Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 25: The Tingler

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 25: The Tingler

Filmmaker William Castle was notorious for selling his movies with fun gimmicks that you had to go to the theater to experience. For House on Haunted Hill there was a skeleton on a zip-line that would fly out at the audience, and for The Tingler there were select seats in the theater that would shock the audience member during certain points in the movie, a plant in the audience who would pretend to faint and a fake nurse who would take her away, and at the end Vincent Price literally demands the audience to scream. It's a lot of fun.

Castle's intro to the film is reminiscent to the opening of James Whale's Frankenstein, warning the audience about how scared they're going to be, which I love. Then there's a bunch of screaming floating heads, which I also love.

Vincent Price plays a doctor who has discovered some sort of thing that allows fear to kill people, a thing he calls "the tingler." He then goes home where we discover he has a shockingly bitter relationship with his wife, which sort of comes in and out of the plot. This happens with a few characters in the movie (including Price's), where they seem to bounce around with either being evil or normal, depending on what the plot needs. But it's The Tingler, so that's not really important.

There's a genuine scare in the movie that's still effective today, and it's part of a wild sequence that makes the whole movie worth watching. There's also a wonderful meta ending in a movie theater that would probably be even better with the gimmicks, but it's still delightful.

Sure it's clearly cheaply made, but it's quick, it gets the job done, it's got real scares, and at one point Vincent Price says: "This gun can put a hole in you the size of a medium grapefruit.", and if that's not worth the price of admission I don't know what is.

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 24: Cronos

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 24: Cronos

Guillermo Del Toro is now synonymous with monster movies, a reputation he worked for 25 years to achieve, going all the way back to his very first movie in 1993: Cronos.

Taking place in Mexico, the large majority of the film is in Spanish, with a couple of somewhat fascinating exceptions. For one, the opening Lord of the Rings-esque narration is entirely in English, which through me for a loop as I expected all of it to be in Spanish. Ron Perlman is the primary source of English in the movie, with occasional attempts at Spanish throughout.

This is a vampire movie, but only on a very technical level. The only vampire in the movie is the kindly old protagonist who slowly becomes one. He's not bitten by a person, instead he's bitten by a small device with an immortal bug in it. Pretty different. He never grows fangs or bites anyone, but he does get a taste for blood and has quite a hard time dying.

As with all of Del Toro's movies to come after this one, the set design and cinematography are gorgeous. It feels like a dark, bizarro modern fairy tale, which is kind of Del Toro's whole thing. There's a little girl who looks like every little girl in every Del Toro movie, and there's plenty of violence that juxtaposes the somewhat whimsical tone he sets up.

I would've liked the movie to be more focused and seen more happen to the likable grandfather protagonist, as well getting more wonderful creativity like the beetle device with all of the gears inside. I don't need so much of Ron Perlman and his boss, I just want to see a nice old man deal with becoming a vampire and get some more Del Toro madness.

While I do have issues with the movie, it's a great start to a career that, although riddled with both hits and misses, is undoubtedly unique and entirely his singular vision. If you're a Del Toro fan, you don't want to miss this one.

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 23: Tales from the Crypt

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 23: Tales from the Crypt

Part of the Amicus Productions portmanteau film series, Tales from the Crypt is a horror anthology movie that spawned a cult-favorite TV series, and boy is it fun.

Asylum, which was also made by Amicus, came out only a few months later, but this is absolutely the superior film. Focusing far less on the framing story, Tales from the Crypt gives us five stories that are for the most part engaging and genuinely creepy.

The first story centers around a home invader dressed like Santa, which would be so much creepier if we didn't see his face till the end. It still works though, with a fun spousal murder plot to keep the viewer distracted from the truly scary thing lurking just outside the house. It truly feels like a nightmare scenario.

The second story is mostly shot in POV, which is very inventive and makes it feel all the more personal. There's wonderful use of the "it was all a dream" trope that's particularly impressive considering how the trope is typically so obnoxious. This is another authentic nightmare story.

In the third story Peter Cushing plays a wildly different character than what he typically does, going for a kindly Bob Cratchit-type, who ends up being horribly wronged. It's a blast to watch him play so against type, and makes me respect him all the more as an actor.

The fourth story is my least favorite, as it's not very scary due to it's playing a bit more like a comedy of errors, with a couple accidentally misusing a monkey's paw. Also, the main guy sounds like Matt Barry, which is always funny.

The last one sort of feels like a classic scary story kids would tell each other, revolving around losing losing eyesight and having to walk through what is essentially a torture tunnel.

It's perfect for Halloween and you get a lot of bang for you buck with five fun stories, so I highly recommend checking this one out. It's not exactly a fantastic movie, but it's a lot of fun.

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 22: The Stepford Wives

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 22: The Stepford Wives

Probably the scariest movie I've seen this month so far, Jordan Peele called this one of his biggest influences for Get Out and it's easy to see why.

In the same vain as other classic 70's horror films like Rosemary's Baby and Don't Look Now (or modern greats such as Get Out and Hereditary), The Stepford Wives is almost entirely setup, which is what makes so unsettling, and the ending so terrifying.

For the first half of the movie almost nothing seems to really be wrong. The main character's husband is part of a terrible men's social club and the other ladies in the neighborhood are strangely boring, but she makes a friend and still mostly lives an average life. It's not until nearly an hour into the movie that things start to really get suspicious, and the last thirty minutes or so for it to start really getting scary.

I've never seen the Nicole Kidman remake so I can't speak to it, but it seems a bit unnecessary considering this movie was made so well the first time. The only issue I can really think of is that they name a character "Raymond Chandler", which is a very confusing thing to do.

I'm not gonna talk about any spoilers here. You just gotta see it for yourself, and remember to be very patient. It's worth it.

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 21: Dressed to Kill

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 21: Dressed to Kill

Much like any Brian De Palma film, Dressed to Kill is an exhilarating rollercoaster of twists and turns. Much like Brian De Palma's filmography, it's also a bit hit-and-miss.

I'm gonna start with the bad, just to get it out of the way. This 1980 movie has very dated views on several things, despite not being made all that long ago. The plot heavily involves transsexuality, and while they bother to show one transsexual person being interviewed, the large majority is showcasing it as a mental illness and something to be feared. There's also a racist group of thugs dressed like the cast of Fat Albert that harass a white female character, which gives off some serious Birth of a Nation vibes. It also paints people with mental illness as automatically dangerous and scary, which isn't exactly fair.

Moving onto the good, I love how the movie is nearly impossible to predict. Something exciting and wild happens in nearly every scene, almost like De Palma purposefully tried to surprise himself every time he sat down to write the movie. It has more than a passing resemblance to Psycho, complete with a beginning mislead, an over-explanation of what happened at the end, and a shower kill. It's clear the De Palma was trying to rattle the audience in the same way Hitchcock so famously did. While it's certainly inspired by Hitchcock, it's also unmistakably De Palma, especially in the visuals. Split screens, sweeping crane shots, fun oners, his trademarks are there from top to bottom.

I picked this movie because it's in the Criterion Collection and Edgar Wright recommended it, so I feel like it's worth mentioning that Michael Caine at one point yells "You don't have to be a detective to figure that out!", which Simon Pegg also yells in Hot Fuzz. Figuring out references in reverse like that is always fun.

As long as you accept that it's dated and has problems, it's worth seeing for its impeccable filmmaking and storytelling techniques.

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 20: X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 20: X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes

Another Roger Corman film, but instead of his typical tongue-in-cheek approach, this one is actually quite tragic.

Ray Milland plays an ambitious scientist who invents a chemical that allows him to have x-ray vision. It starts with what a Corman film about x-ray vision would typically have: a party where Milland can see everyone naked (but it's 1963 so it's lots of backs and legs). He also has a very funny dance that I think is worth mentioning. But his mind quickly deteriorates and he goes from a doctor to a carnival worker, eventually landing on being a Vegas gambler. It's a very full, depressing character arc that Corman manages to pack into less than an hour and a half. It's pretty brilliant.

Milland is fantastic, as he is wont to be, but the most surprising performances comes from Don Rickles, who plays a creepy sleazeball unbelievably well. Dick Miller also shows up again, officially solidifying himself as an MVP of the month for me.

This an underseen, underrated gem that I absolutely recommend. It accomplishes so much with so little that it (ironically enough) has to be seen to be believed.

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 19: Piranha

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 19: Piranha

Two Joe Dantes in a row! I haven't seen the 2010 remake Piranha 3D, which seemed to play a big part in bringing back b-movies for a while there in the early 2010's (Hobo with a Shotgun, Iron Sky, FDR: American Badass, etc.), but this 1978 "original" (much like the large majority of Roger Corman productions) is far better than it has any right to be.

Piranha is a blatant ripoff of Jaws, but it's so aware of this fact that they feature Jaws as literally a game in comparison to these piranhas. There are also significant differences from Jaws, such as the fact that they (spoilers) lose their Quint in the first half hour of the movie. The movie also tends to go on lots of big tangents (always piranha-themed tangents, but away from the main two characters), causing it to feel a bit more like the hyperactive little brother of Jaws.

Heather Menzies (Louisa Von Trapp from The Sound of Music) plays a determined woman who is trying to find the two teens who died at the beginning of the movie, and what's shocking is that her character is actually smart and has agency. She's funny, she outwits bad guys, she's actually the most defined character in the whole movie (which isn't saying a lot, but still). She's somehow more advanced than a lot of the pandering "strong female characters" that are tossed at us today. Everyone else in the movie is having fun but are clearly one-dimensional. Dick Miller (from Bucket of Blood) was in both The 'Burbs and this, so he's getting quite the representation this October (it turns out he's in all of Joe Dante's films, as well as many Corman films).

It's definitely a Roger Corman production in that it's low-budget, short, simple, and an arguably well-told story, despite being very silly and shallow. Check it out if you just wanna have a fun time.