Here are the film reviews from today's show:
About Time is a pleasant little film. It isn’t the kind of picture that’s going to change anyone’s life but it does pass as a “comfort movie,” the kind of picture that viewers watch on a rainy afternoon with a pint of ice cream.
Mr. Nobody is a film that is difficult to recommend because it is unlikely to appeal to a mainstream audience but even the art house crowd is likely to find it underwhelming because it is so compromised. But those who enjoy movies of this sort may want to check it out simply for its ambitions.
Although Free Birds arcs upwards in quality over the course of the picture, it is just too mediocre to recommend. The movie has none of the heart or character that viewers look for in a holiday movie and it is unlikely to entertain anyone.
The Bling Ring is smart and well-made but it also manages to conduct an existential examination of consumer culture while having a laugh. That’s a unique accomplishment and this film does it well enough to make The Bling Ring one of Sofia Coppola’s best films.
You can find the full reviews in the Sounds of Cinema review archive.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
89.7 KMSU Pledge Drive
89.7 KMSU FM in Mankato is currently holding its fall pledge drive in which the station asks listeners to show their support with a financial donation.
Pledge drives have two goals. The first is obvious: to generate the money that will keep KMSU on the air. Your donations cover the day-to-day overhead expenses of running the station so that the KMSU's volunteers and staff can keep the programming coming to you.
The second goal of a pledge drive is about public relations. Space and money are at a premium across higher education. Your pledge demonstrates to the university that KMSU is an important and valued part of the community and allows the station and its staff to justify their existence. This means that the amount you give is not as important as the fact that you do give.
To make a pledge to KMSU, please call 507-389-5678 or 1-800-456-7810. You can also visit www.kmsu.org and click on the "donate" icon. Leave your name, address, phone number, and the amount you would like to pledge. Please do not leave credit card information in an email or voicemail as they are not secure.
The November 10th edition of Sounds of Cinema heard on 89.7 KMSU FM will be a special pledge drive edition that will showcase what this program has to offer. Those listening from 89.5 KQAL FM in Winona will hear the regularly scheduled broadcast.
Pledge drives have two goals. The first is obvious: to generate the money that will keep KMSU on the air. Your donations cover the day-to-day overhead expenses of running the station so that the KMSU's volunteers and staff can keep the programming coming to you.
The second goal of a pledge drive is about public relations. Space and money are at a premium across higher education. Your pledge demonstrates to the university that KMSU is an important and valued part of the community and allows the station and its staff to justify their existence. This means that the amount you give is not as important as the fact that you do give.
To make a pledge to KMSU, please call 507-389-5678 or 1-800-456-7810. You can also visit www.kmsu.org and click on the "donate" icon. Leave your name, address, phone number, and the amount you would like to pledge. Please do not leave credit card information in an email or voicemail as they are not secure.
The November 10th edition of Sounds of Cinema heard on 89.7 KMSU FM will be a special pledge drive edition that will showcase what this program has to offer. Those listening from 89.5 KQAL FM in Winona will hear the regularly scheduled broadcast.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Film Reviews for November 3, 2013
Here are the reviews from today's show:
The Counselor is a frustratingly bad movie. The picture has some extraordinary talents involved but that makes its failure all the more disappointing. To say it is a train wreck is unfair because train wrecks are at least watchable.
Escape Plan plays like a direct-to-DVD feature that somehow finagled a theatrical release. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone have been in plenty of bad movies but they may never have been in one as boring as Escape Plan.
Lock Up is a very well made prison film and it is one of Sylvester Stallone’s better movies from the 1980s. It is recognizably an action picture from that period in both good and bad ways but it is very entertaining and the humanistic qualities of the picture make it stand out.
You can find the full reviews in the Sounds of Cinema review archive.
The Counselor is a frustratingly bad movie. The picture has some extraordinary talents involved but that makes its failure all the more disappointing. To say it is a train wreck is unfair because train wrecks are at least watchable.
Escape Plan plays like a direct-to-DVD feature that somehow finagled a theatrical release. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone have been in plenty of bad movies but they may never have been in one as boring as Escape Plan.
Lock Up is a very well made prison film and it is one of Sylvester Stallone’s better movies from the 1980s. It is recognizably an action picture from that period in both good and bad ways but it is very entertaining and the humanistic qualities of the picture make it stand out.
You can find the full reviews in the Sounds of Cinema review archive.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Sounds of Cinema Halloween Special
The annual Sounds of Cinema Halloween Special can be heard the evening of October 30th. This one hour program includes music from a variety of All Hallows Eve
related films as well as some other audio tricks and treats.
The show will air at:
Tune in for the soundtrack to your Halloween.
The show will air at:
- 11pm on 89.5 KQAL FM in Winona, Minnesota
- Midnight on 89.7 KMSU FM in Mankato, Minnesota
Tune in for the soundtrack to your Halloween.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
The Films of Stephen King
Today’s episode of Sounds of Cinema examined films adapted from the works of Stephen King. Here is a recap of the pictures discussed on today’s show as well as a few additional titles.
Carrie (1976)
Carrie has been adapted three times: first in 1976 as a feature film directed by Brian DePalma and starring Sissy Spacek and again in 2002 in a made for television movie directed by David Carson and starring Angela Bettis. The novel was most recently adapted in 2013 as a feature directed by Kimberley Peirce and starring Chloe Grace Moretz. The original film was also followed by a sequel, The Rage: Carrie 2, released in 1999.
Salem’s Lot (1979)
Many of Stephen King’s works have been adapted for television. The first and still one of the best regarded is Salem’s Lot. Originally broadcast on CBS in the fall of 1979, Salem’s Lot tells the story of vampires invading a small New England town. Although it is recognizably a product of the 1970s, Salem’s Lot has aged very well and it is impressive not only as a made-for-television production but as a motion picture in its own right. Salem’s Lot was directed by Tobe Hooper, who had previously helmed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and would later direct the adaptation of Stephen King’s short story The Mangler. A made-for-television remake of Salem’s Lot was broadcast on the TNT cable network in 2004.
The Shining (1980)
Stephen King’s 1977 novel The Shining was adapted by director Stanley Kubrick for a feature film released in 1980. The novel tells the story of a couple and their young son who spend a winter as caretakers for a haunted hotel and the supernatural evil gradually overtakes the father. Kubrick’s film downplayed the supernatural element, turning The Shining from a story about external evil embodied by the hotel and into a story of the evil inside of the father. The film was released to lukewarm reviews although it is now regarded as a horror classic. Stephen King has admitted to hating what Kubrick did to his novel and so he produced a made-for-television miniseries of The Shining that was broadcast in 1997. King has since written a sequel to The Shining titled Doctor Sleep.
Creepshow (1982)
Like a lot of horror storytellers who grew up in the postwar era, Stephen King was influenced by the horror comics popular in the 1950s. King teamed with Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero to make a tribute to those comics. Creepshow is an anthology of five short stories written by Stephen King and featuring an impressive cast including Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Leslie Nielsen, Ed Harris, and Ted Danson. King appears as an actor in the short “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill.” A sequel was released in 1987.
Christine (1983)
Directed by John Carpenter, Christine tells the story of a teenage boy who becomes obsessed with his car, a 1958 Plymouth Fury. The movie raised the profile of the car, resulting in it becoming a popular automobile among collectors.
The Dead Zone (1983)
Adapted from the Stephen King novel of the same name, The Dead Zone was directed by David Cronenberg and starred Chistopher Walken as a man who awakens from a coma with psychic powers. He has a vision of an up and coming politician elected President of the United States and starting a nuclear war. The psychic then weighs whether or not he should assassinate the politician. Filmmaker John Badham, known for Saturday Night Fever and Wargames, was originally slated to direct but pulled out of the project when he decided that the material was irresponsible. The Dead Zone was later turned into a television series starring Anthony Michael Hall that was broadcast on the USA network from 2002 – 2007.
The Running Man (1987)
Based on the Stephen King novel (originally published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman), The Running Man is a dystopian story in which convicts compete in a gladiatorial game show. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a wrongly convicted protagonist who must fight his way through the games. The cast also includes Richard Dawson, the original host of Family Feud, as the emcee of the game show.
Pet Semetary (1989)
Pet Semetary tells the story of a family that moves into a new home near a burial ground for domesticated animals. When deceased creatures are buried in the ground they return to life but with a corrupted spirit. Stephen King came up with the concept for the novel Pet Semetary while teaching for a year at his alma mater, the University of Maine at Orono. King based the book on his family’s experiences during that year, including the death of the family pet. King did not like the finished manuscript and was going to shelve it but he ultimately published Pet Semetary in order to fulfill his contract to publisher Doubleday. Despite his misgivings about the novel, King was very involved with the production of the film adaptation; he wrote the script, was present on set, and is even featured in a cameo role as a minister.
It (1990)
Stephen King’s novel It was adapted into a made-for-television mini-series that was broadcast in two parts on ABC in 1990. The first half tells the story of young people who are terrorized by the ghost of a child killing circus clown known as Pennywise. In the second half, the surviving children, now adults, return to their home town to fac5e the demon once again. The first half of the mini-series is far stronger than the second half, partly because the conflict between Pennywise and the children is more compelling but also because the ending of Stephen King’s novel was more cerebral and that quality did not translate cinematically. Despite its shortcomings, It is still among the most popular adaptations of King’s works and that is largely due to Tim Curry’s magnificent performance as Pennywise.
Misery (1990)
Many of Stephen King’s stories are led by protagonists who are writers but Misery was most directly about King’s experiences as an author. In this story a successful novelist is held hostage by a crazed fan who demands that he keep her favorite character alive. Misery was directed by Rob Reiner, who had also helmed the King adaptation Stand By Me, and featured James Caan and Kathy Bates in the lead roles. Bates’ character in Misery is one of the most terrifying villains in motion picture history and she won an Academy Award for her performance. At the time it was considered quite strange and even shocking that an actor in a horror film would be given such a mainstream award.
Needful Things (1993)
Several of Stephen King’s novels take place in the small Maine town of Castle Rock, including The Dead Zone, Cujo, and The Dark Half. King’s 1991 novel Needful Things was billed as “The Last Castle Rock Story” although the town has since reappeared in other works. The book was adapted into a film released in 1993 and it is one of the more interesting adaptations of Stephen King’s work. The filmmakers combine shocking violence with witty humor, giving the picture a fun, mischievous tone. Needful Things is helped considerably by the casting, especially Max von Sydow as mysterious shop owner Leland Gaunt. The novel had a broad scope with many character and intersecting storylines. A lot of these subplots were scripted and shot but ultimately discarded in order to cut the film down to a feature length. The extended version can sometimes be seen in television broadcasts.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Shawshank Redemption was adapted from Stephen King’s novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” part of the collection Different Seasons (which also included the source material for Apt Pupil and Stand By Me.) The film stars Tim Robbins as a wrongly convicted man sentenced to life in prison and Morgan Freeman as a fellow inmate who is inspired by his companion’s hope. The film adaptation was released in 1994 and although it was well reviewed it was box office disappointment in its theatrical run. The Shawshank Redemption was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but being released the same year as Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, and Quiz Show, the movie was lost in the shuffle. It wasn’t until it premiered on home video and was broadcast on basic cable on a nearly constant basis that it found an audience and The Shawshank Redemption is now considered one of the great movies of all time.
The Stand (1994)
The Stand is an apocalyptic fantasy film in which nearly the entire human race is wiped out by a plague, setting the stage for a showdown between the forces of good and evil. Stephen King first published the novel in 1978 and it was later rereleased in expanded and updated editions. The film adaptation was in development for a decade, with Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero attached to direct at one point. The Stand was eventually produced as a television miniseries broadcast on ABC in 1994 and it was a very ambitious production for its time. A feature film remake of The Stand is currently in development.
Dolores Claiborne (1995)
Kathy Bates returned to the works of Stephen King in the title role of Dolores Claiborne. This film tells the story of a woman who is suspected of murder and in the course of her interrogation she reveals a traumatic life story of abuse. In addition to the film adaptation, Dolores Claiborne has recently been converted into an opera.
The Green Mile (1999)
Following The Shawshank Redemption, filmmaker Frank Darabont adapted Stephen King’s novel The Green Mile. This film tells the story of prison guards working on death row in the 1930s. The daily routine of the cellblock is disrupted by a mysterious new inmate, played by Michael Clarke Duncan, who has supernatural powers. When the film was released it became the biggest box office hit based on Stephen King’s source material. King has referred to The Green Mile as the single most faithful adaptation of his work.
1408 (2007)
Based on a Stephen King short story of the same name, 1408 tells the story of a skeptic who specializes in debunking supernatural myths and spends the night in a supposedly haunted hotel. The film went to theaters with a different ending than the one originally written and shot. Test audiences reacted negatively to the intended downbeat ending and so the conclusion of 1408 was reconceived. A director’s cut of 1408 was issued on DVD and restores the original ending.
Carrie (1976)
Carrie has been adapted three times: first in 1976 as a feature film directed by Brian DePalma and starring Sissy Spacek and again in 2002 in a made for television movie directed by David Carson and starring Angela Bettis. The novel was most recently adapted in 2013 as a feature directed by Kimberley Peirce and starring Chloe Grace Moretz. The original film was also followed by a sequel, The Rage: Carrie 2, released in 1999.
Salem’s Lot (1979)
Many of Stephen King’s works have been adapted for television. The first and still one of the best regarded is Salem’s Lot. Originally broadcast on CBS in the fall of 1979, Salem’s Lot tells the story of vampires invading a small New England town. Although it is recognizably a product of the 1970s, Salem’s Lot has aged very well and it is impressive not only as a made-for-television production but as a motion picture in its own right. Salem’s Lot was directed by Tobe Hooper, who had previously helmed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and would later direct the adaptation of Stephen King’s short story The Mangler. A made-for-television remake of Salem’s Lot was broadcast on the TNT cable network in 2004.
The Shining (1980)
Stephen King’s 1977 novel The Shining was adapted by director Stanley Kubrick for a feature film released in 1980. The novel tells the story of a couple and their young son who spend a winter as caretakers for a haunted hotel and the supernatural evil gradually overtakes the father. Kubrick’s film downplayed the supernatural element, turning The Shining from a story about external evil embodied by the hotel and into a story of the evil inside of the father. The film was released to lukewarm reviews although it is now regarded as a horror classic. Stephen King has admitted to hating what Kubrick did to his novel and so he produced a made-for-television miniseries of The Shining that was broadcast in 1997. King has since written a sequel to The Shining titled Doctor Sleep.
Creepshow (1982)
Like a lot of horror storytellers who grew up in the postwar era, Stephen King was influenced by the horror comics popular in the 1950s. King teamed with Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero to make a tribute to those comics. Creepshow is an anthology of five short stories written by Stephen King and featuring an impressive cast including Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Leslie Nielsen, Ed Harris, and Ted Danson. King appears as an actor in the short “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill.” A sequel was released in 1987.
Christine (1983)
Directed by John Carpenter, Christine tells the story of a teenage boy who becomes obsessed with his car, a 1958 Plymouth Fury. The movie raised the profile of the car, resulting in it becoming a popular automobile among collectors.
The Dead Zone (1983)
Adapted from the Stephen King novel of the same name, The Dead Zone was directed by David Cronenberg and starred Chistopher Walken as a man who awakens from a coma with psychic powers. He has a vision of an up and coming politician elected President of the United States and starting a nuclear war. The psychic then weighs whether or not he should assassinate the politician. Filmmaker John Badham, known for Saturday Night Fever and Wargames, was originally slated to direct but pulled out of the project when he decided that the material was irresponsible. The Dead Zone was later turned into a television series starring Anthony Michael Hall that was broadcast on the USA network from 2002 – 2007.
The Running Man (1987)
Based on the Stephen King novel (originally published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman), The Running Man is a dystopian story in which convicts compete in a gladiatorial game show. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a wrongly convicted protagonist who must fight his way through the games. The cast also includes Richard Dawson, the original host of Family Feud, as the emcee of the game show.
Pet Semetary (1989)
Pet Semetary tells the story of a family that moves into a new home near a burial ground for domesticated animals. When deceased creatures are buried in the ground they return to life but with a corrupted spirit. Stephen King came up with the concept for the novel Pet Semetary while teaching for a year at his alma mater, the University of Maine at Orono. King based the book on his family’s experiences during that year, including the death of the family pet. King did not like the finished manuscript and was going to shelve it but he ultimately published Pet Semetary in order to fulfill his contract to publisher Doubleday. Despite his misgivings about the novel, King was very involved with the production of the film adaptation; he wrote the script, was present on set, and is even featured in a cameo role as a minister.
It (1990)
Stephen King’s novel It was adapted into a made-for-television mini-series that was broadcast in two parts on ABC in 1990. The first half tells the story of young people who are terrorized by the ghost of a child killing circus clown known as Pennywise. In the second half, the surviving children, now adults, return to their home town to fac5e the demon once again. The first half of the mini-series is far stronger than the second half, partly because the conflict between Pennywise and the children is more compelling but also because the ending of Stephen King’s novel was more cerebral and that quality did not translate cinematically. Despite its shortcomings, It is still among the most popular adaptations of King’s works and that is largely due to Tim Curry’s magnificent performance as Pennywise.
Misery (1990)
Many of Stephen King’s stories are led by protagonists who are writers but Misery was most directly about King’s experiences as an author. In this story a successful novelist is held hostage by a crazed fan who demands that he keep her favorite character alive. Misery was directed by Rob Reiner, who had also helmed the King adaptation Stand By Me, and featured James Caan and Kathy Bates in the lead roles. Bates’ character in Misery is one of the most terrifying villains in motion picture history and she won an Academy Award for her performance. At the time it was considered quite strange and even shocking that an actor in a horror film would be given such a mainstream award.
Needful Things (1993)
Several of Stephen King’s novels take place in the small Maine town of Castle Rock, including The Dead Zone, Cujo, and The Dark Half. King’s 1991 novel Needful Things was billed as “The Last Castle Rock Story” although the town has since reappeared in other works. The book was adapted into a film released in 1993 and it is one of the more interesting adaptations of Stephen King’s work. The filmmakers combine shocking violence with witty humor, giving the picture a fun, mischievous tone. Needful Things is helped considerably by the casting, especially Max von Sydow as mysterious shop owner Leland Gaunt. The novel had a broad scope with many character and intersecting storylines. A lot of these subplots were scripted and shot but ultimately discarded in order to cut the film down to a feature length. The extended version can sometimes be seen in television broadcasts.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Shawshank Redemption was adapted from Stephen King’s novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” part of the collection Different Seasons (which also included the source material for Apt Pupil and Stand By Me.) The film stars Tim Robbins as a wrongly convicted man sentenced to life in prison and Morgan Freeman as a fellow inmate who is inspired by his companion’s hope. The film adaptation was released in 1994 and although it was well reviewed it was box office disappointment in its theatrical run. The Shawshank Redemption was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but being released the same year as Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, and Quiz Show, the movie was lost in the shuffle. It wasn’t until it premiered on home video and was broadcast on basic cable on a nearly constant basis that it found an audience and The Shawshank Redemption is now considered one of the great movies of all time.
The Stand (1994)
The Stand is an apocalyptic fantasy film in which nearly the entire human race is wiped out by a plague, setting the stage for a showdown between the forces of good and evil. Stephen King first published the novel in 1978 and it was later rereleased in expanded and updated editions. The film adaptation was in development for a decade, with Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero attached to direct at one point. The Stand was eventually produced as a television miniseries broadcast on ABC in 1994 and it was a very ambitious production for its time. A feature film remake of The Stand is currently in development.
Dolores Claiborne (1995)
Kathy Bates returned to the works of Stephen King in the title role of Dolores Claiborne. This film tells the story of a woman who is suspected of murder and in the course of her interrogation she reveals a traumatic life story of abuse. In addition to the film adaptation, Dolores Claiborne has recently been converted into an opera.
The Green Mile (1999)
Following The Shawshank Redemption, filmmaker Frank Darabont adapted Stephen King’s novel The Green Mile. This film tells the story of prison guards working on death row in the 1930s. The daily routine of the cellblock is disrupted by a mysterious new inmate, played by Michael Clarke Duncan, who has supernatural powers. When the film was released it became the biggest box office hit based on Stephen King’s source material. King has referred to The Green Mile as the single most faithful adaptation of his work.
1408 (2007)
Based on a Stephen King short story of the same name, 1408 tells the story of a skeptic who specializes in debunking supernatural myths and spends the night in a supposedly haunted hotel. The film went to theaters with a different ending than the one originally written and shot. Test audiences reacted negatively to the intended downbeat ending and so the conclusion of 1408 was reconceived. A director’s cut of 1408 was issued on DVD and restores the original ending.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Cannibal Movies
Today’s episode of Sounds of Cinema examined cannibal movies. Here is a look the movies discussed on the show as well as a few additional titles. Warning: Some of the videos below are NSFW.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, a subgenre of cannibal films came to dominate the exploitation horror movie market especially in Italy. Of these, the most well-known and the most infamous is Cannibal Holocaust. The second half of this film plays like what is now known as a “found footage” picture but in 1980 the format was entirely new. Because the audience didn’t quite know what to make of what they were watching and because the film’s distributors played up the illusion of authenticity, prints of Cannibal Holocaust were seized by Italian authorities on the belief that it was a snuff film. Although murder charges were dismissed, director Ruggero Deodato found himself in trouble over animal cruelty as Cannibal Holocaust contains several unstimulated sequences of the actors killing real animals. Whatever one thinks about this footage, it should be noted that historically violence against animals was quite frequent in the motion picture industry, from exploitation movies to Hollywood productions. Due to the scenes of violence against animals, as well as a barrage of other savage imagery, Cannibal Holocaust was censored the world over and is believed to be among the most widely banned films in cinema history.
Cannibal Ferox [aka Let Them Die Slowly] (1981)
Released amid the Italian cannibal phase of the 1970s and 80s, Cannibal Ferox was one of the nastier entries in the subgenre. The film came after Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust and the film duplicates a lot of the elements as that film including actor Robert Kerman and unstimulated scenes of violence against real animals, although Cannibal Ferox did not suffer the same kind of legal persecution as Cannibal Holocaust nor does it exhibit that film’s complexity and intelligence.
Hannibal (2001)
Bar none, the most popular cannibal in the history of cinema is Doctor Hannibal Lecter, immortalized on screen by actor Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. However, Hopkins was not the first actor to play Lecter. That honor goes to Brian Cox who played the character in 1986’s Manhunter, an adaptation of the novel Red Dragon. Although that film wasn’t successful at the time it is now held in high regard. The Silence of the Lambs reintroduced the character and was later followed by Hannibal and another adaptation of Red Dragon, all featuring Anthony Hopkins in the Lecter role. This was followed by a prequel, Hannibal Rising, which featured Gaspard Ulliel in the title role and more recently an eponymous television series featuring Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Lecter.
Titus (1999)
Excepting the adventures of Hannibal Lecter, cannibalism is generally regarded as a feature of supposedly “low culture” stories. But anthropophagy figures into everything from the myths of ancient Greece to mainstream Hollywood movies. The enduring applicability of cannibalism is evidenced by William Shakespeare’s play Titus Andronicus, which was adapted into the 1999 film Titus, directed by Julie Taymor. This film was a bold adaptation, mixing ancient and modern design, and it has a gleefully insane performance by Anthony Hopkins in the title role. According to Taymor, the adaptation was an attempt to connect the violence of the ancient world with the violence of the present day. Although Titus is an uneven movie—some would say a train wreck—it is also the kind of picture that you can’t stop watching.
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Following his filmmaking debut with 1972’s Last House on the Left but preceding his mainstream success with 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, writer and director Wes Craven released The Hills Have Eyes in 1977 and it remains among the filmmaker’s best movies. Inspired by the tales of the Sawney Bean family, The Hills Have Eyes tells the story of a middle class family whose motor home breaks down in the middle of the desert and they find themselves under siege by a group of cannibals. As in most of Craven’s best efforts, The Hills Have Eyes mixes savage violence with intelligent storytelling and this film is extremely well made. A remake was released in 2006 and although it does not eclipse the original version it was much better than a lot of the other remakes released around the same time.
The People Under the Stairs (1991)
The People Under the Stairs was one of Wes Craven’s strangest films as it tells the story of a young black boy who breaks into the home of a white suburban couple only to find the residents are cannibals who keep children locked up under the floorboards. The movie is more than a little weird and ultimately uneven but it also has tremendous energy and an overt economic subtext that plays very well today.
Blood Feast (1963)
Herschell Gordon Lewis was one of the great exploitation filmmakers and one of his earliest and most successful features was 1963’s Blood Feast. In this film a caterer kills and mutilates women with the goal of preparing a sacrifice to the Egyptian goddess Ishtar. The movie was more gory than scary but in 1963 gore was not seen very frequently if at all on the silver screen and Lewis went pretty far with some of the imagery, even by today’s standards. But the real talent of Herschell Gordon Lewis was not in making movies but in selling them. He realized that a good marketing campaign could make a terrible movie profitable and marketing notices for Blood Feast warned that it should not be viewed by those with a weak heart. Audiences who took up the dare were given vomit bags at screenings and Lewis and company actively secured an injunction against their own movie from a Florida court just to say it was banned.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of the ultimate midnight movies. In it, a newly engaged couple is stranded at the house of Dr. Frank-N-Furter and his companions. The movie is made up of musical numbers chock with allusions to the science fiction movies of classic Hollywood like Bride of Frankenstein and The Day the Earth Stood Still. In the course of the story, Dr. Frank-N-Furter kills a delivery boy and feeds him to his guests.
Cannibal! The Musical (1993)
Before Matt Stone and Trey Parker found mainstream success with the South Park television series, they collaborated on a musical adaptation of the story of Alfred Packer, a notorious prospector who restored to cannibalism when his company became stranded in the Rocky Mountains in the winter of 1874. Despite the very meager resources that these filmmakers had at their disposal, Cannibal! The Musical is a very ambitious production. The picture was originally filmed as a student project, and that is quite obvious in the film’s production values, but it was picked up by Troma Entertainment and developed a cult following when South Park became a hit television show. Cannibal! The Musical is also interesting as a precursor to some of Stone and Parker’s later work, especially the film Team America: World Police and the stage show The Book of Mormon.
Ravenous (1999)
Set in the 1840s, Ravenous tells a story of cannibalism at a remote US Army frontier outpost. This film was unique from other cannibal stories in that it included a supernatural element in which people who engaged in cannibalism took on regenerative qualities, miraculously healing from serious injuries. The film is frequently bizarre, part action movie and part horror picture, and mixes bloody violence with comic relief. The strange tenor of the movie has made it appealing to a cult audience.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Sweeney Todd was an adaptation of the popular stage musical, which itself was adapted from folk tales. The title character is a barber who has gone insane and teams with a deranged baker. He kills his customers and she uses their bodies as the key ingredient in meat pies. The 2007 film was directed by Tim Burton and although it features many of Burton’s regular collaborators it was overall a very different movie for the filmmaker. Burton’s films have usually had a gothic and macabre tone but there was also an innocence about Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and even Batman. By contrast Sweeney Todd had none of that innocence and was a much grislier affair than Burton’s other films.
I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin (1970)
In the early 1970s there were a lot of films about murderous hippies following the Manson Family murders. I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin reflects this, as a band of hippies terrorize a small town. In retaliation, a local boy feeds them meat pies infected with rabies, turning the hippies into homicidal maniacs. The film is a notable precursor to 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released in 1974 and tells the story of a group of young people traveling through rural Texas who are picked off by a family of cannibals. The major character associated with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was Leatherface, the chainsaw wielding simpleton who wears a mask of human flesh. The character was loosely based on Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein and in subsequent sequels and remakes Leatherface would become the common element of the franchise. Director Tobe Hooper had initially hoped that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would get a PG rating and so he staged a lot of the violence in such a way that most of the bloodletting is only implied. But the movie is so intense and has such an oppressive tone that it not only earned an R-rating but was also banned outright in several countries. The critical response to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was tepid at the time but it is now regarded as one of the great American horror films.
Soylent Green (1973)
Directed by Richard Fleischer (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Tora Tora Tora) and starring Charlton Heston, this highly influential and often imitated science fiction film takes place in a dystopian future in which the public depends on a mysterious foodstuff. When a detective discovers the secret ingredient he is pursued by industry and government agents.
We’re Going to Eat You (1981)
We’re Going to Eat You is a very strange combination of a lot of different genres. Originating from Hong Kong, this film tells the story of a secret agent who discovers a village of cannibals. The movie combines gory violence with comedy and martial arts, giving the movie an offbeat tone. We’re Going to Eat You takes an additionally strange turn as the movie uses cannibalism as a political metaphor. Director Hark Tsui has described We’re Going to Eat You as an anti-Communist film; the distribution of meat among the cannibals was a stand in for redistribution of wealth.
Parents (1989)
Parents is a creepy but thoughtful movie. Set in 1950s suburbia, a boy begins to suspect that his parents are cannibals. Rather than the campy exercise its premise suggests, Parents is full of nightmarish imagery that recalls Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and David Lynch’s Eraserhead. The picture is very re-watchable because there is so much in it that merits deeper exploration.
The ’Burbs (1989)
Director Joe Dante was known for effectively mixing horror and comedy in movies like Piranha and Gremlins and among his most successful films was The ’Burbs. In this dark comedy, the residents of a quiet suburban neighborhood begin to suspect that their new neighbors are cannibals and they go to increasingly absurd lengths to prove it. The film is a very entertaining mystery, as it plays coy over whether the new family are really murderers or if it is all a delusion of the bored suburbanite mind. It also has a stellar cast including Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, and Corey Feldman.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, a subgenre of cannibal films came to dominate the exploitation horror movie market especially in Italy. Of these, the most well-known and the most infamous is Cannibal Holocaust. The second half of this film plays like what is now known as a “found footage” picture but in 1980 the format was entirely new. Because the audience didn’t quite know what to make of what they were watching and because the film’s distributors played up the illusion of authenticity, prints of Cannibal Holocaust were seized by Italian authorities on the belief that it was a snuff film. Although murder charges were dismissed, director Ruggero Deodato found himself in trouble over animal cruelty as Cannibal Holocaust contains several unstimulated sequences of the actors killing real animals. Whatever one thinks about this footage, it should be noted that historically violence against animals was quite frequent in the motion picture industry, from exploitation movies to Hollywood productions. Due to the scenes of violence against animals, as well as a barrage of other savage imagery, Cannibal Holocaust was censored the world over and is believed to be among the most widely banned films in cinema history.
Cannibal Ferox [aka Let Them Die Slowly] (1981)
Released amid the Italian cannibal phase of the 1970s and 80s, Cannibal Ferox was one of the nastier entries in the subgenre. The film came after Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust and the film duplicates a lot of the elements as that film including actor Robert Kerman and unstimulated scenes of violence against real animals, although Cannibal Ferox did not suffer the same kind of legal persecution as Cannibal Holocaust nor does it exhibit that film’s complexity and intelligence.
Hannibal (2001)
Bar none, the most popular cannibal in the history of cinema is Doctor Hannibal Lecter, immortalized on screen by actor Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. However, Hopkins was not the first actor to play Lecter. That honor goes to Brian Cox who played the character in 1986’s Manhunter, an adaptation of the novel Red Dragon. Although that film wasn’t successful at the time it is now held in high regard. The Silence of the Lambs reintroduced the character and was later followed by Hannibal and another adaptation of Red Dragon, all featuring Anthony Hopkins in the Lecter role. This was followed by a prequel, Hannibal Rising, which featured Gaspard Ulliel in the title role and more recently an eponymous television series featuring Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Lecter.
Titus (1999)
Excepting the adventures of Hannibal Lecter, cannibalism is generally regarded as a feature of supposedly “low culture” stories. But anthropophagy figures into everything from the myths of ancient Greece to mainstream Hollywood movies. The enduring applicability of cannibalism is evidenced by William Shakespeare’s play Titus Andronicus, which was adapted into the 1999 film Titus, directed by Julie Taymor. This film was a bold adaptation, mixing ancient and modern design, and it has a gleefully insane performance by Anthony Hopkins in the title role. According to Taymor, the adaptation was an attempt to connect the violence of the ancient world with the violence of the present day. Although Titus is an uneven movie—some would say a train wreck—it is also the kind of picture that you can’t stop watching.
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Following his filmmaking debut with 1972’s Last House on the Left but preceding his mainstream success with 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, writer and director Wes Craven released The Hills Have Eyes in 1977 and it remains among the filmmaker’s best movies. Inspired by the tales of the Sawney Bean family, The Hills Have Eyes tells the story of a middle class family whose motor home breaks down in the middle of the desert and they find themselves under siege by a group of cannibals. As in most of Craven’s best efforts, The Hills Have Eyes mixes savage violence with intelligent storytelling and this film is extremely well made. A remake was released in 2006 and although it does not eclipse the original version it was much better than a lot of the other remakes released around the same time.
The People Under the Stairs (1991)
The People Under the Stairs was one of Wes Craven’s strangest films as it tells the story of a young black boy who breaks into the home of a white suburban couple only to find the residents are cannibals who keep children locked up under the floorboards. The movie is more than a little weird and ultimately uneven but it also has tremendous energy and an overt economic subtext that plays very well today.
Blood Feast (1963)
Herschell Gordon Lewis was one of the great exploitation filmmakers and one of his earliest and most successful features was 1963’s Blood Feast. In this film a caterer kills and mutilates women with the goal of preparing a sacrifice to the Egyptian goddess Ishtar. The movie was more gory than scary but in 1963 gore was not seen very frequently if at all on the silver screen and Lewis went pretty far with some of the imagery, even by today’s standards. But the real talent of Herschell Gordon Lewis was not in making movies but in selling them. He realized that a good marketing campaign could make a terrible movie profitable and marketing notices for Blood Feast warned that it should not be viewed by those with a weak heart. Audiences who took up the dare were given vomit bags at screenings and Lewis and company actively secured an injunction against their own movie from a Florida court just to say it was banned.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of the ultimate midnight movies. In it, a newly engaged couple is stranded at the house of Dr. Frank-N-Furter and his companions. The movie is made up of musical numbers chock with allusions to the science fiction movies of classic Hollywood like Bride of Frankenstein and The Day the Earth Stood Still. In the course of the story, Dr. Frank-N-Furter kills a delivery boy and feeds him to his guests.
Cannibal! The Musical (1993)
Before Matt Stone and Trey Parker found mainstream success with the South Park television series, they collaborated on a musical adaptation of the story of Alfred Packer, a notorious prospector who restored to cannibalism when his company became stranded in the Rocky Mountains in the winter of 1874. Despite the very meager resources that these filmmakers had at their disposal, Cannibal! The Musical is a very ambitious production. The picture was originally filmed as a student project, and that is quite obvious in the film’s production values, but it was picked up by Troma Entertainment and developed a cult following when South Park became a hit television show. Cannibal! The Musical is also interesting as a precursor to some of Stone and Parker’s later work, especially the film Team America: World Police and the stage show The Book of Mormon.
Ravenous (1999)
Set in the 1840s, Ravenous tells a story of cannibalism at a remote US Army frontier outpost. This film was unique from other cannibal stories in that it included a supernatural element in which people who engaged in cannibalism took on regenerative qualities, miraculously healing from serious injuries. The film is frequently bizarre, part action movie and part horror picture, and mixes bloody violence with comic relief. The strange tenor of the movie has made it appealing to a cult audience.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Sweeney Todd was an adaptation of the popular stage musical, which itself was adapted from folk tales. The title character is a barber who has gone insane and teams with a deranged baker. He kills his customers and she uses their bodies as the key ingredient in meat pies. The 2007 film was directed by Tim Burton and although it features many of Burton’s regular collaborators it was overall a very different movie for the filmmaker. Burton’s films have usually had a gothic and macabre tone but there was also an innocence about Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and even Batman. By contrast Sweeney Todd had none of that innocence and was a much grislier affair than Burton’s other films.
I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin (1970)
In the early 1970s there were a lot of films about murderous hippies following the Manson Family murders. I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin reflects this, as a band of hippies terrorize a small town. In retaliation, a local boy feeds them meat pies infected with rabies, turning the hippies into homicidal maniacs. The film is a notable precursor to 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released in 1974 and tells the story of a group of young people traveling through rural Texas who are picked off by a family of cannibals. The major character associated with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was Leatherface, the chainsaw wielding simpleton who wears a mask of human flesh. The character was loosely based on Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein and in subsequent sequels and remakes Leatherface would become the common element of the franchise. Director Tobe Hooper had initially hoped that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would get a PG rating and so he staged a lot of the violence in such a way that most of the bloodletting is only implied. But the movie is so intense and has such an oppressive tone that it not only earned an R-rating but was also banned outright in several countries. The critical response to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was tepid at the time but it is now regarded as one of the great American horror films.
Soylent Green (1973)
Directed by Richard Fleischer (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Tora Tora Tora) and starring Charlton Heston, this highly influential and often imitated science fiction film takes place in a dystopian future in which the public depends on a mysterious foodstuff. When a detective discovers the secret ingredient he is pursued by industry and government agents.
We’re Going to Eat You (1981)
We’re Going to Eat You is a very strange combination of a lot of different genres. Originating from Hong Kong, this film tells the story of a secret agent who discovers a village of cannibals. The movie combines gory violence with comedy and martial arts, giving the movie an offbeat tone. We’re Going to Eat You takes an additionally strange turn as the movie uses cannibalism as a political metaphor. Director Hark Tsui has described We’re Going to Eat You as an anti-Communist film; the distribution of meat among the cannibals was a stand in for redistribution of wealth.
Parents (1989)
Parents is a creepy but thoughtful movie. Set in 1950s suburbia, a boy begins to suspect that his parents are cannibals. Rather than the campy exercise its premise suggests, Parents is full of nightmarish imagery that recalls Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and David Lynch’s Eraserhead. The picture is very re-watchable because there is so much in it that merits deeper exploration.
The ’Burbs (1989)
Director Joe Dante was known for effectively mixing horror and comedy in movies like Piranha and Gremlins and among his most successful films was The ’Burbs. In this dark comedy, the residents of a quiet suburban neighborhood begin to suspect that their new neighbors are cannibals and they go to increasingly absurd lengths to prove it. The film is a very entertaining mystery, as it plays coy over whether the new family are really murderers or if it is all a delusion of the bored suburbanite mind. It also has a stellar cast including Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, and Corey Feldman.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
The Terror of 'The Exorcist' and 'The Wicker Man'
Today's edition of Sounds of Cinema continued the month-long Halloween theme with a look at two film celebrating their 40th anniversaries: The Exorcist and The Wicker Man. Among the many things distinguishing these pictures is the way they frighten their audience. Although they are both horror films, each of them demonstrates a distinct approach to terrorizing the viewer. [Note: Spoilers Ahead.]
The Exorcist
The term “religious film” generally calls to mind pictures like The Passion of the Christ or Jesus of Nazareth, movies that deal specifically with Biblical narratives. But this term ought to be applied more broadly than that. The Exorcist is unique as a religious horror film and its religiosity is a key part of its terror.
When The Exorcist was revised into the cut that is now known as The Exorcist: The Version You’ve Never Seen, the film had several scenes added. Most of these were additions of a small sort such as an alternate opening sequence, an exchange of dialog between the priests, and a preliminary visit to the doctor by the possessed girl and her mother. Among the most notable additions was in the ending. As originally written and shot, a local priest visits the family as they move out of the house and sees them off. He is later joined by a police detective who has been prowling around in the background of the story. The two men hit off a friendship and the picture ends on a hopeful note. For the theatrical release, the entire exchange between the priest and detective was cut, ending the film very abruptly.
The truncated ending always bothered producer and writer William Peter Blatty in part because many critics and moviegoers interpreted The Exorcist as a story in which evil was triumphant. Blatty was upset by that reaction, as it was exactly the opposite of what he had set out to do, and he felt the extended ending corrected the tone of the film.
However, with the original ending restored, the ultimate meaning of the conclusion and of the film itself is still somewhat ambiguous. Friedkin and Blatty’s flabbergast response to the audience’s dark interpretation of the ending is not entirely fair and Blatty is naïve to argue that tagging a two minute sequence onto the denouement would change the momentum of the film. In fact, the popularly dark understanding of The Exorcist is a direct result of the way the film is made.
The Exorcist is shot in a cold, verite style and it does not use music or other cinematic techniques to manage the audience’s emotional reactions. The film does delineate decisively between good and evil but the presentation of evil in The Exorcist is overwhelming while goodness is frail. Given that unbalanced screen presence, and given that the climax of The Exorcist unfolds so quickly as to evade reflection, it is no wonder that audiences have often come away from the film feeling as though the Devil was the victor.
Perhaps the most important addition to the extended version of The Exorcist is the brief exchange between the two priests. While Fathers Karras and Merrin break from the exorcism ritual, the younger priest asks his elder why this is happening. His response:
The Exorcist is an assaultive film, one that gets in the viewer’s face with an uncompromising depiction of evil and corruption. In the era of slasher and torture films, its visceral horrors are significantly less shocking. But The Exorcist remains unnerving because its filmmakers concoct a formulation of evil that is so feral and so nihilistic that it does not offer a heroic alternative. Horror villains like Dracula, Freddy Krueger, and Hannibal Lecter eventually become embraceable and even strangely heroic figures while Frankenstein’s Monster and Norman Bates are pitiable creatures. But the demon of The Exorcist does not inspire admiration or pity. The image of this infernal being parasitically attached to the body of a young girl is a desecration of too much that is sacred. The confrontation with this monstrosity reaches beyond the immediate circumstances of the film and touches something primal in the audience.
Now, as in 1973, American audiences have lost their faith in most of the institutional pillars of society. Government, the military, the press, professional sports, and organized religion have scandalized themselves to a point in which it is nearly impossible for citizens to be anything but jaded. That leaves art and in particular motion pictures as one of the few places that people can go for relief. A film like The Exorcist turns the movie theater into a sacred space in which viewers can get, for lack of a better term, a spiritual experience.
The Wicker Man
The Wicker Man is properly categorized as a horror film but much of what is in the film does not suggest itself as a horror picture. As a British film from the early 1970s, The Wicker Man does not have the story or settings that characterized the pictures of the Hammer studio which were popular at that time. The film plays even more strangely for a contemporary audience. The movie was offbeat in 1973 and for today’s audience it is often just plain weird. The depictions of pagan sexuality come across like scenes of a 1970s soft core adult feature and the strange musical numbers look like something out of a family-oriented movie. But the weirdness of The Wicker Man is why it works so well, why it has been adopted by such a devoted cult audience, and ultimately why this film is rightly categorized as a horror picture.
A lot of horror films are deliberately scary, which is to say they are imagined and executed in a way that puts the viewer in direct confrontation with darkness. Such pictures take place in haunted homes, ruined castles, or disheveled farm houses and the characters are assaulted by malevolent spirits, the undead, or psychotic murderers. These familiar settings and antagonists are comfortably scary. They are recognizable as a terrible place in which lurks a horrible creature and these stories generally involve mainstream characters who ultimately destroy the monster.
The Wicker Man doesn’t work that way. This film is headed by a mainstream character but he isn’t entirely sympathetic and he arrives in a place that is not obviously threatening, at least not in the way of Dracula’s castle. Instead he is met by a community that upends many of the basic beliefs and values of mainstream culture and the longer he spends on the island the less recoverable traditional reality seems to be. The folk music, strange costumes, and bizarre traditions give this film the atmosphere of a carnival. In that respect, The Wicker Man is unsettling in the same way that a clown can be frightening.
In some horror films the images and ideas are only frightening for particular audiences while in other horror pictures the source of terror stems from something universal to the human experience. The Wicker Man includes both approaches.
As a police officer and a devoted Christian, Sergeant Howie represents mainstream society, especially in 1973. His values are the values of the mainland culture, he carries the authority of the government, and he repeatedly reminds the islanders of those facts. But during his time on Summerisle, Sergeant Howie’s authority is constantly undermined until he is eventually overcome. The finale of The Wicker Man is the immolation of the establishment and so the horror in this will be most resonant for viewers who share Howie’s religious and political views.
But The Wicker Man isn’t just disturbing for conservative (in the most basic sense of the word) viewers. The movie gets to more essential fears of being an outcast or simply sticking out in a crowd and it does that by way of religion. The police sergeant is an emphatic Christian and he expresses indignation at paganism, often belittling the islanders’ ideas and traditions while proclaiming the truth of his own religious views. This makes him an outsider and his otherness and isolation are constantly highlighted by the detective’s own proclamations as well as by the filmmaking techniques. The Wicker Man has many scenes emphasizing the detective’s isolation such as numerous shots from Howie’s perspective in which the villagers stare at him silently. This plays on nearly universal fears of standing before a crowd, which is rooted in evolutionary instincts of being exposed. The end of The Wicker Man is so powerful and so haunting because it validates a suspicion that most of us harbor, that the stupidity of large groups of people can actually be lethal, as well as a deeper animalistic fear of the pack turning on us.
The religious aspect of The Wicker Man takes a further turn in the finale. As Sergeant Howie meets his fate, he invokes the Christian god and proclaims that the Almighty will smite his enemies. Of course, that does not happen and among the final images of The Wicker Man are pagans and a Christian singing competing hymns to their gods. The final impressions the film leaves are not of religious martyrdom or pagan triumph but of the empty promises of superstition and the horror of delusional fantasies leading people over a rational and moral precipice.
The fears that The Wicker Man plays upon are not as obvious as the dread of being murdered or eaten alive or even being attacked by evil spirits but the fears that it invokes are nevertheless powerful. The oblique style of the movie, its strange characters, and its fairytale-like setting make it uncanny but at the same time disguise its horror. There is something fascinating and puzzling about the movie and that may be why it has continues to play for audiences four decades after its release despite its flaws.
The Exorcist
The term “religious film” generally calls to mind pictures like The Passion of the Christ or Jesus of Nazareth, movies that deal specifically with Biblical narratives. But this term ought to be applied more broadly than that. The Exorcist is unique as a religious horror film and its religiosity is a key part of its terror.
When The Exorcist was revised into the cut that is now known as The Exorcist: The Version You’ve Never Seen, the film had several scenes added. Most of these were additions of a small sort such as an alternate opening sequence, an exchange of dialog between the priests, and a preliminary visit to the doctor by the possessed girl and her mother. Among the most notable additions was in the ending. As originally written and shot, a local priest visits the family as they move out of the house and sees them off. He is later joined by a police detective who has been prowling around in the background of the story. The two men hit off a friendship and the picture ends on a hopeful note. For the theatrical release, the entire exchange between the priest and detective was cut, ending the film very abruptly.
The truncated ending always bothered producer and writer William Peter Blatty in part because many critics and moviegoers interpreted The Exorcist as a story in which evil was triumphant. Blatty was upset by that reaction, as it was exactly the opposite of what he had set out to do, and he felt the extended ending corrected the tone of the film.
However, with the original ending restored, the ultimate meaning of the conclusion and of the film itself is still somewhat ambiguous. Friedkin and Blatty’s flabbergast response to the audience’s dark interpretation of the ending is not entirely fair and Blatty is naïve to argue that tagging a two minute sequence onto the denouement would change the momentum of the film. In fact, the popularly dark understanding of The Exorcist is a direct result of the way the film is made.
The Exorcist is shot in a cold, verite style and it does not use music or other cinematic techniques to manage the audience’s emotional reactions. The film does delineate decisively between good and evil but the presentation of evil in The Exorcist is overwhelming while goodness is frail. Given that unbalanced screen presence, and given that the climax of The Exorcist unfolds so quickly as to evade reflection, it is no wonder that audiences have often come away from the film feeling as though the Devil was the victor.
Perhaps the most important addition to the extended version of The Exorcist is the brief exchange between the two priests. While Fathers Karras and Merrin break from the exorcism ritual, the younger priest asks his elder why this is happening. His response:
“I think the point is to make us despair. To see ourselves as animal and ugly. To make us reject the possibility that God could love us.”This piece of dialog is really the thesis of The Exorcist and when juxtaposed with the climax it does a lot for Blatty’s case about the meaning of the film. The movie does depict good fighting against evil and ultimately good does triumph: the girl is saved and priest’s faith is restored. But that is the silver lining in what is still a very dark cloud. As The Exorcist depicts it, the struggle between good and evil is not equally matched, and to fight on the side of good is a Sisyphean effort that may require the ultimate sacrifice.
The Exorcist is an assaultive film, one that gets in the viewer’s face with an uncompromising depiction of evil and corruption. In the era of slasher and torture films, its visceral horrors are significantly less shocking. But The Exorcist remains unnerving because its filmmakers concoct a formulation of evil that is so feral and so nihilistic that it does not offer a heroic alternative. Horror villains like Dracula, Freddy Krueger, and Hannibal Lecter eventually become embraceable and even strangely heroic figures while Frankenstein’s Monster and Norman Bates are pitiable creatures. But the demon of The Exorcist does not inspire admiration or pity. The image of this infernal being parasitically attached to the body of a young girl is a desecration of too much that is sacred. The confrontation with this monstrosity reaches beyond the immediate circumstances of the film and touches something primal in the audience.
Now, as in 1973, American audiences have lost their faith in most of the institutional pillars of society. Government, the military, the press, professional sports, and organized religion have scandalized themselves to a point in which it is nearly impossible for citizens to be anything but jaded. That leaves art and in particular motion pictures as one of the few places that people can go for relief. A film like The Exorcist turns the movie theater into a sacred space in which viewers can get, for lack of a better term, a spiritual experience.
The Wicker Man
The Wicker Man is properly categorized as a horror film but much of what is in the film does not suggest itself as a horror picture. As a British film from the early 1970s, The Wicker Man does not have the story or settings that characterized the pictures of the Hammer studio which were popular at that time. The film plays even more strangely for a contemporary audience. The movie was offbeat in 1973 and for today’s audience it is often just plain weird. The depictions of pagan sexuality come across like scenes of a 1970s soft core adult feature and the strange musical numbers look like something out of a family-oriented movie. But the weirdness of The Wicker Man is why it works so well, why it has been adopted by such a devoted cult audience, and ultimately why this film is rightly categorized as a horror picture.
A lot of horror films are deliberately scary, which is to say they are imagined and executed in a way that puts the viewer in direct confrontation with darkness. Such pictures take place in haunted homes, ruined castles, or disheveled farm houses and the characters are assaulted by malevolent spirits, the undead, or psychotic murderers. These familiar settings and antagonists are comfortably scary. They are recognizable as a terrible place in which lurks a horrible creature and these stories generally involve mainstream characters who ultimately destroy the monster.
The Wicker Man doesn’t work that way. This film is headed by a mainstream character but he isn’t entirely sympathetic and he arrives in a place that is not obviously threatening, at least not in the way of Dracula’s castle. Instead he is met by a community that upends many of the basic beliefs and values of mainstream culture and the longer he spends on the island the less recoverable traditional reality seems to be. The folk music, strange costumes, and bizarre traditions give this film the atmosphere of a carnival. In that respect, The Wicker Man is unsettling in the same way that a clown can be frightening.
In some horror films the images and ideas are only frightening for particular audiences while in other horror pictures the source of terror stems from something universal to the human experience. The Wicker Man includes both approaches.
As a police officer and a devoted Christian, Sergeant Howie represents mainstream society, especially in 1973. His values are the values of the mainland culture, he carries the authority of the government, and he repeatedly reminds the islanders of those facts. But during his time on Summerisle, Sergeant Howie’s authority is constantly undermined until he is eventually overcome. The finale of The Wicker Man is the immolation of the establishment and so the horror in this will be most resonant for viewers who share Howie’s religious and political views.
But The Wicker Man isn’t just disturbing for conservative (in the most basic sense of the word) viewers. The movie gets to more essential fears of being an outcast or simply sticking out in a crowd and it does that by way of religion. The police sergeant is an emphatic Christian and he expresses indignation at paganism, often belittling the islanders’ ideas and traditions while proclaiming the truth of his own religious views. This makes him an outsider and his otherness and isolation are constantly highlighted by the detective’s own proclamations as well as by the filmmaking techniques. The Wicker Man has many scenes emphasizing the detective’s isolation such as numerous shots from Howie’s perspective in which the villagers stare at him silently. This plays on nearly universal fears of standing before a crowd, which is rooted in evolutionary instincts of being exposed. The end of The Wicker Man is so powerful and so haunting because it validates a suspicion that most of us harbor, that the stupidity of large groups of people can actually be lethal, as well as a deeper animalistic fear of the pack turning on us.
The religious aspect of The Wicker Man takes a further turn in the finale. As Sergeant Howie meets his fate, he invokes the Christian god and proclaims that the Almighty will smite his enemies. Of course, that does not happen and among the final images of The Wicker Man are pagans and a Christian singing competing hymns to their gods. The final impressions the film leaves are not of religious martyrdom or pagan triumph but of the empty promises of superstition and the horror of delusional fantasies leading people over a rational and moral precipice.
The fears that The Wicker Man plays upon are not as obvious as the dread of being murdered or eaten alive or even being attacked by evil spirits but the fears that it invokes are nevertheless powerful. The oblique style of the movie, its strange characters, and its fairytale-like setting make it uncanny but at the same time disguise its horror. There is something fascinating and puzzling about the movie and that may be why it has continues to play for audiences four decades after its release despite its flaws.
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