Is the truth out there? - The Fourth Kind (2009)

Growing up I was obsessed with aliens and UFO's, but once you've seen one little green man you've seen them all, right? They became less scary than the serial killer you could bump in to in a dark alley, be sitting next to at work or even end up marrying. But excitingly The Fourth Kind trailer promised something else more akin to demonic possession than Mork and Mindy.

Actress Milla Jovovich opens the film by claiming that what we are about to see is all true and based on actual footage and reports by the psychologist Dr Abbey Tyler, the character whom she plays. Thus trying to give the impression of this-film-really-is-based-on-a-true-story-honest-please-believe-me. God, sometimes I wish I wasn't such a cynic. We see cleverly interspersed and split screened scenes of the 'real' footage along side the dramatised footage with clips from an interview with the real Dr Tyler.

Set in the isolated town of Nome in Alaska, three of Dr Tyler's patients all begin to report the same sleeping problems. They wake up at around 3am, feeling very anxious. They look out the window and see an owl staring at them and no matter how hard they try they can't get it to fly away. Very Edgar Allan Poe! When Dr Tyler sees the pattern she decides to hypnotise the first patient Tommy, to find out if he sees anything else. Under hypnosis he describes the owl again but this time says it is not really an owl. He goes on to say that there is someone at his door. Whatever he sees then he cannot talk about as it obviously terrifies him. He later goes home and shoots his family and then himself claiming that would be better than having them see what he has seen.

This gets Dr Tyler some unwanted attention from the police and after she performs another hypnotism which leads to the patient unable to ever walk again she is put under house arrest with her two young children. It's this hypnotism that interested me the most. Drawing on The Exorcist, the patient convulses and levitates off the bed. He speaks in tongues and it seems the aliens are communicating through him, warning the doctor to stop her investigations.

A truth of this film is that actually there have been disappearances in Nome, just like there would be in any town, and the families aren't happy about this film trivialising their losses. Film staff have also been accused of publicising the movie with hoax posts on the Internet, trying to perpetuate the theory that Dr Abbey Tyler really exists. Quite ingenious.

When asked what I thought about the ending I said that I was neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. If they showed the little green men it would've felt like E.T. or something. Leaving it like that may not have been the most exciting cinematic finale ever made, but it was I suppose more realistic, if it is possible for a film about an unseen, unexplained entity to be. Scared people will find any other possible explanation for something they don't understand, to save them from having to process the truth. So if the truth is out there, we probably don't want to know.

It was only a dream - The Vault of Horror (1973)

What a nightmare; you get stuck in a lift and have nothing to say to the strangers stuck in there with you. That doesn't happen here though. In this modern time of such dream inspired films as The Matrix and Inception, I thought I'd get back to basics, in a typical 1970's England kind of way. Five men walk in to a lift and step out on a floor they didn't know existed. With no way of getting back in once the doors mysteriously shut behind them they make themselves comfortable around a lavish table with some drinkies. They set about discussing their nightmares to pass the time...

Harold starts off by confessing he is haunted be a reoccurring dream. The film goes in to subtitle with Midnight Mess. Here Harold's dream alter ego is a dodgy character. He kills a man after getting information from him regarding the whereabouts of his sister. He tracks her down to a small town where he is advised not to stay out after dark. At her house he shoots his sister and makes his way calmly to a restaurant where he is served a starter of soup made of blood. In disgust he realises he is surrounded by Vampires with teeth that look like they're bits of Polo sticking out their mouths. (I know it is Polo as I've done this myself.) They then hang him upside down and drain him with a tap from the neck. He tells the other men that this is not like him at all; he doesn't even have a sister!

Now it's Arthur's turn. In his dream he is married to a loving wife but he is obsessively tidy. Everything has to be in it's correct place (sounds like me again). The contents of the cupboards are listed on the doors and heaven forbid anything is spilled on the carpet. After being chastised one too many times his wife snaps and murders him with an axe. But she is tidy about it. She sorts his body parts in to little labeled jars. Well that's English suburban housewives for you, they always come through in the end.

The rest of the men continue to discuss the nightmares that all detail their untimely demise. One man is strangled by a rope charmer's rope after he kills her to steal her act. Another fakes his own death, going so far as being buried and is then accidentally decapitated when dug up.

This is essentially a tale of what goes around comes around. What ever you do now will eventually come back to bite you. You can't even escape it in your dreams. Maybe our dreams are reflections of our real selves or maybe they mean nothing at all. But I think if we've learned anything tonight it's that I am a Polo abusing, obsessive compulsive. Oh, but it's only a dream though, isn't it...? Isn't it...?! Mwa ha ha haaah.

If you're interested in getting the horror classics back on TV click here and head over to fellow horror blogger Cyberschizoid's campaign and show your support!

Mummy issues - Homicidal (1961)

All I seem to hear nowadays is people going on about remakes and how rubbish they are. What we don't seem to have anymore is the genuine rivalry between film makers, with them accusing each other of stealing their ideas. Hitchcock and William Castle were allegedly rivals. Now, whether it was just Press Hype or not I don't know, but to argue about ones own film style being stolen sounds like a whole lot of fun to me. Castle was of course responsible for the originals of House on Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts. Here as the Hitchockian introduction to this film by Castle promises, we are about to witness someone go homicidal...

With a Psycho-like feel the very glamorous yet mysterious Emily checks in to a hotel. The bellboy she meets there she already knows. They plan to marry that night for reasons other than romance, which are yet to be revealed.

At the ceremony in the middle of a living room, Emily suddenly stabs their fat backstreet minister. With the stabbing sound effects less like the blade going through a watermelon of Psycho, but more of a football. But nicely dramatic and grotesque nonetheless. She flees, leaving the bellboy, shocked, to pick up the pieces. Returning home we see that Emily is the psychotic live-in nurse of Helga, the mute wheelchair bound childhood guardian of Warren and Miriam.

Privately, Emily switches from maniacal grinning to violent rages. Publicly, she still isn't really fooling anyone. Miriam and her boyfriend are on to her which puts them in more danger. Even her friend Warren is a little suspicious of her at first. And Warren is in line to inherit his hated late father's cash in two days time. Is Emily planning on getting her hands on his money? This photo shows the minutes before an extremely satisfying decapitation scene. Yes, I did say extremely satisfying.

This one definitely put a smile on my face even after guessing the big reveal early. The slickest film I've seen of its time. With a twist of an ending that will put more modern films to absolute shame. Regardless of the OTT dramatics, the acting here is second to none. And it just goes to show, a homicidal maniac can go from your best friend to your killer in a second.

Heeeeere's the winner! - The Shining contest

Someone has been spending too much time in a dark empty room, away from their family, away from the TV and all other distractions. Someone has gone a little stir crazy and gone and won themselves that Shining mug I've been harping on about for the past couple of weeks!

So, heeeeere's the winner....

Carl from I Like Horror Movies

Well done, Carl. Thank you to everyone who took part. It was a great turn out. While we wait for Carl to tell us in no less than 1000 words how happy is about this, lets watch a Shining trailer!

And if you missed it click here to check out my review of Stanley's classic.

Scare Sarah Cinema (3) - Psychosis

Those were the days; the 1990's when I didn't have a care in the world, my main problems were deciding whether or not I should buy the limited edition of a new CD or if my mum would moan if I ate chips on the way home instead of the dinner she cooked. Oh yeah, and Buffy was on TV! The source for some of my earlier crushes. Actually, it did run in to the 2000's when I really should've had more responsibilities, but the less said about that the better.

There is something heartening about seeing someone do well after (kind of) growing up with them (in a non stalkery way). Here we have Psychosis and Charisma Carpenter, hasn't she grown. One of the latest Brit horror flicks to give me further hope that the splatter/slasher is going down the glossy, sexy route. Along side Ricci Harnett, Paul Sculfor, Sean Chapman and Justin Hawkins (cough), Charisma plays an American horror novelist who relocates to the UK. She slowly becomes creeped out by strange goings on and scary neighbours. So much so, she finds it impossible to distinguish what is real and what is her imagination. Sounds cool, huh?



The DVD is out on the 19th July. Now, off you go.

Little pigs, little pigs... - Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980)

The Shining is one of those films that has just always existed for me. It's always been there. Kubrick took a great novel by Stephen King and made it beautiful for our eyes instead of just our heads. With colours as bright as A Clockwork Orange and a script that was often improvised, it's still as fresh as the day it was born.

Jack has landed himself the job of temporary caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, while it's closed for the winter months. He takes his wife, Wendy and young son, Danny. Jack is told at the interview that a few years ago they had what they called a tragedy at the hotel, when the caretaker was overcome with cabin fever and killed his wife and children. "Do you think you will be suited to this kind of solitude, Mr Torrance?" But it
becomes apparent that there is more at work here than just weak personalities losing it, but something else may be controlling their minds.

A month passes and Jack begins to display all the signs. The hotel has a life of its own and that busy place it is during the summer soon disappears and the empty building takes on a whole different feel. Thoroughly worked on and wound up by the ghosts, Jack goes about correcting his family. And in this instance correcting means killing if a stern talking to doesn't suffice.

This is a Kubrick film through and through. Although it still retains the typical Stephen King subtle-as-a-brick setting up of the story with "How did you know we called him Doc? We never called him Doc in front of you" and "Part of the hotel was built on an Indian burial ground, ya know." So many of the striking dreamlike images are now ingrained in cinema history; Danny riding his trike down the corridors, the twin girls, blood pouring through the lift doors, the typewriter, the baseball bat, the axe, the baseball bat... I feel like I should go outside for a while...

Don't forget my contest to win a Shining mug ends this Saturday the 10th! Click here to enter.

Scare Sarah Cinema (2) - Spreading the love

Not quite in the same vein of past Scare Sarah Cinema but I thought this was too good to just keep to myself. In the past I have highlighted some horror short films that are readily available on the net. You don't have to spend your hard earned cash on a DVD instead of paying the gas bill. DVD/gas bill, DVD/gas bill. Oh I hate that kind of dilemma.

Indie Movies Online, from tomorrow will be showing a full length classic horror movie each day for free. Here's the line up.

Ju-On White Ghost (2009) - July 5th
Ju-On Black Ghost (2009) - July 6th
Tokyo Gore Police (2008) - July 7th
Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009) - July 8th
X-Cross (2007) - July 9th
Starfish Hotel (2006) - July 12th
Samurai Princess (2009) - July 13th
Goth: Love of Death (2008) - July 14th
Battle Royale (2000) - July 15th
Day of the Dead (1985) - July 16th



I'll be watching a few of these myself and giving them the SS treatment. And unless I'm very much mistaken, there'll be a few Japanese-girls-with-long-black-hair-over-their-faces moments. Take a look and let me know what you think. But for now, get outta my cinema, punks.