HILL HOUSE films

Hill House has caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people  over the years. It rattles the soul and jars the nerves. Some people never leave Hill House...alive.

It started back with The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson. The story involves a scientist and three "research assistants" spending time in old Hill House looking into the things that go bump in the night there.

 







THE HAUNTING (1963) was a film based on Jackson's book. The film is rather well done. A simple, yet effective "Old, Dark House" tale directed by Robert Wise (The Sound Of Music, West Side Story, Run Silent Run Deep AND MORE!) and staring Julie Harris, Claire Bloom and Richard Johnson.  The film was made before big special effects and gimics, so all the thrills take place in camera with the use of odd angles and zooms and the like. This makes it more enjoyable for me than some of it's other incarnations. It has that fantastic, black and white play-like set up where people interact and exchanges may mean more than their face value. And the scares - a la 1963 - are enough to make you cringe a little. Especially if you put yourself into their shoes. Little things, unseen in the shadows and heard through the walls, add to the atmosphere and the thrills.

Julie Harris is fantastic. She's our main character. We follow her out of her horrible life and into Hill House. We hear her thoughts. We know she's not 100%...balanced. And the poor thing...   :)
 

THE HAUNTING a great, old haunted house film with some good twists and turns within it.

In 1971,  Richard Matheson took a pass at the tale with Hell House. Evidently, it's close to the original book, but has more violence and situations of a sexual nature. It makes sense seeing as it was written in the 70s. I think this was more of the take of the film made shortly after Matheson's book was written.

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973) was the first HILL HOUSE film I saw. It was featured on CREATURE FEATURES and I remember it sending shivers through me a bit as a child. Bob Wilkins assured us that the film was going to be fun and it was. Creepy music and a fantastic old house made this a fave of mine for years.
John Hough was the Director on this film and he holds a little space in my heart for his film ESCAPE FROM WITCH MOUNTAIN. It's funny, he was a Disney guy for a long while, but also directed TWINS OF EVIL and DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY. 




Roddy McDowall, Gayle Hunnicutt and Pamela Franklin star and they do a great job bringing the characters to life. The film sports more effects and more thrills. And, more sexual naughtiness as found in films of the 70s. Poor Pamela Franklin goes through quiet a series of mishaps. And the story is fleshed out differently with more mystery behind it in many ways. There's something wrong in Hill House - affectionately referred to as HELL HOUSE - and it involves ghosts for sure. And, more science and more psychics. The team is still the same, but more is made about their abilities and they bring WAY more equipment with them to check out the house.
After seeing THE HAUNTING, I'm not sure which I like more - the old, dark house feel or the "There DEFINITELY is a ghost here!" feel this 1973 version has. I think they are both good in their ways, but if you want more punch, this is the version for you.





THE HAUNTING (1999) is fine. It's just...fine. It's a classic example of "more is not necessarily better". You have some heavy hitters in this film. Liam Neeson, Catherine...ZETA-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili "Nutty" Taylor all do their best with the inflated script and try their best to be scared by the effects, but it's just...too much of everything. Too much attention placed on scares, too many special effects and not enough haunted house simplicity. You move through the movie and are beaten about the face and neck with effect after effect and it's distracting. Of course, if you like your scares generated by a computer, you'll love this film. It managed to take everything I loved about HELL HOUSE and added exclamation points, bells, whistles and fire to them all.

All in all, I put my money on...well, the books first - I plan to pick them up. Books always give a lot more than films. But, see THE HAUNTING, then watch THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE. You'll be happy you did. It's a great double feature!

THE HAUNTING TRAILER

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE

THE HAUNTING

And, if you've seen the Tarantino / Rodriguez film GRINDHOUSE, you've seen the fantastic parody of the HELL HOUSE trailer. I love it!

DON'T

Cockneys vs. Zombies (Redband Trailer)

They have managed to combine two of my favorite things - cockney accents and zombies - into a gore filled, fun fest. I think they are trying to create another SHAUN OF THE DEAD and by the look of this redband trailer, they might have something close.

Granted, this is not SHAUN. They don't have the same powerhouse team behind it. However they do have some heavy hitters.

• Director Matthias Hoene has not really done anything before. While some see this as a downside, I see it as a new director making an extra effort to not have his first outing suck, so I think he'll be going the extra mile to make this film work.

• Honor "Pussy Galore" Blackman.  Enough said.

• Alan Ford - the cockney accent KING is always fun to watch as he growls across the silver screen.

I'm excited! How about you?

ARGENTO DOUBLE FEATURE: Do you like Hitchcock? and GIALLO

 

ARGENTO DOUBLE FEATURE:

DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? and GIALLO

I was really happy with DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? (2005) Dario Argento's homage to Hitchcock turned out to be a lot of fun for me. It's a rather basic story, but the execution is fun and entertaining. The story line is very "giallo" feeling and is really nothing new. There's been a murder and someone has witnessed it. Who did it and why? Will our witness live to tell the tale?

The Hitchcock aspect is fun. You can really see the call outs to Hitch throughout the film. Is it brilliant? Is it another SUSPIRIA? Nope - not at all. But, it was an entertaining romp with some fun twists and turns and some grand tension throughout.  And, it was made for TV, so people with a short acceptance of gore won't be too agitated with this one. It's far from SUSPIRIA levels when it comes to the viscera.  It's well worth a viewing.

I think this is one that is held up as "the last good Argento film". I was going to say the same thing, but after seeing GIALLO, I'm not so sure.

~~~

GIALLO  (2009) was a bit of a mess, but I didn't hate it afterwards like I did with MOTHER OF TEARS. The kind of "MAN! I want my two hours back!" kind of bitterness that I felt with MOTHER was not present with this film at all. Most of the mess stems from some bad makeup effects applied to the lead baddie in the film. It's not fooling anyone and I found it to be really rather distracting.

 

However, that's where the trauma ended for me. I was ok with everything else in the film including the gravel voice acting of the film's main star - the "amazing" Adrien Brody. :)  now, I know what you are thinking. "WHAT?!  Adrien Brody is in this?!  It MUST be a 10 out of 10 star film, right?!"  Well, contrary to popular belief, Brody is a bit of a wanker in this film, but it's not as bad as his PREDATORS, Dark Knight voiced performance. He's a tough, New York City cop on the case in Italy and he's not gonna take any bullshit. That's right. He's a tough guy. :)

The film score by Marco Werba struck me and stuck with me as well. I'm not sure why, but I really loved it. It has a striking, big sound that made the film something special. It took it into an old school direction that worked really well with the way the film presented itself. I felt like I was watching older, cooler Argento right off the bat.

The film manages to entertain and there are some good moments mixed in with the bad. The bad moments really are what made the film. It went from ok, to bad, to worth the viewing bad within minutes for me.  I found myself blurting out, "Wait...WHAT?!" a few times while viewing it. 

I told a friend about it and he watched it at once. I was immediately flooded with updates while he watched - most of which were comical, "WTF?!" exclamations while the film washed over him. I thought it was a lot of fun and pure Argento madness that was also well worth a viewing.
 

Keep an open mind and give these a view!

VAMPIRE WEEK Movie List

Well, it's VAMPIRE WEEK, but I think TWILIGHT has ruined the vampire experience for me. :)
In an effort to get it back, we're tossing in a BUNCH of movies that you will want to watch to flush the Pattinson out of your mind.

Paranormal Incident - Review

A while back, we posted a trailer for Paranormal Incident and kinda had a giggle about it. NETFLIX has it available for streaming viewing, so I figured I'd toss it on and give it a go.

A few moments into the movie I knew exactly what I was about to see - hungry, young actors and actresses (some willing to bare their...assets...) acting like they are real people in front of the camera...cinema verité style...hunting for ghosts. Yeah...it's kinda awful and it hurts a lot.  Someone saw THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and was aiming for it a little. But...yeah...it's kind of a miss on most of the acting. They memorized their lines and are "acting school"-ing their way through the movie. Onward.

I couldn't spend time watching this film, to be honest. I've seen them before and, when I don't fast forward through, I get SO ANGRY that I wasted time on it. So...fast forward....

• 25 minutes in, we're watching fake, After Effects aged films and hearing more bad dialog done in post. 

• 32 minute mark we're seeing the handheld, night vision camera stuff and hearing noises. 


• 47 minutes in we have a bad fight between a couple. 


I could not spend more time on the film and I just started looking for scary, screaming parts at that point. They were hard to find and a bore when I did stumble onto one.

Then...there is the stringer plot of an interview taking place four days after "the incident" that was a strange, sad X Files play. Even worse, it made the film even more silly and explained nothing.

Poor writing and bad acting can be pulled through if you get other stuff right, but these folks didn't. They have hand held cameras in the hands of the "investigators" and security cameras stationary through the asylum, but somehow we also have footage from the "ghost eyes" of chasing folks down halls and the like that had me wondering "Who the hell is filming THAT footage?"

In short, the lover of genre ghosty films of any kind should watch this, but everyone else should avoid it and watch something else. Maybe THE WOODS or THE HAUNTING or LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE....anything else, really.  :)

Sorry, guys, I was really pulling for a sleeper hit.

Die Antwoord - Baby's On Fire

Die Antwoord does it again with another extremely twisted video. The worlds they create remind me of the Rob Zombie school - hyper real strangeness turned up to 11. Fascinated, I watched as this cartoon madness spun around in front of me.

Fun, freakish stuff. I approve.

 

Chloe Moretz as Scary Girl

Anyone who has seen RINGU or JU-ON or BLACK WATER or...well...you get it...will appreciate this funny little send up on the "Scary Girl with long hair" trope. Chloe Moretz is really a funny kid. :)

Scary Girl with Chloe Moretz from Chloe Moretz