Category: 31 Days of Horror

Each October, I watch and review 31 horror movies during 31 Days of Horror Cinema at the expense of my mental well being.

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31 Days of Horror Cinema

31 Days of Horror: Day of the Animals

31 days of horror day of the animals

31+ Days of Horror. 33 Horror Movies. 33 Reviews. Hooptober Challenges and Bonus Tasks.
View my 2016 Cinema Shame/Hoop-Tober Watch Pile Shame-a-thon Statement here.

Nature of Shame:
Unwatched Scorpion DVD Blu-ray

Hoop-tober Challenge Checklist:
Decade – 1970’s
Animals Gone Wild

 

The Advance Word: The narrow sub-genre of “conservation horror” offers a narrow bandwidth of thrills. I expect animals to attack people and people to react like idiots.

day of the animalsday of the animals

#16. Day of the Animals (1977)

 

The challenges for El Cinemonster’s Hoop-Tober 3.0 included watching three “Animals Gone Wild” movies. It’s not my favorite genre, but maybe I just haven’t seen the right flicks. Unlike the laundry list of werewolf movies that disappoint me at every turn, I’ve only seen a couple of films belonging to this sub-genre of horror. The Blu-ray.com forum switchboard lit up when Scorpion announced Day of the Animals on Blu-ray. I get sucked into these vortexes of nostalgic appreciation and therefore ordered my own copy.

What am I missing, folks?

day of the animals
I’m unaware if the vultures are killing this woman or the chroma-key technology.

The basic tenent of the sub-genre —  humans are horrible creatures that can’t help but destroy nature and now nature is taking its pound of flesh — makes perfect sense. I see these films as the global warming equivalent of Godzilla (1954). Godzilla came to be in the wake of nuclear fallout. Day of the Animals came to be in the wake of conservation awareness. Who got the short end of the stick here?

City folk go camping, become the prey for mountain lions, bears, vultures, snakes, hawks, etc. Hardly any difference between this and a healthy bit of slashing… except for one main aesthetic issue. Most of Day of the Animals takes place in daylight. And it’s not scary. Okay. It’s not even, like, tense. In fact it’s sooooo not tense that it’s funny, right down to its simple shots of bloodthirsty critters staring off in the distance and absorbing all that excess UV light that’s making them violently aggressive. When Day of the Animals first showcased some vultures staring down with obvious ill intent, I just couldn’t…

Low budget horror films embrace darkness. Darkness provides cheap thrills and masks sparse sets, cheap costumes, crappy gore effects, and so on and so forth. That Day of the Animals takes place predominantly during the day means that these special effects, like matting and forced perspective have nowhere to hide.

Day of the Animals
Hey, girl.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m down with crappy movies. So down. Day of the Animals, however, presents itself straight, no chaser. In fact, at one point, it almost convinced me that its aim was higher than that of the B-/C+ student that giggles at penis jokes in math class. I blame Lalo Schifrin. I don’t get to say that very often because Lalo’s a sonic f’ing master of cinematic jams. Sample “Frances’ Theme” from the Day of the Animals:

A solid score legitimizes bad cinema. If you have someone like Lalo Schifrin scoring your film, you have expectations. The $1.2million budget also suggests expectation. And I’m forced to ask: What’s your ambition, Day of the Animals? Your animal attacks offer high comedy, not suspense. All these humans are terrible. Good riddance. We’re rooting for the animals. Is that the thrill? Animalistic role playing? Are we actually embracing our inner Furry?

The inarguable climax of the movie takes place when shirtless Leslie Nielsen wrestles a bear… with fifteen minutes left in the film. This is the reason to watch Day of the Animals. Something less than 30 seconds of cinema. I know what you’re thinking. “Don’t I need the character development? The turn of events that leads to this moment?”

No. You don’t, so don’t clutter the image with backstory.

You just need to know that a shirtless Leslie Nielsen gets charged by a bear… and he charges back… and then the combatants embrace in a battle to the death. I’m forced to consider whether modern audiences have embraced this film more so than contemporary critics due to the incongruous appearance of Leslie Nielsen as an executive/hiker/rapist/bear brawler. Certainly fans weaned on his later-career comic films would find this sort of absurdity anomalous.

day of the animals leslie nielsen

Final Thoughts:

Progressive 1977 notions of global warming and conservation aside, Day of the Animals succeeds in offering little more than ironic entertainment (that vulture attack, tho!) and the reinforcement of my own personal belief that camping really sucks.

 

30Hz Movie Rating:

30hzrating2

 

LESLIE NIELSEN FIGHTING A BEAR! Rating:

30hzrating5

 

day of the animals blu-rayBlu-ray Verdict: I might keep it as a curiosity, but I feel bad depriving a Day of the Animals lover of their right to own this excellent Blu-ray release.

Availability: Scorpion’s Day of the Animals Blu-ray is Out of Print, but a DVD version remains available.

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Earlier 2016 31 Days of Horror entries: #1. Vampyros Lesbos / #2. A Chinese Ghost Story / #3. The Haunting of Morella / #4. Delirium (1972) / #5. A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin / #6. She-Wolf of London / #7. Son of Frankenstein / #8. Killerfish / #9. The Bride of Re-Animator / #10. A Bay of Blood / #11. The Seventh Victim / #12. The Fly (1958) / #13. The Fly (1986) / #14. Deep Red / #15. Dracula’s Daughter

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31 Days of Horror Cinema

31 Days of Horror: Dracula’s Daughter

dracula's daughter 31 days of horror

31+ Days of Horror. 33 Horror Movies. 33 Reviews. Hooptober Challenges and Bonus Tasks.
View my 2016 Cinema Shame/Hoop-Tober Watch Pile Shame-a-thon Statement here.

Nature of Shame:
Unseen Universal Horror

Hoop-tober Challenge Checklist:
Decade – 1930’s
Pre-1970

 

The Advance Word: Uh. Dracula sequel. About his daughter maybe? That’s my guess anyway. Though, after She-Wolf of London, I take nothing for granted.

Dracula's Daughter poster

#15. Dracula’s Daughter (1936)

 

Any assessor of Dracula’s Daughter must approach the film from three distinct angles. First, at face value. Dracula’s Daughter is a toothless lark of a “sequel.” The film talks too much and shows too little to engage the viewer at the level of primordial terror. Despite the sluggish pacing of Dracula (1931), Bela Lugosi’s Dracula still conveyed a consistent sense of dread.

The second angle of assessment, as with any of these films from the Universal horror cycle, lies in the success of the film’s visuals. These films no longer maintain the power of fright. They’ve long since assumed the role of spectacle. Chiaroscuro and fascinating gothic imagery.

Dracula’s Daughter differs from most of the horror pictures of its day because it places a woman in the central role (we shall not return to the silly She-Wolf of London — that trifle has no bearing on this conversation). As a result, we have the benefit of viewing the film in the context the entire Universal horror cycle. How does foregrounding a woman change the film’s approach to the “monstrous”?

 

dracula's daughter

I want to consider Gloria Holden herself. Holden assumes the “Dracula” role in this sequel and reportedly wanted nothing to do with the role. She’d just signed a new contract with Universal and Carl Laemmle immediately thrust the actress into Dracula’s Daughter as Countess Marya Zaleska. It was common to view these horror films as lesser art, but Holden had also seen how playing Dracula had typecast Bela Lugosi. With this in mind, it’s no stretch to view Holden’s performance as the product of an actress seething with distaste.

If Holden’s low opinion of the role had indeed seeped into her performance, this trait only benefitted her character. Countess Marya longs to be free from the curse of Dracula. She presumes that burning the body of Count Dracula will cause her to become human. (Sidenote: the funeral pyre marks the only appearance or Lugosi in the film — he contributed only his visage via a wax cast, despite originally being cast in the film.) When she does not return to the land of the living, she becomes hateful, desperate and disillusioned. An ideal situation for an actress that didn’t want to be there in the first place. Happy accidents.

dracula's daughter

Director Lambert Hillyer (director of the first Batman serial) cloaked Holden in shadow, embracing the unique contours of her porcelain face. Holden’s Countess Marya Zaleska drips with gothic sexuality. Viewing the film as an exploration of repressed female sexuality or even homosexuality creates layers of intrigue. Even the film’s cornball poster tagline (see above) suggests a kind of taboo sexuality: “She gives you that weird feeling!” (Emphasis on “weird” my own.)

To explore my homosexuality observation, I went to Google and typed in “Dracula’s Daughter homosexuality.” Clearly, I’m not alone with this bit of theorizing. In fact, I’m just plain late to the party. Anne Rice named a bar in he novel Queen of the Damned after the film, as an homage to homoerotic vampirism. Even the typically dense Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration noted the troublesome subtext of a specific scene between the Countess and a woman she coerces into modeling for her. (She’s a painter, you see.) The film’s been featured in books on queer cinema. Even contemporary reviews cited Zaleska’s notable eye for young girls. I’m barely scratching the surface on the published material discussing this matter. I didn’t think I’d had an original thought, but goddamn, Internet, thanks for making me feel remedial.

dracula's daughter
The Countess hovers over Janet. Her presence isn’t that of a grotesque killer, but of a lover.

 

During my viewing of Dracula’s Daughter, I couldn’t help but think of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, the I Ching of female vampirism, which provided the springboard for films such as Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers and Dreyer’s Vampyr (though Dreyer’s film eliminates all sexual connotations). The connection appears purely superficial. Carmilla stands out as the first example of the lesbian vampire trope in literature, Dracula’s Daughter as the first in cinema.

I don’t doubt that Hillyer took advantage of the titillating subtext; however, Dracula’s Daughter resorts to a sort of button-down version of lesbianism in the face of certain Production Code censorship and culturally accepted notions of gender identity.

Dracula’s Daughter never shows the Countess in the act of vampirism. Holden’s vampire never advances upon her prey for a nibble. She merely entraps. Predation, but never the kill. While Lugosi’s Dracula also never drank blood on screen, the actor inhabited a monster that most surely partook off-screen. Holden inhabits a bored noblewoman of leisure. Women weren’t killers. Women were lovers. And sexual women were not to be openly discussed.

dracula's daughter

Social constraints also dictated that a man couldn’t have been the prey of a female vampire. Women could be in distress. Women could be victims. Dracula’s Daughter, by placing a female as the central vampire, forced itself into the realm of de facto queer cinema. Society dictated that although women could be predators, they could also only prey on other women. The male lead, psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), becomes Countess Zaleska’s commodity, hope for a cure to her vampirism (aka lesbianism), but never the subject of her predation.

Before I start in on that last connection about “curing homosexuality” through psychiatry, I’m going to bring this bit of dialogue to a close.

The End.

 

Final Thoughts:

Dracula’s Daughter offers so much food for thought during it’s meager 72 minute runtime that you’ll refuse the dessert course. Gloria Holden’s timeless beauty and drastic chiaroscuro prove to be a match made in cinematic heaven. Watch Dracula’s Daughter for the stunning visuals, observe the ways that the film toys with the notion of homosexuality and specifically female homosexuality. The uneven and sometimes clunky narrative doesn’t do the film itself any favors.

 

 

30Hz Movie Rating:

30hzrating31-2

 


dracula complete legacy collectionDVD Verdict: I need to see this on Blu-ray. While the print appears to be great shape on this Dracula: Complete Legacy Collection set, the deep blacks would benefit from greater 1080p detail. It should be a stunner.

Availability: Dracula’s Daughter is available on the Complete Legacy Collection DVD set. I assume a Blu-ray version will follow sometime around this time next year. 

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Earlier 2016 31 Days of Horror entries: #1. Vampyros Lesbos / #2. A Chinese Ghost Story / #3. The Haunting of Morella / #4. Delirium (1972) / #5. A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin / #6. She-Wolf of London / #7. Son of Frankenstein / #8. Killerfish / #9. The Bride of Re-Animator / #10. A Bay of Blood / #11. The Seventh Victim / #12. The Fly (1958) / #13. The Fly (1986) / #14. Deep Red

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31 Days of Horror Cinema

31 Days of Horror: Deep Red

deep red 31 days of horror

31+ Days of Horror. 33 Horror Movies. 33 Reviews. Hooptober Challenges and Bonus Tasks.
View my 2016 Cinema Shame/Hoop-Tober Watch Pile Shame-a-thon Statement here.

Nature of Deep Red Shame:
What kind of moviewatcher loves Dario Argento but somehow overlooks Deep Red? SHAMEFUL.

Hoop-tober Challenge Checklist:
Decade – 1970’s
Master Classers: Argento

 

 

The Advance Word: After Suspiria, fans claim Deep Red is the best Argento. Maybe to support my unpopular argument that Opera was the 2nd best Argento, I justified not watching the movie that would prove me wrong. Subconsciously, of course. Because that would be super dumb to not watch a good movie to support a misguided theory.

deep red 31 days of horror

 

#14. Deep Red (1975)

 

I’ve grown weary of the argument that Dario Argento is a lesser director because he emphasizes style over substance. The giallo, by nature, requires an emphasis on the visual and an ability to twist standard genre elements into something striking and unique. The genre relies on such a strict set of identifying characteristics that creativity and excellence within these constraints manifests in the form of camera angles, color, light and shadow, and inventive slasher setpieces. No matter the intelligence of the narrative, story takes a backseat to visual panache. If you’re someone who watches a giallo film and laments a lack of a proper narrative in the face of stylistic artistry, maybe the genre just isn’t for you.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I don’t really care for Werewolf movies other than American Werewolf in London. We’ve all got our quirks.

Deep Red excels precisely because Argento forces his inventive camerawork to the foreground. He lingers on interesting gothic architecture, dark city streets, unsettling imagery. During his scenes of murder, rapid editing, point-of-view and tracking shots, and blazing colors (usually hypercolor red) tell stories within stories.

Argento makes us believe we’ve seen horrors that sometimes haven’t even appeared on camera because we anticipate the impact and the aftermath of the blade. As gory as Argento can be, the trauma generally occurs in the mind. Anticipation, tension, the cinematic language of a slasher, the groundwork of which is laid by the score. Tension in a giallo, or more broadly the slasher genre, does not exist without a great score.

 

deep red 31 days of horror

 

Deep Red benefits greatly from its score — a score that might even sound overly familiar because of the ways that Goblin inspired John Carpenter’s iconic score for Halloween. I don’t think it’s possible to overestimate the value of Goblin in the Argento filmography. The band scored three of Argento’s biggest successes in Deep Red, Suspiria and Phenomena. Take a listen below:

 

 

In his early masterworks, Argento combines these artificial elements of cinema — the sights and sounds, the cinematic language of the slasher — into a nightmarish synesthesia. In Deep Red (and some of his other films as well), Argento poses questions concerning perception and reality. Within Deep Red the question must be answered by the main character — what has he witnessed? —  but Argento has also directed this question at the audience.

Cinema, as an artificial medium, offers us the ability to explore these questions every time we turn on a film. Argento places the perception vs. reality dynamic front and center. He directs dreamlike films, filled with loose logic and visual and aural connectivity. Red herrings, misdirection come part and parcel with a genre-style whose focus and mystery must remain, by nature, on the identity of the killer.

In Deep Red, David Hemming’s orchestra conductor Marcus Daly tells his musicians to be less perfect, to embrace the chaos of music in order to achieve something more beautiful that the notes on the page. Stunted order vs. the beauty of chaos and uncertainty. Argento addresses his audience here; he’s directing our reading of Deep Red, not as realism, but as a fantastical, almost improvisational artistic creation.

deep red perception vs. reality

In the above scene, Marcus converses with his stumbledown drunk friend Carlo. Marcus has just witnessed the murder of a woman in an apartment window and he’s trying to piece together the events. Nothing makes sense. The ever-wise Carlo suggests Marcus re-assess the difference between his perception and his reality. All the while, Argento’s camera lingers on the statue — the artwork — between them.

(Artwork, reinforcing “the artificial,” acts a recurring motif in Deep Red. Argento evokes Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. The morbid paintings in the victim’s apartment also play an important role in discovering the identity of the killer. But this is far beyond the scope of this conversation. I merely wanted to make mention.)

deep red nighthawks

The scene between Marcus and Carlo punctuates everything that happens in Deep Red. Argento uses mirrors, artwork, aural cues to confound Marcus — and thereby the audience. Argento has told us to question what we’ve seen as well. The preceding murder scene and this conversation lean heavily on the themes Hitchcock perfected in Rear Window — a film that serves as a prototype for the giallo genre.

Say what? Did Hitchcock direct the first commercial giallo? If you disassemble Rear Window and consider the elements — perception vs. reality, the search for a killer’s identity, Hitchcock’s film contains many of the same narrative building blocks. Visually and stylistically, Hitchcock’s operating with a different (bloodless, gore-free) palette, but I’m merely offering fodder for pub conversations.

deep red

 

 

Final Thoughts:

Having finally watched Deep Red, I’m humbled. I’ll have to retire my old “Opera is the second best Argento” unpopular opinion. It’s unpopular because it’s a load of bollocks. While Deep Red could not unseat my obsession with Suspiria, I have to award the film my highest new-watch recommendation. Argento’s 1975 film proves to be a master class is gothic suspense that transcends the giallo genre. There’s so much more going on in Deep Red than just a slight case of murder. Time to grapple with my own misperceived reality.

deep red 1975

 

 

 

30Hz Movie Rating:

30hzrating41-2

 


deep red arrow filmsBlu-ray Verdict: I’m still sifting through the extras on Arrow Films’ now OOP Deep Red 3-disc Limited Edition. I can’t get enough Deep Red. The new 4K restoration looks immaculate, and this set (complete with Goblin soundtrack CD) just became one of the favorites on my shelf.

Availability: The price of the 3D LE has jumped on secondary markets. The regular release can still be purchased on Amazon.co.uk. For those of you who still haven’t gone Region-Free, the Region A Blue Underground release is available everywhere, though I’ve read the transfer is found wanting next to the Arrow edition.

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Earlier 2016 31 Days of Horror entries: #1. Vampyros Lesbos / #2. A Chinese Ghost Story / #3. The Haunting of Morella / #4. Delirium (1972) / #5. A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin / #6. She-Wolf of London / #7. Son of Frankenstein / #8. Killerfish / #9. The Bride of Re-Animator / #10. A Bay of Blood / #11. The Seventh Victim / #12. The Fly (1958) / #13. The Fly (1986)

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