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House of Wax (1953) – Studio Mandated 3D Film by a Director with One Eye Who Couldn’t See in 3D

For those of us born in the recent past, aka the 70’s, Vincent Price has always seemed like an iconic has-been. A frequent face on afternoon matinees, late night movies, and in magazines, and of course the voice of Thriller’s chilling finale, Price had been synonymous with horror royalty.

That wasn’t always the case for Midwest local boy (Missouri native) Price, and it is hard to wrap my head around that. It’s like finding out Spike Lee had made a half dozen movies before She’s Gotta Have It, and they were beach blanket teen flicks and a sequel to Oh God (with the incomparable George Burns).

Of course that isn’t true about Lee, but it would be as surprising.

This gets even further muddy for us not alive to see it all transpire in proper context because of the dual existence of Color and Black & White film. It feels like Price has been making movies since the talkies first rolled… but it simply isn’t the case.

House of Wax was one of those Hollywood breakout moments for Price, after which he was given any number of campy, set chewing villain roles. All of those macabre flicks you love? They came after this 1953 color gem. Google it. I was as skeptical as you.

Anyway, the movie. 3D movies were a cutting edge innovation at the time, and thankfully Warner Brothers wanted to get in the game. They commissioned a remake of their own 1933 creep show, Mystery of the Wax Museum, and it was off to the races in gorgeous full color and amazing sound. It was the first major studio 3D film, and also the first to feature stereophonic sound for average, wide release theaters.

The beef I have always had with 3D movies, new and old, is that the gimmick takes such a precedence that the film suffers. And headgear gets annoying, especially for us cursed with eyewear of our own necessity. Same goes for IMAX event movies, or CGI spectacles, but I digress.

Enter our hero, director Andre de Toth, an Austrian-American with one eye. He could not see the 3D effect and did not understand what the fuss was about, but he set out to make a fantastic movie to studio spec. This means the film was made with the intent to deliver titillation and chills, and it full delivers.

The film surrounds a slightly eccentric sculptor who runs a wax museum. His business partner is not seeing the  immediate financial payoff he hoped for and leans on the sculptor, Jarrod (Price), to include more lurid and morbid displays to increase traffic. Jarrod, ever the artist, refuses to compromise. The investor then decides on a new course of action: arson and insurance fraud.

The museum burns and so does Jarrod, and the baddie gets his money and prepares to go on the lam with a hot to trot young woman with expensive tastes. His lovers’ holiday is interrupted by the appearance of a strange, hunched assassin who murders the investor then stages a faux suicide by hanging. Then, mysteriously, the body is stolen from the morgue.

Of course the assassin is the now deformed and twisted Jarrod, with a new dark outlook and mad obsession with the loss of his own hands to create. He hires a deaf, mute thug named Igor and ex-convict and alcoholic Leon to be his hands as he rebuilds a new, macabre wax museum.

The trick here is that he scouts subjects that inspire him to create, kills them, then dips their corpses in wax to create lifelike displays.

The other trick is that the handsome, beefcakey Igor is none other than a young Charles Bronson. Also, Janice Rand of the USS Enterprise (Grace Lee Whitney to civilians) is an uncredited cancan dancer.

The film only stops twice for protracted 3D tech demos, and neither is over-long or terribly out of place. One is a famous scene where a carnival barker draws crowds into the museum while juggling/doing tricks with paddleballs. The other is the cancan routine that feels anachronistic, but has its place.

All the trappings of horror films of that period are present: shrieking women, strong jawed macho heroes, copaganda movie police dicks, cackling villains, and so on. What was shocking, to me, was the brutality for the time. There is something unsettling about the breakaway wax face worn by Price and the unflinching camera during scenes of the murders. There is something seedy about the stalking of the young women, and the implied nudity of our heroine at the film’s climax. Even Price’s delivery of his velvet compliments, sex pest obsession, and feigned humility have the touch of ickiness that is absolutely delightful and unexpected from a 1953 movie.

House of Wax is an anomaly in the world of film. Chosen by the studio to be the test patient for two incredible technologies, featuring a then mid to low tier performers, and laid in the hands of a director that could not appreciate the gimmick for himself. Not only does it succeed as a visual and audio spectacle, it satisfies as a movie experience, and elevates horror as a genre.

Price is wonderful in this movie. He’d return to this template of monster time and time again, but this isn’t even a prototype character for him – it is a fully realized role in which he is fully Vincent Price and I could not imagine anyone but him pulling this one off. House of Wax is probably the one Price movie everyone needs to see once.

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Phantasm and learning to turn your brain off

Phantasm was a movie that was on my to-watch list for literally decades. From the genesis of my horror movie fandom I have seen images of the Tall Man and the Screamer ball, but had no idea what the movie was about.

As time progressed I continued to see it on lists, but the fandom of the movie was never as enthusiastic as Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, or even Fright Night. That is to say, it is sort of non-existent.

So I decided to prioritize viewing it this October and finally drill down into the skull of this film. Overall, I had a great time watching this movie, but for reasons that aren’t necessarily glowing.

For one, the acting is delightfully amateurish. Not bad, mind you. In fact, the child lead Michael Baldwin (who plays, appropriately enough, Mike) was pretty great as a real kid in an unreal situation. It reminds me of other grassroots, indie films in horror – like Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre – in which the actors cannot detract from their characters because they are new to the viewer, and new to the screen.

Secondly, the editing of the film is bonkers. Don Coscarelli, the writer and director, shot a load of film, not having a concrete script or ending in mind. The editing was done in a manner that creates a dream state for both plot and the passing of time. Narration over a scene will continue even as the visuals move on. The movie hops from A plot to B plot to C plot without much consideration for the audience keeping apace. Add to all of this the fact that Coscarelli had in his mind that a horror movie would be novel if there was a scare every 5 minutes or so, and you get quite the quilt of scenes… even adding in “cheap” scares and dream sequences when the plot sags.

Lastly, the movie looks fantastic. Coscarelli had a real vision for how he wanted the movie to look, even when the “why” was undecided. The endless marble crypt, the haunted mansion looking funeral home, the foggy graveyard, the goofy watering hole, the 70’s boy’s bedroom, the Screamer ball, the weird Space Gate room and the dwarf pods (probably one of the coolest sets of all)… all of it builds a feast for the eyes.

Overall the plot is a little odd, but don’t listen to modern reviewers that constantly refer to how confusing it is. Yes, it is a little incoherent and has a few detours that make no cinematic sense, but this is hardly a riddle.

The movie follows a pair of brothers who have experienced great loss. Their parents died, and the older brother (Jody) is back from Vietnam (although looking all of 19) and finds himself guardian for young Mike. Not much ties Jody to the town otherwise, and he is desperate to get out into the big world and find his way.

In the opening scene we see a young man murdered after being led into the graveyard for sex with “the Lady in Lavender.” This is Tommy, one of Jody’s dear friends, and part of a trio. The remaining friend is Reggie, a local ice cream man that himself (along with his truck) is one of the S tier visuals in this film.

Jody is dealing with all this loss by wanting to run away from it all and rebooting, shirking any responsibility. Mike, on the other hand, is coping by doubling-down on his attachment to Jody, to the point of following him all over town and spying on him, afraid that if he does not, this hero and ersatz father figure of his will blow town.

The brothers soon discover that the funeral home, and its adjacent cemetery, are a front for evil, otherworldly beings – the Caretaker, the Tall Man, and a bunch of Jawa-esque dwarves. Their plot? Reanimate the dead and alter them into shrunken versions (the dwarves) to serve as slaves in another dimension/planet.

Along the way we see a lot of nods to other influences and ideas that might have been best excised and kept for another film altogether, but somehow the shepherd’s pie construction of it all works.

For example, there is a fortune teller and her granddaughter, who Mike has come to trust as his confidants and seeks direction from them. Also, for some reason, they make him do the Gom Jabbar. No, really. The lesson Mike learns is the pain is only his own fear manifest, which at the film’s climax he sort of calls upon to keep focus whilst being chased.

Other odd inclusions are the fact that severing the fingers off the Tall Man yields yellow, slimy blood and a wriggling finger that does not die. Oh, and it goes through a Kafka inspired metamorphosis into a vicious, giant fly. The Tall Man regenerates his lost body parts, and seems quite unkillable. In fact, his entire “power set” is poorly defined in that deliciously appropriate monster movie way, adding new ways to spread his horror even up to the last scene of the movie.

There is a hint of heart in the script, as the brothers try to find a way to relate to a world with grief weighing heavy on them. There were moments of character development that could have made for a much more literate script, but its been said much more of that was left on the cutting room floor. Still, there is enough there that you care about the characters. And, you get a scene where the ice cream man stops to have a jam session with Jody on the front porch, just happening to have his guitar with him.

In the end, Phantasm was, and is still, a unique horror movie. It was released in 1979, which means it was made before the slasher craze really took off, and in context stands out as an absolute visual anomaly. The elements of its horror are decidedly modern too, as The Lady in Lavender, the Tall Man, Screamer ball, and even the interdimensional space gate are all very creepypasta. No part of this film would feel out of place in SCP Foundation fiction.

I would highly recommend viewing this if you have not, or if you have not since the days of 3-Day VHS rentals. It is a movie without a formula and an embarrassment of fresh approaches, a stew of big ideas from a singular mind. It is elevated above Troma style horror, yet doesn’t quite reach Halloween’s promise of auteur scares. This isn’t intentional schlock, nor is it cookie cutter B content, but is instead raw imagination put on film. Just turn off your brain and enjoy the ride.

PS – I have to add this… if Coscarelli’s name doesn’t sound familiar, it should – especially if you are a cable TV viewer of a certain age. Coscarelli was responsible for the epic fantasy riff The Beast Master, and later the masterfully zany Bubba Ho Tep.

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VHS 85 is only just ok and that makes me sad

V/H/S 85 continues the wonderful new trend of setting the series in a specific year. This change has given new life to a series that was pretty viciously mocked online when they were first releasing and I’m happy to see it. I never thought they deserved the hate they got.

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From Black is a haunting journey through the darkness and muck that is grief

From Black
Written by: Jessub Flower, Thomas Marchese
Directed by: Thomas Marchee
Starring: Anna Camp, John Ales, Jennifer Lafleur

Anna Camp plays Cora, a recovering drug addict dealing with the weight of survivors guilt and struggling to find closure after the disappearance of her son.

One day, in counseling Anna is confronted by Abel (John Ales) who asks her a simple quetion, “What if you could see him again?”

From Black is a well written, well acted movie about the struggles of addiction, grief and how far we’re willing to go to become whole again. Anna Camp gives a wonderful performance in the lead role. She appears exhausted and beaten down at almost every turn but there’s also a hint of hope to her. She’s very believable as a character trying her best to crawl out of the darkness and murk of her past and set things right.

John Ales gives an incredible performance as a father who lost his daughter and is struggling to come to terms with what that means for his life. Every time he’s on screen he radiates sorrow. He is a man that has been beaten down and broken and seemingly succumbed to it all.

When the two characters meet up, they start performing rituals meant to peel back the veil and see their children. The creature design for these parts is excellent. It’s very creepy and threatening but never malicious. It has this really cool detached from standard reality feeling to it that adds to how unsettling it is on screen.

Overall, I really enjoyed From Black. It’s a beautiful look into the world of survivor guilt, grief and addiction and just how much a parent would sacrifice for their children.

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Alone at Night could have been so much more

Alone at Night is a movie with so much wasted potential you’ll be left pulling your hair out at the end. Ashley Benson stars as Vicky, a woman whose boyfriend suddenly disappears leaving her homeless. To make some quick money, she goes to a secluded cabin to get in as much time as possible on a cam site. A real standout here is the always likeable Luis Guzman as one of Vicky’s clients.