The Academy Honors 'Spider Baby' (or The Maddest Story Ever Told)

Do you think we can win an Academy Award for this?
-Carol Ohmart.

Glenn here trusting you had an enjoyably spooky Halloween weekend? On Saturday I went to a 12-hour horror marathon here in New York City, but on the night of All Hallows' Eve I attended a screening of Jack Hill’s lost laugh-out-loud horror classic Spider Baby at The Academy. Yes, the Academy. AMPAS have restored the 1967 black and white cannibal movie (with the assistance of Harvey Weinstein and Quentin Tarantino!) after being considered “abandoned property” due to rights issues. After years of being consigned to bad VHS-dub quality bootlegs, a print was discovered set for destruction (all too often, especially with public domain titles such as this) and now it has been restored in all of its beautiful, carnal, absurd glory in stunning 35mm. How was your Halloween?

The real treat was the Q&A afterwards. Moderated by William Lustig - himself a genre legend of grimy classics like Maniac and the unrelated Maniac Cop to his credit - Spider Baby director Jack Hill was a wonderfully entertaining subject. At 81 years of age he was spry and energetic, and despite admitting the inspiration for the film – subtitled “The Maddest Story Ever Told” for a reason – was marijuana, he had remarkably good memories of the film as well as his entire early career. A career that includes launching Pam Grier with Foxy Brown and Coffy, all but inventing the cheerleader flick, and turning Corman-produced flicks like The Big Doll House into huge hits.

William Lustig on the left, Jack Hill on the right. Photo Credit: Peter Dressel/The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

He described how the film was made on a budget of $50,000 over 12 days in a sticky August, with Lon Chaney needing to be shammied in between takes. It was particularly great to hear him talk vividly of the contributions of arguably the film’s two greatest assets: Actress Jill Banner, and production designer Ray Storey. The discovery of the dilapidated house used for exteriors (which is now heritage listed) and the disused car factory used for the interiors (that dumbwaiter!) When discussing Banner – who, it must be said, gives one of the all-time great performances, horror or otherwise, yes? – it was said that Marlon Brando, whom she was dating at the time of her death in a car accident in 1982, had said she was the love of his life. Old Hollywood converging with drive-in exploitation!

He ended the lengthy chat with the above quote by co-star Carol Ohmart, who was so impressed by the film she believed Oscars may have been in their future. It does riff on Hitchcock's Psycho after all. Still, I love that The Academy have chosen Hill’s film to restore. Whenever people boo and hiss about how the Oscars are just about money, it’s wise to remind them that they’re raising money for much needed cinema preservation. If enduring the Oscars (which we obsessives obviously don’t mind) so films like Spider-Baby and all the rest of their “orphan films” line-up can survive then I have no qualms supporting them.

And if you’re wanting to know, the Academy’s New York screening room is a modest affair. The walls adorned with posters – including, side by side, Wings and 12 Years a Slave – and photographs of this year’s winners, and a large statue of Oscar standing guard over the silver screen. Not sure Oscar of old would have appreciated a film like Spider Baby getting the spotlight shone upon it, but a film this great and entertaining deserves it.

AHS: Freakshow "Edward Mordrake Pt. 2"

I apologize for the lateness of this piece! AHS's two-part Halloween episode was structured around green smoke spewing evil spirit Edward Mordrake's search for another soul to add to his collection of dead ghouls. This search was something like a B story entirely made up of SAG Ensemble clip reel auditions with several actors getting their own "darkest hour" backstory to tell. I loved the Illustrated Seal's (Mat Fraser) clip reel about his "handsome face" and am pleased to have read that Ryan Murphy, recognizing his talent, wants to give him a non-freak role somehow in a future season, despite his deformed hands and arms.

After completely the sad story roundup, Mordrake decides to take Elsa (Jessica Lange) with him into the afterlife following her grisly tale of her Weimer Era Germany sex club stardom ends in the grisly chain-sawing of her legs. (Yuck -- and that isn't even the grossest image in her story). But, Mordrake stops when he hears distant music.

Where is it coming from?

Click to read more ...

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!

Happy Halloween from The Film Experience!

We didn't make October a big horror month at the blog like we've done in past years (gotta switch it up from time to time) but we'll be creepier and crawlier next year since we had a break in 2014... if the blog survives another Oscar season, that is. [cue: ominous music]

But for now, an OPEN THREAD. 

Which horror films have you seen the most in your lifetime? Do you always watch on on Halloween?

The only two horrors I've personally seen a ridiculous bunch of times (since I'm not a big rewatcher and it's hardly my favorite genre) are Psycho (1960) and Carrie (1976). I never tire of either. My third favorite is Rosemary's Baby (1968) though I've only see it thrice. Though several others are gold (Herzog's Nosferatu, Kubrick's The Shining, etcetera) those three just tower over all others casting creepy and unimproveable shadows. My teammates have a broader range of favorites as evidenced by our Top Ten Pre-Exorcist Horror Films and the Top Ten Post-Exorcist Horror films.

Happy Halloween !  

Be safe tonight. We only pretend that ghoulish fates await us on All Hallows' Eve.

Beauty vs Beast: The Babysitter's Club

JA from MNPP here with our final Final Girl match-up "Beauty vs Beast" style before All Hallows hits us on Friday! Over the course of October we've paired off A Nightmare on Elm Street's Nancy vs Freddy, Scream's Sidney vs the boys Billy & Stu, last week the Torrances came out to play, and now... well there were Final Girls who came before and there were Final Girls who came after, but to my mind the clearest cut definition, the Platonic Ideal of Final Girlism, every box is checked with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), heroine and survivor of John Carpenter's sleek nightmare Halloween.

Jamie Lee Curtis isn't the preeminant Scream Queen in many a fan's mind for nothing, but before I tilt the scales too far in her favor right here before the match-up let me make it clear that Laurie wouldn't work if she wasn't the immovable object meeting a truly irresistible force...

If the dance she danced was with a weaker partner (can you name JLC's character or the villain in Terror Train, for example?), and let it be said that the only movie character that's ever made its way into one of my nightmares is Michael Myers. That white mask haunting every corner of every frame, night and day-time, outside a window, behind some sheets flapping in the breeze, in every tan station wagon sitting outside your kid's school... the boogeyman is real, you guys.

poll by twiigs.com

You have seven days to carve your jack-o-lanterns, cut eye-holes into your sheets, and choose between the boogeyman and the babysitter -- have at it.

PREVIOUSLY Last week I asked you to pick between The Shining's Jack and Wendy Torrance - well we've found our way out of the hedge maze and just like in the movie it's Wendy that's our survivor, poor Jack left a popsicle in the past. Said Evan:

"Shelley Duvall is a Gumby-esque goddess. Her flailing around the Overlook adds a campiness that feels tonally detached from the rest of the film, but somehow still works."