FILM / Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo / November 2019 / Gabriel Ricard
Image © Legendary Pictures
Would it be appalling dull and/or lazy if I ran through a few more horror movies I’ve seen recently? Perhaps. I saw quite a few horror films last month. I’m a fan all year, but October always winds up being a good excuse to watch even more. The movies we covered last month were new horror movies across the board. It turned out there was no room for the older titles I came across. The same problem came up with the newer releases I watched. They wound up getting bumped down the list by more pressing titles.
I like this column’s ability to discuss any movie imaginable, as long as I’ve seen it since the column opened shop in 2012. Horror and Exploitation cinema is always, quite possibly, my favorite subject to explore, as someone who writes about film for more-or-less a living. They are very easy subjects to lean into.
However, I also like that this column has room for arthouse titles, or stuff that is clearly going to be a hilarious, perhaps hideous mess from the word “go.” Very few things I’ve written in my life better reflect my tastes, obsessions, and ideas than Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo. That includes my novels and poetry collections, which ultimately reflect these things in a different, much more specific way. The potential of film appeals to me. It has done this since a point in my life in which I didn’t know I liked that aspect to begin with. This column could never reasonably focus on one subject. God knows I can’t.
Still, November can be a fucking nightmare: Thanksgiving, elections, (important, but damned exhausting). I think horror movies are exactly what we need at this specific moment in time.
The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014): B+
I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating: I’m sorry I disparaged found footage horror movies for so many years. I’ll continue to argue that most of them are terrible. However, the gems among the genre’s history, probably dating back to Cannibal Holocaust, are as good as anything you can find in horror as a whole. The Taking of Deborah Logan is a worthwhile example, which I’ve only recently seen.
The cast is quite possibly the strongest thing about The Taking of Deborah Logan, which also handles issues such as pacing with virtually no hiccups. Jill Larson portrayal of Deborah Logan is the kind of performance for which someone would win a steamer trunk full of awards, if horror movies got that kind of respect. The Taking of Deborah Logan handles its supernatural elements beautifully. The secret is that it cares as much about its human characters, including the poor documentary film crew that chronicles what everyone initially thinks as Deborah having a rough go with Alzheimer’s disease.
Midsommar (2019): B+
I’m willing to guess that if you didn’t like writer-director Ari Aster’s Hereditary, you probably won’t go for his latest. Midsommar can be most gently described as one of the most ambitious takes on the “Vacation from Hell” concept. While the film borrows certain concepts from The Wicker Man, although I would advise against comparing them too much. Midsommar is its own unique character study, and it also goes to considerably darker visuals and psychological suggestions than The Wicker Man. Or, to be honest, like almost anything that’s come before it.
What makes Midsommar perhaps a little frustrating, if only sparingly, is how the film goes against our expectations for how everything unfolds. It’s a unique journey that allows the somewhat predictable conclusion to find the opportunity to leave us shocked. For the most part, Midsommar succeeds in that.
Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017): A+
Horror movies that put childhood through a beautiful, often terrible hell fascinate me. Children who are left to contend with monsters, because the adults in their world have failed them, often make for some of the most compelling protagonists in film. You don’t want real children to suffer like this. At the same time, you know they do. Movies level the playing field, while paying tribute to a degree of courage they shouldn’t have to possess.
That is as true of real life, as it is with the young protagonists who make up Issa López’s mesmerizing, utterly flawless Tigers Are Not Afraid.
Tigers Are Not Afraid is home to elements that probably come from real life. It stands to reason that there are orphans of the drug wars in Mexico. However, in this film, the orphans are given three wishes to use as they please. That’s good since ruthless, hatefully efficient cartel members are on their tail. The best fairy tales in horror need people and circumstances that are wholly, hauntingly acceptable to us. Tigers Are Not Afraid has that in abundance, particularly in Paola Lara as Estrella and Juan Ramón López as El Shine. They are two of the best child actors I’ve seen in horror in quite some time. Writer-director Issa López gives them room to create their characters. At the same time, she also keeps the film running at a brisk pace towards what will hopefully be a happy ending. We aren’t certain of getting that, but we remain riveted nonetheless.
Hider in the House From Hell (1989): C+
It is very, very, very easy to forget that Gary Busey was a very good actor at one point. I suppose the motorcycle accident changed that, although he has certainly been memorable through the years. This is technically the last movie Busey made before that infamous accident, which occurred five days after principal photography on Hider in the House finished.
Hider in the House is arguably the last time we saw Busey as an actor before that injury. There is something fascinating about that, if we decide to take his long film career seriously for a moment. Hider in the House, in which an abused, recently-released mental patient decides to live in the attic of a house a family that has recently moved into, is a little silly. What saves the film is a sincere, genuinely compelling performance from Busey, who finds flawed, pitiable notes in a character who is ultimately betrayed by a script with a crappy third act.
Mimi Rogers and Michael McKean are also standouts. Rogers most of all deserves credit for doing her damndest to make us believe that her character would exhibit staggeringly poor personal judgment—over and over again.
However, this movie belongs to Busey, and to the potential he perhaps lost just a few days after he finished with this character.
Hell Night (1981): C+
What would a stubborn refusal to let go of Halloween be without the legendary Linda Blair? Her filmography is about as entertaining as it gets. Memorable performances in some of the grimiest examples of several notable exploitation/horror subgenres. Hell Night is one of those, although it is sometimes overshadowed by Roller Boogie, Chained Heat, or Savage Streets.
Hell Night is the goofy, surprisingly-creepy-at-times slasher movie you need to get over the wretched orgy of disappointment that will be your Thanksgiving—er, Pre-Christmas—spectacular. The film has a sense of humor that comes nicely in the first half, even as things shift to a more standard slasher. The gothic attention to detail in the set design and costuming is also worth appreciating. What makes the movie fun though is Blair, who rarely met a horror movie where she failed to win us over.
Hell Night is a lot more fun than you might expect. Save it for the middle of the night before Thanksgiving.
Gabriel Ricard writes, edits, and occasionally acts. His books Love and Quarters and Bondage Night are available through Moran Press, in addition to A Ludicrous Split (Alien Buddha Press) and Clouds of Hungry Dogs (Kleft Jaw Press). He is also a writer, performer, and producer with Belligerent Prom Queen Productions. He lives on a horrible place called Long Island.
