Shock (1977)

A haunted house epic with a perverse domestic twist or two, Shock is perhaps middling Mario Bava, but it has some memorable images and maybe even a shock or two.

A couple and their son moves into a house that they probably should have avoided altogether. The wife Dora, played by Argento regular Daria Nicolodi, is understandably uneasy about moving back into the house, where her first husband, a junkie, killed himself, but her new husband Bruno, played by John Steiner also from all sorts of Italian flicks, insists on it- quite the sensitive husband there. (To round out the feeling that we're with the Italian exploitation repertory company, Ivan Rassimov shows up as a doctor.) Making matters worse for Dora, their son Marco is one of those little kids in movies who are easily amused by paranormal happenings in old houses, and he's at that difficult age where they're so susceptible to being possessed by their dead fathers.

What's fairly effective about the movie is that Bava keeps it unclear whether the kid is possessed, the father's ghost is haunting the joint, or they've just got a brat for a son. Marco resents his mother's relationship with Bruno and makes all sorts of difficulty, at one point telling his mother that he has to kill her. He may or may not have sent her flowers, allegedly from her dead husband. At one point, Marco pretends to hump her. Before long, things start moving around the house on their own and Dora is hallucinating rotting hands grabbing her. She starts slipping in her domestic duties, leading Bruno to remind her, "There's nothing worse for a marriage than sending a husband off without his coffee". Nothing? One would think being haunted by a vengeful junkie ghost would cause more problems.

The strength of these haunted house films is their atmosphere. Bava does a good job here with the sound design and striking visuals, such as a scene in which Nicolodi's hair goes every which way as she lies in bed and another in which Marco suddenly becomes the dead husband. Admittedly, as with most of these movies, there's only so many scenes you can take of people wandering around hallways and basements alone. Also, even after the plot reveals its dark secrets and explains why Bruno and Dora moved back into the house it doesn't really make sense. But, there are some good moments of fear and Bava and Nicolodi knew what they were doing by this point, so it all works out.

If a Tree Falls (2010)

It’s funny that so many low budget horror filmmakers are now trying to imitate the 70s grindhouse flicks, because so many of those vintage grindhouse epics were themselves imitations of bigger budget Hollywood movies of their time. At some point, I imagine Hollywood will be shooting faux-faux digital video grindhouse epics in homage to this time period. Every cultural item will eventually be a subject of nostalgia.

Of course, I’m also a fan of those old grindhouse movies, so I imagine I’m the target audience for these homage films. When a Tree Falls is an example, taking one of those old chestnuts, in this case “this group of young people went camping in the woods and ran into some backwoods psychos”, playing it straight, and using various effects to make the digital video look like scratched and faded old film stock. There are also some visual and music cues that recall the films of that era as well as a generally high level of brutality in line with the subgenre.

The young people in question are a brother and sister (played by Ryan Barrett and Jennifer De Lucia) and their two friends (played by Breanne TeBoekhorst and Daniel Zuccala). They’re going out into the wilds of Canada for a weekend trip. The acting is decent for a no-budget movie and there are some interesting subplots indicating the filmmakers’ intention to draw us into the characters before placing them in peril, which is nice. Unfortunately, one of the characters, Will (Zuccala), is a stock horny douche bag of the sort that are becoming common in these movies. Does every group of friends now have one friend who’s a dick weed? Is it a generational thing? None of my friends were dicks. Of course, that probably means I was the dick!

Anyway, the backwoods mutants are much more interesting. The filmmakers had the inspired idea to give them no dialogue until a pivotal scene, so they’re silent and all wearing nylons over their faces and behave like small and violent children; it’s a creepy touch. I guess Ils sort of did the same thing, but there was a lot less interaction between the pshycho kids and the victims in that movie. These psycho kids are a lot weirder. I liked the unnerving bit in which they stroked the characters' faces like they were pets. There’s also a fair amount of mystery and tension in the film, as opposed to reaching immediately for heaping buckets of gore. The film does bring the viscera eventually but the buildup leads us to the payoff as opposed to so many no-budget horror films that are all payoff.

The creators have been self-distributing their movie and it’s worth a viewing; it definitely shows potential. Their intention seems to be to set up a series of films about the nylon-masked killers, but it would be more interesting to see them do something totally different instead. For me, the most enjoyable old exploitation movies were the ones that pulled something out of left field instead of paying homage to the old chestnuts.

The Children (2008)

I don’t trust children on a good day. They’re small and loud and run around screaming, and they often smell like they have pumpkin pie filling in their pants. So, if I was in a killer children movie, I’d probably fine, since I would be the first one to start picking them off with a weed-whacker like little screamy mushrooms. But, most of the heroes in these movies have a hard time dealing with a new order in which they have to defend themselves against kiddies. As the title of one of the best killer children movies asks: “Who can kill a child?” Answer: me.

The Children is pretty damned effective, even if you’ve seen a dozen of these movies or don’t much like children. A recent British film, it works because it keeps the action centralized around a country estate and makes the children victims of an unknown virus that seems to be both hurting them and turning them into mean little buggers. Admittedly, the “mystery virus” is getting to be a bit like what “nuclear waste” once was in movies: a handy device to turn characters into monsters without much explanation. Here, as elsewhere, it borders on the zombie film pretty closely.

It’s effective because the idea of a close family member who is both very ill and very dangerous makes for fine melodrama and horror is very close to melodrama. The heroes have to fight off their sick children, and of course, they don’t do a good job at it. The film begins somewhat tense and slowly tightens the noose around them until everything is fucked. My only complaint would be that some of the kills are a bit silly; but, how do you have little kids killing adults without it being silly? Otherwise, The Children maintains a good level of unease throughout and features some vicious violence. What else do you want from a horror movie?