Next up on the October Horror Binge is one of the great horror movies of all time in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.  The Shining is based on a Steven King book, however, King was not a fan of the adaptation of this film, which is odd considering how amazing the film is.  The sequel to this movie/book, Doctor Sleep will be released later this year.

Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson), a former teacher and current writer, moved his family, wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and son Danny (Danny Lloyd), to the Outlook Hotel where they are hired to take care of the hotel during the winter when it was shut down.  The isolation and frustration begins to get to Jack as he struggled to write.

Danny has a mental power known as The Shining.  Scatman Crothers played the hotel’s chef who reveals to Danny that he too has the gift.  However, Danny begins seeing flashes that suggest that there is more to the Outlook Hotel than has been revealed.

The Shining does a masterful job of creating moods.  The Outlook is a wonderful setting that not only feels massive and extensive, but also isolating and claustrophobic.  One could understand how someone could go mad from the loneliness.  Although there are some implications that Jack may not have been the ideal husband/father even before the move to the Outlook.

Jack Nicholson is tremendous as Jack Torrence and his dynamic with Shelley Duvall is creepy.  When Jack starts going off-kilter, he is scary as can be.  While the ghost tale parts of The Shining are fine, they are meant to give reason for the breakdown.  Yet, I do not think I need anything supernatural to explain why Jack flipped out.

There are some truly disturbing imagery in The Shining and the entire “redrum” stuff is what nightmares are made of.

The Shining is frightening and filled with tension.  You are never quite sure what is going to happen and that is a great thing.  This is one of the best films in the genre.

The first Saturday evening in October 2019 and I am continuing the October Horror Binge that I started last week while the calendar still said September.   Now that it is officially the All Hallow’s Eve month, we can resume watching those scary stories from the big screen.

Last week I had watched, for the first time, Freddy Krueger’s debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street.  This week, I skipped over #2 and went right for what is, arguably, the best film of the franchise, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

I was a fan of the title song by Dokken, and, I have a slight memory of renting the VHS when I was younger.  This came out the year I graduated from high school and I was not a slasher film fan, but I remember renting it.  However, as I watched the film tonight, there was little about it that I remembered so it is possible that I did not pay too close of attention to the movie when I watched it back in the late 1980s.

I watched it closer tonight and I enjoyed it much more than the first time.  It was fun with the return of Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) from the first film.  There is a group of new young characters, led by a young Patricia Arquette.  Some of the acting was questionable, but for a slasher movie, they were fine.

Freddy Krueger continues to be the man when it comes to creative kills and you can see why he became an icon in the world of horror.  I’m not sure if I am going to watch any of the other Nightmares, but Dream Warriors is great.

Continuing to reach for October, our October Horror Binge continued today with the fictionalized film about the making of a real film.  The silent film classic Nosferatu is the film that is being used as the historical part of this historical fiction.  Shadow of the Vampire is the fictionalized version asking the question, “What if director F. W. Murnau (John Malkovich) were to use a real vampire as the lead role in his movie?”

Willem Dafoe plays Max Schreck, a real vampire playing the role of Count Orlok.  The cast and crew is told that Schreck is the consummate “method actor” and will only be seen at night and will always stay in character.   Little does the crew know that Murnau had made a deal with the vampire to give him actress Greta Schröder (Catherine McCormack) to feed upon when they were finished.  Murnau insisted that Schreck leave his crew alone and not hurt them, which was a promise that Max could not keep.

There is a lot of humor in the film.  Willem Dafoe gives a remarkable performance as Max and John Malkovich is creepy and cold, wanting only what he wants.  The fact that some people are hurt or in danger in his efforts to create the most realistic vampire movie ever really does not alter his choices.  It makes one wonder exactly which of these men were the monster.

The film is shot beautifully, taking many of the techniques of silent movies, which Nosferatu was, into effect.  The idea behind this is very creative and original.

Defoe was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in this movie.  His performance alone is good enough to watch the movie, but there is much more here than just one performance.

I guess technically, this one is not really a horror film.

You see, I loved Bud Abbot & Lou Costello when I was a kid and I wanted to do one of their movies during the time they were meeting up with the Universal Monsters.  However, I have already reviewed their most famous Monster film, Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein, so I found another one.

The Invisible Man was one of the Universal Monsters, so I figured this would work.

However, it is more of a crime drama than anything else.  Abbot & Costello are private detectives hired by an escaped felon named Tommy, a former boxer who was convicted of murder.  Tommy claimed to be innocent, and winds up taking the formula that was used by the original Invisible Man, John Griffin, to make him disappear.

The film had all the normal Abbot & Costello hi-jinks and had some great laugh-out-loud moments.  Lou Costello was a master of the reaction.  He was so funny when he saw something that scared him or surprised him.  As a team, Bud and Lou had impeccable comic timing, in both banter and physical comedy.  Even if you had seen the same routine or shtick already, you couldn’t help but laugh.  They were masters.

So, even though this film is not, technically, a horror movie, it will fall into the October Horror Binge.  Maybe it helps that it is not, technically, October yet either.

Another film that I had never seen before, but had seen a few isolated scenes was Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.  This ballooned into a huge franchise with Freddy Krueger becoming one of horror’s greatest icons.

However, the start here was a bit shaky.  Some of the acting felt weaker and Freddy Krueger himself would see better days.  The story was challenging to follow and, while that is not a bad thing, it did make me uncertain exactly what was happening.

Yet, there was something about the film that spoke to me.  It had its moments of biting humor and it had the iconic scene where Johnny Depp as Glenn gets pulled into his bed and suddenly becomes a blood fountain.  Huh?

The fact that you are never quite sure what is going on is most likely part of the point.  Dreams can be very surreal and this film shows that effect.  Nancy, played by Heather Langenkamp, was being isolated by the monstrous “Fred” Krueger (I have to say, it was shocking every time someone called him Fred) and her lack of sleep continued to make the story confusing.  What exactly was happening?  Not sure if we really know.  And that ending?

Freddy revitalized the slasher genre in the 1980s with this clever work from Wes Craven and will always be one of the giants of these types of films.  While I have never been as fond of slasher type horror films as I am in other versions of the genre, I appreciate where the franchise was able to take this character and how it scared a generation of people.

October is right around the corner and, for the month, I will be watching a series of horror films that I either have never seen before, have only seen parts of it, or haven’t seen for years.  I am starting off the October Horror Binge with one of the all-time classics of the Universal Monsters, The Bride of Frankenstein.

As I watched the movie, I realized that I have never actually seen the film before, outside of the iconic ending scene.

Boris Karloff resumed his role as the Monster and continued to show the tragic nature of this poor soul.  There is so much sadness in Karloff’s performance that you can’t help but feel for him.  The Monster simply is looking for a way to ease his pain, whether it be physical or emotional.  Everyone reacted to the Monster with fear and anger and the Monster’s response was violence.  However, those who were kind to him could make a connection.

I had no idea that the famous scene from Young Frankenstein with Gene Hackman as the blind man was actually a parody of a scene from The Bride of Frankenstein.  It was nearly impossible to watch The Bride without remembering that hilarious Mel Brooks film and Gene Hackman’s amazing work.

Directed by James Whale, The Bride of Frankenstein is a masterpiece of monster movies.  The film is quite subversive as well, with many hidden concepts that can be representative of many deeper, philosophical experiences.

It is amazing as well that the title character of the film is really barely in the film.

The first of the horror films for the October Horror Binge starting in September… is an influential and iconic film, beautifully shot with a tone of eeriness.

“Chicken…good!”

This is still a line that I quote on a regular basis (especially when I have some good tasting chicken) and this movie has its fair share of quotable quotes.  “Big Bada Boom,” “Leeloo Dallas Multipass,” “Anyone else want to negotiate,” and “I am a meat Popsicle.”

Luc Besson’s classic futuristic sci-fi action/comedy, The Fifth Element, is one of the great underrated films of the past 20 + years.  Bruce Willis stars as Korben Dallas and Milla Jovovich stars as Leeloo, the Fifth Element, the Ultimate Being and these two look to be having so much fun with the out-of-this-world (literally) premise.

The ultimate evil is returning to destroy the earth and the stones that are needed for the Fifth Element to stop evil are a hot property.  Being pursued by Leeloo, the Father Vito Cornelius (Ian Holm), the evil and greedy Zorg (Gary Oldman), Korben Dallas winds up smack dab in the middle of all the chaos.

The characters of this movie are as “Super green” memorable as you are ever going to find.  Gary Oldman’s Zorg is as epic of a villain as you could get.  Tiny Listen plays the President.  Chris Tucker steals every scene he is in as Ruby Rhod.

Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg, as played by the incomparable Gary Oldman, is one of the great sci-fi villains of all-time.  He elevates what could have been nothing more than cheese to brilliance.  Zorg is both humorous and sinister at the same time.  He is both a buffoon and a terror.  It is a top notch performance by one of our greatest character actors.

This is always in consideration as one of Bruce Willis’s best films.  It is certainly different than any other film he made.  He had great chemistry with Milla Jovovich and you believed that they fell in love during this adventure.

The scene with the Diva Plavalaguna and her song is one of the best scenes in a film with great scenes throughout.  Her opera song is beautiful and mesmerizing.  The character design is as wonderful as the rest of the film.  So much originality and it shines though.

The Fifth Element is one of my favorite films ever.  I was a huge fan of Bruce Willis at that time in his career and this is a classic.