Halloween

For all the mindless gore-filled, horror films of the world, there will always be something incredibly effective about a subtle yet viscerally terrifying horror film like Halloween. The first of its kind and most probably the inspiration for 80% of horror films made since its release in 1978, John Carpenter’s Halloween is truly a landmark of contemporary cinema. From its musical score which relentlessly spikes into the nervous system like electrical wires, to the fact that, like the finned antagonist of jaws, Halloween’s masked killer Michael Myers is seldom revealed in full expect as a blank face looming out of shadow, Halloween has all the components that make up a classic piece of horror. The plot is one which has become the default of many a slasher movie- masked killer stalks small American town, brutally murdering attractive, sexually active teenagers. It’s such a common trope of horror films these days that it is sometimes easy to forget that the entire sub-genre stems from this low budget summer movie that stood as the highest grossing independent film of all time, until the Blair witch project came along 15 years later.

 Halloween is terrifying, and delivers some true scares but there is also no disguising the fact that it is incredibly subtle and tame in terms of violence when compared with horror films of today. But it is Halloween’s subtlety that makes it so brilliant. The deaths are so few and far between that when they do occur, they are doubly scary as a result and the lack of visible blood leaves us with imagined brutality rather than that which is spelt out for us on screen. The faceless and predatory killer Michael Meyers has gone down in horror movie history as one of its best villains, and part of this probably stems from the fact that there is no clear motive for his murderous actions throughout the film. We find ourselves growing accustom to the idea that both movie villains and real life psychos kill out of revenge or bouts of passion, not because they seem to have an innate urge to kill and are following this urge like guiltless animal rather than reasonable human being. In Halloween someone is always watching, and what is so clever about the film is that we are forced to be voyeurs as well, sharing in Michael’s gaze as he obsessively follows young Laurie and her fresh-faced friends. Whilst watching the film don’t be surprised if you find yourself unable to stop furtively checking behind you, peering into dark corners and out of locked windows, wondering just how safe you are behind the comfort of your own four walls.  When Dr Loomis peers out of his own window at the end of the film, to see that Michael has once again disappeared without injury, the look on his face is not surprise or shock but rather resignation. Perhaps this is an acknowledgement that Michael is representative of the very nature of evil- invasive and utterly elusive until the very end. The fact that Halloween presents us with very real and relevant truths like these are what make it one of the most effective and scariest horror films of all time.

Europa Europa

The original German-speaking title of this 1990 film is ‘Hitlerjunge Solomon’ which roughly translates into ‘Solomon of the Hitler youth.’ Although perhaps not as punchy a title, it sums up the main polt and theme of the film and characterises Solomon as if he were playing a part or a character, which is essentially what he does. The film is based on the true memoirs of Solomon ‘Solek’ Perel, a Jewish boy who escaped detection by the Nazis during world war two through a mixture of plucky initiative and sheer luck. His story begins on Krystallnacht, during which his sister is killed and he and his family flee to Poland in an attempt to start a new life. However this attempt fails and Solek (Marco Hofschneider) and his brother Isak barely escape with their lives as their parents are forced into the Ghetto. 

 The succession of events that unfold from here are incredibly lucky and implausible to the point of being farcical, as they continuously push Solek towards survival as others around him fall victim to the horrors of the war. Becoming separated from his brother during the initial escape, Solek finds himself in a soviet orphanage and then in the hands of a group of German soldiers, who treat him as a war hero after he masquerades as a pure-bred German by the name of ‘Josef Peters’. His ability to change personas, to change his intrinsic identity even, is masterful and he manages to fool and charm everyone he comes into contact with. His youthful beauty also plays a part as he attracts both unwelcome and welcome attention from a gay Nazi officer and a sweet-faced but fascist girl whom he meets after he is recruited into the Hitler Youth programme.

  Europa Europa is essentially a film about identity and how easy it can be for one to change and hide his identity. Playing a character it seems, as a German officer points out, is sometimes ‘easier than being yourself.’ And in this case, if pretending to be German instead of Jewish can save Solek from persecution and ultimately death, it is certainly the easier option to pretend to be someone else. The fact that Solek is circumcised becomes a major plot point and provides many moments of tension as it is the only physical proof of his race and a symbol of his true identity that he is attempting to smother. In a moment of supreme irony, Solek is held up by a teacher at his Hitler youth academy as the pinnacle of Aryan perfection, a moment which exposes the illogicality in believing you can truly recognise a Jew from a German. 

 There are moments in the film where Solek appears to be losing his own identity in the process and the consequenting confusion this creates seems to gnaw away at him from the inside out. There is a moment where he sits at a window and sadly draws a Star of David in the condensation only to rub it out in a panic when he thinks someone might be coming. His Jewish identity never fails to be of huge importance and here it is being stifled along with the very essence of who he is, because to reveal it would be a crime.  The ending of this film is one sadly seldom seen in holocaust films, as Solek is reunited with his brother who has just been liberated from a concentration camp, in another very happy coincidence that seems to arrive just at the right time. Solek tells the audience that he will never hide who he truly is ever again and this vow is realise at the very end as the credits roll to an elderly Solek (played by the real Solomon Perel)  singing a traditional Hebrew song then walking off into what is hopefully a happier more tolerant world. 

 Apart from identity, the film is also primarily about survival and it is rightly so that Perel be heldup as a survival of the most miraculous levels and one that certainly paints him as a master of the double life. However, when watching the film I was left to wander uneasily about the possibility of redemption in a story about someone who so fervently denies who they are and what their family has been for generations. A scene that is most affecting is one in which Solek, as a member of the Hitler youth, rides a tram through the ghetto in which his parents are living in poverty and sees his mother. He cannot cry out to her because the tram windows are sealed shut, a physical reminder of how far he is slipping away from his family and the distance between them, created only by the Nazi uniform he wears and the Star of David that they are wearing. This scene is a prominent one in a film about the confusion and guilt of surviving when you shouldn’t have done and looking out from comfort and safety when you could just as easily have been on the other side, and by all rights should be.

Black Swan

  Black swan is a brave, beautiful and often wholly terrifying piece of film making from acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky. There has been much criticism recently regarding the amount of actual dancing main actress Natalie Portman performed in her role, and perhaps also regarding the films eventual awards (or lack thereof). Particular criticism that I stand wholly in support of because, although Portman earned a much deserved academy award for best actress, the film is worthy of countless more as it truly is an incredible film- one which expertly explores the capabilities of the human mind and body and the possibility of losing ones self in a futile search for perfection.

Natalie Portman plays Nina, in an impeccable performance that will probably be remembered as the best of her career, a gifted but emotionally fragile ballerina who earns the role of a lifetime as the new swan queen in her company’s production of Swan Lake. She is glacially beautiful to look at but clearly stunted, both socially and sexually as she shares a claustrophobic home with her over bearing mother and reacts to the men around her with frigid intensity. The company’s artistic director, played with a subtle sleaziness by Vincent Cassel, is at first unsure of casting Nina in this particular role, as although he agrees she embodies the essence of a ‘white swan’, it is the sexual ferocity and danger of the black swan that she lacks. It is only after he attempts to seduce her after hours and she retaliates by biting his lip, that he perhaps sees a fleeting flash of this potential and gives her the leading part. But Nina is no black swan- she is incredibly sensitive, desperate for perfection and control and reacts badly to any sign of confrontation or rivalry, such as the kind she associates with a seductive, tattooed ballerina named Lilly.

Watching black swan is similar to being trapped in a nightmare, where everything is cold and beautiful on the outside but something dark and deadly is constantly bubbling underneath the surface waiting to emerge.  I sat through serene dance sequences on the edge of my seat, poised for something terrible to inevitably happen. This feeling remains for the entirety of the film and is mostly due to the incredibly surreal and creepy atmosphere director Aronofsky creates and his subtle changes in tone that instinctively tell us something is not quite right.  The same can be said of the characters in the film, although it is fairly easy to pin-point certain nuances of Portman’s ballerina that make us uneasy.   She sleeps in a childishly innocent bedroom surrounded by stuffed animals, tearfully dodges any mention of sexuality and has strange marks on her back that hint at self harm- marks that truly come into their own during her bone-cracking metamorphosis. However, it is the characters around her that truly unsettle, especially that of her mother who seems so manically intent on forcing dancing success upon her daughter that we find ourselves questioning the motives behind an accident with nail scissors . After all, would Nina really need to contemplate barricading her bedroom door with a pipe or have to fight her way out of the house to see a friend, if their relationship was as sweet and harmless as it seemed at the beginning of the film? It is questions like these that give much to be discussed and debated once the film is over and constantly niggle in the backs of our minds when we consider motives and possible psychological reasons for what eventually happens. 

For all its beauty and stylish cinematography, Black Swan is not always an easy film to watch and certainly not one that can be shaken off after the credits roll. What we are helplessly witnessing is the ultimate destruction of beauty and the slow disintegration of a fragile psyche, as a talented young woman pushes herself to the absolute limits of her ability and slowly advances towards her own destruction.  The films ending is both incredibly powerful and in a sense extremely peaceful, as Nina dies to the sound of rapturous applause after she gives the flawless performance she has yearned for, and the audience shares in her catharsis as the film fades into a perfect, blinding white. Despite its stunning dance choreography and psycho-sexual thrills, Black swan works best when considered a true horror film. One that blurs the line between reality and dangerous fantasy and crawls directly under our skin and clings there with dark, insatiable power. In short, a diabolical masterpiece.
 

The Stendhal Syndrome

 The ‘Stendhal’ syndrome of the films title is a true one, regarding an overwhelming psychical and mental reaction to paintings, resulting in dizziness, disorientation and even fainting when in the presence of art. This syndrome is used as a key plot point in Dario Argento’s, violent yet inspired 1996 psychological thriller, and is used in the introduction  of his main character. Anna ,played by his daughter the ever beautiful and utterly brilliant Asia Argento, is a police woman hunting down a serial rapist and killer through the streets of Florence. She has been given instructions to go to an art gallery that may lead to the killer’s whereabouts, an unwise choice as she herself suffers from this mysterious syndrome and finds herself passing out in the gallery. She is assisted by a handsome stranger, who is revealed as the psychotic criminal she is searching for who eventually attacks and rapes her before she is able to escape with her life.The film then succeeds in becoming an incredibly unsettling psychologically thriller that forces us to think about the ramifications of rape and the devastating effects it has on Anna’s mental state and the eventual violent acts she commits. 

Compared to Dario Argento’s earlier and better known horror films, The Stendhal syndrome is distinctive in that its violence is not stylised or glamorised in anyway –apart from several clumsy cgi moments that don’t seem to add much to the films stylistic structure. We are not meant to find anything redeeming in it and nor are we able to ignore how despicable it is, which makes it a wholly different animal within the genre of thrillers that deal in violence. The Stendhal syndrome is not a particularly pleasant film to watch , yet it is strangely compelling and has moments of dark yet surreal beauty that are pure Argento and striking, inventive imagery that has lead me to re watch it several times. One such memorable image is where Anna covers her naked body in paint and curls up in the foetal position, representing not only her descent into insanity but also her desire to revert back into the innocence and safety of childhood. There are also moments where the effects of the Stendhal syndrome are visually realised and this leads to several brilliant cinematic moments, including one where Anna hallucinates walking into a painting through a waterfall. Asia’s performance is one that is impressive and accomplished, considering the enormous range of emotions that is demanded from her character. Unfortunately, despite being able to speak English perfectly well, her voice was dubbed which gives the film a slightly odd and dated feel, which I would class as one of its few negative points. With Anna we are finally given a female Argento character who has more than one dimension. She is never entirely weak and powerless, even with what she goes through, and we never doubt the power she holds to eventually fight back and become a stronger person through her ordeals. She is able to grow, becoming not only a victim but an example of metamorphosis, as she undergoes a physical and mental transformation after each of her violations. She becomes wiser and more experienced, learning from the man that has hurt her and eventually being able to retaliate and to become a separate instigator of violence.

In some cases considered a psychological thriller, the Stendhal syndrome is a true horror film in every sense of the word as it twists, disturbs, horrifies and ultimately gets under your skin and stays there like few films I have seen. I would in no way consider this a negative thing as the best films are those that force us to think about what we have just seen, regardless of how unpleasant this may be and ask us to take something from it, even as the film is over and we are allowed to forget it. Sometimes, people find it difficult to understand how one could hold admiration for films regarding a subject as horrible and incomprehensible as this, but I would personally defend this film as having both cinematic and narrative value which makes it deserving of being seen by others. This is a film that may repulse some and is certainly not to everyone’s taste. But, considering the amount of violence seen in so many disposable films that do not offer such an interesting cinematic experience as this one, a film as well crafted and hauntingly executed as The Stendhal Syndrome should be considered a horror film worth seeing.

Repulsion

From the very beginning of Roman Polanski’s masterpiece in psychological horror, as we watch a close up of an eye flittering erratically to the sounds of a steady, paranoid drum beat, we realise that what we are about to experience is going to take us into the very depths of a title characters psyche. An uncomfortable journey that will allow us to venture dangerously far into the recesses of a disturbed mind, and one that won’t let us escape easily once the film has ended. The psyche of whom we are about to venture in to belongs to Carole, a young French manicurist, played to perfection by Catherine Deneuve. Astonishingly beautiful yet painfully shy and withdrawn, Carole shares a flat with her sister, returning home from work a solitary figure, relentlessly ignoring the romantic advances of a good intentioned male acquaintance and the countless males who comment on her obvious beauty along the way. While this first appears to be a reflection of her introverted nature it becomes more intriguing in the introduction of the sisters boyfriend, who for inexplicable reasons, Carole seems to perceive as an annoyance and sometimes even a threat as she throws away the toothbrush he has left from an overnight stay causing her sister to scold her -‘silly little girl. You don’t understand anything!’ 

 It is at this point that we start to suspect that Carole’s unusual reactions to men may be result of something far deeper rooted than a shyness or insecurity, our suspicions eventually given weight in the final shot of the film, as we zoom in on a still photograph, a picture that manages to convey much more than countless psychological explanations ever could. 

Repulsion marked Roman Polanski’s first venture into English language cinema and the first of his films to be entirely filmed in London, England. Often overshadowed by his later work, such as the terrifying  Rosemary’s baby, Repulsion is a film that is unfortunately much lesser known despite many critical claims that it is in fact Polanski’s greatest film as director, succeeding in creating an atmosphere of absolute tension and unease that no other film, including the aforementioned Rosemary’s baby, has bettered. Left alone, as her sister and the boyfriend leave for Europe for a romantic getaway, Carole’s mental state begins to deteriorate as she sits alone in the apartment, listening to the ticking of clocks and dripping of taps that punctuate the silence, as the food she has been left to eat slowly rots around her. This includes the sinister carcass of a rabbit meant to have been cooked days ago- that begins to reflect the psychological decay Carole begins to slip into and an omen of what is to come. Eventually we realise that we are being shown is in fact a slow descent into madness, symbolised in the phantom cracks that begin to appear in the walls, representing Carole’s fragile mind set and the terrifying visions of sexual attacks she begins to experience, heightening the films prominent themes of sexual repression and sexual repulsion, as Carole reacts to phone calls and visits from her admirer as if he were a axe murderer rather than an attractive man in a business suit. 

  Stylistically, the film is extremely interesting to watch, as the camera is used almost as an invasive device as it follows Carole closely and intently, always keeping the focus on her and feeding the paranoia that begins to build in her character, making us implicit in the horror that unfolds as this paranoia begins to seep dangerously close to the surface.  A brilliant scene of this sort, that is also a highlight of the film, involves Carole walking through the streets of London quietly and passively, to the sound of a gentle yet strange jazz piece in the background. Moments like this are very distinctively Polanski, as well as being extremely accomplished and stylish, worthy of becoming an iconic moment in cinema. Repulsion is truly a landmark of psychological terror and one that is a brilliantly executed experiment into the unease and deep rooted fears and anxieties associated with sexuality. Deeply unsettling, utterly compelling and strangely fascinating to watch, Repulsion deserves to be seen by many and considered one of the most effective contributions to the horror genre.

DogVille

‘Evil can arise anywhere as long as the situation is right.’ Lars Von Trier

Dogville represents what Lars Von Trier considers an allegoric American town, one which is conservative, wary and suspicious of strangers and eventually capable of persecution and acts of true cruelty. The town itself is created using a soundstage, chalk outlines mark the houses and use of props is bare.  There is nothing outside of the town except blackness and the bare set allows us to become consumed in the story and focus on the brilliantly written dialogue and flawless acting. It is almost as if we have been taken back to the beginning of cinema, stripped of unnecessary features until we are left with the most important elements, a story told in a masterful way and truly believable and talented performance from those involved. At just under three hours long the film isn’t one for those who lose interest easily or find it difficult to connect to complex characters, but the time the director spends with the characters of the town , makes the film seem far more realistic and true to life even with its unusual structure and scenery. Nicole Kidman plays Grace, a sensitive yet strong woman on the run from gangsters in what is an effective and accomplished performance. Her character has an overwhelming goodness to her that at first seems to charm the residents of this 1930’s Rocky Mountain town who offer her shelter. The residents of the town are good people, Grace is assured, and at first we are inclined to believe this. But tensions soon arise as Grace becomes subject to a large amount of unwanted male attention and the town becomes increasingly wary about outside intervention, and soon they begin to turn on her. This eventually leads to Grace being humiliated and mistreated daily at the hands of her original rescuers and forced to wear a collar around her neck so she can no longer escape the town. At one point a jealous wife threatens to smash the porcelain figurines that Grace has bought with her meticulously earned wages from the errands she does for the townspeople. Bringing up the concept of stoicism, the woman decides that only two will be smashed if Grace can keep herself from crying. Distraught that the only physical symbols of her acceptance from the town and her triumph over adversity are gone, Grace can no longer keep herself from sobbing and the remaining figurines are destroyed. A scene like this is incredibly emotionally cruel and raw, yet this feeling is created in the audience purely through superb acting and is not exploitative in any way. 

 Director Lars Von Trier has created a film that is constantly asking questions. Are the townspeople intrinsically bad, only deluding themselves that they are good? Does the arrival of Grace bring out these evil instincts that have been lying dormant within them for so long? Or do they simply take advantage of the situation and choose to treat her so horribly? The speech at the end suggests that there is justification in destroying the town, as it is such a pox on humanity that the world would be better off without it. The towns’ people have acted like the animal of their namesake, yet unlike dogs they have always had the choice to suppress their bad nature, unlike a dog which has no choice but to obey. And here the director seems to be suggesting that the only way you can teach a dog or a child to make a morally correct choice is to punish them. What is most disturbing is the arousal of our own dormant instincts during the final scene where Grace exacts her revenge and we internally cheer for her. Perhaps Trier is suggesting that despite our best efforts, despite our original good instincts, the potential for cruelty lies quiet and hidden within all of us, and the choice to deploy such instincts is far more tempting than we would like to believe. By the end, the film seems to suggest that justice has taken place, an extremely warped and perhaps morally impermissible form of justice, but justice all the same.

Wait Until Dark

1967,s Wait Until Dark works best when considered a tightly-wound and intensely effective thriller. It also contains what is widely thought of as one of the tensest and relentless climaxes in cinema which accumulate in a one of the greatest jump-out-of-your-seat moments, that needs to be experienced to be believed. The films premise revolves around Audrey Hepburn’s character Suzy, in a performance that would give her an Oscar nomination and finally prove to the sceptics that she was a brilliantly capable actress. Suzy lives in a basement flat with her husband, having recently been blinded in an accident and still trying to adjust to living her life in absolute darkness. The other components of the plot involve a doll full of heroin and three men who are determined to get it back, even if it means infiltrating the life and home of the blind Suzy and trying to bend her to their will. Once Suzy’s husband has left on business, the three men assume characters and take shifts in conducting a fake, elaborate scenario, slowly gaining Suzy’s trust and eventually terrifying her out of her mind in aid of one conclusion-to get the drug-filled doll that they believe Suzy has somewhere in her apartment. The leader of these men is the psychotic Mr Roat, played to creepy perfection by Alan Arkin, in a role Stephen King would go on to describe as the ‘greatest evocation of screen villainy ever.’ This claim is certainly not far off as the character is in equal parts quietly menacing, disarmingly funny and down right terrifying, especially in the final fifteen minutes when only himself and Suzy remain, in a locked room. The films climactic final minutes are relentless in their pace, Henry Mancini’s score tightening the tension constantly with ominous precision, the darkness slowly enveloping Suzy until we worry that there is no way out. 

 The majority of the film is set within Suzy’s basement apartment and we are constantly reminded of the vulnerability and hindrance her blindness causes her- the effect being both claustrophobic and disorientating as the audience vicariously share in her panic. Having recently seen a screening of wait until dark at the cinema, I can say that this is definitely a film that needs to be seen on the big screen to fully appreciate its brilliance. The effect of being in darkness with only the illuminated screen being a source of light, makes us share in the darkness of the apartment at the end of the film and puts us is the same position as the characters. We can only try and grasp what is happening when the light appears, a worrying sensation that probably adds to the infamously extreme reaction audiences had to Audrey’s showdown in the dark, both today and when it first came out.