7 Days of Halloween: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Mr. Burns of The Simpsons has a simple command to "release the hounds," and it could have its origin in The Hound of the Baskervilles, the 1959 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's third Sherlock Holmes novel, directed by Terence Fischer, which starts with an aristocrat sending loose his fiendish hounds to attack other human beings. From there, the movie is an aristocratic back-and-forth whodunit featuring a diabolical hound of hell, summoned to forever haunt the Baskervilles family, and of course, it features the most famous English detective in history trying to figure out who--or what--is really causing all this mayhem.

Hugo Baskervilles (David Oxley), a cruel aristocrat, was the Gaston before there was Gaston. This guy is horrifyingly cruel to his servants, one of whom he nearly kills and another (the first servant's daughter) he stabs in the heart, just before he appears to be destroyed by some kind of terrible beast. Fast forward to the early 20th century, where Dr. Mortimer (Francis de Wolff) is reading to Detective Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Dr. Watson (Andre Morell) the spooky legend of the curse, but being men of science, Holmes and Watson are naturally skeptical. They do, however, agree to investigate. It's here where we meet the last of the Baskervilles, Sir Henry, played by the late, great Sir Christopher Lee, who is made up to be more handsome and a lot less grotesque than his previous outings with his friend Cushing at Hammer; his nice suits replace the rotting flesh and attire of Frankenstein's creature.

Because Henry's uncle, Sir Charles, has been killed mysteriously, Sir Henry is summoned from Johannesburg to run Baskervilles Hall in England. He, like his uncle, suffers from a heart problem, and when a tarantula is found in Henry's boot--a tarantula that could easily kill a man with a heart condition, Holmes tells us--Holmes suspects that foul play is involved. What adds to all these characters' angst is that a criminal has escaped from a nearby prison and could be the one engaging in all this mischief. But it could also be Henry's mysterious and angry-looking neighbor (played by Ewen Solon) and/or his Spanish daughter (Marla Lindi). Or it could be Dr. Mortimer, who has received a considerable sum of money from the will of Sir Charles, or it could even be Sir Henry himself who killed his uncle. One way or another, Mr. Holmes does not believe that there is any sort of supernatural "hound of hell" on the loose haunting about, ready to avenge what happened centuries before.

Lee became critical of how gruesome and disturbing horror films have become in recent years, and I can't imagine this adaptation of Doyle's famous story being scary to basically anyone, even in 1959. But that's not the intent, is it? Despite having never read the original novel or seen any of the other numerous adaptations (I have a DVD of the Basil Rathbone version but have never watched it), it's my understanding that this is not a horror story (but maybe I'm wrong). Why should it be scary, despite all the mist and howling our characters periodically hear? Still, as one of them mentions, "there is more evil around us here than I have ever encountered before."

The acting here is decent; Lee portrays Henry as a sympathetic figure, especially considering how helpless he is. Cushing is a joy to watch, as usual. Miles Malleson shows up in a fairly humorous comic relief part as the local bishop (and who, I think, we're at one point supposed to all suspect as being behind all this trouble). Cecil, the Spanish girl, is a somewhat interesting character bitter about being in England but intimately drawn to Henry. There's a hint of class warfare metaphors sprinkled throughout this film, and it really comes into focus during the scenes featuring these two. The reveal at the conclusion is a bit odd and slightly disappointing, but it is a thrilling climax nonetheless. It's better than The Curse of Frankenstein or Horror of Dracula. The Hound of Baskervilles is not perfect--"elementary" might be an appropriate adjective--but it's good fun and very much recommendable.      

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7 Days of Halloween: The Descent

I once went spelunking in rural Pennsylvania when I was in Boy Scouts. I feel very fortunate that the experience was nothing like "The Descent." In my experience, like that of virtually every human in recent human history who has gone caving, the scariest thing is when your guide tells you to turn off your helmet light so that you can see just how dreadfully dark it is under the earth. I might have been as pale as the grotesque creatures featured in "The Descent," the 2006 horror movie directed by Neil Marshall about a spelunking trip gone wrong, but I'm fairly certain there were none of them when I went caving, and if there were, they certainly left us alone.

Forgive me for the digression, but "The Descent" made me think of the recent discovery of homo neladi in a cave in South Africa, and how it has not provided an answer as to how those skeletal remains got there in that secluded cave area. Some think they were deliberately put there as burial grounds, some think they became accidentally trapped there, some think they were deliberately trapped there. Either way, it would be frightening to be trapped there with no way out and such primitive, if any, technology. Just imagine adding dozens of bat people who only make their way to the surface to hunt. That's the situation six British women find themselves in.

The six of them meet in North Carolina for their epic trip. Their leader, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), explains the symptoms they could experience while being down there: claustrophobia, hallucinations, and the like. (It does make one wonder why people do this sort of thing in the first place.) Predictably, the women become trapped and find themselves in the wrong cave. Being lost in the woods, like in "The Blair Witch Project," is scary enough. I can't possibly imagine being lost in a cave. Juno reveals to them that she left the guide book in the car, and they argue and shout for a while. They find caving equipment from a hundred years ago and ancient, possibly pre-history, paintings. Fascinating to see, perhaps, but something else is wrong: not only are they lost, but they are being hunted. Something is clearly down there; some kind of humanoids that make odd echolocation noises to hunt for their food. They are some kind of creatures who've evolved to live in the dark caves. In a movie sense, they're like a hybrid of vampire, zombie, and general monster, biting the neck, eating the body, and hiding in the dark. There's a pit of graves that only further reveals the reality that they are in terrible danger. Like in many other horror movies, they become separated; it becomes fight-or-flight to the extreme.

The caves are a convincing set design at Pinewood Studios by Simon Bowles that make you wonder if they actually filmed it in a cave or not, and there are thunderous trumpets provided by David Julyan's score that heighten the intensity of the scenes. Sam McCurdy's cinematography is also spot-on; occasionally, we are able to see what the characters see in the dark through their hand-held camera, and these are the spookiest moments. Obviously, the makeup effects by Paul Hyett of the creatures are terrific. And there's lots--lots--of blood, an almost "Carrie"-like amount. Despite all these great elements, it doesn't equal a great movie.

The biggest flaw is this: Caves are scary. Being in the dark is scary. Being hunted is scary. Being hunted by those things (whatever they are) is scary. But if your movie, with all those elements, is not scary enough that you need to insert nightmare sequences and characters accidentally bumping into each other, bats and birds flying out, and other formulaic parts, you've done something wrong. Nightmare sequences in horror movies, in my opinion, are usually cheap. They feel almost as if someone has mandated their insertion simply to fill a scare quota. So, too, it is here. The main character, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) experienced an awful tragedy a year before while white-water rafting when her husband and young child were killed in a car accident. This is a scary enough scenario that nightmare sequences are unnecessary.

That doesn't mean I didn't like "The Descent." I did, and I recommend it. I actually thought it would be far scarier. It oddly brought back memories of my Boy Scout days, but it also made me think that I probably would never go spelunking again. It's a wonder if "The Descent" did for caving what "Psycho" did for showers.  

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7 Days of Halloween: Nosferatu

The first time I saw "Nosferatu," the first adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," was in high school, and regrettably, it was a DVD of the 1998 "remastering" with an introduction from David Carradine and a soundtrack provided by the metal band Type-O Negative. However, this newest version, released in 2006, is a fine compilation of various surviving German and Czech copies of F.W. Murnau's adaptation, the most famous "Dracula" you might not have heard of. And if you do find yourself hunting for "Nosferatu" this Halloween, go for the 2006 version and listen to James Bernard's score instead of Type-O Negative.

Taking place in 1838, Nosferatu is, as we're told, a word that sounds "like the deathbird calling your name at midnight." The story is meant to be a retelling of a supposed "Great Death" in Wisborg. We meet Hutter, a young lawyer played by Gustav von Vangenheim. (While the overacting universal in virtually all films of the Silent Era is certainly prevalent here, Von Vangenheim is probably the worst offender in this movie.) Hutter is madly in love with his young wife, Ellen (Greta Shroeder), but he must be separated from her for awhile as he attends to a trip into the "land of phantoms" to secure a building purchase of a mysterious count named Orlok (Max Schreck). His trip there will provide the modern-day viewer with views of beautiful German architecture, nature, and a trip down film history lane, as he or she will see an example of pre-color coloring using chemical reactions to create a blue hue for nighttime and sepia for indoors.

Hutter on his travels laughs off the locals' warnings about werewolves in the forests, vampires, and "bad feelings." He journeys on until he reaches Orlok's estate. Here there's another technological antique: Murnau used fast-motion, which was probably quite the novelty in 1922, to show us the entrance of Orlok's hearse. (Francis Ford Coppola understood the neat effect but made it more appealing to an audience in 1992; for the same scene in his adaptation, he simply used slow-motion.) Hutter may be a pretty forgettable character, but Schreck's portrayal of Orlok is probably almost as iconic in cinema as Bela Lugolsi's Dracula. If you don't believe, observe the character of Petyr in the recent comedy-horror mockumentary "What We Do in the Shadows." Instead of the sensual eroticism of Lugosi, Christopher Lee, or Frank Langella, Orlok is a frightening figure of long fingers and ghoulish, exaggerated features: grotesque, large ears and obvious animal-like front teeth. Upon first seeing a picture of Hutter's wife, he remarks how nice her neck looks.

The cinematography of "Nosferatu" by Gunther Krampf and Fritz Arno Wagner may not be as oft-mentioned as that of other Expressionism landmarks like "Metropolis" or "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," but it still influences filmmakers today, as is evidenced by last year's Australian horror film, "The Babadook." "Nosferatu" certainly is not terrifying by today's standards nearly a century later, but it does possess the required traits of spooky tales of wonder: coffins filled with rats, ghostly quiet sea shots, and the fear of disease. Orlok soon makes his way to Wisborg and begins feasting. Unlike the vampire of Stoker's novel, those the vampire bites do not turn into vampires themselves; they simply die (even though we never get an explanation as to why Hutter, who initially thinks he's been bitten by mosquitoes, doesn't).

After the epidemic scenes in the ship, basically right after Orlok rises from the coffin, the movie starts to bore in Act IV and especially so in Act V, where, unlike the previous acts, not much happens. Orlok basically goes on the hunt for Ellen; here we see the famous shadow up the stairs moment. He finds her and is about to feed. What happens next basically concludes the film in an anticlimactic ending, where the only conclusion one could have is that you better hope that vampires aren't fans of wearing watches. Still, "Nosferatu" is pretty much required viewing for film buffs and historians.    

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7 Days of Halloween: 28 Weeks Later

From the very first attack, there seems to be about a thousand things happening simultaneously. But just as with the first film ("28 Days Later"), "28 Weeks Later" dispenses with one complication of these kinds of horror films: these monsters can run, and they are a hell of a lot meaner than any other zombie in any other film or show. And not only that, but they keep the zombie tradition that is ubiquitous in these films: anyone--your partner, your parents, your children--can be infected and turn on you. This might truly be the most horrifying aspect of this horror subgenre.

As the title suggests, it has been 28 weeks since the massive epidemic known as the rage virus decimated England. Most of the infected have died from starvation, and an American-led NATO force is brought in to return the survivors, temporarily house them, and keep them safe. Here we meet a variety of characters: Robert Carlyle, one of those rare actors who has a screen persona and presence that is so remarkable yet ordinary, is a family man who is separated from his children but still has his wife. The two of them are with a group of survivors in the beginning of the movie, and they are quickly attacked and most are infected. He escapes and leaves his wife behind. The ethics and morality of his decision--and whether or not there was something he could actually do to save her--I'm sure are on the minds of viewers as they watch the film. Because of the various changes the father goes through, Carlyle likely was quite enticed at the thought of playing him. He's reunited with his children (Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton), who were in Spain at the time of the outbreak. Among the other cast members are part of the American forces: Rose Byrne is a medical officer, Harold Perrineau is a helicopter pilot, Jeremy Renner (a year before his Oscar-nominated performance in "The Hurt Locker") is a sniper, and Idris Elba is a hawkish general willing to do anything to contain the situation.

Teenagers aren't always the most responsible people in the world, but it's hard to believe that the teenage daughter would take her younger brother back to their home away from the protected zone (and without notifying their father) simply to find some of their nostalgia items. But that they do. I won't reveal what happens next, but it's pretty much a nasty domino effect, all because of their field trip.

This film will probably satisfy horror fans but it safely relies on the usual tricks. There are nightmares, things that go bump in the night, strobe lights, gore, and a lot of blood. It's far grosser than I remember the first one being, so much so that I had to turn away several times. This is a film that is in love with the color red--it's in practically every scene. In addition to the copious amounts of blood, the emergency lights are red, the boy's hoodie is red, and the Americans order a Code Red to destroy the infected. At times it seems like it's the only hue in the entire palate.

One of the reasons, I suspect, that so many people are turned off from horror movies is how bleek a picture these movies paint of the world. They frequently play to our fears not simply of the dark, of aliens, of ghosts, monsters (real and imaginary) but also our fear of germs, infections, the apocalypse, turmoil, and biochemical warfare, among others. "28 Weeks Later" marries the two, though sometimes when watching the film (which I'm convinced will one day have a sequel), one wonders how necessary some of the imagery is. It's more ambitious than its predecessor and just as dark, but it also becomes a bit boring half-way through despite remaining migraine-inducing. It's a truly gruesome film, at times inconceivable yet spooky nevertheless.

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7 Days of Halloween: Scream

From the beginning of the iconic opening scene featuring Drew Barrymore, "Scream" makes it unconventionally known that it is the Hollywood horror movie so well aware of the tropes of the genre that it doesn't mind totally embracing them. Barrymore appears briefly as a young high school student ready to watch a scary movie one evening when she receives a bizarre call from what could sound like a deeply perverted man. She remains calm and tells him he has the wrong number. "It happens; take it easy," she says before hanging up. The man calls back. "You should never say 'who's there?'" he teases. "Don't you watch scary movies?" He even references "Nightmare on Elm Street," one of director Wes Craven's most recognized horror films before he directed "Scream" in 1996. "The Exorcist," "Basic Instinct," "Psycho" and others are mentioned by characters throughout the movie; this might be the most self-aware film of all time. Craven even makes a practically Hitchcockian cameo by appearing in a split-second cameo as a school janitor, dressed remarkably similar to Freddy Krueger.

It's a spooky intro, even a bit disturbing, but it's not horrifying. But it is bold in its declaration that it's not only willing to show young teenagers get sliced up, but it's even not afraid to show what audience members likely thought would be the main character killed so quickly. Anybody can die at any moment in this movie, even if they're young. As SoHo's lyrics claim in the conclusion song, "Whisper to a Scream," "We are, we are, we are but your children finding away around indecision. We are, we are, we are rather helpless."

Other high schoolers are introduced in this Kevin Williamson-penned story, originally titled "Scary Movie" before wisely being renamed by the Weinsteins. If the audience didn't know who these young stars were in 1996, they probably do by know: Neve Campbell (as the main protagonist), Rose McGowan, Jamie Kennedy, Matthew Lillard, David Arquette. To add more star power, television stars Courtney Cox and Henry Winkler also appear in characters the polar opposite of what they're most famous for. (Instead of being the super cool greaser of youth, Winkler here is a harsh principal who is way too comfortable pointing a pair of scissors at juveniles' faces.) Roger L. Jackson provides the voice of Ghostface, the nickname for the audience of the villain, throughout the four films. Skeet Ulrich is Sidney's (Campbell) boyfriend, and one gets the impression that Craven did everything he could to make him look just like Johnny Depp in "Nightmare on Elm Street," the movie that launched Depp's career.

Craven, who passed away this past September, was criticized in the past for his depiction of violence. When asked about this by Terri Gross in 1980, he discussed not only witnessing the carnage in Vietnam on a nightly basis in front of his TV screen as being sort of a muse for him, but also him shooting a rat as a young boy for fun. "And it took a lot of killing to kill that rat," he said, "and it continued screaming for a long time. I'll tell you, when I was done I was totally drained. I was totally shocked by what--not only what I had done for amusement, but how fiercely that thing struggled to stay alive. And that moment never left me. You know, I never again hunted, never killed. But I remembered how hard just a rat struggled to be alive. And somehow I was able to transfer that to, you know, the thought of any human being--anything, how fiercely we all hang onto life." This is certainly true for the Barrymore character, as she does everything to hang on to life, trying to call out for her parents, returning home, but unable to produce any kind of audible cry. It's nice to know that even if Williamson created a fun slasher whodunit with a bit of dark humor in it, Craven was fluent in the terrible reality of violence and its impact on ourselves.

It's nice that this is a unique horror film that is self-aware, but throughout the movie there's one movie reference after another: "Carrie," "The Silence of the Lambs," and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." In essence, "Scream" is a little too self-aware. Every character has an opinion on these movies and their flaws; there's even a character named Randy (Kennedy) who's so in love with horror movies that he stops the watching of "Halloween" to explain to them that just in case this mysterious slasher shows up, there are certain "rules" to follow. He says, "You can never have sex"; this brings a chorus of boos from his audience. Next, never drink or do drugs. Finally, "never, ever, under any circumstances, say 'I'll be right back.'" Stu (Lillard), the untamed bro, mentions that he's going to grab another beer and asks if Randy wants one; Randy replies yes. "I'll be right back!" is Stu's obnoxious reply, and all the youngsters start howling away.

Campbell basically set herself up to be the scream queen successor to Jamie Lee Curtis, and she does a fine job. Most of the other actors don't do much, but in this type of movie, not much is required of them other than to scream (no pun intended) and look really, really scared.

"Scream" may have its flaws, but it's certainly an engaging whodunit with a twist every five minutes. Everyone's a suspect--even Sidney's father--and in almost 20 years since its release, it's aged pretty well for the most part. I personally get disturbed watching people being sliced up by their fellow human beings, especially when it's young people. And at least now, it's not particularly scary. I do recall seeing "Scream 3" when I was thirteen years old in the cinema and being terrified by it (without having seen either of the first two), but with "Scream," I simply mostly had fun. Like this year's "Trainwreck," it mocks its genre's tropes while warmly embracing them.

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7 Days of Halloween: Star Trek ("Wolf in the Fold")

There's no starship but instead a room that can only be described as a brothel or a strip club featuring yet another scantily clad female, providing another example of how "Star Trek" in some ways was one of television's most sexist shows. Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), and Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) find themselves in a "completely hedonistic society," as Bones claims. But have no fear--it's a fine, foggy night, according to Mr. Scott, and that is an understatement. There actually isn't just fog but a Hammer-like excess of fog, then a scream. Kirk and Bones run to the scene outside the bar and find only Scotty, who had left earlier with the lady, in a terribly panicked state with a knife that has stabbed her a dozen times. Scott cannot remember what happened. The only thing we know for certain is what Bones, as expected, tells his captain, as he does often does in this show: "She's dead, Jim."

This is the introduction to one of the least appreciated episodes of the original "Star Trek" series from the 1960s. "Wolf in the Fold" was written by Robert Bloch, who is most famous for writing Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho"; he also wrote the teleplay for "Catspaw," another horror-inspired episode of the second season of "Star Trek" (and a far weaker episode than "Wolf in the Fold"). It might be considered odd that "Star Trek" took such a departure, but such departures would become somewhat precedent. Despite being a science fiction franchise, some episodes (most famously, perhaps, being "The Trouble With Trebbels") were quite funny, and the films could be compared to westerns ("The Wrath of Khan"), comedy ("The Voyage Home"), political allegories ("The Undiscovered Country"), action (2009's "Star Trek"), and horror ("First Contact").

Kirk, McCoy, and Scott find themselves on the planet Argelius II when the crime happens. John Fiedler (recognizable to today's audiences probably primarily as the voice of Piglet in the "Winnie the Pooh" series and as a juror in "12 Angry Men") appears as an administrator from a neighboring planet (the Argelians are so peaceful that they have never had a need for a police forces), and he serves (at times in harmony and at times in conflict) with Kirk as the principal detective in what soon becomes a great detective story. Soon, the situation deteriorates, as a lieutenant from the Enterprise beamed down to add to the investigation is also killed, and again Scotty is the suspect. The prefect decides to have his wife, a descendant of ancient priestesses, conduct a ritual to find the source of these murders. She grows louder and louder in her cries during the ritual, describing an over-powering, great, monstrous, terrible evil that possesses a potent hatred of women. The lights vanish, and there's another scream. The lights come back on; she's dead, and guess who's holding her dead body?

The episode becomes more and more thrilling and suspenseful, like a great murder mystery, one that these days might be called "old-fashioned." Kirk convinces the Argelians to take everyone back to the ship, where the ship's computers should be able to detect who the murderer really is. Now, our murder mystery horror has become a great courtroom scene, as Kirk questions Scotty and the other suspects. Scotty tells his version of the third murder, that something was in his way as he tried to make his way toward the priestess. Someone? Kirk asks. No. Something.    

Alright, now this is where the article will engage in some spoilers, so if you like "Star Trek," and if you like a good, old-fashioned murder mystery, I encourage you to stop reading and watch the episode. Here we go: Kirk, Spock, and the others believe that the evil spirit the priestess mentioned is none of than a favorite subject of Bloch's: Jack the Ripper. Now we're back in the horror genre, as the evil spirit jumps from being to being, taking over parts of the ship; the spirit feeds on fear, and it will do what it can to frighten the ship's members. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy quickly devise a plan to combat it; one part involves Spock feeding the haunted ship the full amount of Pi to essentially keep it busy, and the other part involves McCoy drugging everyone up. If the evil spirit enters a tranquilized body, McCoy assures his captain that the only danger to the rest of them is that it "might take up knitting" (another example of Bloch's humor).

A note on the sexism: this episode is notorious for it. Jeff Bond writes, "If you're planning on introducing your feminist girlfriend to 'Star Trek,' 'Wolf in the Fold' might not be the best starter episode." Spock makes a shocking remark that "women are more easily and more deeply terrified, generating more sheer horror than the male of the species." I agree with Bond completely, but would only add that if you're dating a feminist, it might not be a good idea to watch "Star Trek" at all with her. Not only do virtually none of the episodes or films pass the Bechdel Test, but James Kirk treats women no better than James Bond does. In another episode in season two, "By Any Other Name," the crew team up to trick superior humanoid conquerors into getting angry (the humanoids' Achilles' Heal). McCoy gives one of them "vitamin supplements" to make him irritable, Spock riles up another in a game of chess, Scotty gets another one terribly drunk, and Kirk, as expected, seduces the final one. Much has been written on Nichelle Nichols' groundbreaking role as Uhuru, but she often was not given much to do other than to inform Kirk of incoming transmissions. "Star Trek" has its flaws, and one of them is its portrayal of women. If you like "Star Trek," you'll have to accept that.

That major flaw aside, "Wolf in the Fold" is, as mentioned, a fun, funny, and surprisingly thrilling and cryptic episode, and a nice one to watch this Halloween season.  

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7 Days of Halloween: Carnival of Souls

"Carnival of Souls" is a horror film with the same production DNA as "The Naked Kiss" from 1964, which was released two years after this Herk Harvey eerie independent horror film. Eerie is a word I worried I would use often in this review, and I can't be blamed: an eerie vibe is constituted throughout the entire film. The opening sequence features a car crash off a bridge and the search for survivors as Gene Moore's constant carnival music from an organ plays in the background. Eerie indeed, but good? I'm not so sure.

"They may never find that car," a man mutters shortly after the accident. Two once-rowdy boys are misleading the police about the cause of the accident; they insist they had nothing to do with it, though we've seen how untrue this really is. Suddenly a woman stumbles about completely shell shocked, but her female companions are nowhere to be found. From here there's no in between; the very next scene involves our survivor, Mary (played by Candace Hilligoss) driving through the night.

"Carnival of Souls" is not the first horror film to be created on a low budget, but it is one that was more or less successful in creating some thrills with such limited money. Last month, on an episode of NPR's "Planet Money" (titled "The Scariest Thing in Hollywood"), the show discussed the somewhat recent phenomenon of funding low-budget horror films (like "Paranormal Activity" and "Insidious") and making huge profits. It's a fairly economical way of looking at movie-making. Director, producer, and writer Herk Harvey, who also appears as the haunting ghoul identified in the credits as "The Man" (I prefer "the Man Who Smiles"), probably did not view "Carnival of Souls" this way, but he could be seen as the godfather of this modern day horror trend, as many American horror films were seen more as silly fun than scarefests back in the 1960s.

If you haven't been to any abandoned and/or haunted park, believe me, they are undeniably spectral, or at least the one that I visited five years ago was. After touring the wonderfully green tea fields of sunny Boseong, I met up with a pal in sunny Busan, the coastal port city in the southern part of South Korea, where we stayed at a youth hostel and woke up to have fish head soup for breakfast before going our separate ways. I took a ferry to the nearby Geoje Island, where I spent the sunny afternoon touring a former camp that housed prisoners during the Korean War. The sun, though, slowly vanished as I made up my way to the forbidden Okpo Land, a low-key abandoned amusement park on the hill where two young girls were killed in the 1990s. The owner disappeared, and the park shut down overnight. I went there in 2010; apparently, a year later, the park was demolished.

Okpo Land might be unsettling, but it has nothing on the utterly abnormal and dilapidated look of the park or carnival Mary sees often in town. The law has forbidden anyone from entering it. The minister at the church where she plays the organ agrees to take her to see it but advises her from entering it. Park or no park, Mary begins to see strange things, like the man who periodically pops up with a grin that could give the Joker a run for his money. A doctor tells her it's all in her head, and so logically this persuades her to go to the maybe-haunted-maybe-not pavilion. As she goes on her own self-guided tour, objects in the park start moving on their own. (Seeing all these faces and flying objects take a long time to really have any effect on Mary.) She later somehow becomes possessed and starts playing a demonic-sounding tune on her organ, summoning the spirits.

The scary stuff here to me is not the shadows or even the Man Who Smiles; it's instead the same elements that have been the scariest parts of movies since the beginning: characters who see things and they're not sure if it's mental illness or not. One way or the other, Mary's peers aren't providing much help. Sometimes no one can see or hear her, and at one point she (in the film's creepiest scene) enters a bus filled with these ghouls, all trying to get her.

This is a movie that hasn't dated as well as "Night of the Living Dead," released six years later, but that doesn't mean its production is bad, per se. But the poor acting and lame screenplay undoubtedly hurt "Carnival of Souls." It's a film that likely was petrifying in 1962, and I think I would have enjoyed it very much back then. Now, not so much. Certainly it has effective makeup and sound effects, and the score augments the thrill. I can appreciate it for what it was back then, but I can also say that you'd be more entertained watching "Night of the Living Dead."
 

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The Best Beach Boys Songs

Having recently written a top Beatles list and with the summer release of "Love and Mercy," a biographical film of Brian Wilson, I was inspired to follow up with my take on the best Beach Boys music.

"Love and Mercy" is the directorial debut of Bill Pohlad, who produced "Brokeback Mountain," "Into the Wild," and "12 Years A Slave." The film stars Paul Dano as Wilson in the mid-1960s as Wilson began using drugs and brought the Beach Boys away from their conventional California surfing music and more towards psychedelic tunes using a variety of unique methods. The end result was the album "Pet Sounds," which "Rolling Stone" magazine claims in the second greatest album of all time, second only to the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." The film flips back and forth from the Dano scenes as he struggles more and more with mental health problems to the mid-1980s, where Wilson is played by John Cusack and under the intense and unethical control of Dr. Eugene Landy, played by Paul Giamatti.

Most of the songs in "Pet Sounds" are among the best of the Beach Boys, and in my opinion, they are as follows:

50. That's Why God Made the Radio
49. Student Demonstration Time
48. Surfin'
47. Sail On, Sailor
46. Do You Remember?
45. The Surfer Moon
44. Carl's Big Chance
43. I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
42. I Can Hear Music
41. Hang On to Your Ego
40. And Then I Kissed Her
39. Disney Girls (1957)
38. Let's Go Away for a While
37. Friends
36. Forever
35. Darlin'
34. 409
33. That's Not Me
32. Be True to Your School
31. Feel Flows
30. The Long Promised Road
29. Wild Honey
28. Little Honda
27. Little Deuce Coupe
26. Cabinessence
25. Shut Down
24. I Know There's an Answer
23. Dance, Dance, Dance
22. Catch a Wave
21. Don't Worry, Baby
20. Kokomo
19. You Still Believe In Me
18. Do You Wanna Dance?
17. I'm Waiting For the Day
16. Surfer Girl
15. Heroes and Villains
14. Do It Again
13. Help Me, Rhonda
12. Surfin' Safari
11. I Get Around
10. Surfin USA
9. Fun, Fun, Fun
8. In My Room
7. Surf's Up
6. Baraba Ann
5. California Girls
4. Sloop John B
3. Good Vibrations
2. Wouldn't It Be Nice
1. God Only Knows

Honorable Mention: Pet Sounds, Getcha Back, All Summer Long, Our Prayer, Gee, You're So Good to Me

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