Oscar Horrors: Dogtooth

HERE LIES... my soul. Well, our souls, after we all subjected ourselves to Yorgos Lanthimos’s mad genius in Best Foreign Film nominee Dogtooth.

Let’s go back a couple of years to January 25th 2011: nomination day for the 83rd Oscars. As per tradition, a shortlist of nine films in contention for the Best Foreign Language film had been released previously and it’s a big understatement to simply say eyebrows were raised when Dogtooth was included among them. Granted, the Greek submission was exactly the type of film that the executive committee was intended to save and the submissions weren’t really a vintage crop, but there were still films like France’s universally admired Of Gods and Men and Turkey’s Golden Bear winner Honey in the running. In any case, the January shortlist was presumed to be the extent of Dogtooth’s progress. Surely, the same group of people who found Departures superior to The Class, or The Secret in their Eyes stronger than The White Ribbon, wouldn’t go for something as outré as Dogtooth, would they?

It turns out, they would!

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Oscar Horrors: "Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird"

In 'Oscar Horrors' we look at those rare Oscar nominated contributions in the horror genre. Daily all October long. Here's Andreas on an actress who is still very much with us and where is her Honorary Oscar, we ask?

HERE LIES... Angela Lansbury's chanteuse "Sibyl Vane," sent to an early grave by her love for Dorian Gray and trampled by National Velvet in March 1946

For The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Angela Lansbury received her second Best Supporting Actress nomination in as many years. (Her previous one was for Gaslight, another Victorian horror-melodrama. Talk about carving out a niche!) She plays a working-class British girl in both films, but Sibyl Vane is the polar opposite of her snippy maid in Gaslight: demure, wholesome, and tender.

These qualities captivate the still-redeemable Dorian, as does her signature song "Little Yellow Bird".

Good-bye, little yellow bird.
I'd rather brave the cold
On a leafless tree
Than a prisoner be
In a cage of gold...

Lansbury's delivery transforms the song into a leitmotif of innocence, a status it retains long after her character's death. For although the actress herself departs the film about 40 minutes in, she leaves a huge impression. This is a true supporting performance, affecting the whole rest of the film despite scant screen time. Dorian Gray is a chilly movie, preoccupied with the smooth surfaces of Dorian's mansion, and Lansbury supplies it with warmth. Her heartbroken face pierces Dorian's hardening soul, and her melancholy song haunts him all throughout his later debaucheries.

Even when he's corrupted through and through, Dorian Gray can't escape the "Little Yellow Bird." That's the lingering power of Angela Lansbury's onscreen vulnerability. With that gentle face, opening into a smile like a flower into bloom, she changes what could've been a throwaway ingenue role into something bigger—into the emotional core of the film. The Oscar may have ultimately gone to Anne Revere for National Velvet, but Sibyl remains unforgettable, a pure songbird devoured by Dorian's caprices.

More Oscar Horrors 
Monster's Inc - Animated Feature
Pan's Labyrinth - Art Direction
Them! - Visual Effects
American Werewolf in London -Makeup
Addams Family Values  -Art Direction

Oscar Horrors: Innocence and "Monsters, Inc"

HERE LIES... the Best Animated Feature nomination for Monsters, Inc. (2001) sent to an early grave by a big green ogre. Hi, Deborah from Basket of Kisses here. The Great Oscar Animation War of 2001/2002 was fought between innocence and jadedness, between sincerity and irony, between modernism and post-modernism, or, to put it plainly, between Monsters, Inc. and Shrek. (To be fair, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, was also in the race, but I don't know anyone who considered it a contender.) The winner, Shrek, announced a tragedy of 21st century humor, in which reference and winking has won out over wit and warmth. What? Do I sound bitter?

The film's Oscar-winning theme song would have you believe that the film is about friendship -- and Sully (John Goodman),  Mike (Billy Crystal), and Boo—are lovely -- but at heart, Monsters, Inc. is about a childhood so unspoiled that there are still monsters in the bedroom closet. Fundamentally, Monsters, Inc. is about innocence.  Children are becoming more cynical, Mr. Waternoose (James Coburn) tells us, and thus harder to make scream.

They're probably watching Shrek...

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Oscar Horrors: Setting The Table for The Pale Man

Oscar Horrors continues with Michael on everyone's favorite Guillermo del Toro film

HERE LIES... Pan’s Labyrinth, winner of the 2006 Oscar for Best Art Direction.

I could go through Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth a scene at a time picking out all the brilliant little details that makes its imagery so indelible, but for this post, let’s limit our focus to the film’s most famous scene: The Pale Man. The monster that has a table full of delicious food but only feeds, to use del Toro’s words, “on the blood of the innocent.” There have been thousands of scenes where one form of monster or another stalks the story’s protagonist. It is one of the basic equations of the horror genre. So what do set decorator Pilar Revuelta and art director Eugenio Cabellero do with this one that shakes the viewer on such an elemental level? 

Of course it helps to start with one of the all time horrifying creatures in all of cinema. Del Toro instructed the team to imagine an old obese man who quickly lost a lot of weight, and when that proved insufficiently nightmare-inducing proceeded to erase the face of their designs.

But beyond the surface there are many elements to the scene most viewers will only register subconsciously. Like... 

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Oscar Horrors: "THEM!"

Oscar Horrors celebrates those rare Oscar nominated achievements in genre films. Here's Matt for today's creepy crawly entry...

HERE LIES... THEM!, flushed and crushed Under The Sea in the competition for the 1954 Oscar for Best Special Effects.

It isn't hard to imagine what this movie might look like if it were made today instead of at the pinnacle of the Hollywood nuclear horror era. The ants would probably look stunning. Every little hair would shine, glisten and twitch like the Orlacks in Beasts of the Southern Wild. A team of designers and artists would slave over every detail of their movement for months. They might even be scary. But, like so many of the great horror movies in history, the monster isn't what everyone's worried about.

Still, the special effects team on Them! earned an Oscar nomination for their exceptional craft, only losing to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The ants are the most obvious manifestation of special effects in the film. They were hand-built and operated by hidden crews. If you're lucky enough to have this movie on VHS, you can even catch a glimpse of an open-bodied ant just before the end. The ants are clunky, awkward, and often laughable, but that's not the point. Them! is one of the all-time great examples of a movie monster that frightens the audience through association. The movie is on par with The Fly, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and War of the Worlds as a cultural barometer. Even if the filmmakers weren't sitting around a table saying, "You know... this movie should be a metaphor for the national fear complex and nuclear danger," they were aware that the tenor of American society in the mid-50s produced enough material to frighten anyone. All you had to do was mention "nuclear" and hint at large-scale destruction.

But as far as the special effects go, Them! successfully uses many effects in addition to the ants. The movie has solid back-projection in many places, something we can never take for granted. The climactic battle is done with real cinematic panache. In fact, Gordon Douglas' direction is exactly what motivates the success of these effects. He moves quickly at points, but understands that it's scarier to watch the beast creep up on someone rather than play for pure shock value. The film was originally intended to be shot with several 3D sequences and in color.

A last-minute camera malfunction prevented them from doing this, but some scenes are still obviously meant to be done in three dimensions -- the most noticable being a flamethrower blowing straight into the camera.

Not only is Them! great, October-ready fun, it's a genuine, classic film -- one that spins a prevalent social fear into the structure of a Hollywood monster B-movie. 

previously on Oscar Horrors
American Werewolf in London -Best Makeup
Addams Family Values  -Best Art Direction
Season 1 Index