#84: POLTERGEIST (1982)

 

THRILL SCALE 1-10

8.5

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yep, a couple of times

BEST SEQUENCE

Going into this, I thought my answer would be the scene involving the bathroom mirror. And that part is still gory and gruesome in a very fun way, but the special effects were a lot less convincing than I remembered. Instead, I'm going with the earlier, more restrained scene in which the chairs at the kitchen table are suddenly paranormally rearranged. It's a simple effect, but it actually gave me a little bit of a shiver

BEST LINE

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

86%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Smartly filmed, tightly scripted, and -- most importantly -- consistently frightening, Poltergeist is a modern horror classic."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"A family's home is haunted by a host of demonic ghosts."

THOUGHTS

• So! Right off the bat, Poltergeist is a bit of a milestone on this list, as it's the first appearance of Steven Spielberg. A filmmaker like Spielberg doesn't need much of an introduction, but he's the second-most represented director on this list (behind only Alfred Hitchcock) and he's responsible for some of my favourite movies of all time. Now, officially speaking, Spielberg only wrote and produced Poltergeist and Tobe Hooper directed it. And hey, even if that was all Spielberg did to make Poltergeist come to life, that's still pretty impressive! But ever since this movie came out, there have been rumours that Spielberg pretty much did the bulk of the actual directing but he couldn't be credited as the director because his other huge hit from 1982, E.T. (also coming up on this list eventually), was released a week after Poltergeist and there was a clause in Spielberg's contract preventing him from directing another movie while working on E.T. Tobe Hooper himself was a great horror director, including the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and both Hooper and Spielberg have said the rumours were false and Tobe Hooper really was the main director, but accounts from other people on set contradict this. Regardless of what the truth was, though, I think we can certainly consider this a Spielberg movie through and through
• And even if this isn't my favourite Spielberg movie, I still like it a lot! As horror movies go, this one is a lot of fun. Iconic scenes, impactful practical effects, and lasting visuals. In particular there are the bathroom mirror scene and the chair scene I mentioned above, but I also like the enormous head coming out of the closet, and any scene with that goddamn clown doll. Like seriously, what parent in their right mind would buy a clown doll that looks like that?!

• And speaking of whom, I really like Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams as the parents. They're cute together and with the kids, and they're also both kinda sexy in an '80s suburbia kind of way
• There are a lot of really funny lines and visual gags which, fortunately, don't undercut the effectiveness of the scares. For example: one character, an expert on supernatural activity, says, "Well, Mrs. Freeling... the determination as to whether your home is haunted is not very easy." And immediately, with perfect comic timing, a coffee pot slides across the table, unaided by human hands. You wacky ghosts!
• The score is great. I kept thinking it must be a John Williams joint, largely because of his connection to Spielberg, but nope, it's Jerry Goldsmith. Nice work, Jerry!
• I loved the fake-out ending. Hugely effective in convincing us we've got a happy ending, only for us to realize things aren't over yet!
• Finally, I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that this film was rumoured to be cursed. However, I also don't want to sound too glib, because part of that comes from the untimely deaths of two of the young actors in real life. I don't want to conflate real-life tragedies with silly superstitions, so let's not spend too much time on that, but I will mention that the skeletons seen at the climax of the movie, which look very much like props, were actually real, human skeletal remains
• Oh, and one last thing. I recognized this guy! That's Dirk Blocker! He shows up briefly at the beginning of the movie, and these days you may know him better as Detective Hitchcock from Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Up Next: The Phantom of the Opera, the silent film from 1925

MARK REVIEWS THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE: SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS

 

• I liked it a lot!
• Especially in the first half of the movie, the focus on practical effects, physical stunts and sweet martial arts fights gave me the kind of action I like the best in a Marvel movie. The bus fight, in particular, was a very early highlight. The confined environment of this fight scene also reminded me of the elevator fight in The Winter Soldier, one of the best scenes in the whole franchise
• Even the fight scenes which were CGI-enhanced still looked great. There was still a ton of athleticism and physicality, and the effects used for the titular ten rings were pretty cool
• Midway through things got a lot more fantastical, a lot more CGI-heavy, but I didn't mind. They were showing us something we hadn't seen before, and the movie had already built up a lot of goodwill for me
• Loved the connection to Iron Man 3, one of my favourites
• I haven't seen Kim's Convenience, so this is the first time I've seen Simu Liu in anything. It's very cool to have a Canadian playing a Marvel hero, and I admired how many of his own stunts he did. Aside from that, his character didn't really pop for me like other Marvel heroes have, but I look forward to seeing more from him
• And Awkwafina had a few good lines as Katy, but her "in over my head" schtick got a little old. Had a couple of nice moments during the climax, though
• Tony Leung made for a complex, multi-faceted villain. I liked how he played a power-hungry tyrant, but they still gave him sympathetic motivation
• I decided to go to the theatre to see this by myself, and I had a grand old time! I really don't understand why it's not more common to go to the movies by oneself. If you're a decent person, you're not talking to people during the movie anyway! I think I'm going to make this a more regular thing now that the theatres are open

#85: DRACULA (1931)

 

THRILL SCALE 1-10

7

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

No, first time

BEST SEQUENCE

The first official meeting between Dracula and Renfield, on the steps in his castle

BEST LINE

Dracula: "This is very old wine. I hope you will like it."
Renfield: "Aren't you drinking?"
Dracula: "I never drink...wine."

- You can practically hear Dracula's urge to nudge and wink at Renfield in this line.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

94%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Bela Lugosi's timeless portrayal of Dracula in this creepy and atmospheric 1931 film has set the standard for major vampiric roles since."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula bends a naive real estate agent to his will, then takes up residence at a London estate where he sleeps in his coffin by day and searches for potential victims by night."

THOUGHTS

• This movie is, of course, iconic. Bela Lugosi's performance as Dracula is so famous, so influential, that I felt like I had a pretty good idea of what to expect despite this being my first viewing. He was great to watch, with his creepy stare and his commanding voice and presence
• I also thought Dwight Frye as Renfield was a lot of fun, at least after he went insane and started chewing the scenery like his life depended on it. In the beginning, before he was turned by Dracula, he was kind of annoying
• I also really liked the face-to-face confrontations between Dracula and Van Helsing
• My favourite part of the movie was probably the first 20 minutes. The sets and the scenery around Dracula's castle were amazing, and his introduction was great. The movie had some really drawn-out action, a more modern movie probably wouldn't be as patient to just show things like Dracula descending a flight of stairs, but at least in the Transylvania scenes, the visuals were interesting enough that I never felt bored
• Side note, my whole life I thought Transylvania was a fictional, made-up country, but I was wrong! It's actually a very real region in central Romania
• Once we got to England, though, I found myself a little bit less entertained. Dracula was still creepy, and Renfield was crazy, and I liked Van Helsing, but the multiple scenes which took place in proper English drawing rooms were just less interesting than the ones set in a vampire's castle
• A seminal movie like this gets bonus points just for paving the way for everything that would come after it. I said similar things about Night of the Living Dead. I enjoyed watching Dracula, but it is now 90 years old, and it shows. It's a very short movie, at only 74 minutes, and it felt like it ended extremely abruptly. Lugosi did indeed have a hypnotic stare, and there were some effective shots of Dracula staring directly into the camera with just his eyes lit up, but these shots just kept being used again and again, diminishing their effectiveness. The fake bat special effects are pretty silly, but endearingly so. And finally, something that struck me as very jarring, the movie didn't have a score. Philip Glass was commissioned in 1998 to retroactively write one, but at least the version I saw had absolutely no background music except for during the opening credits. This was especially odd to my modern sensibilities when something sudden and surprising happened, like Dracula seeing a crucifix and shielding himself. In scenes like this I could almost hear the dramatic musical sting we'd expect to have in a modern movie
• But all of that being said, Dracula is a classic for a reason, and Lugosi's performance has been the one to beat for 90 years. If you haven't seen it, definitely watch it to see where it all began, and to see the actor who imprinted this character on the public consciousness. Just don't be surprised if it feels just a little old-fashioned

Up next: Poltergeist from 1982