Horror Haikus for Halloween

Glenn here wishing you a happy Halloween! I’m not sure if you noticed, but this year has been pretty slim on mainstream horror movies. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been great ones out there worth seeking out, it's just that they're predominantly in limited release and on VOD. The three best horror titles of the year are all such films, the kind that audiences will likely (hopefully?) discover for years to come rather than immediately like The Conjuring. All three are feminist takes on the genre and deserve more eyeballs on them than they’ll ultimately get, but we can plug them anyway.

One is Under the Skin, which was released back in April and one that I really hope critics organizations remember in between trying to predict what Oscar will select. The second is Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, which is out now on home entertainment in its homeland of Australia, in cinemas in the UK, and out exclusively through DirecTV in the US before going to theatres and other VOD services in late November. If you miss it you’ll be missing one of the scariest movies in years. Your best actress roster may just take a shaking, too, if Essie Davis’ fraying mother impresses you as much as it did me. The last such title is A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, which I saw at the Sundance Film Festival and labelled “one of the greatest and most hypnotically enthralling horror movies in some time.” It may be my number one film of 2014 now that it’s getting theatrical release next month.

Anyway, because I’m pumped for time – I have to go and watch the 196-minute Winter Sleep for Stockholm Film Festival jury duty – I thought we should celebrate these three incredible movies in the briskest way possible: haiku! Maybe you can join in with your own favourite films of the year? I’d love to hear them.

Under the Skin

Alien of space
Devouring souls of Scotland
Her sex killed by fire

The Babadook

A mother’s dark grief
Flesh texture of goose-pimples
Ba-ba-dook-dook-dook

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Chador at your door
Iran industrial wasteland
Get out while you can

Got a horror haiku of your own you'd like to share? Speak up in the comments!

Link File

Balder & Dash Dan Callahan on Alfre Woodard's contribution to 12 Years A Slave
Pixar Times on The Blue Umbrella failing to make the Academy Animated Short finalists
Huffington Post wants a return policy on Dallas Buyers Club's AIDS history

Awards Circuit notices some campaign trickery chez TWC. Fruitvale Station's lead actor is now supporting? and it's screenplay is Adapted. Whaaaa? 
Man at Arms crafting Mjölnir, Thor's Hammer
THR on the success of black cinema this year. I'm alarmed at some of these clickbait (racebait?) headlines lately on this topic but i love sentences like "The Butler's success in crossing over is attributed to Oprah Winfrey and Forest Whitaker, mainstream stars who relentlessly promoted the film"... relentlessly sounds so threatening given the context/headline. LOL!
AV Club kicks off a series of "firsties" with Guillermo del Toro. I'm not crazy about his films (I know this is an off consensus opinion) but he's always a good listen/read. Like this quote:

I’m not a brand. I’m an acquired taste. So who’s going to buy this? I’m a caviar-filled doughnut. There’s not a huge demand; it’s not going to be in every supermarket.

It would only take her 49 more years to get her ownFinally...
If you're still thinking about The Governor's Awards which brought us this hot pick, a smart off-mainstream honor, and those wonderful acceptace speeches, make sure to read Mark Harris's piece on why it's a travesty that these awards aren't still part of the Oscars. He calls it the worst decision the Academy ever made and I wholeheartedly agree. As stated in the comments of an earlier post, my whole indoctrination into cinephilia was prompted by the Oscars and I sought out and learned so much Old Hollywood BECAUSE of the ceremony's focus on multiple generations.  Meanwhile if you're still smiling from Angela Lansbury's win enjoy this old haiku for her at Dial M for Movies that's a sweet reminder of the anticipation.

"Something's crossed over in me. I can't go back. I couldn't live."

For those who experienced the tumultous "girlpower" ride of 1990s popular culture this Pretty Woman vs. Thelma & Louise essay in The New York Times is wonderfully mnemonic... and insightful.

Love that accompanying illustration by Tom Gauld. Spot on, spot!

Here's a morsel from the article on the narrative transformational journeys of Thelma (Geena Davis) and Vivian (Julia Roberts), the "ingenues" as the narratives go.

...only Thelma transitions into a new, more independent self, while Vivian finds a way to be preserved as a wide-eyed child-bride forever.

It was precisely this happy ending that made people love “Pretty Woman,” just as it was the flying-off-the-cliff part that made some people object to “Thelma and Louise.” But while Vivian was happily giving herself to a callous oligarch who would purchase her personhood (as she chirped inanities about “rescuing him right back”), Thelma was saving herself by holding up a gas station and locking a cop in the trunk of his car. As every moment of Vivian’s transformative love story — from buying new outfits to subsuming herself to her Pygmalion husband — is transactional, every step of Thelma’s transformation is about evolving from chattel to free agent. In fact, you can make the argument that it was actually Vivian, not Thelma and Louise, who ceased to exist at the end of her film.

Guess which film predicted the next two decades of pop culture? Sigh.

In the magazine version (alas not online) the sidebar features Susan Sarandon Haikus by Adam Sternbergh. These were the two funniest:

Kind Sister Prejean
Bravely faced down injustice
And Sean Penn's Acting.

Nun, hooker, stepmom,
Your only regret, no doubt:
"Mr Woodcock," yes?

Teehee.

Come back to the five and dime Susan Sarandon, Susan Sarandon. And by five and dime, we mean "good movies."