SE7EN

Freeman and Pitt

SE7EN (aka Seven/1995). Director: David Fincher.

An unknown serial killer is choosing victims based on the Seven Deadly Sins -- the first victim is an obese man who symbolizes gluttony -- and a veteran homicide detective, Somerset (Morgan Freeman),  is teamed with a young and immature partner, Mills (Brad Pitt of Troy), to investigate. Se7en, one of the big "serial killer" films of the 90's, still retains its punch. Gritty and well-acted -- Kevin Spacey [House of Cards], whatever you think of him,  is outstanding in a supporting role -- Se7en also has an effective score by Howard Shore. The characters in this are better developed than in the average slasher film, although Gwyneth Paltrow [Iron Man] has a relatively thankless role as Pitt's wife. She does, however, figure in a gut-wrenching finale. Sinister and obsessive serial killers later became the province of such TV shows as CSI and Criminal Minds. David Fincher also directed the excellent Alien 3, although he apparently disavowed it later on.

Verdict: Fast-moving and suspenseful. ***

COPYCAT

Siigourney Weaver

COPYCAT (1995). Director: Jon Amiel.

Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver), a psychologist who specializes in serial killers, is attacked in a restroom after one of her lectures and nearly killed. Her assailant is Daryll Lee Cullum (Harry Connick, Jr.), who is arrested, but Helen turns into an agoraphobic who is unable to leave her home. In spite of this she assists two detectives -- Monahan (Holly Hunter) and Reuben (Dermot Mulroney) -- in tracking down a new serial killer, Peter (William McNamara), who is copying the crimes of famous monsters such as Son of Son, Jeffrey Dahmer and others. But will Helen survive when the killer comes after her with a plan to fatally reenact her near-death experience in the college restroom?

William McNamara

Copycat could be picked apart for plot holes and illogical moments but it improves as it goes along, building genuine suspense, despite the fact that the killer is revealed early on. Weaver [Prayers for Bobby] is quite good, and although Holly Hunter [The Burning] would hardly be my first choice for playing a homicide detective, she generally acquits herself nicely as well. Mulroney is perfect as her cocky and ill-fated partner; Connick is positively terrific as the slimy and gross Cullum; and McNamara [Dario Argento's Opera] certainly makes a positive impression as the diabolical and sadistic Peter. One of the best sequences in the film has to do with the unexpected death of a major character, and there is an admirable attempt to flesh out these characters as well. This was one of the big 90's films about serial killers that led to such programs as Criminal Minds. However, those programs look into the lives of the victims a lot more than this picture does.

Verdict: Flashy and slick and quite entertaining. ***. 

HALLOWEEN HORROR 2016

Scream for Your Life!

HALLOWEEN HORROR 2016

Well, we've got a huge crop of horror movies for this year's installment of Halloween Horror. There are movies from the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties, as well as a couple of more recent vintage. Jason Voorhees is back in two installments of Friday the 13th, and we've even got the 2009 gay slasher flick, Hellbent. Plus two movies about Jack the Ripper, one British, one German, and two films about The Town that Dreaded Sundown. You'll also meet The Creeper and the people of Haunts and The House of Seven Corpses. And news about my latest horror epub!

Have fun!

SINISTER

SINISTER (2012). Writer/director: Scott Derrickson.

"I'd rather cut my hands off than write a book for fame or money."

Ambitious true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke of Taking Lives and Daybreakers) desperately wants another bestseller, and puts his wife and two children at risk by moving them into a house where an entire family was hung in the backyard. Ellison finds a box full of old super-8 movies and discovers that each reel contains footage of another family being slaughtered (over time in different locations). A deputy (James Ransone) offers to help him in exchange for credit, and puts him in touch with Professor Jonas (Vincent D'Onofrio), who tells him that symbols found at the crime scenes point to a demon named Bughuul, an "eater of children." Then ghosts begin to appear in the house ... Sinister has an excellent premise and is undeniably creepy, although it drags the ending out too much and one wishes it had eschewed the supernatural altogether, but it is what it is. Hawke, Juliet Rylance as his wife, and Fred Dalton Thompson as the sheriff, give very good performances. Much better, and much more disquieting, than the over-rated It Follows.

Verdict: Suspenseful and eerie horror film. ***.

DARIO ARGENTO AND THE ITALIAN GIALLO FILM

Dario Argento

DARIO ARGENTO.

Why do I like many of the films of Italian horrormeister Dario Argento, and dislike others just as much? Part of this is Argento's over-reliance on gore (although this can be very effective in some movies) and his acceptance of screenplays that, to be charitable, need a lot of polishing that they don't always get.

On the other hand, if you study Argento's films, especially his great ones, you can easily see that the Italian giallo filmmaker is miles ahead of the hack (no pun intended) directors of "mad slasher" schlock like, say, most of the Friday the 13th films and their ilk. His films generally have plenty of style, and his best movies are undeniably creepy and suspenseful and have some kind of (slightly demented) mind behind them, as well as some bravura sequences.

Argento never got mainstream respectability, like Hitchcock, but Argento is not in Hitchcock's league as a filmmaker. Some of his fans are simply interested in the gory shock scenes (Argento tends to cater to them too much) even though there are those of us who also enjoy the twisting plots and tense moments that are virtually in all of his movies. As Argento got older, he perhaps tried too hard to capture the young American mad slasher/splatter movie crowd even though he was capable of far greater things. Argento has never quite fulfilled his potential despite such memorable films as Deep Red and Trauma. (Argento's first film was the creditable The Bird with the Crystal Plumage in 1970).

Argento's other films are of varying quality. Great: Sleepless. Good: Phenomena; The Card Player; Cat O'Nine Tails. Mediocre: Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Bad: Do You Like Hitchcock?; Giallo. And there are others.

Argento's films were clearly influential on such diverse movies as The Eyes of Laura Mars and 88 Minutes, among others. Argento, who is now seventy-five, last directed Dracula 3D, and his next film will be the serial killer thriller The Sandman.

Below you will find reviews of some of Argento's other movies, as well as a write-up on a book about the director and his work.

MR. BROOKS

Kevin Costner

MR. BROOKS (2007). Director/co-writer: Bruce A. Evans.

Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner) is Portland's Man of the Year, a respected family man and very successful businessman -- but he is also the serial killer known as the Thumbprint Killer, who shoots couples and arranges their bodies in "romantic" poses. He has an invisible alter ego named Marshall (William Hurt), who encourages him to commit murder even as Earl tries to stay on the straight and narrow. For the first time he makes a mistake by murdering a couple in front of a window, and a man calling himself Smith (Dane Cook) has taken photographs of the crime. But Smith doesn't want money -- he wants to go along on Brooks' next kill! Another complication for Earl is that there just may be another serial killer in his family, and there's a dogged lady detective (Demi Moore) on his trail. While Mr. Brooks has a few interesting twists, it isn't for a moment believable and there's not enough suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat. The performances are quite good -- Costner and Hurt are excellent, while Moore gives a showy if not entirely convincing portrayal of the cop -- and Marg Helgenberger and Danielle Panabaker are fine as Earl's wife and daughter, respectively; Cook also does well as the slimy, repulsive Smith. Morally ambiguous, to say the least. Despite the subject matter, there's very little gore in the film except for a climactic killing.

Verdict: Enough with the serial killers already! **1/2.

ANAMORPH

ANAMORPH (2007). Director/co-writer: Henry Miller.

New York City detective Stan Aubray (Willem Dafoe) and his sexy new partner Carl (Scott Speedman) investigate when a serial killer starts using the corpses of his victims as art, painting and posing them in specific, generally grotesque tableaus and then cluing the cops in to where they should stand to get the best "appreciation" of his ghastly projects. This aspect of this fair-to-middling serial killer thriller [with few real thrills] is intriguing, although nowadays it's the sort of thing you see every week on CSI and Criminal Minds. The movie is not badly acted, but it's no great surprise that it was released direct-to-video. James Rebhorn is the police chief, and Deborah Harry, formerly of the rock group Blondie, shows up briefly as an unnamed ":neighbor."

Verdict: Good ideas don't always make great movies. **.

THE HAUNTED STRANGLER

THE HAUNTED STRANGLER (1958). Director: Robert Day. 

James Rankin (Boris Karloff), a writer, is fascinated by the case of the presumably long-dead Haymarket strangler. Rankin is convinced that the wrong man was hung for the crimes, and that the real killer disappeared after his surrogate's death. Rankin eventually becomes possessed by the spirit of the true killer and begins a murder spree of his own -- but there's a clever final twist on top of that. The great Karloff is at the top of his form in this very entertaining and well-made horror-mystery, which is completely absorbing and has many effective sequences. Anthony Dawson is Superintendent Burke and Tim Turner is Rankin's handsome young assistant; Elizabeth Allan and Diane Aubrey are the women in Rankin's life.

Verdict: Highly watchable chiller with an exemplary Karloff. ***.

THE SHORTCUT

THE SHORTCUT (2009). Director: Nicholaus Goossen.

It seems there's this shortcut through the woods that most people stay away from since some teens who wandered in there went missing decades ago. The chief suspect in their disappearance is a sinister old man who lives in a house near the woods, and whose family pretty much once owned the town. Now Derek (Drew Seeley) and some friends investigate when a pet disappears in the woods, and Derek's little brother says he found a dead dog with a hostile old man standing over him. The film switches back and forth from the 1940's and 50's and the present day, as we see the background of the main suspect intercut with the modern-day teens' investigations. In many ways this is a typical teen slasher flick, but it does boast some good characterizations, some neat twists that you don't see coming, and decent acting from the cast members, both young and not so young. Not as gory as many other similar movies.

Verdict: Credible, if minor, suspense item. **1/2.

SCREAM 4 IN PRODUCTION

It has beeen announced that Scream 4 --- also known as Scre4m -- is in production for a 2011 release. Scream, Scream 2 and Scream 3 all came out a decade ago.

Wes Craven, who directed the original trilogy, has been signed as director, with Kevin Williamson, who scripted the first two films, as writer.

Ten years have passed and Sidney Prescott, again played by Neve Campbell (pictured), has found catharthis over the terrible events in the Scream movies through her writing. But there's a new killer, called Ghostface, on the loose.

Other returning cast members include David Arquette and Courteney Cox. Just as the two got married in real life, their characters will be married in this Scream installment.

With other horror franchises such as the Saw films coming out on a regular basis, it's a question if this new Scream will get the attention and business that the three original films did, but chances are that good word of mouth will make it a sure money-maker.

HARPER'S ISLAND

HARPER'S ISLAND (2009). Creator: Ari Schlossberg. CBS TV maxi-series.

This Limited Series from CBS essentially takes the stalk-and-slash genre and applies it to a television format with interesting results. With increasing acceptability for gruesome graphics created by such programs as C.S.I., this program is almost as grisly in some spots as theatrical films -- the murders are certainly "inventive" and horrible. The premise has many people gathering on an island [which was the scene of a serial killer's slaughter years before] for a wedding between Henry (Christopher Gorham) and Trish (Katie Cassidy). When people begin disappearing, and mutilated bodies turn up, people wonder if that serial killer, John Wakefield (Callum Keith Rennie, who makes a rather handsome psychopath in flashbacks) is really dead after all. Or is there a copy cat? Or is the dead killer's offspring responsible for the new carnage?There are revelations with each episode, and an undeniable sense of creepiness, especially when some of the survivors descend into tunnels underneath the ground to search for a missing friend. Elaine Cassidy scores as the heroine of the show, Abby Mills, whose father (Jim Beaver) is the sheriff [and who kept a few secrets of his own]. Christopher Gorham, Rennie, and C. J. Thomasen as Jimmy also give stand-out performances, but in general the actors are always on top of things. The explanation for the killings is a little specious, but along the way there's a lot of suspense and quite a few chills. Cassandra Sawtell is notable as the creepy little girl, Madison.

Verdict: Don't trust anyone! ***.

CURE

CURE (1997). Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

Detective Takabe (Koji Yokusho) of the Tokyo police force is not only dealing with an ill wife (Anna Nakagawa), but with a series of gruesome murders that have a couple of things in common. An "X" was carved into the bodies of the victims, and the various murderers all encountered a strange man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) -- who first shows up as an amnesiac on the beach -- shortly before they went on their killing rampage. No one has any real motive for their slayings so Takabe wonders if Mamiya, who studied the work of Austrian "mesmerist" Mesmer, was somehow able to hypnotize people and force them to commit ghastly crimes. Takabe's friend and colleague Sakuma (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) tries to help him unravel the mystery. Although it holds the attention for the most part and seems to be well-acted, the problem with Cure is that it's very deliberately-paced, and is, truth told, merely a stretched out Tales from the Crypt episode with, annoyingly, no real resolution. Director Kurosawa, who also wrote the screenplay and the novel it was based on, is no relation to the more famous Akira Kurosawa.

Verdict: Intriguing at first but ... **.

ANGEL OF DEATH [Semana Santa]

ANGEL OF DEATH (Semana Santa/2002). Director: Pepe Darquart. Screenplay by Ray Mitchell.

In modern-day Seville, Mira Sorvino is a cop who has just been transferred from Madrid. Her new partner (Olivier Martinez) is a rather obnoxious guy who thinks she's a “dyke.” These two are called in to investigate the grisly murders of two gay male twins who were into art and sadism. Before long it becomes apparent that a serial killer in a red cloak and hood is on the loose, and it may all be tied in with family secrets and political events that happened in Spain decades before. The storyline reminds one of a Dario Argento giallo film, but this picture is much too tasteful, the murders are not done with any flair, and the pace is draggy. Darquart betrays little style as a director but the film, made on location, is certainly atmospheric and has some interesting elements. One of the suspects is a bullfighter known as El Quapo, and another is a man who carried out rapes and murders years ago before eventually becoming mayor – but if he isn't dead he'd be too old to commit the crimes. Could he have a son – or many – from the many rapes he perpetrated so many years before? Alida Valli [the same Valli who starred with Gregory Peck in Hitchcock's The Paradine Case] shows up as a woman who lived through the terrible events and may be the mother of the murderer. The screenplay doesn't always jell or make sense, which may be indicative of post-production tampering. Sorvino is a very appealing actress, but Martinez, who was so excellent in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone remake with Helen Mirren, is pretty much wasted in this. Valli is nearly unrecognizable but her performance is credible.

Verdict: Not all bad, but it cries out for tightness and more energetic treatment. **.

CRIMINAL LAW (1988)

CRIMINAL LAW (1988). Director: Martin Campbell.

Slick, well-acted nonsense presents a defense lawyer Ben Chase (Gary Oldman) who gets off a nutty serial killer Martin Thiel (Kevin Bacon), then discovers that he really is guilty and decides to risk disbarment by defending him on new charges and bringing him down while secretly working with the police. Surrrrre -- defense lawyers always do that sort of thing! The movie is never believable but a lot of it is dramatically handled and Oldman and Bacon give dynamic and committed performances. Tess Harper and Joe Don Baker are fine as the detectives pursuing Thiel, and Elizabeth Shepherd is wonderful as Martin's doctor mother. Shepherd made this film ten years after she played the crow-pecked Joan Martin in Damian: Omen II, but she looks even more attractive. The picture has some exciting scenes and suspenseful moments, but it's never able to make its central premise remotely believable.

Verdict: Definite suspension of disbelief required. **1/2.

TWISTED

TWISTED. 2004. Director: Philip Kaufman.

Ashley Judd plays a homicide detective who is understandably freaked when a series of men with whom she had intimate relations turn up brutally murdered. A series of blackouts makes her wonder if she has a subconscious dark side that is committing terrible deeds in the night. Andy Garcia is her new partner, and Samuel L. Jackson is a superior who was a good friend of her dead parents (Ashley's father went on a killing spree whose victims included her mother) and has been her mentor ever since. Twisted holds the attention but it's a little too gimmicky for its own good. Ashley Judd – an actress better suited for light romantic fare such as Someone Like You – wouldn't have been my choice for the role, but she isn't as bad as you might expect. Garcia seems largely befuddled, and Jackson plays with assurance – but nobody expected any Oscar nominations for any of the three. Kaufman's direction is professional but uninspired.

Verdict: An okay time waster but nothing very memorable. **.

TAKING LIVES

TAKING LIVES (2004). Director: D. J. Caruso.

Angelina Jolie is an FBI profiler brought in to help track down a serial killer who repeatedly takes the lives – figuratively and literally – of a succession of victims whose identities he assumes until the next poor fellow comes along. Ethan Hawke is the witness to the latest horrific homicide. When Jolie finds herself drawn to Hawke, resulting in an intense if uncomfortable-looking sex scene, there at least seem to be consequences to her actions. Taking Lives holds the attention until it falls apart in the final quarter and becomes increasingly predictable and ridiculous. D. J. Caruso helms the film with professional vigor, but a Hitchcock he ain't. Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland (in a brief turn), Gena Rowlands (wasted as the mother of the killer), and others in the cast acquit themselves nicely for the most part, but Jolie, acting with her lips, wears one expression and one expression only throughout the entire film. (You have to see her blank – as opposed to numb -- reaction to a beheading in an elevator to believe it. Otherwise this grisly scene is well-handled.) Cobbled together from elements of many different thrillers, Taking Lives generally looks good but probably worked a lot better as a novel; the film version is a major disappointment. Philip Glass' score is hackneyed and entirely forgettable.

Verdict: You've seen it all before and you'll see it again. **.

THE EXORCIST III

THE EXORCIST III (1990). Director: William Peter Blatty.

“[God] goes waltzing through the universe like some kind of cosmic Billie Burke” -- Detective William Kinderman.

Blatty adapted and directed his novel Legion for this second sequel to The Exorcist (although this wisely ignores the events of Exorcist II: The Heretic). Detective Kinderman (now played by George C. Scott) investigates a series of murders that have the same M.O. as atrocities committed by a fiendish serial killer, Gemini (Brad Dourif), who was executed the very night the girl Regan was exorcised. Kinderman ties these events to a mysterious patient in a psycho ward known only as “X” but who looks just like his old friend Father Damian (Jason Miller), who supposedly died fifteen years before on the night of the exorcism. The movie works up its own internal logic but seems to break it and become a little more confusing than it needs to be and there is too much gratuitous humor, but it has a good basic plot and is seriously disturbing at times. There's a long, creepy sequence in a hospital corridor that works up to a quick shock, and Viveca Lindfors figures in a near-climactic kitchen scene that involves a terrifyingly large surgical blade used for amputations. You have to see the old lady crawling across the ceiling to believe it (a wild sequence, but one better left on the cutting room floor?) George C. Scott is as ferociously good as ever as Kinderman, although he might have registered more upsetment at his friend, Father Dyer's, bizarre murder. Ed Flanders is on-the-money as Dyer, and there's excellent support as well from Nicol Williamson (an exorcist), Lee Richardson (university president), Brad Dourif, and Nancy Fish as a very saucy, borderline bitchy nurse. Although she is uncredited, the demon seems to be voiced by Colleen Dewhurst. Dopey Fabio shows up in a purgatory dream sequence. The obligatory exorcism scene is fairly exciting. It's interesting to contemplate what Hitchcock would have done with this material.

Verdict: The movie has its moments but the book is better. **1/2.