Two
years ago The Movie Sleuth took a concerted look at Arrow Video’s series of
obscure yet distinctly American independent horror movies, the American Horror Project. The first volume encompassed three overlooked
films made in the mid-70s which all had something unique not normally offered
in mainstream or renowned circles of horror cinema. Co-curated and introduced by British film
critic Stephen Thrower, the trilogy of films was aptly named Vol. 1 which inevitably promises an
ongoing series dedicated to highlighting overlooked potential gems waiting to
be rediscovered by modern filmgoers.
Circa 2019, Arrow Video and Stephen Thrower have returned with the
second installment in the series which we at The Movie Sleuth are just tickled
pink to dive headfirst into!
Dream No Evil (1970)
Grace
MacDonald (Brooke Mills) hasn’t had an easy upbringing. Raised in an orphanage before being taken
under her adopted brother Jesse’s (Michael Pataki) wing, the young woman’s life
now consists of leaping off of high diving boards as part of Jesse’s traveling
evangelism act. Still on a lifelong
search for her missing grandfather Timothy (veteran actor Edmund O’Brien),
Grace may have finally discovered his whereabouts, leading her to a funeral
home before falling into an all-encompassing downward spiral of madness and
murder.
Something
of a feminine spin on Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
with the roles reversed as well as a character study of a fragile psyche on the
verge of tearing itself apart, underground indie writer-director John Hayes’ Dream No Evil is a quiet yet unsettling
thriller steeped in Midwestern Americana.
Though technically a horror piece it plays less on fear with a greater
emphasis on tense homegrown drama with an eerie sense of unease. Blood and gore, normally associative with
horror, is also kept to a minimum here.
The
first thing one notices over this meat-and-potatoes effort is the casting. Between Edmund O’Brien as Grace’s violent and
domineering grandfather and veteran actor Marc Lawrence turning up as an
undertaker, for an all-natural homegrown horror piece the casting is most
certainly overqualified. Next we have
strength of the performances, particularly Michael Pataki as a Hellfire and
Brimstone reverend who with his wild expressions and animated body movement
will remind some of Paul Dano’s evangelist in There Will Be Blood.
Of
the films offered here Dream No Evil
also admittedly has some things working against it. Notably the voiceover narration, which I have
to believe was added in later against the director’s wishes, all but sabotages
the film’s tightrope walk between fantasy and reality including spoiling some
surprises ahead in the plot. In one
moment you have a sequence showing Grace’s home looking ornate and clean to
decrepit and squalid in between shots, pulling the rug out from the viewer
where we’re not quite sure which plane of reality we’re on, only to have the
voiceover narration come right out and tell us.
Moreover, this otherwise inspired slice of Southern Gothic when you get
down to it isn’t particularly frightening or spooky.
Still,
there’s a real and engaging psychological character study at play here set in
the barren, rugged terrain of the Midwest.
An inspired play on dream and memory, past versus present and wishful
thinking clashing with unforgiving realities.
Though this one is closer to being a Southern Gothic thriller than
overtly a horror movie, it will get your attention.
Score:
Dark August (1975)
A
notable, atmospheric and moody entry into the Vermont Folk Horror movement, writer-director
Martin Goldman’s Dark August taps into
an unusual crossbreed between witchcraft and mountain horror. Featuring Academy Award winner Kim Hunter (A Streetcar Named Desire), the film
concerns Sal (J.J. Barry), a middle-aged city artist recently moved to a rural
Vermont village who finds his world under assault from occult forces after
accidentally killing an elderly man’s granddaughter in a car accident.
Haunted
by visions of a dark hooded figure and inexplicably suffering panic attacks in
public, Sal grows increasingly paranoid and convinced the old man has placed an
evil curse of some kind upon him. Unsure
of how to deal with this inexplicable occult affliction, Sal reluctantly seeks
out the help of local witch Adrianna (Hunter) attempting to fend off the angry
elder’s curse before his life is destroyed.
Heavier
on moody rural superstition than outright scares or shocks, Dark August from the get-go announces
itself as a clandestine spooky with emphasis on unfocused dread and unease. Opening shots in slow motion of the mountainous
Vermont landscape with heavy fog and dark clouds brewing about suggests the
strange and ominous forces plaguing Sal’s existence are as natural and
undetectable as the weather.
Performances
in the piece are generally good with J.J. Barry as the film’s frightened and
confused protagonist (or antagonist depending on your point of view) exuding
paranoia and fear over the implacable forces closing around him. As aforementioned, the film features an Oscar
winner with Kim Hunter turning over a strong performance as a modern-day witch,
furthering the film’s emphasis on what real world witchcraft looks and sounds
like.
Speaking
of sound, Dark August has a rather unorthodox
soundtrack. Scored by William Fischer (Tenement) it’s a smorgasbord of synth
electronica and progressive rock and elements of percussive Jazz, creating a sonic
mixture that does a good job of placing you the viewer into Sal’s disoriented
headspace. Visually the film is striking
thanks to Blood Rage cinematographer
Richard E. Brooks whose moody photography arguably makes the rural Vermont
landscape the real star of the show.
Quiet
yet drenched in superstitious paranoia germane to the mountainous Vermont
locale, Dark August is the kind of
occult movie you don’t expect to see with down-to-Earth (even banal) realism
depicting modern-day witchcraft. There’s
also a subtle commentary on the indigenous residents of the area versus an
out-of-towner becoming a fish out of water when setting foot in the strange
region. Most of all, it’s a surprising
and at times chilling little number which perfectly coins the term ‘Vermont
Folk Horror’ for the uninitiated.
Score:
The Child (1977)
Unquestionably
the coup-de-grace of the second volume of the American Horror Project film series and without a doubt one of the
weirdest and most innovative independent horror films to come out of the late
1970s, The Child starts out as a slow-paced
surreal and atmospheric creepy child piece before abruptly shifting gears into
gore filled zombie horror.
Think
of two tropes you would never expect to see mashed together and you have this
movie. It’s completely bizarre,
unexpected and uncategorizable even for the horror genre. One of those strange thrillers dripping with
an eerie, psychedelic mood whose second half cannot be seen coming from miles
away, this mannered and truly oddball piece is like a baseball bat being
positioned before making a full swing striking you in the face.
Known
for the samples used in Rob Zombie’s What?,
The Child shot in the Los Angeles,
California countryside follows Alicianne (Laurel Barnett), a governess employed
to watch over Rosalie (Rosalie Nordon), a peculiar yet disobedient little girl
whose real mother mysteriously perished prior to Alicianne’s arrival. People tread lightly around Rosalie, even her
siblings, with her frequent solitary cemetery visits raising more than a few
eyebrows. At first it’s a weird, even
dreamy slice of countryside surrealism ala Dark
August, until midway through it makes a swan dive into batshit violent and
gory zombie horror with some startling gross effects makeup rendered deaths
including but not limited to a poor old lady’s face being ripped off.
The
first thing we can’t help but notice is the film’s otherworldly and psychedelic
soundtrack by Rob Wallace which is as evocative, strange and enthralling as
anything in Nicolas Winding Refn composer Cliff Martinez’s sonic library. Mixing everything from synthesizers, impassioned
piano cues and even the Theremin, The
Child first and foremost is a listening experience. Whether you come away liking this wild,
unhinged thing or not, you’re likely to go out and purchase the soundtrack
immediately after watching it.
Then
there’s the moody, fog-machine choked cinematography by Mori Alavi which draws
you into a kind of subconscious netherworld we’re not entirely sure how much of
is real or imagined. Watching The Child you can’t help but think of
the seeping foggy horrors of Konami’s hit videogame series Silent Hill featuring gothic zombies which honestly don’t look like
anything seen before or since.
The Child is also, like Silent Hill, one of those pictures where
the non-professional ‘actors’ in the piece give performances that are best
described as ‘off’. Though it isn’t
particularly well acted, the strangeness of the performances invariably goes
along perfectly with the weird reality of the film, creating a world of horror
that feels like a nightmare experienced as we come closer to the waking state.
Much
like George A. Romero’s iconic zombie masterwork Night of the Living Dead, the microbudget production was largely
shot on short ends on the side, i.e. the remnants left in a cannister of film
shot for other productions. Taking this
into consideration also helps to fuel the off-kilter peculiarity of the piece,
as though lightning was captured in a bottle with what little resources the
filmmakers had.
For
my money, The Child was easily the
strongest and most memorable offering of the American Horror Project Vol. 2 set, a one-of-a-kind slice of
madness and murder you’re unlikely to forget anytime soon. There’s never been one quite like it before
and I’m hard pressed to believe we’ll ever seen anything like it again.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki