The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Night of the Creeps (1986), directed by Fred Dekker

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Creeping Death", by Metallica

     As I’ve mentioned far, far too many times already, the 1980s were the golden years of horror when it came to the cinema. The state of special effects and make-up advanced to such a point that you could get some pretty amazing looking stuff for relatively little cost, which coincided with a more relaxed, gore-friendly audience, but more importantly, filmmakers were able to have fun with it. Comedy and horror goes as far back as the Abbott & Costello films of course, but what I mean is that the genre had been around long enough that deconstruction and satirization of horror was possible. When people are taking the time to dig into the formula and tropes of your genre, then you know you’ve hit the big time.

     If you’ve followed my Marathon series in the past, then you might recognize the name Fred Dekker from Monster Squad, a fun little film wherein a rambunctious Goonies-style group of kids fight against Golden Age era monsters. He was also involved in the Tales From the Crypt TV show, which was good, Robocop 3, which was crap, and Star Trek: Enterprise, which was meh, so he doesn’t have the most pristine of track records. Still, to make even one good movie is a feat in and of itself, and in the 80s Dekker managed to distill his personal flair for the more comedic side of horror into three films, spread out over 1986 and ‘87: Monster Squad (which I mentioned above), House (not based on the Japanese film, unfortunately) and Night of the Creeps. As Dekker is only credited as a writer for House, I decided to take a look at the latter in order to get a more complete picture of Dekker’s creative vision. Plus it was really convenient, so yeah, it gets a spot.

     As far as plots go, Night of the Creeps follow the example of its influences by not complicating things too much. In 1959 a device containing an alien parasite crash lands on Earth. The leech-like parasite enters the human body through the mouth and lays eggs in the brain, which ultimately leaves the victim a zombie with very high head explosion potential. Hidden away in its first victim, who just so happens to be in cryogenic stasis in a science lab in the exact same college town it landed in 30 years ago, the parasites are accidentally set loose upon the unsuspecting world by students Chris and J.C. in a hazing ritual gone awry. Now it’s up to Chris and Detective Cameron (played by Tom Atkins, who also starred in oft-forgotten B-movie Halloween III:Season of the Witch) to unravel the mystery of these seemingly random deaths and eventually try and save the human race from these creeps. As James Cameron’s Aliens would say, it’s time for a bug hunt.

     Aside from the glaring plothole of how and why the parasite’s first victim has been cryogenically frozen in a college science lab, as even one of those old B-movies Dekker is homaging would have given at least a few lines about it, Night of the Creeps is a enjoyably campy, delightfully gory movie in the vein of such films as Return of the Living Dead and The Stuff. I hesitate to call it good, just as in those old movies the most enjoyment you get out of this one is in the last 20 minutes or so, but those last 30 minutes are fucking amazing. That and there’s just this ever-so-slight undercurrent of cartoonish absurdity that heightens things in just the right places. The Fallout-esque parody of the 50s at the beginning of the film, Detective Cameron’s obsession with film noir and pulp mysteries, Dekker isn’t getting as jokey here as he would be in Monster Squad but you can definitely tell his tongue has touched his cheek here. Oh, and seeing obviously fake heads getting blown up by gunfire is always a treat.

     Of the two Dekker directed films I’ve seen I have to side with Monster Squad, but Night of the Creeps was also a pretty fun. Classic ‘Movie Night With Friends’ material I think, especially if you make it a double feature with James Gunn’s Slither, which takes the basic premise of NotC and tosses in a little bit of The Thing for flavor. Just don’t scream too loudly, you probably don’t want to keep your mouth open for too long.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - John Wick (2014), directed by David Leitch

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Baba Yaga", by Lily of the Valley

     The major complaint that I hear tossed around the film forums these days, and it’s a complaint I’ve had myself in the past, is there are no original IP’s anymore. Everything is adapted from a comic book or some other property, everything is a sequel, everything is a reboot, it’s all the same things constantly being recycled every year. In this new modern world of film, how can one truly be excited? Where is the tension when you know all the protagonists are going to live, because they have to show up in films until 2028? Where is the motivation for seeing a movie you’ve seen before in a new coat of obvious CGI? When you add the exorbitant prices for theater tickets, the issues with theaters themselves, and it certainly doesn’t paint a good picture of the future of cinema. When it comes to genre films at least.

     Of course not all licensed films are bad, just as not all original IP’s aren’t great, but when a good one comes along seemingly out of nowhere we tend to latch ourselves onto it. Your Pacific Rims (a past Marathon inductee), your Get Outs (a possible future inductee), and so on. Of course only a few of these original properties, beloved though they were, have the right combination of critical success, commercial viability and story potential to make the transition to a proper franchise. For that, you need to go to John Wick.

     A man by the name of John Wick (Keanu Reeves), has just recently lost his wife to a terminal illness. For a brief moment his grief is assuaged by the arrival of an adorable puppy, the last gift from his departed wife, and he starts to believe that he’ll be able to move on, pick up the pieces and rebuild his life. However, that hope is quickly and brutally dashed after a home invasion by some Russian mafia leaves him with a bruised and battered body, a stolen car, and a dead dog. Like a ten year old Bruce Wayne fresh off of a Zorro movie, John Wick’s entire being is dedicated to vengeance.

     What those Russian punks didn’t understand is that John Wick isn’t just a man, he’s an assassin. One of the deadliest, most efficient killing machines in the world, which in a world that has a very wide-reaching and powerful assassin organization is really saying something. You can’t run from John Wick, you can’t hide or try to pay him off. All you can do is try to kill him or hope he kills you quickly. Either way, you’ve just walked into hell.

     Action-wise, I think John Wick takes a bit more from The Raid than it does from films like Jason Bourne, combining quick, high tension gunplay sequences with longer, tightly edited fight scenes. Which is good, as even though the action is never as over the top as it is in The Raid, there’s a certain shocking viciousness and brutality to it that you don’t get all that often. When Wick is using CQC on somebody, although there’s a certain flashiness to it, you really get the impression that these two folks are trying to kill each for realisies. At least for the fight scenes, the gunplay never seems as bloody and gorey that it should be, despite the fact that John shoots about 60 people directly in the fucking face. Earn that R-rating folks.

     I think the reason for Wick’s success is not so much in the action scenes, good as they might be, but rather in the world that David Leitch has presented to us. Who is John Wick, beyond the little we are given about his past? What is this mysterious organization of assassins and just how wide-reaching is their influence, given the power they seem to wield in the film, with their own hotels and nightclubs? What is the significance of the gold coins that members of this organization trade between themselves? John Wick is a movie that leaves you with a couple answers but far, far more questions, and it’s that desire to dig deeper and deeper into the world of Wick that really gets you invested. I don’t know how good John Wick: Chapter 2 is as a movie, but I do know that immediately after finishing John Wick, I wanted more of it.

     John Wick is weird, as darkly violent as it is darkly comedic, and it’s one of best action films I’ve seen recently. If you’re in that kind of mood where you want to see people who deserve to get hurt get hurt, then this is the thing you’re looking for. Unless you’re a dog fan I suppose, but Halloween is all about facing your fears, right? And if you hate dogs, you better watch your fucking back. You never know just who is going to take offense to something like that.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - The Amityville Horror (1979), directed by Stuart Rosenberg

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Our House", by Madness

     Even though I’ve seen a lot of movies (over a hundred just going by this blog), many of those in the horror genre, there are plenty of big name films that have passed me by completely. I’ve never seen any of the Friday the 13th movies for example, despite being one of the biggest franchises of the genre. Never experienced the joy of Pumpkinhead, never spent long nights pondering the philosophical implications of Child’s Play, never filled the forums of fanfiction.net with a 17 part Puppet Master/Gingerdead Man crossover epic. That’s the hard truth when it comes to movies: There will always be more movies that you haven’t seen than ones you have.

     So it was with the Amityville series, up until this entry. For years I had heard the name Amityville, seen it name dropped when horror movies came up, but I had never actually seen one of the movies. Hell, I didn’t even know it was (technically) based on a book, or that Amityville apparently was a real place in New York City. All I had was a name, and a reputation for being shit, generally speaking. What horror franchise doesn’t have a few clunkers in there though, am I right? Remember that one time Michael Myers got beat up by Xzibit? I don’t, because that’s another movie I’ve never watched.

     Anyway, the flagship of the Amityville series: The Amityville Horror, starring James Brolin (father of Josh) and Margot Kidder (girlfriend of Superman) as George and Kathy Lutz, a married couple who move their family into a big new house in Amityville, Long Island in late 1974. A house that just happened to be the scene of a gruesome mass murder of an entire family by a member of the family. And is definitely haunted. And definitely wants to drive this family to insanity and eventual murder. When religious people vomit uncontrollably in the mere presence of something, that’s usually a sign that might want to reconsider making that down payment. In my limited experience at least, I don’t know where the limit is for the average prospective home owner. Is black ooze coming out of the toilet a deal breaker or not?

     Released in 1979, The Amityville Horror comes at the tail-end of what I’d call Satan-o-rama, a period in Hollywood’s history where the key to a successful horror movie seemed to involve not masked serial killers, but demons and other members of the supernatural. Starting with the award-winning Rosemary’s Baby in 1968 (a notoriously despised movie within this blogosphere) or arguably Leslie Stevens’ Incubus in ‘66, the 1970s and early 80s saw a string of films with a strong Satanic focus. From critical and commercial successes like William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and Richard Donner’s The Omen to cult favorites like The Wicker Man total flops like The Devil’s Rain, starring Ernest Borgnine as a goat man. People were obsessed with the devil man, I don’t know what to tell you. If it wasn’t movies, it was in Dungeons & Dragons or metal music, or later with Pokemon and Harry Potter. It’s really dumb.

     Problem is, The Amityville Horror suffers from the same issues that Rosemary’s Baby had: It’s really fucking boring, and nothing fucking happens in it. At least with Rosemary’s Baby there was this atmosphere of hopelessness by the end that I can sort of respect, even though I don’t like that movie. Amityville Horror is two hours of waiting for shit to pop off, it finally popping off in the last 20 minutes, and it having no consequence. No one dies, no one even gets severely injured, and the subplots are just abandoned like orphans on a church doorstep. Interested in seeing what happens with the priest? Wondering when the detective is going to stumble on a clue? Convinced that the psychic friend might become possessed by demons? Hoping beyond hope that that whole ‘George is being driven insane by the house’ thing would actually result in a scene that’s more than five minutes long? Well tough shit, because this house is about as horrifying as Eddie Murphy’s The Haunted Mansion, with a few extra flies.

     You might think I’m being harsh, but there’s nothing that The Amityville Horror does that hasn’t been done better by other films. You want a haunted house? Try House, the 1977 cult classic from Japan. You want something kids being contracted by spirits or demons? Try The Exorcist, or Poltergeist if you like 80s movies. How about a movie where the father goes insane and tries to murder his family? Look no further than Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and it gets bonus points for also taking place on a desecrated Native American burial ground. So watch one of those better movies for Halloween instead, and avoid this three-story stinker if at all possible. You’ll be a lot better off.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Trollhunter (2010), directed by Andre Ovredal

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Don't Feed The Trolls", by Jonathan Coulton

     Some of you diehard fans of the blog might remember a little write-up I did back in the day of a Scandinavian film called Rare Exports. Released in 2010, directed by Jalmari Helander, Rare Exports was a weird little combination of a Christmas movie and a horror film, involving a young boy and his father combating terrible trollish creatures who just so happened to have inspired the legend of Santa Claus. It’s not a perfect movie by any means, in fact I seem to recall the child protagonist being something of an annoying little shit, but it was entertaining, and a nice reminder that the U.S. is not the be all end all when it comes to cinema. Other countries may not have the same film budget or the resources of the States, but they have the imagination and the determination, and that’s really all you need when you’re making movies. Especially when it comes to the horror genre. A big budget might actually be a detriment in that case…

     Now the Marathon has come around again and I find myself back in Scandinavia, Norway to be specific, for a film that was released the same year as our Xmas horror flick: Trollhunter. It’s a movie that’s been on my radar for a while actually, I’ve thrown it in the first drafts of two prior Marathons, but I’ve held off on watching it until now. I’m not sure there’s a concrete reason why, other than there are a whole bunch of movies out there and my mood changes like the tides. It can be rough at times, it lead me to watching Flesh for Frankenstein and Beyond Re-animator after all, but it’s to Trollhunter’s credit that it’s always been on the backburner, always in consideration. With a name like that it was only a matter of time.

     Presented to the audience as found footage, Trollhunter presents the story of three journalism students from Volda College (an actual school, by the by), Thomas, Johanna and Kalle, as they film a documentary about a rash of bear poaching that has struck the area. What little evidence there is seems to point to a man known only as Hans, a mysterious fellow who constantly travels the land in a battered jeep and a small trailer home. When confronted with these accusations Hans ultimately reveals that he’s not a bear poacher at all, he’s a troll hunter, a conservationist of sorts employed by the TSS (Troll Security Service) to kill trolls that wander outside of their respective territories. Yes, trolls exist. Yes, the Norwegian government is aware of their existence and is engaged in an elaborate conspiracy to hide the truth. Yes, the Norwegian people apparently have never noticed 20 foot tall monsters walking around in their own backyard. Sounds like a groundbreaking and horrifically dangerous scoop if you ask me. Might as well film it!

     Modern movie audiences are no stranger to the concept of the ‘found footage’ subgenre of horror films. Ever since the whirlwind success of The Blair Witch Project, you see these types of movies pop up every now and then and try to ride its coattails. Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield, Monsters (by Godzilla director Gareth Edwards), you know the kind of movie I’m talking about. A cast of ‘real’ people, shaky camera movements like it’s a ‘real’ camcorder, more shots of things rustling in the background and people filming the ground as they run than showing the monster, and so on and on. I can understand it considered something of a change of pace, the ‘horror movie as documentary’, and that not seeing the monster is a major tenant of horror, but a glance at some CGI while the camera whips back and forth like it’s in a Home Depot paint mixer or watching a door open is not my idea of a good time.

     Trollhunter still suffers from running sequences from time to time, but it counters that by devoting a lot of screen time to actually showing off the titular trolls. A very diverse collection of trolls too, from the squat, hairy Mountain Kings (who look like those one aliens from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Adventure) to the office-building sized, Marvel’s The Mighty Thor style Jotnars. All pretty obvious CGI of course, the choice of blockbuster and indie films alike, the the fact they do actually show the trolls and human interaction with the trolls heightens the realistic, documentary feel that the movie is going for. A bit like the Jurassic Park movie we all wish we had, rather than most of the Jurassic Park movies we got.

     Of course the characters aren’t exactly what you’d call...interesting, or engender any emotion that would endear them to you in any way, except for Hans, whose multi-layered personality is covered in pounds and pounds of stoicism. Also I’m not entirely sure of the logic behind trying to define trolls in a naturalistic way, even giving a scientific explanation for why they petrify (or explode) in sunlight, but then also give them the ability to smell ‘Christian’ blood and react to Christian imagery. Which never gets explained at all. Two major scenes revolve around this Christian thing too, including the climax, so I don’t know why they would go to the trouble of explaining their gestation and eating habits and all of this real biological stuff and then throw some magic in there for shits and giggles. It’s bad writing. If you’re trying to make the supernatural into the natural, don’t stop halfway through.

     Did Trollhunter live up to two Marathon’s worth of hype? No, not really. It was a fun little film for what it was though, and like Rare Exports, gives us a little glimpse of how our Scandinavian brothers reimagine their folklore for the modern age. Not really scary, which is something it has in common with most found footage films, but I give it points for a good concept. If you can avoid feeding the trolls, you just might something to watch this Halloween.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Return to Oz (1985), directed by Walter Murch

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Ozma", by Shannon & The Clams

     Just as L. Frank Baum’s Oz series of novels have gone on to become one of the most popular children’s literature of all time, the 1939 film adaptation of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” has become one of the most popular, most successful movies in the history of cinema. Nominated for 6 Academy Awards (winner of two), as well as an honorary Juvenile Award for future star Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz’s combination of breathtaking Technicolor, distinctive characters and outstanding soundtrack was able to push beyond a relatively poor showing at the box office to become an indelible part of pop culture, and in particular American pop culture. If a person knows anything about Oz, and you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t in some capacity, it’s because of this movie.

     Strangely enough, despite the success of the film and it’s near-universal name recognition, the land of Oz has been largely ignored by Hollywood. Oh there’s been countless references in video games and novels, that famous play Wicked, the popular TV prison drama Oz, and I think Alan Moore has Dorothy bang a bunch of Munchkins in one of his comic books, but in terms of film adaptations it’s sorely lacking. It can’t be that film studios are showing respect for a property, I’m not sure they know the meaning of the word, so what’s the reason for the Oz absence. Is it because it’s in the public domain, and less personally exploitable? Do they think it’d be too expensive, or that fantasy movies wouldn’t sell well enough for their tastes? Hard to say, although the lukewarm reception to Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful certainly didn’t help matters. Then again that was a prequel, backstory that we didn’t really need or request. Are movie audiences desperate for some post-Wizard content, in the same vein as Trekkies thirsty for a Star Trek that takes place after Nemesis?

     If that’s the case, then they need look no further than the 1985 Disney picture, Return to Oz, directed by Walter Murch and starring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy Gale and Piper Laurie (otherwise known as Catherine Packard on Twin Peaks). Dorothy Gale has been back home with her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry for a while now and she’s just not feeling it, as to be expected from a child who has went on a grand adventure in a magical land only to find themselves stuck in Kansas. She’s losing sleep, constantly rattling off stories about flying monkeys and talking scarecrows, what are a couple of late 19th Midwestern folks like Em and Henry supposed to do? Praise her vivid imagination, and maybe encourage her to explore creative writing? Nah, better to send her off to the loony bin and have some quack stick some electrodes to her brain. I guess trepanation wasn’t covered in their health plan.

     After a quick escape from the asylum, Dorothy ends up getting washed away in a flood and, amazingly enough, ends up in Oz along with her chicken Belina. However, this is not the same beloved magical kingdom that she remembers. The Emerald City is in ruins, populated by a violent bizarre gang known as Wheelers the people have been turned to stone, and the current leader of the land, the Scarecrow, has been kidnapped by a vicious tyrant known as the Nome King. It’s up to Dorothy, and her new friends Billina, Tik-Tok the Mechanical Man, Jack Pumpkinhead and the Gump to travel across the Deadly Desert and into the Nome King’s mountain, and somehow save Oz. A bit more dire than crushing witches and walking down a road, but that’s the thing about (spiritual) sequels. They always feel the need to raise the stakes.

     Return to Oz is not the visual spectacle that The Wizard of Oz was, partly because that film was built to be a visual spectacle and partly because Return consists mainly of a bunch of deserted ruins and about 5 rooms. Momby the Witch’s lair is rather exquisite, but otherwise there’s nothing that really stands out in that regard. However, what it may lack in settings I think it makes up for in costuming and special effects, specifically in puppetry and animation. Characters like Scarecrow are a bit less expressive than they were in the 30s (although they resemble their original novel design), but Tik-Tok, Billina, the Gump, they all manage to look and move as you’d expect from a copper bathtub, a chicken and a Gump, without ever breaking the immersion. I also really like that they use claymation to give the illusion of the Nomes moving through rock as if it were liquid, it’s a really nice looking effect. At the end of the day it’s still a fantastical land filled with magical creatures, even if it’s not as fantastical as the Oz we remember.

     It’s worth noting that Return to Oz does give the impression that it’s trying to be the ‘dark re-imagining’ that has plagued so many other fairy tales and children’s books across modern times. I mean Dorothy Gale is shipped off to an insane asylum where she’s almost subjected to electroshock treatment and killed (an “Alice in Wonderland” staple), she travels across a destroyed Oz with a living jack o’lantern, running away from nightmarish monsters like the Wheelers and the Nomes, the subdued lighting, it’s all vaguely Burtonesque (Timmy B made his directorial debut the year this came out, by the by). When you get right down to it however, it’s not really edgy or macabre at all. There are some bizarre moments, a lot of which is taken from the source material, but those moments never alter the fact this is a girl going on a make-believe adventure with her imaginary friends and that it all ends happily. If you go in expecting American McGee’s Alice, don’t be surprised when you get more of a Disney's Cinderella instead.

     Which is the basis for how I would recommend it I suppose. If you’re a Wizard of Oz fan, or you used up all your Burton bucks and you’re looking for some methadone to get you through the rough times, or if you want a movie that has a bit of a Halloween atmosphere without being too scary, perhaps for a child, then Return to Oz should be what you need. If you’re looking for something more morbid to match your mature dark fantasy tastes, then you’re better off looking somewhere other than Oz. Mass-murdering Alices and heroin junkie Wendy Darlings are a dime a dozen, really.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Tales From the Crypt (1972), directed by Freddie Francis

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "On A Rope", by Rocket from the Crypt

     In the vast field that is horror-based anthology television shows, that are a lucky few that can be considered a step above the rest. There’s Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, the gold standard, a sublime combination of talent and storytelling that has kept it in the public consciousness in the decades after it came out. For those with tastes more geared towards the speculative, The Outer Limits (both the original and the 90s reboot) provides plenty of chills, and arguably more consistent writing, in a delightful science fiction coating. It was also the first show to feature an adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s story “Soldier”, which James Cameron later ripped off in order to create his own science fiction classic The Terminator. Well, ‘ripped off’ is a little harsh, I don’t know the man after all, more like ‘featured almost entirely the same plot as Ellison’s story and got his ass sued because of it’. He did add Arnold though, so that’s a point for Cameron.

     There are a couple of others that have their moments, The Night Gallery, One Step Beyond, Tales from the Darkside, Ray Bradbury Theater, Channel Zero (I maintain that that first was more Silent Hill than the actual live action Silent Hill), but the only other ‘major’ horror anthology was Tales From the Crypt. First terrorizing HBO subscribers in the year of 1989, Tales From the Crypt was hosted by the ghoulish Crypt-Keeper, a dessicated corpse with a grating, high-pitched laugh, macabre tendencies, and an obsession with puns that bordered on the perverse. Over 7 seasons and several spin offs, the Crypt-Keeper shared many tales from his crypt, packed with popular celebrities in both acting and directing roles (HBO’s gotta spend your money somehow). Although these stories tended not to be particularly complex, many trended towards the classic morality story framework, but their love of gruesome visuals and morbid sense of humor was enough to grab a sizeable chunk of audience and a piece of the pop culture pie. In fact it’s still entertaining, check it out if you have the opportunity.

     Over a decade before we got the Tales from the Crypt tv show we got Tales from the Crypt (also based on the infamous EC Comics title of the same name) by Amicus, who were sort of the B-grade Hammer Films back in the day. In this version, rather than the Crypt-Keeper telling these stories, he has instead gathered a group of people who happened to be taking a tour of some catacombs, of various ages and occupations. Although seemingly unrelated, there is a thread of deceit, greed and yes, even murder, that runs through each of their souls. However, are these cautionary tales, of things that may yet come to pass, or are they something more sinister?

     There are 5 little segments in total; Some of which involve the supernatural, all of which involve murder, and are all based on a story from the Tales From the Crypt comic . There’s a nice little smattering of gore here and there, occasionally some special effects, but it doesn’t get much more visually gruesome than red paint blood and white sausage casing intestines. This was Amicus after all, the Mr. Pibb to Hammer’s Dr. Pepper, they had the spirit but no the budget. “And All Through the Night”, is a fun little Christmas themed murder romp, and proved popular enough to be adapted for the television show. “Reflections of Death” has a fun little twist, although it and “Wish You Were Here”, a literal rehashing of the classic short story “The Monkey’s Paw” seem a little too anemic on content to properly make the transition to the silver screen. Of the five, I’d say that I prefer “Poetic Justice”, in which a kind old man (played by horror legend Peter Cushing) is tormented by his rich neighbors, and “Blind Alley”, where a self-righteous head of a nursing home for the blind ends up on the receiving end of some Jigsaw-esque payback by his charges. Those two in particular I believe feature the biggest assholes and the most satisfying retribution, which hopefully doesn't sound as pornographic to you as it did in my head.

     When you get down to it, that’s what these stories are about: watching assholes be assholes and watching them get killed in violent ways. There’s nothing especially complex about these stories, no deep metaphors to ponder, just the base satisfaction that comes from seeing someone who we feel deserves punishment get punished. Specifically in very gruesome ways, which is exactly what made the original comics so popular and controversial back in the day. Does that mean that Tales From the Crypt is the most faithful comic book movie of all time, even more so than the George Lucas classic Howard the Duck? I think the argument could be made that it is, and it’s even working with five different stories with five different protagonists. What’s your excuse Batman V Superman?

     Those well-versed in the world of horror, and aware of its tendency towards style over substance, will likely find Tales From the Crypt an entertaining if not necessarily astounding film. Newcomers, on the other hand will likely find these little vignettes enjoyable and easily digestible, especially those familiar with The Twilight Zone, but those who are used to the special effects of modern movies will probably find the attempts at gore here primitive to the point of comedy. For the former, check this out if you’re done with Creepshow and Spirits of the Dead and wanted a way to ease into the Amicus filmography. For the latter, keep an open mind and check this out if you were interested in checking out one of the predecessors to VHS. Either way, just remember to treat people nicely and behave yourself. Or else.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), directed by Ted Post

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "We Got The Neutron Bomb", by The Weirdos

     At the time I write this, War for the Planet of the Apes has been out for a little bit, capping off a primate trilogy that began with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of Apes, and continued in 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I haven’t had the chance to see it yet but by all accounts it seems to be pretty damn good, as are the previous films in the series. Seems weird that in this modern age we can have successful sci-fi franchises without spending a billion dollars a movie and one running story, rather than trying to stitch ten different movies with dozens of different characters and plotlines into one cohesive narrative, but it appears that the Apes movies have got us covered.

     Have I mentioned how I’m tired of the cinematic universe concept yet?

     War of the Planet of the Apes’ success shouldn’t really surprise anyone though. After all, the very first Planet of the Apes film, directed by Patton’s Franklin J. Schaffner, written by The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling and starring Ben-Hur’s Charlton Heston, was one of the most successful science fiction films in Hollywood history, at a time when the genre was relegated to oversized bugs and pie plates on strings. It spawned 4 sequels, a TV series, an animated series, multiple comic book series, video games, a shitty movie directed by Tim Burton and now this new reboot series. People just can’t enough of talking apes doing stuff, especially if it involves the utter destruction of the human race and everything we’ve ever built. Post-apocalyptic dystopias are like our fetish or something.

     Although movie studios aren’t always the smartest knifes in the drawer, at the very least they understand the concept of ‘if something makes money, make more of that thing’ (sometimes too well), and so two years later we got a sequel: Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Set directly after the original film, in fact Beneath actually opens with the ending of the OG Apes, because we needed to devalue that twist as soon as possible, you would think that Beneath would focus on our doomed astronaut Taylor, wandering across the desolate ruins of an Earth devastated by nuclear war and inhabited by intelligent, murderous primates, but you’d be wrong. Instead we focus on Brent, another astronaut who was sent to find Taylor and the original rocket and who also happened to crash land on this ‘alien planet’. Of course Taylor conveniently fell down a hole at the beginning of the movie, and so it is up to Brent to navigate the peril of Ape City, driven to imperialism and conquest due to an ongoing famine, and somehow find his missing compatriot. However, finding Taylor means journeying into the heart of the Forbidden Zone, the forsaken, hellish remains of Earth’s former rulers, only barely more tolerable than the Richard Elfman film. Which might not be as inhabited as was once believed…

     As far as sequels go, Beneath doesn’t stray too far from its source material, and from the overarching ‘talking apes doing stuff’ motif. Generally speaking that’s a good thing, you don’t want to fix something that ain’t broke, but I think there’s an argument to be made that Beneath takes that advice a bit too literally. Up until the third act, in fact, Beneath seems content to just do Planet of the Apes again, with little to no difference. Astronaut crash-landing on what he originally believes to be an alien planet? Check. Scene where astronaut gets thrown into a cage with a bunch of other humans? Check. Scene where astronaut discovers some artifact that proves he’s been on Earth the whole time, throwing in a bitter, recriminatory one-liner as he does so? Check. Zira and Cornelius being basically useless? All there, only with no sense of wonder and danger attached because we’ve been through all this before. We know it’s a planet of the apes guys, we saw the last one, we read the title of the movie, you’re not blowing any minds on that front.

     That is not to say that Beneath doesn’t make its own mark in the Apethology, however. Although the apes occasionally feel like ancillary characters in their own movie (it ain’t called Planet of the Humans), we do get a deeper look into their civilization and social dynamics, including some anti-war commentary that was no doubt very familiar in those Vietnam years. Perhaps more importantly though, at least in the context of the film is the introduction of the other intelligent race on the planet, a society of telepathic Mutants living in the ruins of New York City who worship an active nuclear missile. I’m not a fan of the inclusion of things like psychic powers into the franchise, as fantastical as the concept of the films are, Schaffner’s execution of it in the first film was fairly grounded, which I thought gave it a more serious, if not realistic, feel. The scenes of the Mutant city however, the subterranean bunker carved out of the melted corpse of downtown New York, and the towering golden ICBM that acts as their god, is easily the most iconic imagery in the Apes franchise, right up there with the destroyed Statue of Liberty. Kind of surprising how little of it you get, considering how much it’s been referenced since then.

     It’s a bit of a bummer too, you know? I mean the original movie was pretty grim in that classic Serling style, but Beneath is just flat out depressing. You got the astronauts, who are stuck in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, with the only remaining humans a bunch of feral slaves to some damn dirty apes. You got the Mutants, sterile lunatics who worship the world’s most dangerous phallic symbol and a proclivity for mind control. Even the Apes, the stars of the show, are showing positively human levels of barbarism as a famine is driving them towards extinction. And that ending… Man, break out the Valium. A bit of a pain to have to follow up too, I imagine.

     Planet of the Apes is a movie that never really needed a sequel, much less 4 of them. Still, if there needed to be one (and money demanded that it be so), Beneath the Planet of the Apes does a pretty good job of it, capturing the essence of the original while pushing things forward. If you liked the first one, then it’s a good bet that you’ll like this one. If you hated it, or just hate apes in general, then I’m sure you’ll be able to find something else this Halloween. Also if you live in the NYC area, you might want to consider moving out. Seems like it's going to get a bit hairy in about two thousand years.