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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! from all us here at the mansion. Tiny Tim said it best: "God bless us every one."
Let's take to heart the "myth" of Santa Claus, and try and emulate a little bit of that wonderful giving spirit 365 days of the year.
Peace on earth and good will to all. Make it so. So say we all!
ZC Rating 6 of 7: Classic
Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
--from William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
"You must be kidding," said Zombos, tossing the DVD over to me.
"No, really, it's a hoot," said Paul Hollstenwall. This time he brought along The Blood Shed. The man's incorrigible taste in horror fare was boundless.
"Your average inbred, hillbilly, cannibalistic family," I read out loud from the DVD cover. "Paul, I'm not sure this is appropriate. I can't imagine watching this while sipping my hot chocolate and sambuca. How about we start with something more apropos of the holiday season? A cozy journey into hysteria and terror by a roaring fireplace might be good. And a twist ending. There's nothing like hysteria and terror with a twist ending."
"Something with a touch of ghosts and evil spirits, I think, and British accents," added Zombos.
"Dead of Night," we both volunteered.
"Okay. But then will you watch The Blood Shed afterwards?" asked Paul eagerly. "It's great with popcorn."
We grimly nodded yes. Such are the vagaries of the horror movie fan's life. Maybe I’ll just have the League of Reluctant Reviewers deal with it.
It is the starched collar, stiff upper lip in the face of the irrational that gives this British horror entry an unusual cadence, which still works its devilish magic today. Mervyn Johns, the quintessential Bob Cratchit in 1951's Scrooge, plays architect Walter Craig. His modest appearance, his earnest demeanor, and his nightmare-bedeviled mind come up against the extraordinary at a country estate where he unexpectedly meets those persons, now real flesh and blood, rattling him in his sleep. Is it déjà vu, or is something more sinister afoot?
Assembled in the living room of the country house he's come to remodel, they are, at first, surprised by his assertions of familiarity. They quickly warm up to his odd precognition, however, and eagerly describe their own brushes with the preternatural, one by one, including the pooh-poohing psychologist, who saves the most chilling encounter for last. This sets up the movie's stories within a framing narrative, with each tale delivering a stronger jolt of the inexplicable intruding into the mundane world; culminating in a whirligig ending, with Craig smack in the thick of it, twisting back to the beginning. But the beginning is the question he desperately puts the puzzling pieces together to answer.
The caliber of acting is high, something rare today in much of the bastardizing horror formula of inbred trash fare cinema unimaginative hacks easily gravitate toward to make a quick buck. Michael Redgrave caps off the strong cast with his portrayal of a frazzled ventriloquist whose vent dummy won't shut up. In the last and strongest tale to be told, this one by the psychologist who admits he's baffled by the encounter, ventriloquist Maxwell Frere no longer does all the talking in his act. When his dapper but nasty alter ego, Hugo, goes looking for a new lap to sit in, Frere goes off the very deep end and winds up bashing the dummy's face to pulp. But you just can't keep a bad dummy down in horror, so Hugo returns to run the act his way. While madness is the predominant tone there's still a hint of the unusual with Hugo appearing larger than his wooden life would normally allow.
Another strong segment involves a three-panel mirror bought in an antique shop. Old, ornate, and decidedly evil in its reflections, the mirror bodes ill to the poor fellow who receives it as a birthday present from his wife. Obviously not a watcher of the Antiques Roadshow, she decides to learn the provenance of the damned thing after she buys it, much to her regret. Of course, when the shopkeeper tells her about the mirror's previous owner's misfortune, prefacing his horrifying story with his hope she's not superstitious, the chill-to-her-bone realization of what's happening to her husband sends her straight away to set matters right. Its mood of impending doom comes from the mirror's reflection of a sinister Victorian room that no longer exists, and the deleterious effect it has on her husband who only sees himself standing in it even when his wife is by his side.
Separating these two tales of stark terror is a pawky romantic rivalry between two quirky golfers and their infatuation with a woman who can't decide which to marry. Loosely based on H.G. Wells' The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost, it is often criticized as the weakest of the five stories. However, it does provide an absurdly humorous and witty interlude from the more serious scares. Told by the host of the country house who doesn't have a real supernatural encounter to relate--but makes one up anyway--it's an Alfred Hitchock Presents-styled twist ending involving an unwanted haunting and the need for fair play. Its whimsical nature fits in with the host's personality, and provides contrast to the overall narrative of Craig's predicament. It also provides a showcase for the thoroughly amusing British duo of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne (Charters and Caldicott in Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes).
As each story is told, Craig and the psychiatrist argue over their merits as true supernatural experiences. More and more, the architect becomes trapped by events playing out according to his dream, leading him to an inescapable compulsion to...But what is real, and what are whispers and shadows heard and seen only in the dead of night, is anyone's guess; especially Craig's.
This portmanteau film's five segments were handled by four directors, and each story supports the main narrative of Walter Craig's nightmare dilemma. In its initial American release, the opening Yuletide ghost story and the lighter golfing interlude were cut, muddling the pacing and leaving one lodge guest without a story to tell. This classic compendium of the macabre had a strong influence on subsequent horror movies because of its eerie moodiness and is well worth a view: especially in the dead of night.
No, no, no,
No, no, no,
Hell no all the way,
Oh what horror it is to get a tacky gift today, hey!
Are the ghosts of bad Christmas presents past haunting you? Is the dread of finding a delightfully thoughtful gift, instead of another frightfully awful one, dancing madly in your head instead of sugar plums? Why chance disappointing someone again with more of those darn Fandango movie gift tickets that say, "I gave up! Didn't have a clue!" Any one of these stocking-stuffers will electrify any horror fan more than the Frankenstein monster, and show them you really care.
In his book, Sundays with Vlad: From Pennsylvania to Transylvania, One Man's Quest to Live in the World of the Undead, journalist Paul Bibeau packs his lifelong fascination with vampires into his Gladstone bag and heads for the hills of Transylvania to find the true Dracula. What he finds along the way is hilarious, delirious, and never disingenuous. From the foothills of the Carpathians, to the wild woods of New Jersey and the wide aisles of Wal-Mart, his search for the real Dracula will leave you wishing you were along for the ride. Along the way you will meet Bela Lugosi Jr., fighting to protect his famous father's rights of publicity, enter the Goth world of eternal night, with or without fangs, and trip the light fantasy with LARPers, those cheeky-geeky live action role playing savants we all publicly deride, but secretly yearn to be.
