The Haunting

61 Days of Halloween- The Amityille Horror (1979)

Posted on by bernardovillela

Most holidays worth their while encompass entire seasons, such as Christmas, for example. However, as you may have noticed there is a corporate push every year for us to think about the next holiday even sooner. While this has many negative side effects I figure I may as well embrace it.

Since Labor Day is really only good for college football and movie marathons cinematically it is as significant as Arbor Day, which means the next big day on the calendar is Halloween and we can start looking toward it starting now.

Daily I will be viewing films in the horror genre between now and then and sharing the wealth. Many, as is usually the case, will not be worth it so for every disappointment so I will try and suggest something worth while as well.

The Amityille Horror

James Brolin and Margot Kidder in The Amityille Horror (American International Pictures)

What is interesting to note, for what it’s worth is that both the 1979 and 2005 versions of this film have the same score on the IMDb. This score seemingly ignores the biggest difference between the two which is that the original runs 120 minutes and the remake runs 90 and that running time is put to very good use. Not only do the incidents mount and come with greater frequency it allows for more narrative threads to be developed to support what we all know to be true.

What people are likely to hold against it might be that not enough happens but mind you that there are many incidents and there certainly seems to be more of a crescendo than last year’s (at the time of this writing) runaway hit Paranormal Activity which may be the slowest moving horror film ever crafted.

Another rarity that makes this film one worth seeing is that it has always been difficult to attract names to tales of horror or the supernatural but this film boasts James Brolin, who at the time was already an Emmy-winner, Margot Kidder who was just coming off Superman and Rod Steiger who had already won an Academy Award for In the Heat of the Night. This is in the same decade as The Exorcist which boasted Ellen Burstyn and Max von Sydow. These are the kinds of casts you can’t find anymore and the kind you need to convey a tale in which terror lives in the characters’ minds even more than it does in reality.
 
The score which opens the film and recurs a few times is reminiscent of certain Giallo films. The score combined with the quick flashbacks at the beginning to illustrate the house’s past are the perfect way to set the table.

I am not going to say this is the quintessential haunted house movie because that would be a disservice to films like The Haunting and The Legend of Hell House which deserve recognition, however, it does take a different approach than those and ushers in the age of suburban terror and perils of home ownership into the genre.

While occasionally you do get some bad looking blood, which is such a pet peeve of mine. There is the compelling case of the priest trying to convince people of what he experienced. The nun who was violently ill on the premises, then subplots that run longer like the obsession with woodcutting due to the cold; Jodie, the “imaginary” friend, The dog digging at the wall in the basement and the police sergeant sensing something is amiss and tailing the family and the priest. All this offers many more layers than you usually get in this type of tale.

Lastly, the film also employs titles very effectively as not many do. It can be an extremely effective when used well and this film does on more than one occasion.The Amityville Horror definitely has a lot to offer the horror connoisseur.

8/10

Review- Insidious

Posted on by bernardovillela

Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne in Insidious (FilmDistrict)

I am one who is wary to make premature proclamations about where a film stands when relative to the rest of the year and I believe I will be able to stick to that when discussing Insidious, however, with much difficulty. The reason that is so is that after seeing Insidious the kinds of comparisons I started to make were within the horror genre and comparing it to my favorite film in the genre from last year, or the year before or even further back.

And when I say in the genre I mean purely so, for if there’s one thing you cannot mistake in this film is that the makers most definitely intended to make an ode to old school horror tales but what is most impressive is that while keeping in mind classical elements, motifs and tactics there is still a concerted and successful effort to put a new spin on things.

Anyone who is very familiar with the genre will at some point start to be reminded of several different films such as Poltergeist, Pet Sematary, The Shining, The Haunting, The Amityville Horror and others but it’s always a passing notion that comes from a place that’s much more “Oh, isn’t that neat?” as opposed to “Man, what a rip off this is.”

While all these allusions and homages do exist there are some very refreshing elements to the tale as well. First of all, many horror films, especially those which have an element of the supernatural within them, struggle with the notion of belief. There needs to be a certain level of disbelief amongst the characters, when dealing with the supernatural, so that we can then suspend disbelief. This, however, is a very delicate balancing act for the audience of a horror movie is very aware that they are there to see a horror film and are very ready to believe. There are no such concerns here. Insidious has one of the quickest, deftest and most naturalistic dismissals of disbelief I can recall seeing and it is crucial to the functioning of the film.

Perhaps what’s even more impressive is that it is a twist and a take off on the haunted house tale, and you know that, the tag line for the film is “It’s not the house that’s haunted.” Having said that, however, the film perfectly follows a haunted house structure.

The cinematography is great throughout and is particularly effective during the first seance scene which is perfectly choreographed chaos but perhaps the most effective section is when Josh (Patrick Wilson) travels to an alternate dimension referred to in the film as The Further. This alternate plane is created entirely through cinematography and the use of negative fill. It’s been quite a while since a film in the horror genre has so aptly exploited the most primal of human fears, which is that of the dark.

Furthermore the sound design of this film is absolutely fantastic. There are disembodied sounds throughout the soundtrack that are later identified and everything sounds like what is should and it becomes a very fun guessing game and also hauntingly effective. What’s paramount in importance is that the sound effects enhance the visuals and aid scares as opposed to becoming the scares. There are several jolts within this film, one of which sent a tidal wave of goosebumps down my body and the sound effect accompanying the visual was an afterthought. “Oh yeah, that sound effect was good too,” I thought but the visual already struck home in all these jolts.

How scary one ultimately finds it is always a very personal thing. I found it to actually to be quite scary. The testament to that was later that night after having seen it unexplained noises within my house caused a lot more distress than they normally do. What cannot be argued is that screenwriter Leigh Whannell and director James Wan have crafted one of the finest examples of the horror genre to have come along in a long, long time.

10/10