by Oscar O’Sullivan

Monday – An American Werewolf in London

Stick to the road, stay off the moors. Simple instructions, but do our heroes follow them? Of course not. Cue two fatalities and one new werewolf. An American Werewolf in London is steeped in the tropes and mythology of werewolf films without feeling like a winking parody. The protagonist even directly references The Wolf Man, although being an aware-wolf doesn’t make being a werewolf any easier for him. Just look at the film’s special effects centrepiece, where the full moon causes David to transform – he thrashes and screams in helpless agony as his bones crack and twist, his flesh warps, proportions pushed to ludicrous limits as man becomes beast. While the film has other impressive make-up work and moments of horror, this extended transformation is the highlight and turning point of the whole story – the slow pace and generally relaxed tone leading up to it makes it all the more shocking, it’s impact on the remaining story creates a grim, downbeat tone that carries through to the very end. It really does feel like a classic Universal Monster movie made with more modern techniques – complete with a story that verges on being too flat and simplistic, but doesn’t overstay its welcome. 8/10

Tuesday – Poltergeist

Fittingly for a film about visitors from beyond the grave, Poltergeist has long been haunted by a single question – did Steven Spielberg secretly direct it? If he did, it would be in his top 5. While his influence as producer and writer is undeniably on display, it’s Tobe Hooper’s name on the film, and he’s clearly put his own pulpy spin on a classically Spielberg story of a family threatened by a strange outside force. Emphasis on threat – there’s a real sense of danger to everything that happens to the Freelings, both physically and mentally. The schmaltzy suburban idyll of the opening makes sense when you realise that it exists as a contrast to how dark and deranged the story will become, with walking trees, captured children, melted faces, portals to hell and a scene involving real human remains, because it was just easier for the crew to dig up some real stiffs instead of crafting a crummy prop. The emotional through-line of the family dynamic makes this much more than a simple scarefest, with characters that you come to care for deeply, and thus fear for deeply too. All this is bumped up to the level of perfection by the superlatively good special effects work, seamlessly transforming the house into a nightmare world of floating objects and luminous apparitions. A stone-cold horror classic for the whole family. 10/10.

Wednesday – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

Aside from supposedly not directing Poltergeist, Tobe Hooper is best known for directing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Like all great slasher films, it inspired a raft of sequels, but while most of these franchises immediately hand off duties to a lesser director, Hooper took on the immediate sequel himself. The resulting film isn’t trying to live up to the original, but rather taking the core ideas of madness and hidden evil in a new, more comedic direction. It’s a bold move that largely pays off, creating an undeniably fun adventure where Leatherface falls in love and Dennis Hopper screams about the wrath of God while attacking wooden beams with a chainsaw. The villains of the piece have graduated from luring hitchhikers in for family dinner, now running a bona-fide culinary business out of their subterranean lair, earning adoration and accolades for serving up human chilli to the unsuspecting public. While the new direction largely loses the genuine fear factor of the original, it still has moments of raw terror, and it looks fantastic for a cheapo sequel. I’ve watched a lot of shitty slashers in my time, so trust me when I say this is one of the best. 9/10.

Thursday – Misery

Ahead of its time in the way it portrays toxic fandom – the unbearable entitlement that people feel towards the stories they love and, more dangerously, the people who made those stories. When Nurse Wilkes storms in screaming about how her favourite author can’t kill off his famous creation, the language she uses is possessive, Paul’s own feelings on the matter irrelevant. You’ve surely heard of the literary concept of ‘Death of the Author’ – rarely has it been quite so literal. Crippled and isolated with his number one fan, James Caan’s discomfort with the role perfectly sells Paul Sheldon’s desperation to escape, with his increasingly ingenious attempts for freedom always failing at the final hurdle. This rhythm of tension and release is thriller 101 and perfectly executed here, creating a story that draws you in even if you already knew the broad strokes of how it goes. Since so much of the film takes place in an enclosed space, the camera is put to work keeping things visually dynamic, with the use of high and low angles especially enhancing the tangibility of the power imbalance, escalating in tandem with the escalation of Nurse Wilkes’ insanity. Kathy Bates earns that Oscar, playing the character not just as a psycho, but as a person – she’s depressed, she gets angry, she can even be kind right after she’s desperately cruel. It’s impossible not to feel some small modicum of sympathy for her, even as her sanity deteriorates and her actions go beyond the level of merely threatening. It’s a classic for a reason. 9/10.

Friday – Barton Fink

A film about writer’s block borne from writer’s block, Barton Fink really does feel like it follows the driving principle of ‘just keep writing and figure out where we’re going later.’ The fourth feature from the Coen Brothers, the pressures that torment Barton are no doubt inspired by their own experiences breaking into Hollywood – a sensitive and principled artist realising that studio bigwigs aren’t interested in the stories he wants to tell, but in using him to sell the same old stories they’ve always peddled. Interestingly, Barton isn’t made out to be a righteous hero – he’s condescending about his passions but unable to convincingly stand up for himself, ultimately useless as both an artist and a workman. He claims to be writing for ‘the common man’, but he’s profoundly uncomfortable in the presence of the genuine article, getting off to a very rocky start with new neighbour John Goodman. As great as John Turturro is in the title role, Goodman steals the show as the superbly warm and outgoing insurance salesman Charlie Meadows. We may receive him at first the same way Barton does, as an overly familiar annoyance causing hassle and havoc, but his openness and genuine charm win over Barton, to the point that he’s distraught at the idea of Charlie leaving after only a few days. It’s a beautiful friendship and the only thing in Barton’s new Hollywood life that seems to be going well – so of course it’s not quite what it seems. To spoil what happens in the film’s back half would be a disservice to the absurd confidence of veering off into such a bizarre direction, an offbeat but straightforward story morphed into a Faustian nightmare. It’s the zone that the Coens have always been at their best in, the thin border between mundanity and absurdity, the ridiculous and the sublime. 9/10.

Saturday – Lost Highway

Borderline inscrutable. 9/10.