Eyes of my Mother

And this week's Friday night movie has been... The Eyes of My Mother!

Original image located here. Accessed 30th October 2020

Behold: the final entrant in this year's clutch of October horror movies.
Now in my view, there are two kinds of horror movies: There's those with the jump scares and there are those that rely on mood and a creeping dread.
Guess which type i find myself gravitating towards.

And in the terms of creating mood, this movie has it in spades. The black and white imagery is effective and use of atmosphere, quiet, and a slow build up prove to be the most potent things going for this movie.
Granted there are moments that don't work (ie, the abrupt plot developments, the use of torture, a middle section which seems to lag and the vibe of this movie being the bastard lovechild between a horror movie and an art-house movie) but as a depiction of trauma, loneliness, being cut off form the real world and being warped a young age, when this movie hits, it knocks it out of the park.

The Bride of Frankenstein

And this week's Friday night movie has been... The Bride of Frankenstein!

Original image located here. Accessed 23rd October 2020

Last year, in October, i watched the original Frankenstein. So it is fitting that I would see the sequel this year.

Seeing as the Monster, and it's sympathetic portrayal at the hands of Boris Karloff, was such a selling point in the previous movie, it would make sense for it to be expanded upon in the sequel. As such, the monster gets to speak, learn some basic concepts and undergoes a quest for companionship and acceptance - all with the pathos that powered the engine of the previous movie.
In fact much of the movie is shining example of doing a sequel: It takes the original and expands it. What is shown here is a combination of the familiar and the new - which is a trickier balancing act than one would think. The use of humour is a bit strange and threatens to derail the film but once again, it's the atmosphere, the use of horror and the monster itself that makes this movie work.

 As for the Bride herself, she is a remarkable creation: The mummified body, the freaky hair, the bird-like movements and the ear-piercing shriek. And what is most astonishing is that she makes an impact even with the most limited of screen-time.

Braindead

And this week's Friday night movie has been... Braindead (Dead Alive)!

Original image located here. Accessed 16th October 2020

Like most of the world, I only knew of Kiwi director Peter Jackson through the Lord of the Rings trilogy. So it is somewhat inevitable that I would eventually take a trip to the low budget horror movies that Jackson was making before he struck gold with bringing Middle-Earth to the screen.

I have previously stated that I'm not a fan of slasher movies because they are populated with idiots - but saying that only misses the point. Because the whole point of slasher movies, and by extension it's cousin-in-horror the zombie movie, is seeing HOW the hapless fools on screen get taken out. And it is to this end that Braindead succeeds: The kills are indeed (and I can't believe i am typing this out) creative, bloody, gruesome and hilarious - and often all at once.
So there is certainly is a lot going for this movie with it's ingenious special effects, bonkers model design, pitch-black humor and enough blood to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool (apparently much of Jackson's pre-Lord of the Rings movies are a lot like this).
But personally, this movie strikes me as someone trying to remake Psycho but instead opted to do it drunk. And is all the better for it.

The Fiend Without a Face

And this week's Friday night movie has been... The Fiend Without a Face!

Original image located here. Accessed 9th October 2020

It may be a tradition to watch some horror movies during October but that doesn't mean there isn't any room for some schlock.

Last week I made mention that Night of the Living Dead invented the modern horror movie. Well, it would appear that this was the type of thing it was moving away from.
This movie is pretty much a product of it's time (the 1950s): Alien invaders, distrust of science, wonky special effects, fears of the atomic age, Cold War paranoia and glorification of the military.
Such aspects may be laughable now (particularly the special effects) but I give this movie credit: It's got quite a bloody climax that I didn't think movies of that time were capable of.

Night of the Living Dead

And this week's Friday night movie has been... Night of the Living Dead!

Original image located here. Accessed 2nd October 2020

Well it's become something of a tradition with this series that October is a month spent wholly committed to watching horror movies. And this year, we're kicking off the year's run with a swing for the fences: A movie that a launched a thousand zombie tropes.

I have spoken previously how intimidating it can be encountering a movie that stated a whole lotta trends: In such cases, the lessons this movie gave have been used and replicated so many times that to go back to the source can leave it with having less bite than it should have.
So is this movie dated? Yes. Is it clearly shot on the cheap? Of course. Does it still pack a punch over half a century later? I do believe it does. Stunning lightening, chilling atmosphere and being done straight-faced all add up to deliver a striking (and gory) whole.
Also of note is that this movie truly functions as the bridge between the horror movies of the pre-mid-sixties and the more modern horrors movies. Here the rules got re-written and have been studied extensively since.
There is a part of me that would say that this movie should not have the punch it does, given the passage of time and a horde of imitators that emerged in it's wake but somehow, it still does so.