The Large Association of Movie Blogs’ movie of the month for June is the
horror classic An American Werewolf in London. I thought I’d celebrate
this - and get another viewing of the flick under my belt before I write
something up - by watching the movie under the full moon, which happens to be
this Monday, June 4. Any and all Lammies participating in the shenanigans (pieces are due before June
17) are welcome to join me. Not in real life, of course. My place is too small.
What better way to promote this full moon fiesta than by giving the
flick the famous Favorite Scene Friday treatment?!
Our scene finds American backpackers David and future ghost Jack (you got your werewolf movie in
my ghost flick! You got your ghost flick in my werewolf movie!) after they’ve
been forced out of the Slaughtered Lamb, a local watering hole in England for werewolf
haters. It isn't long before David and Jack have wandered off the road and onto the moors, which is exactly what the denizens of the Slaughtered Lamb warned them not to do.
The great thing about this clip is the dark/foggy atmosphere and the suspense. There’s nothing scarier to me
than what I can’t see, and the fact that most of this scene is simply the
terrified expressions on David and Jack’s faces and the cries of the prowling
werewolf means that my mind is free to imagine its worst.
I love the camerawork in the scene, the way it pans around the boys and tracks/cranes down and towards them at around 0:40. It all helps with the buildup of the tension, which culminates in one of the most vicious and unexpected attacks in horror history. Just when you thought it was safe to laugh about falling on your ass.
Enjoy the scene and have a great weekend. If you plan on watching the movie on Monday, please let me know in the comments below. And if you're on Twitter, don't forget the LAMB Movie of the Month hashtag - #lambmotm. And beware the moon...
We’ve
written about Sun-Ray Cinema before and we’ve written about The
Walking Dead
before, but now we’re writing about both at the same time? Man, what next?
That’s right, on Sunday, February 12th at 9:00 p.m., Jacksonville’s Sun-Ray
Cinema is screening The Walking Dead
season 2.5 premiere, and they’re screening it for free. I’m there.
TWD has had a weird run so far. The
first season was incredibly hyped and then – for me anyway – failed to deliver.
Then the writing staff was fired and Frank Darabont left the scene, only for
the second season – again, in my humble opinion – to actually turn out pretty
good so far. I’m excited to check out Rick, Daryl, and the rest of the gang split some
zombie skulls on a big screen.
The Florida Film Festival
In other
news, the Florida Film Festival is creeping back up. I went last
year – this was before The Hatch opened, mind you – and caught Troll Hunter, Hesher, and Super. I
ended up reviewing all three of those and they were some of the first reviews I
ever posted on the blog.
Films
for the fest – which is April 13th-22nd in Orlando –
will be announced on March 21st and I’m hoping for some gems. I had
a good time last year, and I’m really hoping the rest of the EH Team can join
me for a little family vacation.
The Warren Files
So last
week I read on JoBlo that Insidious 2
is indeed happening. Writer Leigh Whannell is returning but director James Wan
isn’t locked in yet. This could be because he’s set to direct a flick called The Warren Files, formerly The Conjuring. According to various articles
from JoBlo and Arrow in the Head (hey, here’s one now), the film will revolve
around real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren and their investigation into
supernatural happenings at the Perron family home in Rhode Island in the 1970s.
So I did
a little research of my own. What I found very interesting – and what isn't mentioned in the JoBlo and Arrow in the Head articles – is that Ed and Lorraine
Warren are the very same duo that investigated the real-life Amityville Horror case.
Holy
shit. For a while there I thought that maybe The Warren Files was going to be some quasi reboot (again) of The Amityville Horror, but the family at
the center of the AH case was the Lutz, not the Perrons, and the
Amityville house was in New York, not Rhode Island. I searched for the Perron
family to try and get some more information and what I found was quite the
creepy tale. From the Burrillville, Rhode Island
Wikipedia page:
“From the Throat of the World
Mountain area of Burrillville comes a very well known New England legend of a
witch named Bethesda Sherman who, according to the legend, sacrificed her
infant child as an offering to Dovahkiin (???), then hung herself in her barn.
The story says that prior to her hanging Bethesda, a known practicing witch,
placed a curse on anyone that would take her land/farm. More than two dozen
mysterious deaths took place on the lands since the purported curse was made.
In the 1970's a family named Perron moved into the Sherman farmhouse. There are
numerous reports and eyewitness accounts of supernatural phenomenon that took
place while the Perron's lived in the home, physical attacks by the spirit of
the witch on the Perron family and an attempted demonic possession of the
mother, Carolyn Perron, by the spirit of the witch. Famed paranormal
investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated the case and aided the Perron
family in their fight against this demonic entity.”
Spooky,
no? And this story isn’t even listed on the Warren’s Wikipedia page. A few others are, however, and I’m wondering
if Wan – who’s clearly a fan of sequels – has half a mind to make a franchise
out of the Warren’s adventures. Hopefully we at least get the story about the
werewolf demon…
The news today (from JoBlo.com
via The
Hollywood Reporter) that old school video game “Rampage” is being made into a
movie means that we’ve got at least three giant monster movies on the way. The
other two are Gareth Edward’s Godzilla reboot and Guillermo del
Toro’sPacific Rim.
I’m honestly the most excited about Pacific Rim because a) del Toro and b) Idris Elba is in it. The
film concerns what happens when giant monsters appear on Earth and a team of
giant robot-operating good guys have to fight back.
The Godzilla reboot I feel meh about. Gareth Edward’s Monsters was okay but a little
boring at the end of the day. Hopefully Godzilla will be more prevalent than Monsters’ titular beasts were. And no
Matthew Broderick or baby Godzillas, please.
I guess we’ve got a bit of a “giant monster” renaissance
going on what with recent films like King
Kong, Cloverfield, and Monsters and these upcoming flicks.My friend had an old copy of “Rampage”
in college which we played quite a bit, so it’ll be interesting to see how the
game – in which you’re just supposed to smash everything in sight – translates to
the big screen.
One of the monsters
was a werewolf, BTW ;)
Anyone excited about any of these flicks? Know of any others
on the way?
Let’s face it – we
all lose our shit every now and then. Most of the time, our emotions are to
blame, and that’s understandable, right? We’re filled with stress, anger, pain,
and fear and any one of these can cause us to explode if we’re not careful. People
are nothing if not unstable, however, and little emotional outbursts are unavoidable. As with everything in life, the best outbursts are in the
movies.
A textbook outburst
is when someone unexpectedly explodes, whether emotionally or physically. In
our first example, we get both. In The
Departed, Martin Scorsese’s epic crime film about cops and criminals in
Boston, Massachusetts, Alec Baldwin plays Captain George Ellerby. The below
outburst occurs when Ellerby is…dissatisfied with a colleague’s work.
Now that we’ve got
a good, run-of-the-mill, angry/violent outburst out of the way, let’s look at Minority Report. Steven Spielberg’s 2001
film concerns a “pre-crime” police division powered by psychics in a future
version of Washington, DC. Agatha, one of the city’s pre-crime psychics, is
explaining a vision she had to Tom Cruise’s Detective John Anderton. When she
senses danger however, she issues the most bat-shit insane “heads up” in the
history of cinema.
Fear and anxiety
can do that – we don’t have much control when we’re afraid.
Physical pain can
also cause someone to lose it, ifthe agony is
great enough.What could hurt worse than
transforming into a werewolf? An American
Werewolf in London features one of the greatest werewolf transformations on
film, and it’s also the only one I can think of that starts with such a painful outburst.
I think we can all
agree anger causes the most outbursts. Rage can sneak up on you. One minute,
you’re hanging out with all your friends and everything is cool, but then Jimmy
casually mentions that he heard you singing along to a Miley Cyrus song and you
go apeshit. Those scenarios are the worst – the ones where the folks on the
receiving end don’t have a clue what’s about to hit them.
In Hot Rod, for instance, wannabe stuntman
Rod is having some quiet time in his room, reminiscing about his “super-dead”
dad, and it’s making him a little emotional. Unfortunately for his brother
Kevin, Rod doesn’t want any visitors.
Let’s look at The Big Lebowski, which is chock full
of outbursts, mostly from John Goodman’s Walter Sobchak. Walter and The Dude
are discussing Walter’s ex-wife’s dog when fellow bowler Smokey slips over the
foul line.
Walter’s outburst
may seem over-the-top, but sometimes it can feel like you’re the only one that
gives a shit about the rules.
Comedies like Hot Rod and The Big Lebowski are filled with angry outbursts. Yelling and
spazzing out is funny and whether it’s a scene from Old
School…
Black Sheep…
Or everyAdam Sandlermovie ever…
…we’re quick to
laugh at it.
And of course you’d
expect a super villain to have an outburst every now and then. They’re high
strung and evil, it’s why they’re super villains. And who’s a bigger villain
than Lex Luthor? The bald brainiac just can’t help himself when he’s around
Lois Lane in Superman Returns.
Outbursts like that
just come with the territory. If you’re around unstable people, unstable
circumstances unfold and you might not like the results. Just ask Spider from Goodfell- oh wait you can’t.
Spider didn’t
deserve that. He was just pissed from the last time Joe Pesci shot him. Sometimes
you just find yourself around the wrong people at the wrong time, though. Take
Paul Sheldon from Misery. All he
wanted was to finish his new novel, but he ends up stuck in a cabin with Annie
Wilkes for shit like this.
Totally uncalled
for, right? Here’s the thing though – sometimes people are asking for it when
someone else unloads on them. In Good
Will Hunting, Robin Williams plays head shrink to Matt Damon’s tortured
young genius, Will. Williams’ Dr. Sean Maguire seems to be a pretty patient,
enlightened dude – until Will talks about his late wife! Nobody likes those
apples.
Finally, let’s talk
about arguments. They’re the worst, and when two people are going at it, one of
them is bound to explode. Watch this scene from Star Trek: First Contact, where Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard
and Alfre Woodard’s Lily are throwin’ down.
The argument isn’t
too bad at first, but then Lily mentions blowing up the Enterprise and Picard
loses what little composure he had left."NOOOOO!!!!"
They may not be pretty, but outbursts are more or less unavoidable. The world is a stressful
place – just take a deep breath. And knock before you go into someone’s
bedroom…
"My heart's aflame, my body's strained, but God, I LIKE IT!"
We're celebrating today's Music Video Monday with werewolves and full moons and other things spooky and fun. This song, by TV On The Radio, has soul for days and always makes me want to dance my ass off. It's a go-to for me when I need a little pick me up. And it's pretty damn sexy too...
"Feeding on fever
down all fours
show you what all that
howl is for"
We dare you to give this song a listen and let us know if you aren't breaking it down too!
In honor of tonight's October full moon, I thought I'd post
about everyone’s favorite hairy beasts. That’s right, my friends and yours –
werewolves.
The monsters aren't just a creepy, awesome part of horror
cannon - they represent the beast inside of us – our primitive base
instincts that slip out every now and then.
If you love werewolf movies, you’ll know some of the more
famous incarnations of the beasts – David Kessler from An American Werewolf in London, Eddie Quist from The Howling or Larry Talbot from The Wolf Man.
These are just a few examples. I counted 24 werewolf films
on Wikipedia's
"werewolf fiction" page before I gave up counting at 1964's Face of the Screaming Werewolf - and I was
far from the end. So clearly there's
a ton of werewolf-centric films, but the beasts pop up quite often in films
that aren’t otherwise about werewolves.
For instance, werewolves feature quite a bit in the Harry
Potterseries. Hogwarts
professor Remus Lupin turns out to be one of the creatures (should have looked
at his name more carefully, Harry) in Prisoner
of Azkaban and his transformation scene is actually one of my favorites.
And Lupin isn’t the only werewolf in the series. A character
named Fenrir Greyback is another werewolf and one of Voldemort’s henchmen.
You probably haven't seen Waxwork, and if you haven’t, don’t beat yourself up. The uneven
1988 film concerns a group of friends who end up battling the horrors of a
dangerous waxwork museum where the displays come to life. The displays are just
wax until the kids step into them, and they feature a ton of classic monsters
(and the Marquis de Sade…?). If you have seen the film - it's on Netflix
instant, or at least it was at the time of this writing -you’ll know that a werewolf features
prominently in one scene. The beast is played by none other than John
Rhys-Davies.
You may not have seen Waxwork,
but I hope you've seen Monster Squad.
The classic '80s film is about a group of kids who must battle Count
Dracula and his crew of classic monsters – Frankenstein's Monster, The Creature from the Black Lagoon,
The Mummy, and one helluva Wolfman.
The Wolfman (and his
nards) is played by Jon Gries and he does a great job. The creature effects
were done by Stan Winston (he of Jurassic Park fame) and the Wolfman – known in
the film as “desperate man” – is sufficiently brought to life. Fun fact - Gries plays a werewolf in another non werewolf film - Fright Night Part 2.
Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula
has a very…promiscuous…werewolf – which is actually just the Count (Gary
Oldman) in wolf-man form.
Winona, get back to bed!
Ford Coppola's film is a great one in my book, and the werewolf scene is disturbing and creepy.
Trick ‘r Treat, an under appreciated, segmented (akin to Creepshow)
horror film from Michael Dougherty, features a story with a surprise twist
in which a group of women are actually werewolves. Now that I think about it,
the segment might be my least favorite of the bunch, but the film as a whole is
solid.
Let me put up a disclaimer before I go on here. Van Helsing is a terrible movie. The
acting is piss poor and the story makes about as much sense as Jodie Foster in Nell.
That being said, the film does treat us to some generous
werewolf action. Kate Beckinsale's character’s brother is a werewolf, and then Van
Helsing himself becomes one of the beasts at the end of the film (briefly).
On a final note, joblo.com today reported that the upcoming
reboot of The Lone Ranger – a film we’vediscussed before – is back on, after being briefly shelved. As previously reported, the flick will
apparently feature some werewolves of the Native American variety (AKA, the best variety).
Werewolves and zombies in Music Video Monday!? We're keepin' the Halloween train rollin'!
This video is widely recognized as one of the best ever made. I agree, and the fact that it was directed by An American Werewolf in London mastermind John Landis probably has everything to do with that.
When I watch this video or hear the song, I just gotta dance. Okay, shoulder twitch, shoulder twitch, shuffle, shuffle...shit.
Step, slide, clap your hands above your hea-DAMMIT!
Okay, nevermind about the dancing - I'll leave that to the zombies.
JoBlo is reporting, through Deadline and Hollywood Elsewhere, that Disney has dropped The Lone Ranger, a new take on the story planned for next year that would have starred Johnny Depp as Tonto and The Social Network’s Armie Hammer as the titular Ranger.
I was excited about this film, and I’m a little bummed that it’s facing difficulties (apparently it’s not completely doomed, as there’s talk of the film finding a new studio to call home). It seems like films I’ve been looking forward to have been getting the axe left and right, starting with Guillermo del Toro’s take on H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, and then Ron Howard’s adaption of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.
As I suspected, the underwhelming tumbleweed that was Cowboys and Aliens is reportedly the culprit, or part of it at least. It kind of tanked, so Disney is naturally worried about another big budget western. Cowboys and Aliens fell in line nicely with other failed westerns like Wild, Wild West and Jonah Hex. Maybe that’s why I was excited for Ranger – I was hoping that it would be a success.
The JoBlo article also points out that the film would have cost $200 million something (!) and the film would have been more devoted to Tonto, which is kind of cool in a way I guess but why not call it Tonto and just be done with it? And there would have been a werewolf, which I’m all for but – wow that sounds like a weird film.
It's a full moon on Friday…can you feel it coming? Me neither. But I know it's coming because I keep track of all the Friday/Saturday full moons. You see, we here at the EH Team are quite the connoisseurs of werewolf flicks and we have a pretty thorough list of drinking rules for said flicks, too (hence Friday and Saturday full moons - I'm old and can't stay up late drinking on weekdays, what can I say?).
But werewolf movies have been on my mind lately, not only because of the impending full moon, but also because I've been hearing about a few new 'wolf movies set to premier in the near future. Most recently, I read about a film that might be going straight to DVD. According to the article, it was at one point planned to be a sequel of sorts to the recent Joe Johnston/Benicio del Toro effort, TheWolfman, but now it’s its own film called Werewolf (myself and any other Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans know there’s only one true Werewolf film, however).
Speaking of Wolfman. It was pretty underwhelming in my opinion, with a little bit of bad casting, poor writing and a dash of questionable werewolf design thrown in. I know the creature design/makeup was faithful to the films of old, but there's really no beating An American Werewolf in London or even The Howling in terms of werewolf design, so don’t even bother. Nick and I also noticed that most good werewolf flicks feature a sex scene, and The Wolfman kind of dropped the ball in that department.
And like I said, Werewolf isn't our only hope for future werewolf movies, but a straight-to-DVD quasi-sequel to a lackluster pic doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in me. I need another great film to drink to, right alongside AWiL and Howling. Hopefully that movie will come along soon.
As for this weekend, we’ll most likely be watching The Beast Must Die, a 1974 film that counts Peter Cushing among the cast, and, as I’m in the mood for a classic, AWiL. The Beast Must Die is a mystery of sorts, and there’s even an actual pause at the end of the film where the audience is asked to try and solve the mystery themselves (Kevin Spacey?).
For any Hatchlings reading this, weigh in with your favorite werewolf film, or if you're not a fan of the genre, tell me why. In any case, enjoy the full moon. And stay off the moors…
