"Suspiria" (1977)

Directed by Dario Argento
Review based upon the US Anchor Bay DVD release

“Suspiria” is widely regarded as Dario Argento’s best film, and a masterpiece of horror genre cinema. The movie was released in 1977 to huge critical acclaim, with film journalists who'd previously attacked the director’s work being forced to acknowledge the technical mastery on offer here. Even British critic Alexander Walker was forced to admit that the film was “a deliberately overblown piece of gothic ghoulishness that makes other tales of terror look anaemic”. It was also the first time that the auteur managed to gain recognition for his work outside of his native Italy, propelling Argento into the front ranks of horror filmmaking.

The director has always acknowledged that one of his great influences is the literary work of Edgar Allen Poe. The mysticism present in Poe’s writing was never really able to find an expression in the director’s work until “Suspiria”, as Poe’s tales like “The Black Cat” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” were completely unrelated to the giallo style of filmmaking for which Argento made his name. However, the director always wanted to ultimately make a film that was thematically linked to Poe, embracing both the supernatural and realms of witchcraft within the narrative. When considering his next project after “Deep Red”, Argento remembered a tale told by his partner Daria Nicolodi about her grandmother’s experiences with witchcraft at her finishing school. It was this, combined with his obsession with Poe, that formulated the basis for “Suspiria”.

The film opens as American ballet student Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) arrives in Munich to enrol at the Freiberg Dance Academy. However, almost immediately after she starts her studies the Academy is struck by a spate of bizarre murders, with someone killing both students and teachers alike. Suzy begins to research the Academy’s past, only to discover that it was founded by the notorious witch Elena Markos, one of the legendary 'Three Mothers'. Seeking help from her friend Sara (Stefania Casini), she begins to uncover the mystery with deadly consequences. Is Markos still alive and responsible for the murders? What horrors lie in wait for the two pupils of the Freiberg Academy?

At its heart, "Suspiria" is an adult fairytale. This is first indicated by the voiceover during the credits, intoning a ‘once upon a time’ style of opening most associated with writers like the Brothers Grimm. But while in most fairy tales this is supposed to comfort the audience and prepare them for the journey to follow, in Argento’s film this merely serves to plunge the viewer into the literal heart of a storm, with Suzy leaving the safety of the airport to be thrust into an ethereal world where the weather's almost as harsh as the violence that follows.

From these opening moments it's obvious that this film isn't only a complete and radical departure from the director’s usual work, but also from the vast majority of horror flicks in the 1970's. In a decade obsessed with making horror both gritty and realistic in movies like the “The Exorcist”, and the original “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, Argento’s “Suspiria” is the antithesis of this narrative and visual style. The film is unrealistic, dream-like and operatic in many respects, also being totally excessive in terms of visuals and sound.

The visual style of “Suspiria” is truly unique, and has only been matched perhaps by its counterpart “Inferno”. Luciano Tavoli’s photography continues the fairytale quality of the piece due to the entire emphasis being placed on primary colours. This is achieved through the use of out of date Kodak film stock, which combined with a mixture of filters and gels really gives the whole movie an amazing sense of spectacle and unease. This is matched by Giuseppe Basson’s production design, with vast sets emphasising the baroque décor whilst continuing the extreme use of colour. An obvious example of all these elements is the early murder of Pat Hingle (Eva Axen), which is widely celebrated as the most spectacular and inventive of Argento’s set pieces. The whole sequence takes place in an apartment bock of nightmarish and Freudian design – crimson red walls, a primary-coloured glass ceiling, and complex geometric layout. This moment serves to demonstrate the true power of “Suspiria” to entertain, shock and thrill all at once. It also proves conclusively that the flick is totally devoid of any sense of reality, due to the operatic visual excess and exaggeration demonstrated.

The sound is also visionary, with an incredibly powerful score created by Argento’s collaborators on “Deep Red”, the Italian rock group Goblin. The music uses a variety of methods in order to disconcert the audience and add to the nightmarish quality of the film. It contains a combination of vocal chanting, medieval instrumentation, filtered chords, resonant synthesizer tones, harsh rhythms and musical box chimes to create an aural assault that never allows the viewer any time to relax. The score for “Suspiria” perhaps also serves to demonstrate Argento’s directorial style more than any other movie he has created since, as the vast majority of the music was created before the cameras started to roll. Many of the cast members (including Jessica Harper) remember quite clearly that Argento shot key scenes with the Goblin score blaring out of a stereo system in order to accentuate their hysterical performances.

But this movie has much more to offer than just excess in terms of imagery and sound. When considering the use of locations, it becomes clear that Argento is also making a profound comment on transition between places, and how in a world full of witchcraft this relocation can be terrifying and dangerous. The opening five minutes serves to demonstrate this conceit perfectly; Suzy moving from the relative tranquillity of the airport to the violent storm outside and then finally into the hostile cab ride. Movement from one location to the other is deeply unsettling in this sequence, suggesting that the greatest fear is moving into the unknown where all factors are out of our control. In order to subvert this genre staple, Argento heightens the impact by implying through use of colour (note the use of darkness as Suzy shifts from one place to another) that each location is potentially a portal into another world, linking perfectly to the ideas of Edgar Allen Poe and witchcraft on which the story of “Suspiria” is so reliant.

The screenplay contains a variety of impressive and disturbing set pieces, which cemented the director’s reputation for making incredibly visceral movies. The most infamous of these may be the double murder sequence mentioned earlier, but there're other equally affecting moments throughout this film. One such example is Sara’s attempt to spy on the witches and evade capture; it's incredibly taut and well executed, using pace and editing to maximum effect. It also contains a massively shocking pay-off, as just when the audience is fooled into thinking that Sara has managed to evade capture, Argento springs one final twisted surprise. The attack on the pianist Daniel (Flavio Bucci) is also superb, with the director displaying yet another innovative visual trick where the camera swoops down on the unfortunate figure.

Despite all this, one of the biggest criticisms constantly levelled at “Suspiria” is the fact that it contains very little in the way of narrative, supposedly choosing instead to hang visual moments and motifs on a very thin plotline. Sure, it may not have the philosophical depth of other genre entries such as “The Wicker Man” or even “The Exorcist”, but this is an entirely different kind of picture altogether. It doesn't theorise or attempt to explain why evil exists, it simply shows the audience that darkness is all around us and that it's perhaps more prevalent in some cultures more than others. Maitland McDonagh perhaps sums it up best in her Argento study “Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds”, where she writes “it doesn’t precisely make sense in any conventional way, but then neither does the story of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’; what kind of stupid little girl can’t tell her Grandmother from a great hairy wolf? Does the situation call for complicated solutions involving associative mental disorders? No. That isn’t the POINT”.

The cast all acquit themselves very well. Jessica Harper is perfect as Suzy, demonstrating femininity combined with the strength of character which eventually leads her to a confrontation with the witches coven and Elena Markos herself. The peripheral figures around Suzy are rather less defined, and here perhaps lies the biggest problem with “Suspiria”. The film is technically dazzling but it does tend to lack the interplay and characterisation that so benefited Argento’s earlier “Deep Red”.

Despite this criticism, Argento’s text is a violent ballet of sound and imagery. Full of sumptuous visual and aural material which both pleases and assaults the senses in equal measure, it'll undoubtedly continue to be regarded as the cornerstone of the auteur’s career, and also as a movie which pushed the boundaries of horror in countless ways, and still seems to some 30 years later. Subversive and revolutionary in equal measure; “Suspiria” is a masterpiece of modern cinema and is only matched by the second part of the ‘Three Mothers’ trilogy – “Inferno”. The third and final entry in this series "La Terza Madre [The Mother of Tears]" might not be as sophisticated as the others, but at least genre audiences will always have "Suspiria", which is perhaps why it's regarded as one of the best horror films of all time. I'll always think so.

10 out of 10
One of Argento's best... and without question one of the greatest horror films of all time

"The Texas Cainsaw Massacre" (1974)

Directed by Tobe Hooper
Review based upon the Universal Pictures DVD release

Former school teacher Tobe Hooper claims to have gotten the idea for “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” while out Christmas shopping. He was accidentally pushed against a rack of chainsaws by crowds in a hardware store, and had a flash fantasy where he wished he could use one of the chainsaws to demolish the crowd. He says at that moment the whole film “opened up before his eyes”. So began one of cinema’s most famous attempts to push the limits of the permissible. It wasn't really the first, as Wes Craven’s “The Last House on the Left” was there a couple of years earlier, and went even further than “Texas” ever did in its brutality and savagery themes. However, out of the two films “Texas Chainsaw” is the most famous, and the most notorious of the video nasties in the 1980's.

The movie opens with Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) and her paraplegic brother Franklin (Paul Partain), along with her boyfriend Jerry (Allen Danzinger) and another couple, Kirk (William Vail) and Pam (Teri McMinn), travelling across Texas to visit their childhood home. En-route they pick up a hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) who proves crazed, and tries to set fire to the van. The stranger shockingly slashes his and Franklin's wrists before jumping out. The group carry on to the homestead, where Kirk and Pam go searching for a waterhole. They inadvertently cross onto another property, where the huge and terrifying Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) attacks them. While the others begin to search for the missing couple, the only question is who will survive and what will be left of them?

“Texas Chainsaw” and “The Last House on the Left” were part of a genre of independent horror films in the 1970's, which really went out on a limb in their determination to shock. The seminal work here was Romero's “Night of the Living Dead”, with its image of the dead coming back to life to devour the living. Also, in more mainstream fare, there was Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs” about a mild-mannered professor who's driven to brutal acts to survive by an assault on his home by unruly locals, and not long after that was John Boorman’s “Deliverance” about four men whose wilderness idyll is brutally overturned by their torture and rape by a group of backwoods hillbillies. These three films formed the basics of what some critics call the 'Backwoods Brutality Cycle'. This mini-genre of films circle around the theme of an ordinary people forced to defend themselves by an assault that comes out of the blue without rhyme or reason; the sense of a home or a placid middle-class way of life at siege from forces of lawlessness beyond the door. These movies suggest a dividing line between civilized America in the cities, and the backwoods where people have become inbred, brutish and harbour a deep-seated resentment for all interlopers.

Like “Night of the Living Dead”, Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chainsaw” redefined horror by stripping it of every classical motive; the assaults coming without rhyme or reason. Leatherface isn't a monster of science or a demonic conjuration; he's even bereft of the cursory psychological explanations of the killers in psycho-thrillers in films like “Psycho” or “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane”. In this sense “Texas Chainsaw” operates not unlike the bird attacks in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”, the zombies in “Night of the Living Dead” or even the truck assault in Steven Spielberg’s “Duel”, where such attacks come stripped of all raison d’etre and in doing so evoke an undeniable existential anxiety. These are also films stripped of all classical expectations - there's no guarantee of a handsome hero coming to save the heroine, and no guarantee of a happy ending where Leatherface will be struck down by a lightning bolt. Indeed, as in “Night of the Living Dead”, not even being cast as the hero is any guarantee that anyone will survive the film. Equally, Hooper throws out all conventions of horror technique - there are no build-ups of suspense, and no edgy string underscoring as the characters enter the farmhouse. The brutal surprise of the attack on William Vail, with Leatherface simply appearing from behind a hidden door, slamming him on the forehead with a sledgehammer and leaving him there twitching while moments later Teri McGinn is thrown up on a meat hook, is something that's almost over before you're even aware of what's happening. As such, it always leaves the audience utterly startled, and is a brilliant example of the power this flick still has even today.

The movie is all-out and no holds barred horror, a full frontal dive into a naked assault on its central character. The half-hour long attack on Marilyn Burns, which consists of nothing on the soundtrack bar screams and the buzz of a chainsaw while the camera wildly careers in on extreme close-ups of screaming throats and wide-open eyeballs, has a jagged ripped-open intensity. You can literally feel Marilyn Burns’s sanity fraying at the assault. Hooper sets out to wear down the viewers nerves from the outset. Within the first five minutes the Hitchhiker appears out of nowhere, with Edwin Neal appearing unbalanced from the outset. He suddenly cuts his wrist with a razor, sets a photo on fire in the van, slashes crippled Paul Partain’s wrist before jumping out and running off. Bear in mind that this is only the first five minutes, and it has the effect of grinding an audience down in foreboding about what's yet to come. In addition, the killing of three characters one after the other only about a third of the way through, which leaves the viewer fearfully uneasy about what's in store for the remainder of the film.

It's also a picture that can make its amateurishness work for it, with the crude photography and editing succeeding in giving the flick an even more ragged and raw edge that a more professional production would've lost. On the downside though, even the most risilient genre fan would want some of the awful babyish gibbering and whimpering of Paul Partain’s performance to have ended on the cutting room floor.

Hooper also borrows from “Last House” by making an entirely untrue claim at the beginning that the film is based on events that happened in Texas. In truth this flick is only partly based on the exploits of Wisconsin necrophile and multiple murderer Ed Gein. The quite amazing interior decoration of the house from Bob Burns, and Leatherface with his mask of human skin, is quite clearly drawn from the story of Gein who built furniture out of bones and even wore human body parts. "Texas Chainsaw" was one of several flicks based on various elements of Gein's exploits. Others include “Psycho” and “The Silence of the Lambs", as well as the intriguing "Deranged” and the disappointing “Ed Gein”.

Overall, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is a horror classic that any discerning horror buff should see at least once. This picture looks and feels like a nightmare on celluloid, and as such when seen on the big screen it possesses an atmosphere quite unlike anything else. A brutal and nasty movie, this is an impossible film to like but very easy to admire thanks to its timeless power.

10 out of 10

Grim, dirty, unpleasant and impossible to shake off... one of the mmost important horror films of all time

"Hostel: Part 2" (2007)

Directed by Eli Roth
Review based upon the Sony Blu-Ray release

Narratively following on almost immediately from the climax of “Hostel”, writer and director Eli Roth brings us a sequel to one of the most talked about and controversial films of the past 5 years with the unsurprisingly titled “Hostel: Part 2”. But does this film fall victim to the usual laws of diminishing returns, or is it even more shocking than his original exploitation entry?

Beth (Lauren German) and Whitney (Bijou Phillips) are two students taking a break to study art in Rome during the middle of their European travels. After one of their classes they’re approached by still life model Stephanie (Jordan Ladd), who tells them of natural spas and cheap accommodation in Serbia. Changing their plans, they travel with Stephanie and fellow student Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) to the hostel she spoke of. But unknown to the three students, their lives are being sold to the highest bidder on the Internet through Elite Hunting, with Americans Stuart (Roger Bart) and Todd (Richard Burgi) winning the online auction. Waiting for the capture of their female prey, the two men debate what they’ll do once their twisted dream is made into a bloody reality. But will these girls really become the next victims of the Elite organisation? Do Stuart and Todd have what it takes to break the ultimate taboo? Or will the tables be turned once and for all?

With “Hostel: Part 2”, Roth returns to the same territory he did in Part 1, bringing back most of the supporting cast and expanding their roles so that we learn a great deal more about the back story which was only previously hinted at. This is a vastly superior flick in terms of narrative and plot layering, demonstrating that Roth isn’t only maturing as a filmmaker but that he’s also capable of tackling the misogynist criticism levelled at him from the earlier movie with sinister glee.

There is much more focus on the female characters in “Hostel: Part 2”, something which (especially when watched back-to-back with the original piece as intended) gives Roth’s concept considerably more mileage and depth than seemed possible in the first instalment. An even more crucial addition to the mix are the elements which examine the antagonists, and there’s some fascinating interplay here that builds to a surprising and shocking conclusion in the final twenty minutes. “Hostel: Part 2” is far more developed than its predecessor, making the characters much more sympathetic (although it should be noted that perhaps with one exception his women are also universally strong) and therefore adding decisively to the final impact.

Alongside these key improvements, this flick also manages to add even more shock value to the mix through some incredibly visceral and bloody set pieces which show Roth quite incredibly pushing the envelope even further than he did in Part 1. Watch out for the sequence within the Elite building that’s a pure and unabashed Argento homage, featuring candlelight, sexual gratification, a scythe and buckets of gore. Combine this with the conclusion which involves (quite literally) someone’s manhood, and it’s clear that “Hostel: Part 2” is even more outrageous than the first picture.

On a visual level this film maintains the gritty and grim feel of the first, adding (as before) to the disturbing impact of the story. Using a great deal of long shots to emphasise the isolation of the protagonists is a great example of how this entry is in many respects leagues above any of Roth’s other movies, suggesting a young director who’s steadily maturing with every horror entry he produces.

The cast are universally superb, the female leads coming across as far more believable than their male counterparts in both films. Extra kudos has to go to Lauren German as Beth, whose performance is the perfect antidote to the 70’s scream queens normally associated with this kind of material. The shift of Stuart’s character as he wrangles with the morality of his actions also makes for an interesting and vital subplot.

Horror sequels are rarely as good as the first flick, choosing instead to simply re-tread the same content with the hope of finding the same audience and box office returns as before. While “Hostel: Part 2” could be criticised for containing aspects of similarity to the first movie, it nevertheless tries to build on the intriguing concept by adding more depth as well as increasing the shock value. For this the film is to be applauded, creating a piece that shows growth in almost every area. Here’s a great example of a modern grindhouse picture that not only engages, but literally seizes the audience by the jugular and refuses to let go. At times even difficult to watch than “Hostel”, Part 2 is one of the best genre sequels in some time. If you enjoy this kind of filmmaking then don’t let this one pass you by, but if you thought the first one was a tough watch then you’d probably best avoid it. Roth is apparently planning to make this into a trilogy, so who knows what terrors he’s got planned next. Personally, I can’t wait to find out.

8 out of 10
A tense and bloody watch… thankfully not succumbing to the usual issues associated with rubbish horror sequels

"Hostel" (2005)

Directed by Eli Roth
Review based upon the Sony Blu-Ray release

When Eli Roth made “Cabin Fever” in 2002, it was pretty obvious that here was a director with a clear affiliation towards grindhouse movies; the kind that put everything on the screen and leave very little to the imagination. This is a writer and director who enjoys nothing more than pushing boundaries as well as the buttons of his audience. With his second feature “Hostel”, Roth has taken the groundwork he did in his first flick and taken it even further still.

The story concerns a group of three guys backpacking across Europe. We first meet extrovert American Paxton (Jay Hernandez), his close friend Josh (Derek Richardson), and their Icelandic travelling companion Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) as they arrive in Amsterdam to sample all manner of local sex and drugs. Whilst there they find themselves locked out of their hostel accommodation and meet up with Alex (Lubomir Bukovy), who tells them of a place in Slovakia where the women are both willing and plentiful. The three men change their plans and travel there the next day, staying in the hostel they were recommended. Alex seems to be right and things are going well until Oli disappears under mysterious circumstances. Paxton and Josh investigate only to discover a group known as Elite Hunting, where people pay large sums of money to kill and torture unsuspecting tourists just like them…

“Hostel” is one of the most extreme movies of the last 5 years. It’s a gore-hounds wet dream, featuring everything from decapitations to dismemberment and shows it in uncompromising detail. The special effects by KNB are outstanding, especially in the final scenes where we finally get to see what really goes on inside the Elite building.

But a horror film doesn’t rely on effects alone; in order to have an impact it must have realistic characters to carry the narrative. In writing his own screenplay, Roth does tend to rely on stereotypes (especially with the three leads, who could’ve been lifted from any American teen comedy), but this arguably makes the impact even more effective as most of the audience will be able to relate to them. Paxton is especially strong, carrying the film along its bloody path thanks to a solid performance by Jay Hernandez. The rest of the cast also perform well, even though the female characters are all pretty much incidental (something Roth would seek to rectify with “Hostel: Part 2” in 2007).

“Hostel” was massively criticised on release and branded by many British newspapers as ‘torture porn’, implying that the flick has little value other than to shock and horrify. This opinion may be valid to some viewers, but actually does the whole piece a great disservice. Certainly “Hostel” is designed to appal, but it also takes an uncompromising look at the value of human life and exposes the lengths people will go to for the ultimate thrill. In addition it poses a very key genre question; if you had to fight for your life would you be able to turn the tables to save yourself? Roth not only provides a clear visual answer here, but does so in harrowing fashion as the audience is forced to watch these characters descend into physical and psychological torment.

This picture is also a clear step up from “Cabin Fever”, possibly due to the involvement of Quentin Tarantino as Executive Producer. “Hostel” has great production values, and takes its time to slowly build up to the climax everyone is waiting for. Like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, here is a flick that actually does a great deal of its work through sound. The visuals may be brutal and nasty in places, but upon repeat viewings it’s very clear that Roth shows a lot less than you might think; most of the terror unfolds off screen until the final 25 minutes. This is why “Hostel” is disturbing to watch, as it encourages the audience to fill in the gaps using their own heads.

If taken as a typical exploitation feature,“Hostel” more than delivers and provides some incredibly solid shocks, even if the subtler scares of works like “Halloween” are totally absent. But this is hardly the point; Roth uses the same method that John McNaughton used in “Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer” by forcing the audience to watch exactly what the murderer sees in order to question their own morality. To look at the picture with this context in mind takes it well beyond the media frenzy of ‘torture porn’, and allows Roth’s flick to ask the questions it wants. It may not provide all the answers, but it certainly leaves an impression that’s very hard to shake off.

Overall, “Hostel” is a throwback to the heady days of the 1970s, and enables the director to throw everything he can at the screen without compromise. An occasionally nauseating watch, Eli Roth demonstrates great talent in a genre that he clearly adores. With his next effort “Hostel: Part 2” he would take the same concept in a different direction, and show a great deal of sophistication as well as an even greater ability to shock.

7.5 out of 10
Uncompromising, butual, vicious and honest… this is definitely not a movie for the squeamish, but it has a clear moral message that can’t be ignored

"The Shining" (1980)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Review based upon the Warner DVD release

At the time he made “The Shining”, Stanley Kubrick had a reputation as one of the most daring and extraordinary directors of his age. He’d constantly courted outrage and pushed the limits of good taste with works like “Lolita” about paedophilia; “Dr Strangelove or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” which turned nuclear war and the end of the world into a grotesque black comedy; and “A Clockwork Orange” which shocked everybody by choreographing rape and ultra-violence to classical music, supposedly inspiring real-life hooliganism. All of his works had been acclaimed for their directorial virtuoso and groundbreaking technical brilliance, most especially “2001: A Space Odyssey”, which is widely considered not only one of the best Science Fiction films ever made, but a landmark of cinema itself.

“The Shining” came at the time when Kubrick’s reputation was mellowing from brilliant young artist into middle age, and where stories of him as an eccentric recluse and a harsh and exacting control freak were beginning to emerge. This also became the point from which his projects took increasing longer times to be completed; between “The Shining” in 1980 and his death in 1999, Kubrick would only make a total of two other films, “Full Metal Jacket” and “Eyes Wide Shut”. Nevertheless, "The Shining" would be the director's only real foray into the horror genre, and one that’s rightly considered today to be an out-and-out classic.

The story of "The Shining" opens with writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) taking a job as winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the remote Colorado Mountains. He moves in along with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and son Danny (Danny Lloyd), in the hope that the isolation will cure his writer’s block. But as the weather isolates them, he descends into madness when the apparitions from the hotel’s past appear, imploring him to kill his family...

Despite everything, “The Shining” is one of the more divided films in Kubrick’s collection of work. It was a big hit, but received mixed reviews when it was originally released. Kubrick adapted a novel from Stephen King (in fact “The Shining” was only King’s third novel), and in either liking or hating “The Shining” audiences seem divided between whether they’re Kubrick or King fans. The Kubrick fans appreciate the master’s skill, but the King fans deplore Kubrick’s dumping of substantial parts of the story and the substitution of a more enigmatic, elliptical plot where things aren’t always clear. King himself has ambiguous feelings about the film, although denotes “The Shining” with a special asterisk in his list of Top 100 horror films in his genre study “Danse Macabre”.

Scrutinising "The Shining" carefully, there are some minor negative elements to consider. For instance, why Kubrick decided to buy the rights to the book at all is a bit of a mystery. He appears to have wanted to make something quite different from the more straightforward ghost story that King told. Many aspects of the novel remain, but only in a partial form that perhaps don’t quite make full sense on screen. In the book Jack is a recovering alcoholic, which the hotel comes to play upon in seducing his mind. But in the film we receive no explanation of his drinking problem, which makes Nicholson’s line “I’d give anything for a drink” (which is really the equivalent of someone idly wishing to sell their soul to the Devil) confusing to anyone unfamiliar with the book, and in one swipe could be seen to cut out all the underlying character tensions. Nor is Kubrick interested in the shining itself. In the book the hotel wanted the shining (Danny’s natural clairvoyant gifts), and sought to add his considerable power to its own. Again this is not clear in the film, with the shining being of almost no relevance to the story. As such, the scenes where Danny Lloyd uses a talking finger to demonstrate the shining could be seen as a little silly.

On the positive side, Kubrick has thankfully thrown out King’s menagerie of sinister hedge animals at the end of the story. This was decided upon as the picture was made well before the CGI revolution, and Kubrick believed the technical feasibility of creating such animals was beyond him. In their place he substitutes a brilliant and far better sustained climax, following a demented axe-wielding Jack Nicholson through a snowbound hedge maze with superb use of the Steadicam.

On screen “The Shining” is no longer a story about a haunted hotel; it's more one about writer’s block. Of all the themes in the book this was the one that Kubrick chose to bring out and amplify. Perhaps this is because writer’s block was clearly the issue closest to his own heart. Kubrick took years, sometimes decades, to make films. He spent 15 years on “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” and never completed it in his lifetime. It was seven years between “The Shining” and his next film “Full Metal Jacket”, and twelve years between “Full Metal Jacket” and “Eyes Wide Shut”. He was relentless in the pursuit of perfection, taking a world record 160 takes of one shot with Scatman Crothers in this film. You could maybe even draw a connection between Kubrick’s 160 takes of a single shot and the scene where Shelley Duvall finds Nicholson has written hundreds and hundreds of pages all saying “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Indeed, put a pair of glasses and a beard on Jack Nicholson in this movie, and he’d be a dead ringer for Kubrick himself.

Kubrick’s films all have an underlying sense of people encountering an insanely rational world; the cool and patient but murderous logic of HAL in “2001”, the Cold War political machine strangling in its own machinations in “Dr Strangelove”, the cruelty of the psychologists attempting to alter behaviour in “A Clockwork Orange”, the authoritarianism of a military boot camp exploding into violence in “Full Metal Jacket”, the innocent Tom Cruise stumbling out beyond the confines of his marriage and into a conspiracy in “Eyes Wide Shut”. Kubrick’s fear is that lunatics and madmen, who mouth the most insane sentiments with calm rationalism, are running the very systems we live in. In “The Shining” we see his vision of true horror as Kubrick’s sentiments are undoubtedly at their blackest. His vision of insanity unleashed is at its most malevolent in the scenes with a definitely out-of-control Nicholson running amok with an axe: “Honey, I’m home... I’ll huff and I’ll puff”.

As a horror film, Kubrick has made a concerted effort to take the haunted house story away from all Gothic associations to break convention. The hotel and corridors are brightly lit and ultra-modern instead of Gothic and shadowy, and there are none of the usual bumps in the night or busty heroines in night-gowns. Instead the film almost entirely consists of brooding ominousness and palpable tension. Few horror films loom with such a threatening sense of bad things on the verge of erupting. There’s a marvellously foreboding opening, with Kubrick’s camera serenely gliding through the air over the Colorado mountains and eventually closing in on Jack Nicholson’s tiny VW Beetle, all to the menacing thunder of Ligeti on the soundtrack.

Kubrick constantly maintains a sense of unease throughout - the appearances of the mystery twin girls, the never-explained vision of an elevator unleashing a river of blood (a single image that featured prominently in the promotional trailer), the echoing emptiness of the hotel and its giant main hall, the Steadicam shots prowling through the hallways at shin height following Danny’s tricycle, and the rather unsettling effect on the soundtrack as its wheels alternately rattle across wood and then find the deafening silence of carpeting.

When the director does eventually deliver his punches, they come with a real jolt. There’s a quite unearthly scene where a beautiful naked woman gets out of the bath and comes and kisses Nicholson, only for her to turn into a hideous old hag. There’s also the shock dispatch of Scatman Crothers with an axe in his chest.

Perhaps Kubrick’s main problem as a filmmaker was that he had a misanthrope’s view of the human condition, and was indifferent to ordinary human sympathy. The arguable failing of “The Shining” is that it lacks a sense of normality; everybody behaves rather strangely. Brilliant as he undeniably is, Nicholson did the Jack Nicholson thing of playing aspects of the same wild and crazy guy he did in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, something he pretty much continued for the rest of his career. Kubrick’s oversight was to let Nicholson lose his head and not rein him in a bit more. Where the character of Jack Torrance should have gone from normalcy to insanity, Nicholson starts off bonkers as even in the very first scene we see him behave very oddly in the job interview. Kubrick establishes no normality from the outset, so there’s no sense of an average man going over the edge. The horror in this film could've perhaps benefitted from an ordinary actor playing the part; imagine how much scarier it might've been if Jack Torrance had started out with someone like Dustin Hoffman or Martin Sheen playing him, with the performance working its way up from there to the full dementia that Nicholson unleashes.

The rest of the cast are equally brilliant, despite the fact that Shelley Duval spends most of her time perpetually on the verge of hysterics. The warmest character is Scatman Crothers - and where in the book King casts him as the cavalry arriving to save the day, Kubrick instead plays a black joke on the character, having him trek all the way through the snow only to get butchered the moment he arrives.

"The Shining" is a rare beast in horror, and one that should certainly be admired for Kubrick’s technical perfection. The photography is beautiful - there’s one gorgeous shot in the bar, showing a perfectly normal foreground and the background of an empty ballroom that suddenly becomes filled with a crowd all lit in sepia-tone. There’s also the breathtaking shot which flawlessly cuts from Nicholson looking down on the model of the maze to the tiny figures of Duvall and Lloyd walking through it as seen from above. The sets are also amazing; the giant-size hall and the interconnectedness of all the rooms were all built on a single soundstage, and the effect gives a colossal echoing emptiness. Kubrick often enjoyed making films for the sheer technical flourish that new techniques offered him, such as shooting by candlelight in “Barry Lyndon”, or the construction of giant-sized rotating sets for the simulation of artificial gravity in “2001”. “The Shining” offered him the opportunity to exploit the then just emerging Steadicam technology; the use of an ultra-light camera mounted on a frame that doesn't bounce during movement, thus creating a steady and fluid tracking shot. Kubrick employs the Steadicam with dazzling regard during the long sinister floor-level tracking shots following Danny riding his tricycle through the hotel, as well as Nicholson’s run through the maze.

"The Shining" is a modern masterpiece of both the horror genre and cinema itself. It may have some fundamental flaws, but this movie shows a true auteur at work through a piece that challenges the audience at almost every turn. It gives away little and leaves a great deal of unanswered psychological questions, something that most writers and directors are afraid to tackle. It's a lush and claustrophobic experience, accentuated by Kubrick’s insistence to shoot in 4:3 ratio instead of letterbox, meaning that each set had to have ceilings (especially evident in the tricycle sequences). One of the best movies of all time despite some minor gripes with performances and scripting, “The Shining” deserves its reputation wholeheartedly. This is truly a powerhouse of modern cinema, which should be watched over and over again.

10 out of 10
An incredibly powerful and terrifying work almost 30 years later... one that works on multiple levels in a way that only Kubrick could

"The Blair Witch Project" (1999)

Directed by Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez
Review based upon the Pathe DVD release

“The Blair Witch Project” is one of those remarkable success stories that sometimes occur in horror. It came at a time when people had despaired of the death of low-budget films at the cinema, supplanted by studio-driven audience-pleasing products. Moreover, it was the first time that a film shot on video became a major box-office success. “The Blair Witch Project” was the single entry at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival that had everybody talking. After being whipped up for release, it was one of those rare examples of a film being carried from nothing to a big box-office hit solely by word of mouth and the Internet (also helped by a few judicious reviews that called it one of the scariest movies ever made).

The film itself portrays video footage that was found left behind by a group of students who went missing in Burkittsville, Maryland in October, 1994. The three went tramping in the woods to make a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch, but they became lost in the woods and events brought out fear and tension within the group. They found themselves being haunted by strange noises in the night, and something mysterious left piled stones outside their tent...

It's a rare triumph that proves that occasionally genre audiences aren't the morons that the studios executives are constantly assuming they are. The most perfect example of this comes in comparing “Blair Witch” to “The Haunting” remake, which opened one week before “Blair Witch” went on nationwide release in America. “The Haunting” remade a classic of psychological horror, and replaced all the unseen horrors with a carnival ride of mindlessly applied CGI effects, on the assumption that there was no audience for psychological subtlety anymore. “Blair Witch” has none of the ghostly cherubs, angels of death or collapsing bedrooms from “The Haunting”. All it has are things as low key as a mound of stones piled outsider someone’s tent, and most overtly a series of eerie stick figure woodcarvings in the branches, yet it was regarded as the most terrifying scare show of 1999. In comparison “The Haunting” flopped after its opening week in the USA, while “Blair Witch”, showing on far less screens, completely outstripped “The Haunting” in terms of revenue and the number of attendees per screening.

One of the things that managed to keep audiences transfixed about “Blair Witch” is its clever replication of an amateur video documentary. Many early viewers left the cinema quite certain that what they'd seen was a real film. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez create the pseudo-amateur footage with a remarkable degree of skill and assurance (cleverly making the very most of low budget resources).

The three actors (whose characters all bear the same names as the actors) do an extraordinary job. This is a film lacking in any of the cliché horror reactions, and a classic example of subversion. One scene which pointedly punctuates the insistence that this isn't a generic horror film is where Josh turns the camera on Heather, taunting her about her ambition to be a moviemaker whilst saying what would be happening if they were in a conventional horror movie. The scenes where the three key players are gradually broken down contain emotional rawness, and a realism that you would never see in your average stalker movie. Take for instance Heather’s hysteria to find the same stream only to realize that they have just travelled in a circle, or her outburst at finding that Mike has kicked the map away. Indeed, far more so than any psychological ghost story, this is a study in the psychological pressures of a group lost in the wilderness.

For all the labels the film was given, the actual number of scares is not really that many; it's more about the group’s reaction to the tension and fear. There's a terrifying scene at the end where Heather turns the camera on herself and tearfully narrates a goodbye letter, fully expecting to die. Part of the reason for the realism of the film is that it's the real thing - the directors filmed in the wild, and included tactics like running up and spooking cast members during the night and filming the resulting footage.

Not a great deal is ever explained about what's happening, and the ending seems to come rather abruptly, but is nevertheless incredibly powerful and affecting. The film remains a truly uniquely original work, and one that's all the more effective for venturing into an almost forgotten realm of unseen horrors.

Following the film’s release, there was a great deal of debate over whether the piece was as truly original and visionary as had been initially suggested. “The Last Broadcast”, a film that'd been shot and edited digitally, pre-dates “Blair Witch” and deals with similar themes as it's constructed in a mock-documentary style. The narrative also involves a group of missing hikers, who in this movie are investigating the myth of the monster known as the Jersey Devil. The directors of “The Last Broadcast”, Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler claimed that “Blair Witch” copied many of their ideas. Whilst there may appear to be several similarities, “The Last Broadcast” never creates the air of realism that “Blair Witch” does so effectively. It has a rather different agenda, with the finale suggesting that it was not the Jersey Devil that was responsible for the disappearances of the protagonists, but something far more human. Myrick and Sanchez always maintained that they'd never heard of “The Last Broadcast” prior to completing “Blair Witch”, and it is hard to disagree with them based on the evidence observed when comparing the two pieces.

Regardless of this fact, "The Blair Witch Project" was one of the most influential horror flicks of the past 10 years. Almost solely responsible for starting an avalanche of imitators, this picture stands alone in terms of it's impact and originality. A very unsettling and disturbing experience, enhanced by the clear realism of the situation as well as some superb performances from Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Mike Williams, "Blair Witch" has never been bettered. A low-budget classic that deserves it's status as the most successful independent horror film of all time. Thoroughly recommended.

8.5 out of 10
The starting point for all horror mockumentaries... often imitated, never bettered

"The Midnight Meat Train" (2008)

Directed by Ryuehi Kitamura
Review based upon the Lionsgate Blu-Ray release

Adapted from the short story of the same name by Clive Barker, “The Midnight Meat Train” arrives direct to DVD in the UK after a limited theatrical release in the US. The first American movie by Japanese director Ryuehi Kitamura (who was responsible for the fantastic zombie flick “Versus”) promises to be the perfect marriage of creative minds, but does this work manage to live up to such high expectations?

Leon Kaufmann (Bradley Cooper) is a struggling photographer, living with his waitress girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb) while looking for his big break. Acting on the advice of artist Susan Hoff (Brooke Shields), Leon starts to look for more extreme visions of New York at night. After preventing a mugging of a model on the subway, Leon sees the woman get onto a train safely, only to read about her disappearance in the newspaper the next day. The next night Leon spies the strange figure of Mahogany (Vinnie Jones) leaving the subway and becomes convinced that this man is somehow linked to the girl’s disappearance. Leon sets out to discover the truth, realising that Mahogany is a butcher with a terrifying secret, threatening the lives of everyone around him. But what is it that lies hidden in the depths of New York?

Clive Barker is a distinctive writer, whose filmic adaptations usually lack the visual flair associated with his distinctive literary style unless (as with “Hellraiser”) he adapts his own ideas. Indeed, to date only “Candyman” stands as an accurate interpretation of the author’s work by another creative force. Yet with “The Midnight Meat Train”, Barker’s style and tone is evident in almost every frame, ensuring a thoroughly accurate descent into the darkness of his psyche. The screenplay by Jeff Buhler is pitch perfect, delivering believable characters whose transition is convincing at all times. In addition he creates some impressive set pieces to flesh out the brevity of the original short story.

Most impressive of all is the direction by Kitamura, who unlike his Japanese contemporaries Hideo Nikata and Takashi Shimizu doesn’t dilute his visual style to suit the transatlantic crossing. “The Midnight Meat Train” looks fantastic, and is very close to the aesthetics of the original “Hellraiser”; all bleached colours, extreme environments and incredible amounts of violence. Kitamura proves himself a technical expert on many occasions, the camera flying all over the place as well as in fluid 360-degree twists and turns. The most impressive moment in the whole picture occurs when a woman is attacked on a subway train, the shot flipping effortlessly to POV images as her head is severed, gazing upon the remains of her own body.

The cast are very strong indeed, especially Bradley Cooper as the main protagonist who carries the film’s transition from daylight to darkness with conviction. Cooper even looks like a young Clive Barker at points, which gives the picture an interesting angle for those seeking additional meaning. Most surprising of all is Vinnie Jones as Mahogany, who only has a single line of dialogue at the very end of the flick but is truly a terrifying presence throughout the entire running time.

As previously mentioned, “The Midnight Meat Train” certainly doesn’t skimp on the violence factor, being fully loaded with typical Barker imagery such as hooks through ankles, eyes being gouged out and bodies hacked to shreds. The effects are well handled overall, but the occasional use of CGI is a little jarring when it makes an appearance.

As usual with a story by Clive Barker, the plot focuses on the slow psychological unravelling of the main character, and the conclusion of this film is as shocking as we’ve come to expect. “The Midnight Meat Train” delivers the vision of the horror author with aplomb, but most importantly this is a genre entry that has incredible style thanks to the technical wizardry of director Kitamura. Only a foreigner like this Japanese auteur could have possible given New York such a desperately unpleasant and otherworldly feel, something he must be applauded for.

“The Midnight Meat Train” is the best Clive Barker adaptation since “Candyman”, and a tour-de-force for Ryuehi Kitamura. Dark, brutal, vicious and engrossing, this is a picture that thoroughly deserved to have a wide theatrical release in the UK instead of merely being shoved out onto DVD. This requires a strong constitution for sure, but the talent demonstrated both on and off camera makes this an essential view for any discerning genre fan. Recommend this to everyone you know to ensure its reputation as one of the most underrated horror movies of the year continues to grow, as it more than deserves the title.

9 out of 10
A gore-filled powerhouse of a movie, technically brilliant and soaked in atmosphere… the best Barker adaptation in over 15 years

"Halloween" (1978)

Directed by John Carpenter
Review based upon the Anchor Bay Blu-Ray release

In 1974 director John Carpenter emerged with “Dark Star”, made while he was still only a student, which was a hilarious take on the whole 'boldly going' space exploration of Star Trek. Carpenter then spent his time writing various scripts - most notably the thriller “The Eyes of Laura Mars”. He then made “Assault on Precinct 13”, a solid and gratifying thriller about a group of cops and prisoners holed in a police station against marauding street gangs. While “Assault” wasn’t a major financial success, it gained Carpenter critical acclaim as a director. “Halloween” was his next film, and a massive success that consolidated his reputation. It was made on a measly $320,000 budget and shot in 21 days, but nevertheless it became one of the most successful low budget films ever made. Also, along with “Friday the 13th”, it started off the entire slasher craze of the 1980's.

Put simply, Michael Myers is placed in an asylum at the age of six after murdering his sister. Seventeen years later he makes his escape. Pursued by his psychologist Dr Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), he returns to his hometown of Haddonfield on Halloween night, where he stalks three babysitters including Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).

Frankly the film has little in the way of plot - it almost entirely consists of stalking scenes. Carpenter throws in uncanny you-thought-he-was-somewhere-else moments at the most unexpected points. Michael Myers becomes sort of like a jack-in-the-box pop-up effect. He’s always behind people and then gone when they turn around. We are kept on breathless edge, always waiting for something to pop around the edge of the frame. Carpenter perpetually surprises us, luring us with red herrings and then jolting us when we least expect it. The film is a classic of peripheral misdirection - there are few other films which seem to have so much occur in the background or edge of the frame as in here. A lot of films copied these jumps and tactics, but few of them conduct it with the subtlety and finesse that Carpenter does.

The opening shot of "Halloween" is one of the most classically stylish openings in any horror film; it’s a single Panaglide sequence shot from Michael’s point-of-view, circling the house, pulling a Halloween mask over the lens as he enters and then stabbing his sister. The single shot is finally broken, with Carpenter pulling back as the parents arrive and the mask is removed to reveal with considerable shock a six-year old boy’s face beneath.

Some of Carpenter’s other images are so weird and unearthly the film almost takes on supernatural overtones - like the appearance of Michael Myers before P.J. Soles wearing a sheet and her boyfriend’s glasses over his head, or of Nancy Loomis’s body lying on a bed with a headstone, lit up by a flickering Halloween pumpkin placed above it. Carpenter, who also scores most of his films, creates the film’s memorable musical motif, which adds great eerie atmosphere. It is worth noting that Carpenter claims the music was heavily influenced by the synthesized score (composed by Goblin) that was used in the Dario Argento film “Suspiria”.

The film is also filled with a lot of dark irony, like the moments where the very car that Pleasence is pursuing passes by unnoticed several times when his back is turned, and the child who attempts to scare another girl only to end up being scared himself. There's also the wonderfully sardonic scene where P.J. Soles is being strangled, and her noises are merely taken as another of her prank phone calls by Curtis, who retorts “Are you fooling me? I’ll kill you if this is a joke”.

There is a certain conservative morality that lurks underneath the film too. For one, there is Loomis’s objectification of Michael Myers as evil. “I realized what lived behind that boys eyes was purely and simply evil”, Pleasance says. Later he refers to Michael Myers as having “ ... an emotionless face, the Devil’s eyes”. Alas, evil is the kind of term that any self-respecting psychiatrist tends to avoid as it's a moral term and serves no real use in being able to explain behaviour. It's one that perhaps inadvertently makes Loomis into something of a crackpot as far as psychiatrists go, a characterization that became much more evident in the later sequels. But it also shows the increasing trend in psycho-thriller movies (subsequent entries such as “The Silence of the Lambs”, “Se7en” and “8MM” all being good examples) in seeing psychopathic behaviour not in terms of behavioural motivations but rather in moral terms, as being entirely on the other side of a dividing line that is removed from normal human behaviour.

This was the first slasher film to set up elements copied by “Friday the 13th” and it’s imitators, of teenagers being punished for partying, drinking, taking drugs, being practical jokers, but most of all for having sex. The victims here are sexually active girls, and moreover the Nancy Loomis and particularly P.J. Soles characters are characterized as vain and despicable so that they almost seem to deserve their fates. Of course, Curtis was the first of the heroines who would survive, and it is implied because she remains chaste. She is characterized as being innocent, shy and bookish. Her bedroom is dressed, not as any teenage girl’s might be, with posters of pop stars and hunks, but in conservative art prints and tennis rackets. Her worries are not about leaving her boyfriend behind, but her school books. The most she ever strays across the line is to smoke a joint, and when she does she spends more time worrying about the lingering smell. In the documentary “The American Nightmare” in 2000, Carpenter discussed the making of Halloween, and offered up the wittily perceptive comment “I didn’t mean to put an end to the Sexual Revolution. For that I deeply apologize”.

The film also contains many genre references. “The Thing from Another World”, which Carpenter would later remake as “The Thing” in 1982, at one point appears on a TV. Donald Pleasence’s psychiatrist is named Sam Loomis - which was also the name of the character Marion Crane’s boyfriend in “Psycho”. Of course, there are also all sorts of echoes of “Psycho” created in the casting of Jamie Lee Curtis, who is the daughter of Janet Leigh who played Marion Crane, the original slasher movie victim, in that infamous shower scene.

Despite the many sequels none of them come anywhere near generating the eerie suspense that the first film does, and merely offer up more blood and novelty killing set-pieces. This is why “Halloween” remains a classic, while the others are merely imitators.

10 out of 10
The most important slasher movie ever made... technically and stylistically brilliant with incredible tension and a great payoff

"Hellraiser" (1987)

Directed by Clive Barker
Review based upon the US Anchor Bay DVD release

“I have seen the future of horror and its name is Clive Barker”, the film’s trailer quoted Stephen King as saying. At the time Clive Barker was a rising star, having in a very short while emerged first as a playwright (“Frankenstein in Love” and “The History of the Devil”), had produced one novel (“The Damnation Game” in 1985), and two screenplays that made for mediocre films – “Underworld” and “Rawhead Rex”. But it was Barker’s six-volume collection of short stories and novellas, “The Books of Blood” (published between 1984 and 1985), that garnered him the most critical attention. Then, with the success of “Hellraiser”, Barker became a cult name.

“Hellraiser” was one of those rare occasions when a production company had gambled a million dollar budget on a then unproven director. It just so happened that the gamble was on Clive Barker. The results far exceeded expectation, and “Hellraiser” not only became a cult hit but spawned many sequels (seven in total, with a remake currently in production), and a whole stack of the requisite merchandise. Although his star has faded now, for a while Barker really did seem to be the future of cinematic horror. Certainly his brand of dark nihilistic no-holds-barred viscera topped the crest of the new wave of horror fiction.

The story concerns Larry Cotton (Andrew Robinson) and his wife Julia (Clare Higgins), who move into his family home in England only to find it recently abandoned by Larry’s brother Frank (Sean Chapman), a petty criminal. However Frank had opened up a puzzle box which summoned The Cenobites, demons who offer ultimate pleasure through ultimate pain, and had been torn apart by them. When blood from a cut on Larry’s hand drips onto the floor in the attic, it manages to partially revive Frank’s remains underneath the floorboards. Gaining the aid of Julia, with whom he once had an affair that was unknown to Larry, Frank gets her to lure men to the house during the daytime on the promise of sex, so that he can devour their bodies in order to reconstitute his skin.

Unlike other contemporary horror filmmakers and writers such as David Cronenberg or Stephen King, Barker’s work is rooted in a Medieval Gothic universe. Like Cronenberg, flesh for Barker is a battleground. In Cronenberg’s work it is like a warring ground between desire and technology, with protagonists always on the cusp of transforming into a fusion of the two. But science never enters the universe of Barker - his is a universe of perverse beauty and ornate splendour filled with demons, angels and deformities. Barker’s names and places always evoke something Medieval and quasi-religious, with book titles like “Cabal”, “Sacrament”, and “Galilee”. In “Hellraiser” for instance, the Cenobites have been named after a 17th Century monastic order. In contrast to Cronenberg, flesh for Barker is not a laboratory of transformation but more akin to a torturer’s rack. Barker’s protagonists live in perpetual sense of Gothic ecstatic dread, where their relationship to the monstrous is invariably a sadomasochistic one – one in which they and their flesh play a role of submissiveness to the demon, and the exquisitely dreadful tortures and mutilations it will inflict upon them.

”Hellraiser” is worth comparing to its contemporary “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. Both “Hellraiser” and “Elm Street” chart similar terrains, featuring young female teen protagonists (Heather Lagenkamp and Ashley Laurence even look remarkably similar) and a middle-class suburban family environment, which is invaded by monstrous beings from alternate realities (dreams in “Elm Street” and Hell here, which is perceived as an alternate dimension of sorts). “Elm Street” essentially features middle-class America being attacked by a force of guilt literally emerging out of its repressed subconsciousness. “Hellraiser” on the other hand, takes a similar premise and plants it firmly in England. For both “Elm Street” and “Hellraiser” there are hidden secrets beneath the veneer of middle-class suburbia and nuclear family life. In reality, the mid 80's was a period where those in government were using the myth of middle-class family life and squeaky-clean morality as a call for a return to decency and for greater censorship. The era produced a number of films that subversively speared family values, such as “Gremlins” with its gleeful overturning of smalltown suburbia; “Blue Velvet”, a film very similar to “Hellraiser” with its vision of a college kid leaving suburbia and discovering hidden sadomasochistic desires; and “The Stepfather”, where a man’s desire to find the perfect family had him slaughtering all imperfect contenders. But where “Elm Street” sticks to black-and-white divisions and creates no sympathy for its bogeyman, “Hellraiser” muddles the moral line in fascinating ways. Not far beneath a thinly drawn picture of family life (Barker doesn’t really concern himself with drawing his human characters, and all the life they have is given to them by the actors), is a torrid cesspool of infidelity and unfulfilled desire. Barker taps into this cesspit of forbidden territory, and links it to the Christian notion of sin. But then he ingeniously subverts it; Hell rather than being a pit of damnation is a baroque Gothic sadomasochistic dungeon, where the protagonists seem to welcome as much as dread torture, dismemberment and damnation.

The images in the film have a perverse beauty. The Cenobites are genuinely original creations - they all come in half-shadow, their pale bodies in black leather with sewn-up wounds, with either nails impaled through the head or body piercings. One can't argue with the intensity of images like the shot in the opening moments, which pans through a room of hanging chains and torture instruments to watch as one of the Cenobites pieces together the flayed sections of Chapman’s face on the floor. There is also the daringly blasphemous moment of symbolism (which codifies Barker’s inversion of damnation and torture as perversely pleasurable) where Andrew Robinson gives an ecstatic sigh “Jesus wept” as he is torn apart by hooks.

Barker is operating on a low budget, but does miracles with it. The film is economically restricted to the single location of a dreary suburban home for the most part. The effects work of the Image Animation group is a remarkable credit to the limited budget - particularly stunning is the sequence where Chapman’s body is reconstituted from slime. Barker’s handling of actors is not the best, nor would it really improve with subsequent films, but he has a good cast on hand in young Ashley Laurence, Andrew Robinson who makes a fine mid-film transformation, and especially the cold-blooded Clare Higgins. Also, before the sequels overworked it, Christopher Young creates a memorably sepulchral score.

A modern British genre classic that Barker would unfortunately never better, "Hellraiser" is a film that really stands the test of time. A gruesome and thought-provoking film, this is one of the best genre pieces of the 1980's, and one which the multitude of sequels would never be able to match.

9.5 out of 10
One of the most visual and impressive British horror films of all time... one that still has power even today

"The Uninvited" (2009)

Directed by The Guard Brothers
Review based upon a DVD preview screening in 2009

It’s generally quite rare when a remake of a horror film manages to surpass the original. This is especially true when Hollywood attempts to focus on works from either Europe or Asia, as in most cases the nature of the threat is intrinsically linked to that culture and therefore by default loses some of it’s effectiveness in translation. There have been exceptions, however; “The Grudge” was a better film due to the more linear approach taken with the narrative, and even “The Ring” was able to take the central conceit and retain the key scare factor. “The Uninvited” is an American remake of the Korean horror movie “A Tale Of Two Sisters”, which was a massive international hit in 2001. Does this remake manage to improve on the original flick?

“The Uninvited” focuses on Anna (Emily Browning), who as the film opens is being held in a psychiatric facility after attempting suicide. She is plagued by nightmarish visions of events leading up to the death of her terminally ill mother in a fire at the family home, seemingly unable to remember what drove her to the edge of insanity. Released on her doctor’s recommendation, she returns home to be reunited with her father Stephen (David Strathairn) and sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel). During her incarceration, Stephen has started a relationship with her mother’s former nurse Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), and although unhappy about this the sisters attempt to put on a brave face for the sake of their father. But all is not as it seems: the ghosts of her mother and of several mysterious children visit Anna to tell her the truth about what really happened that fateful night, and as she starts to piece together the story everything seems to point to foul play. But is anyone really responsible for the murder of Anna’s mother? Is Rachel all she really seems to be? And will Anna be able to cope with the truth?

The original Korean flick “A Tale Of Two Sisters” had some interesting ideas but was fundamentally flawed in the same way that the original Asian “The Grudge” was before it. Both of these contained the now frequently imitated ghostly imagery, but fell short with a confusing storyline and shallow characterisation. With “The Uninvited”, writers Craig Rosenberg, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard take the key elements of the original and weave it into a much more believable narrative that tackle supernatural themes of loss, fear and suspicion within a plausible scenario. Closely resembling aspects of “The Grudge” and even “The Sixth Sense”, the plot builds slowly and throws in a number of red herrings to second-guess the audience and make the final twist a genuine surprise.

Directors Charles and Thomas Guard (credited here as The Guard Brothers) make their feature debut, bringing a wonderful eye for detail that expands the scope of the whole picture. The visuals are rich and lush, with bright vibrant colours during day scenes and chokingly claustrophobic darkness during the night sequences.

The ensemble cast is very impressive, Emily Browning in her first lead role since the children’s “Lemony Snicket” movie a clear standout. Her range is excellent, putting across all facets of the complex Anna to make her character transformation entirely believable. Elizabeth Banks also deserves praise for her unnerving portrayal of girlfriend Rachel.

“The Uninvited” is a creepy horror film that contains no on-screen violence, but still manages to jangle audience nerves through slow building tension and some well handled jump scares. Even though the ghostly visions could easily come from any Japanese or Korean genre flick, they are very underused here, which makes their impact even more affecting.

Put simply, this is a great example of not only a superb remake, but most importantly a fantastic ghost story that requires the viewer to experience the fear while using their brains. “The Uninvited” is an example of the kind of subtle chiller that Hollywood could have made too predictable, but thanks to some brilliant direction, writing and performances this picture works on multiple levels and is genuinely surprising at points. Sure, we might’ve seen it all before, but this is a class act that bodes well for the futures of all those concerned.

8 out of 10
A creepily effective remake that works so much better than the original… and that’s a recommendation by itself