21st Century Terrors, Part 9: 2008

Welcome back, after quite a long hiatus, to the Vault's rather exhaustive look back at the decade of horror cinema that ended last December. It's probably for the best anyway, since the more distance that accumulates, the easier it is to properly judge exactly what it was that went down, and exactly what it all meant. When last we left off, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of the late '00s, right at the moment when the remake craze had truly strapped the horror genre to the speedboat like Fonzie...

One of the decade's most egregious remake offenses occurred this year, when American filmmakers took what had been one of the most talked about foreign films of the previous year, [REC], and turned it into Quarantine, a virtual scene-for-scene English translation of the Spanish original, with Dexter's Jennifer Carpenter in the lead role. It was a very cynical affair, too, with the Spanish version being purposely withheld from home video or theatrical release in America until the inferior remake had had a chance to run its course with a public who generally believed it to be an original work.

Quarantine may have been the most obvious and most cynical of the bunch, but it was far from the only. Alexandre Aja, who had previously given us the admittedly well-made redo of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes, this time dished up the Keifer-Sutherland vehicle Mirrors, a remake of the 2003 South Korean film Into the Mirror. Jessica Alba headlined The Eye, a vastly inferior rehash of a 2002 flick out of Hong Kong. And the utterly inane One Missed Call, taken from a 2003 Japanese movie, assaulted our senses as well. The bankruptcy of ideas was reaching epic proportions.

But it didn't end there. Cult classics and long-time favorites of American horror cinema continued to be liberally raped, as well. Take the PG-13 version of Prom Night, which took an enjoyable little Jamie Lee Curtis slasher of the early 1980s and turned it into something that could've aired in prime time on Nickelodeon. And then, although it pains me to even bring it up, there was the tragically wrong-headed remake of George Romero's Day of the Dead, undertaken by '80s veteran Steve Miner, who should've known better. The less said about that abortion, the better.

But although the heyday of the early-to-mid portion of the decade was decidedly over, there was still enough original, engaging material out there to keep the die-hard fans entertained, even while the masses were being spoon-fed Hollywood's easily digestible pap. For example, for those savvy enough to seek it out, there was The Midnight Meat Train, a grim and unrelenting adaptation of one of Clive Barker's classic short stories that stands as possibly the finest Barker screen adaptation since Hellraiser (superior in fact, if you ask this blogger.)

And although they divided fans--as most horror films of the recent past always seem to do--films like The Strangers and The Ruins were fresh and interesting enough to provide some relief from the onslaught of garbage. The former, borrowing liberally from the grand tradition of home invasion cinema, was a taut psychological thriller that threw in a sprinkling of torture porn sensibility for good measure. And the latter, an adaptation of the wildly successful 2006 novel by Scott B. Smith (author of A Simple Plan, brilliantly adapted by Sam Raimi in 1998), took the painfully trite teen horror sub-genre and gave it a much-needed supernatural kick in the ass.

On its last legs, the zombie subgenre offered up Dance of the Dead, an endearing take on some well-worn territory that managed to succeed by grafting familiar tropes into a high school setting, resulting in something like a John Hughes-esque response to Shaun of the Dead. And although nowhere even approaching the sublimity that rom-zom-com achieved, this one at least gave us some hot zombie sex, and cemented Pat Benatar's "Shadows of the Night" as one of the most memorable rock songs ever featured in a horror film.

But of course, no discussion of horror film in 2008 would be complete without bringing up Darren Lynn Bousman's Repo! The Genetic Opera, one of the most unique, confounding, and possibly ingenious movies to hit the genre in some time. A bold rock opera with a star-studded cast, it scores major points for effort and originality, even if the finished product is admittedly not without significant flaws. Most impressively of all, however, is the way the film managed to become more of a cultural event than most horror films do these days--even if that status was achieved in a much more carefully orchestrated and less organic manner than with such films as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, for example.

And then, there was Let the Right One In. The film, which for my money, was the most memorable, best-made and most evocative the horror genre gave us for the entire decade. Yes, it was not entirely a horror movie, but whatever it was, this unique Swedish adaptation of the vampire novel of the same name was a damn fine motion picture. Standing out head and shoulders in the crowd of mediocrity that was 2008, Let the Right One In was the kind of film that reminded many--this blogger included--of not only why they love horror film in the first place, but why they love film, period.

The touching tale of Oskar and Eli, the young mortal boy and the otherwordly vampire girl with whom he falls charmingly and platonically in love, LTROI was the finest of all the foreign horror that washed ashore during this period. It may also very well be one of, if not the best vampire film ever made. If the 2000s in horror is remembered for nothing else at all, it will always be remembered for giving us Let the Right One In.

With the decade creaking to a close, the horror genre was stumbling toward the '10s with all the grace of an unraveling mummy. There were gems to be found, no question--it was just taking more and more effort to look for them. But for those willing to trudge through the muck spewed forth by the remake machine, it was still a pretty decent time to be a horror fan. And fans certainly had more than enough movies over to which argue vociferously--and if that's not what being a fanboy is all about, I don't know what is.

Also in 2008:

• Saw V
• Shutter
• Splinter
• Teeth
• Zombie Strippers

Part 1: 2000
Part 2: 2001
Part 3: 2002
Part 4: 2003
Part 5: 2004
Part 6: 2005
Part 7: 2006
Part 8: 2007

Retro Review: Prom Night (1980)

The second of Jamie Lee Curtis' trio of 1980 follow-ups designed to cash in on her scream queen breakthrough two years prior in Halloween, Prom Night is a decent, enjoyable little slasher romp. Certainly not the groundbreaker and earthshaker that John Carpenter's aforementioned classic is, but really, that's a very unfair comparison for just about any slasher flick. Unfortunately, Prom Night suffers a bit for following in the footsteps of Halloween, but if you enjoy vintage slashers, then it delivers the goods.

Jamie Lee is dependable as always in the role of Kim, one of a group of high schoolers who must live with the accidental death of one of their pals (and Kim's sister) some six years previously. However, there's a ski-masked, glass-shard wielding lunatic on the loose with some horrible telephone etiquette, and he/she doesn't seem anywhere near as willing to let it go.

Surprisingly, the acting for most of the "teenage" characters is probably a cut above what you'll find in Halloween. I've often remarked about the Debbie Does Dallas-level performances of the pseudo-adolescents in Carpenter's film (Ms. Curtis excepted, of course), and in this one area I will declare that Prom Night has it over its generally superior inspiration film. As for the usual gang of bumbling incompetent grown-ups one finds in a movie like this, what can I say? It's certainly always a hoot to watch a pre-Naked Gun Leslie Nielsen play it straight, that's for sure.

There are red herrings galore--almost to a fault--but the central plot thread of the movie does deliver some chills, even if it takes a bit to get going. The killer is quite creepy, although the big identity reveal at the end always has me asking, "OK, and...?"

Even more so than Halloween or Friday the 13th, Prom Night is very much of its time. I find you have to put yourself in the mindset of the era, when a steady stream of slasher and exploitation sleaze was being fed to local cinemas like a pipeline of awesomeness. There's a certain hazy, hyper-real quality to the way it's all shot, as if someone toweled their forehead, wiped it off on the camera lens, and left it that way for the duration of the movie.

And just in case you didn't realize when this movie was made, there's the infamous disco prom scene. Perhaps it makes me a smarmy post-modern ironist, but I absolutely love the fact that the entire film stops dead so that Jamie Lee and company can engage in a slick, choreographed disco number, compete with Martin Scorsese rotating camera. You can keep the throat ripping, this is by far my favorite moment in Prom Night.

Yes, it's derivative and follows a certain slasher formula, but so were so many other highly enjoyable films of the era. In fact, many would argue that that's what made them so great, their methodical exploration of a certain expected series of tropes, and the manner in which they added something just a little different or new--a nuance her or there. Yes, the shadow of Halloween hangs over the whole thing, but, for example, I also couldn't help but notice the strong influence of another recent horror hit, Carrie--a film totally outside the slasher tradition. That, in itself, was an interesting twist.

The script, by future soap writer Robert Guza Jr. and William Gray, is certainly a by-the-numbers affair, but it knows how to get the proper reaction, in the proper places. Gray, in particular, had just come off scripting The Changeling, a film whose power hinges on its ability to generate psychological terror.

Liverpudlian director Paul Lynch may not have been at the level of a Carpenter (well, 1980-era Carpenter, at least), but he knows the basics of keeping a viewer engaged, which is all that's required with a potboiler plot such as this. It's not about reinventing the wheel here, and Lynch is up to the task of delivering a solid slasher flick. Fascinating trivia department: Lynch would go to quite the genre TV career, directing episodes of Beauty and the Beast, The Twilight Zone, Ray Bradbury Theater, Dark Shadows, The Outer Limits, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Xena, Sliders, and both Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

All in all, Prom Night is undeniably a product of the post-Halloween slasher craze, but certainly one of the better ones. If you're a fan of the subgenre, it's got everything you're looking for, wrapped up in a beautifully garish Carter Era bow.

* Thanks to the ravishing Marilyn Merlot for suggesting this week's Retro Review. If you have a suggestion, drop me a line!

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For those who are oh-so-eagerly waiting to find out the winners for the 2009 Cyber Horror Awards, stay tuned. The next post here on the Vault will be just such an announcement. In the meantime, check out Cinefantastique Online's Wonder Award nominations, announced today. Unlike the CHAs, which focus strictly on horror movies, the Wonders go across-the-board for horror, science fiction and fantasy. It's quite an interesting line-up, and I was honored to be asked to participate.

The Downside of PG-13 Slashers

I'm not referring to the downside that is obvious to any die-hard fans of slasher horror--which is that sacrificing an R-rating for a younger demographic means the loss of most of the violence and gore that fans go in for in the first place. Rather, I'm talking about the problem of exposing teen-age and pre-teen audiences to material they probably shouldn't be watching unsupervised.

At no time in the past were slasher flicks marketed to the under-18 crowd. Despite the fact that the characters were always teenagers, the audience was always more in the 18-25 range. But a movie like the new version of Prom Night, now the number-one movie in America, is playing to wider audiences than ever before. And there's a drawback to all that, which a story out of suburban Chicago draws attention to.

The Herald-News reports that a multiplex in Naperville, Illinois was forced to pull the movie on its opening night, after an unruly gathering of some 300 unsupervised patrons age 11 to 15, all on hand to see Prom Night, had to be ejected by police. The paper described the scene as a "near-riot", during which a 911 call from the theater led to the dispatch of 11 officers and squad cars to restore order. An arrest was made when one of the young theatergoers refused to leave.

And here comes the interesting part. A representative from the theater chain commented that the Naperville incident was not islolated. Rather, several such large-scale disturbances had been reported at Prom Night screenings across the country. In all cases, those involved were underage patrons dropped off by their parents.

Needless to say, this is not something that could have ever happened, for instance, with the original Prom Night back in 1980. That film was rated R, and thus viewers under 17 could only get in with an adult--and for the most part, the audience was made up of adults, anyway. Somply put, we're talking about an audience here that would ordinarily be dropped off to see movies like 10,000 B.C., Drillbit Taylor or Nim's Island. Instead, they're being taken to see a flick whose subject matter is thematically R-material, but because it's been stripped of graphic violence, it's suddenly deemed appropriate for kids that have barely outgrown Hannah Montana.

This is the negative repercussion of marketing slasher movies to children. Of course, the picture's number-one status will be all that studios pay attention to. In their minds, the strategy of toning down horror movies for teens is a sound one, resulting in wider profit margins from a genre that typically doesn't bring in many number-one hits.

We can't rely on Hollywood to have scruples--never could. As parents, it falls on us to do our jobs as the custodians of our children. Part of that is supervising what they watch--that's where the responsibility lies. So use your heads, people.