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and once again an older brother would get the drop on me. My other brother Gavin was also a fan of horror so he was very excited to see the movie. I was 13 years old. No way would I get into an 18s movie! So off Gav went. He didn't brag. He didn't make a song or dance about it. He just went, came home and assured me I wouldn't be disappointed by it. I had to wait for what seemed like an eternity for it to come to video but finally it arrived and Gav went out and rented it for the whole family. I fucking LOVED it! Now, as I've gotten older I can see the many flaws in the movie but at that age this movie was just what I was looking for. Halloween was still such a hoot for me and this was something else to add to the list of things I loved about the day. Did it scare me? Not really, but I found it to be more effective than I expected and I've since seen it on the big screen where it holds up reasonably well.

 Laurie finds Annie

 

                                                      Best and worst of the rest

The rest of the Halloween franchise is hit and miss. H5, to my delight, came out a year after 4 and again at that age it was the absolute bollocks! Notice as I got older it stopped being about the scares and started being about fun. H6 took its time but when it did come out I was all over it. Again, I can see the hideous flaws now but I enjoyed it well enough at the time. It wasn't well received though and forced a reboot of sorts. Halloween H:20 disregarded H4, 5 and 6. When it came out I was 22 years old and I was excited to see this 20 year anniversary movie with Jamie Lee Curtis back to take on the scariest of all the horror icons. It's a solid movie made by people who care about this material. Its follow up was made by people who don't and is so bad that it buried the franchise and forced a full on remake. Enter Rob Zombie. He made two movies. The first, a remake of the original and the other was a direct sequel to that. Both movies are a source of much debate. I'm kind of torn about them. There are things I like and there are things I don't. Truth be told, 1981's Halloween 2 got by on the fumes of the original classic and everything since then has been poor by comparison.

                                                           Don't Fear The Reaper

The older I get the less time I have to look back at these memories. That's not sadness, that's just a fact of life. However, music is a powerful thing. How many times have you heard a song and suddenly found yourself remembering something you hadn't thought about in years? The first time I ever heard Don't Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult was in Halloween. Whenever I hear it I always think of Laurie and Annie in a car, smoking a joint, being tailed by Michael Myers... Every. Single. Time! And every time I hear that Halloween theme I have access to so many memories of Halloween's past. Not just the movies or the anticipation of watching the original that night as a kid. But as a teenager sitting around a bonfire with friends. Or drinking in town and realising Halloween is a spectacularly unsafe night to go drinking in Dublin City! Or doing a horror themed pubcast with my buddy Wayne Talbot. Or playing a gig in a bar in Rathmines dressed as "ghostface" from Scream... There are a lot of memories.

As for the waning franchise? Well, up next is Halloween Returns however, just this week the project was put on hold while the writers and the producers come to terms with the arrival of "new partners" (probably Platinum Dunes) who weren't entirely sold on the direction the movie was taking. Hard to know if this is a good thing or not. While Platinum Dunes movies make money, their quality is, well, questionable. This is all conjecture though, they may not be involved at all. What is certain is, whatever adventures lay ahead for Michael Myers, I will be in the cinema watching and once that classic theme hits I'll be consumed by a wave of nostalgia.

Happy Halloween everyone.

Cheers,

G.

Why I love Movies - (The Exorcism of Emily Rose Edition)

"Possession is 9/10 of the law"

The Exorcism of Emily Rose or as I like to call it, The Explanation of Emily Rose is based on a true story of which there is ample information to be found online. Suffice to say, it's a tragic event which I think we can all agree should have been handled in a very different way. I'll leave it at that for the actual events and focus on the movie from here on in.

Laura Linney, Campbell Scott, Jennifer Carpenter and Tom Wilkinson would grace any movie and it is rare that a horror movie can boast such a quality cast. Director Scott Derrickson must have felt like all his birthdays had come together to have such talented people to work with.

The movie opens with ominous shots of a house where clearly some awful shit has gone down. Derrickson deserves credit for imbuing the movie with a sense of dread using some beautiful lighting and deft camera work along the way. As it happens Father Moore (Wilkinson) has carried out an exorcism on Emily and tragically the 19 year old girl has died.

Soon after we meet lawyer, Erin Bruner who has just got a client who may be a killer off on a technicality but Erin is ambitious and wants to be a partner at her firm so she doesn't care, yet. Her boss, Karl (Colm Feore) is delighted with her work and dangles a partnership in front of her if she'll defend Father Moore who has been arrested for negligent homicide. Bruner is an atheist and hates the idea but with that partnership so tangible, she agrees.

The prosecutor, Ethan Thomas (Campbell Scott) is a true believer. He's a church goer but doesn't believe in demonic possession. He truly believes father Moore is responsible for the death of Emily and is seeking a maximum sentence. A quick meeting between the two lawyers sets the tone for the battle ahead. Thomas has the facts on his side, Bruner has her work cut out for her.

The movie plays out in three ways. Part courtroom drama, part flashback showing you the events leading up to Emily's untimely death and some "real time" events mostly involving Bruner and father Moore. I should state at this point that I went to see this movie as a horror fan so I was looking forward to all manner of supernatural shenanigans and while I got plenty of well executed moments of horror, I ended up being far more interested in the battle between Thomas and Bruner in the courtroom. It's tightly scripted with hardly any filler moments.

Thomas has one huge advantage over Bruner and it is this simple truth: religion does not belong in law making. If you apply your religious beliefs to common sense law making, you are Sharia Law. Even if your religion is (apparently) more tolerant, it has no place in a court of law. This is why Bruner cannot win this fight... and she struggles to find a way to make any sort of impact. She clearly has sympathy for father Moore but can't find a way to convey his decency to the jury. Partially because Thomas gives a very effective opening statement and partially because the lawyer in her refuses to embrace the theatrics that might win over the jury. She brings in an "expert" to convince us that possession and exorcism are part of the "human experience" but Thomas destroys the witness and brings in an expert of his own, Dr. Briggs played by the wonderfully smarmy Henry Czerny. He is convinced Emily was suffering from "psychotic epileptic disorder" and should have been forced fed her meds and food to live. He asserts the religious solution, ie the exorcism directly led to her death and that a combination of medicine and force feeding would have saved her life. Bruner falls into his trap when she asks, "so you'd feed her against her will?" the response is damning, "to save her life, yes".

Bruner knows she needs to change her tactics and she also knows (though it never comes up in the movie) that the jury will certainly have some religious people and if she can put on an effective show, she might convince enough of them to win this case. She's also been taken in by the charming father Moore. I feel this character is a genuinely decent guy who did what he thought was right and Bruner is starting to wonder if he isn't telling the truth.

He tells her how he saw Emily's experience and he talks about his own terrifying run ins with a hooded figure. He's very convincing. Furthermore Emily's boyfriend, Jason (Joshua Close) comes across as entirely sane and speaks of some truly horrifying moments spent with Emily. In one she begs him not to leave her and as he says himself, "I never did, I stayed with her until the end." See below:

There comes a point in the movie where Bruner decides to go spiritual. A key witness, a doctor who believes Emily was possessed, is killed "Omen style". Bruner has been rocked by the fact that the guy she got off on the technicality has killed again and she is starting to wonder what the fuck she's doing with her life. The partnership offered to her starts to mean less and less and despite being told by her boss that she'd lose her job if she allows Moore to testify she does what she feels is right rather than what is right for her career. So, she takes the shackles off and with nothing left to lose she lets father Moore take the stand. In fairness to the priest he doesn't seem bothered by the fact that this will almost certainly mean incarceration. He says he just wants to tell Emily's story. So he plays a tape recording of the Exorcism and we, the audience, are treated to the actual events. It begins in the house but things quickly turn to shit and Emily ends up hysterical in the barn. Father Moore continues the ritual and Emily, it seems, has been possessed by six demons. Father Moore doesn't back down from them and a dialogue of sorts begins. It is a superb scene, Jennifer Carpenter is so utterly committed to the scene that I started to feel very uncomfortable when I first saw it.

Actually, let's talk about Jennifer Carpenter's acting in this movie. She is incredible. The physical aspect of her performance is absolutely staggering. She bends and twists herself into all manner of shapes. In the quiet moments she shows an innocence which is essential to the movie. You believe the witnesses who say she was a wonderful person. The performance, for me at least, was worthy of an academy award nomination but this is horror and horror doesn't get the love at the major award shows. That's a real shame. It's not that there's a lot of amazing performances in horror but there are some and this is certainly one of them. It won a Scream award and an MTV award.

Back to the movie, father Moore testifies and does well considering his position. Ethan Thomas watches and listens like a spider watching its prey in the web. Thomas drops the ball here as he comes across as kind of a dick, mocking the priest for his beliefs. I found this odd given the lawyer is a practicing catholic but maybe he just got caught up in the moment. He absolutely rips the defense to shreds but he is heavy handed and he makes Moore look sympathetic.

As the movie comes into its final moments there is one scene that I'm completely torn on. Father Moore reads a letter, written by Emily, to the court. Moore's voice narrates as the scene begins. In the scene, Emily, by now on death's door, manages to sneak out of the house and into the nearby field. There she collapses by a tree and, pretty violently it must be said, her soul leaves her body. There she speaks to "Holy Mary". You see her having a conversation with the iconic catholic figure but you never see Mary. Moore reads the letter and the conversation is revealed. Mary has given Emily the option of dying where she is and going with Mary (presumably to heaven) or she can stay as she is and die in the clutches of six demons. Why? Well, if she sees this through to the end, she'll help convince people that there is a spirit realm etc.

I have problems with this scene. I'm not talking about my beliefs here. I'm happy to watch a movie like this and not let my personal belief system spoil my enjoyment of it. Or think of it like this, if I can walk into Lord of the Rings and get drawn in by that fantasy, I can just as easily get drawn in by this one. So, as stated, Mary asks Emily stay possessed to convince people that there's a spirit realm or to die and go with her there and then. Emily takes the martyr route, deciding that she'd rather endure further suffering to help bring religion to the masses. Firstly, people just believe in religion. For no rhyme or reason whatsoever and without the benefit of proof, people just believe. A kid enduring further torture by six demons won't change that. Secondly, there's a theory put forth in the movie that the exorcism failed because Emily was taking medicine which shut down the part of her brain that would be open to receiving the benefit of an exorcism. Let's follow this madness to its conclusion. If Mary wanted Emily to remain possessed to her end, surely nothing would have worked, rendering everyone trying to help Emily, including father Moore, pointless.

What I do like about the scene is the the way Thomas pays attention to the details and uses them to his advantage. Moore has stated that Emily got the stigmata after seeing Mary. Thomas points out that the field is surrounded by a barbwire fence and Emily simply cut herself on the fence on her way into the field. There is blood on the barbwire to back this up. I also love the way the scene looks. It's so haunting, almost other-worldly. A still from the scene is used as the main poster of the movie (shown at the top of this blog) and it is one of my favourite movie posters. I also like the hint at the power Mary has at her disposal. I assume Emily's outer body experience is something Mary orchestrates which is cool enough but the violence of the soul coming out of and going back into Emily's body is quite scary. Nice touch as you do get the feeling that if she wanted to Mary could handle this whole six demon thing with minimum fuss.

And so the stories have been told and the closing statements are upon us. Bruner gives a solid closing. She's played the only card she could, the theatrical one and she's played it beautifully. There's nothing more to add except variations on "I can't say for sure if these things are real or not" which is a great ploy for the reasonable doubt argument. It's a decent closer but not as rousing as you'd expect.

Surprisingly enough the rousing closing speech comes from Ethan Thomas who absolutely wipes the floor with Bruner. I don't know if it was intentional as you did feel the tide turning toward Bruner during father Moore's testimony and maybe they felt they needed to bring things back toward common sense in order to add to the suspense as we wait for the verdict. Or maybe it was just Campbell Scott being amazing, I don't know but he is brilliant here. Simply pointing out the reality of the situation is damning to Bruner's defense and she does look a forlorn figure sitting there while he rips the theatrical efforts of the defense apart.

And so we come to the verdict and oddly enough both sides win. Thomas gets his guilty verdict which was all he could do at his end but Bruner has also done her job and has reached the "believers" in the jury who decide the priest should have his sentence reduced to time served. The judge agrees. The movie closes with father Moore and Bruner at Emily's grave. It is sad and it hit me right in the face when I first watched the movie. Afterwards when discussing the movie with the person I first saw it with we both agreed that Dr. Briggs was right, if Emily had been force fed and treated by professionals she'd probably still be alive.

Once you've seen this movie the question of whether or not she was possessed is also an obvious topic. Let's be clear, the exorcism scene in this movie is terrific. As are the Emily in possessed mode scenes. I found them to be expertly shot, acted and edited. Credit again to Derrickson and Jennifer Carpenter for producing the goods in a world where we've all seen "The Exorcist". What is surprising though is the way the movie offers up common sense explanations for what you initially feel must be supernatural occurrences. It's to the movies credit that it does this and Campbell Scott's deft performance as the "well actually here's what really happened" guy is top drawer because he could have come across as a kind of kill joy but he never does.

So there's something for everybody here. Religious people will get the God versus Devil thing expertly delivered by a talented director who knows exactly what's required to make a movie of this ilk. He is helped by a talented cast who commit to the material, not least by Jennifer Carpenter's spectacular performance. Those of us who look for less creative and more rational ways to explain our existence are also catered for in a very reasoned analysis of what exactly is wrong with someone who seems to be possessed. The real trick here, however, is the attraction for people who maybe aren't big on horror but love a good courtroom drama. This is an excellent one with Linney and Scott both reveling in their respective roles.

I really feel this was the last good exorcism movie. There's been a slew of them since all pretty terrible. Even Derrickson's Deliver Us From Evil is by the numbers and more drivel than devil. I've avoided the inevitable comparison to The Exorcist up to now. Obviously The Exorcist is a better movie,  I mean it's the fucking Exorcist. But this one dares to delve a littler deeper, asking more questions of the audience and for a horror movie, that can only be applauded.

Cheers,

G.