Short Thoughts: Horror on the Weekend

I rather liked doing a mass movie post last time so I'm going to try it again and see what happens.

I apologise for not having graphics or anything to make it look a bit spiffier but my home internet connection is currently so logey that Blogger is not reliable. Getting IMDB.com or a Google Image search to work at the same time is pretty much impossible. Even GMail has been hinky lately -- GMail, people!

Anyway.

The Omen. Everything is wrong with this movie. Gregory Peck? Wrong. Lee Remick? So wrong. The little no-neck chubby-faced demon kid? Super wrong. The dogs? Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. And yet... and yet.

It's not scary -- at least, not for me. I have friends who have informed me it was a totally traumatic experience for them and I get that. If I had seen it 15 or 20 years ago, doubtless I'd've been kicked in the back of the skull by it, too. I also don't have a thing with dog fear -- caninophobia? -- so the hellhounds chasing people around just look like dogs who want cookies to me. Plus, I saw Resident Evil first and after zombified Dobermans, these just didn't have a chance. I'm much more sympathetic to Dean having his minute with the Shih-Tzu he thinks is a hellhound because I hate those yappy little motherfuckers -- and the pink bow is just the finishing touch.

Ahem, anyway. While I didn't find it scary at all -- it was...intriguing to watch. David Warner gave a great performance as the 'reluctantly involved outsider' -- always a bit of a tricky part to play -- and I loved his 'Well, this is probably real because I'm seeing it and feeling it and hearing it, so I better go with it as reality' approach. Also, his darkroom. And what is not to like about a movie with Patrick Troughton as a semi-crazed priest with a morphine habit? Also, Leo McKern as a...I don't know what. He didn't seem to have much point. Van Helsing with no Hel?

And I feel much more confident that I get more jokes in Good Omens and Supernatural than I did before. So there's that.

Hellraiser. Well. Er. I want to love it. I really really do. I want to love it like I want to love Candyman.

Bits of it, I do love: "Jesus wept." The Cenobites. The house. The stepmom's freaky-deaky hair. The juicy zombie dude in the attic sexually harassing his girlfriend into bringing him fresh meat. Wait, scratch that last bit -- but the whole thing is just...meandery. Who's the main character? The stepmother? The dad? The daughter? The uncle? I suggest we just pick Pinhead who seems to actually know what the fuck is going on around here and go with him.

Great look, though, don't get me wrong. Love the box and, like I said, the Cenobites who were, I think, the best part of the whole film. I thought we were going to get a pretty kick-ass final girl until Kristy started facing everything by whimpering, cowering in a corner, and viciously crying at it. Not your best call when confronted by a transdimensional dude who thinks an open laryngectomy wound is the height of fashion. I thought we could expect something better from someone who nutpunched a reconstituted undead -- but I guess every girl has her limit.

Perhaps I will love it like I want to love it after I see it another time.

An American Werewolf in Paris. Disclaimer: seen on the SciFi Channel, therefore "edited for time and content." But still -- fucking hilarious! Not sure it was meant to be but please! The duelling ghosts? Hiding in a morgue drawer to get away from the cops? Amazing injectable werewolf fluid? What is not to love about that!