The Mood Isn't Right For Ghosts

Dark Tower (not the Stephen King book or adaption) is by no means a good movie, however as a flick that you’d probably catch late at night when you’re half asleep is a different story. Aside from the stale acting and hollow plot the film, from what I noticed, tries to use Kubrickian style suspense and atmosphere to make the audience feel uncomfortable and on edge. To achieve a good mood or atmosphere most, if not all, film elements needs to be present including the actor’s performance and unfortunately this film hardly accomplished any. I am aware that it is very hard to achieve Kubrickian style suspense because you’d need to really know the material that you’re handling and you’d need a keen eye to detail. Not many people have that and it seems that Kubrickian style suspense/horror is the best “type” of horror when you’re on a budget, since it requires very little special effects. Additionally, it seems like Dark Tower was trying to go for a Carnival of Souls homage as well, which it did well only in terms of how they revealed the ghoul that’s haunting the tower.

Taking specific scenes from The Shining we can see that Kubrickian horror/suspense relies heavily on music, lighting and performances because without any of these, there would be no mood. Scenes that involve Jack being seduced by the hotel’s wickedness feel hypnotic and uncomfortable mainly because of Nicholson’s frightening performance as he descends into madness. Dark Tower, doesn’t have good performances; the performances are quite stale and cardboard so the viewer doesn’t feel like they should be caring or even watching any of the characters. By creating captivating heroes or antiheroes, a director can sway the audience’s emotions, thus putting them directly into the movie. Since Dark Tower’s characters are hollow, I found myself organizing my iTunes playlist rather than watching the movie.

Lighting and the “color” of the film also create the mood and atmosphere. Most of the interiors of the Overlook have this faded yellow or mustard yellow color to them, giving it a vintage ominous atmosphere. Most of the times, specifically the ballroom scenes, are dimly lit and have a sense of cautiousness about them. Reds come into picture when talking about brutal massacres and we can see this through the bathroom scenes and those scenes that aren’t “yellow” are blue. Scenes that take place outdoors or scenes that have the sun peeking in are cold and blue. They feel barren of any type of emotion in accordance with the main character’s changing personality. If we examine the colors and the lighting of Dark Tower’s setting, it’s fair to say that it’s average and unappealing. The coloring/lighting doesn’t seem to reflect any type of character emotion and the lighting seems stale and fluorescent.

The music doesn’t add any type of tension or dark, frightening undertones whereas Carlos’ score for The Shining is deep, haunting and foreshadowing. It plunges the audience into the realm of spirits, mystery and terror even though it’s completely synthesized. Using cues from famous operatic compositions and Indian chants, it effectively puts the viewer into the mindset of the hotel itself and makes them feel unease. Dark Tower, however, is the direct opposite since it does not put me into the mood but I will say that I still like the score. It brings an innocent 80’s, B-movie feel to the picture that sort of provokes its inner “midnight movie” personality. Like Carlos’ score, it’s also synthesized and shrill at times.

Setting aside the formula for creating good Kubrickian horror, there is one scene that really pays tribute to Kubrick’s Shining is the ending where our heroine is being chased around the construction zone of the building by her dead lover. She runs, in absolute fear of her life, from whatever ghost or monster is chasing her as the camera follows closely behind her. I think the director wanted to take a jab at trying to stage his own version of the anti-climactic ending The Shining had but I think it falls flat for one primary reason. It’s obvious that Danny and Jack are running through a massive maze and Kubrick accomplishes a sense of confusion and disorientation because we don’t know if Jack is close to Danny or if Danny has evaded him. Kubrick pulls this off by never showing an overhead perspective or any clear shot of the relationship between Danny and Jack as they run through the maze. He focuses only on them as a whole and jumps back and forth between the shots. With Dark Tower, the director effectively shows that the construction zone is a maze but since we never actually see what’s chasing her, we assume that it’s always behind her. The audience then assumes that the camera following behind her is in fact the ghost so we loose that sense of disorientation. Still, it does do an okay job of leaving the ghouls to the imagination… for the most part.

I might be a little harsh on the film because it seems very independent. The way that I see it, the director sought out to try and replicate Kubrickian horror/suspense but it fell flat and I can’t blame him. I probably wouldn’t have done better either. What the director did achieve is a mood and atmosphere that fits right into place when it comes to “midnight movies.” All the elements are there: the lighting, the acting and the on-location setting. Dark Tower ceases in becoming a horror movie and instead becomes an artifact that faded into 80’s obscurity. I think the movie has potential and I would like to see a remake of it, sees as how the original set the groundwork.

Note: I realize that Dark Tower has two directors, not one.

Mocking Halloween: The Shining

The Shining is probably one of the more surreal and horrifying films that the general public acknowledges. Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece is definitely surreal but is it horrifying? Is it scary? Is it a slasher as some would consider it? The answer to these questions is no. The Shining is a very dated horror movie and much like The Exorcist it is a very slow moving film that has hardly any type of scare whatsoever. In fact, the film may bore you and put you to sleep faster than it would scare you. It’s a case in which the time period in which this was made is definitely shown since it was made during an year were people had their imaginations.

One of the film’s biggest problems comes from the fact that it cons you out of a scare. The score builds up the tension and you are on the edge of your seat waiting for something to happen but when the score reaches its climax… the biggest thing that happens is ‘Tuesday’ appears on screen. Hardly anything happens until that final 10 or 15 minutes. Unfortunately, that’s not the only thing that this film does to make the viewing experience that much more boring.

Some of the scenes just drag on and on and on and after a while you just want them to stop. The scene were Danny is riding around the hotel won’t stop. The scene where Wendy and Danny are walking through the maze seems endless, much like the maze itself. When Jack checks out the forbidden room, it seems like Kubrick is taking his sweet dandy time to get to the bathroom. Also, there is surprisingly a lot of talking scenes and these also carry on and on. When Doc is talking to Danny about the Shining, when Jack is talking to Grady or the bartender, when Wendy is talking to the sheriff… they all seem to last forever.

If this film came out today, it would have failed miserably because the audience would be lost and completely bored. There are too many slow moving scenes, there are too many exposition scenes and the reasoning for a lot of the actions are too convoluted. It may have been feasible for the early 80s but in this day and age… it would probably be categorized as a drama. Only one person dies and for today’s standards that’s not enough. The bare minimum should be at 5.

Top 10 Willy Inducing Moments

Well, I figured that I would do what I said that I would do and make my own Top 10 Willy Inducing Moments. The post was originally created over at The Horror Digest and I commented with my response but it was so quick and I never really thought of the concept. So I figured that I would sit down and go through a list of all my favorite horror movies and pick out which scenes gave me the willies. As most of you already know that The Thing and The Blob easily take my top 2 places so I decided, for this exercise, to leave them out and see what I get. So, I present to you my top 10 willy inducing moments.

Note: I couldn’t find some of the clips on YouTube so they are just paragraphs. Second, for one of the moments I could only find the Spanish dub of the scene so pardon the dub.

10: Halloween – Michael stares down Laurie
In this scene, Laurie gets the feeling that somebody is watching her so she cautiously approaches the window and sees Michael Meyers staring at her from the ground. I guess what gave me the willies in this scene is the fact that Michael is standing between clothes lines as the white linen is blowing in the wind. Michael as that dead, cold, lifeless mask and he’s just staring at Laurie contemplating. It makes him look less human and I got chills. I didn’t want to stare out my window for a while.

9: The Omen – Digging up Damien’s mom
Here, Robert and Keith travel to a cemetery to uncover Damien’s alleged real mom since the prophecy states that his mother was a Jackal. When they dig up the coffin and open it, they find the skeleton of a jackal. It freaked me out. The mere thought, and now tangible proof, that the boy’s mother was that of a wild animal. It scared me. If you, given the circumstances, had to dig up somebody’s mother and found out she was an animal… it would make you sick to your stomach and that’s what it did. It was probably one of the most psychologically disturbing points in the film.

8: It – The photo album
This series always scared me and I had to pick the right scene that really affected me. The reason why this scene was so scary and surreal because as a kid, when I looked at an old photo, I would always imagine looking at the picture while it’s in motion. It was sort of like flashback for myself. Well, I hated to see a monstrous clown roar at me from afar then lunge his hand right into my face. It made me jump back and it was almost like the film tapped into my subconscious.



7: The Shining: - The bedroom ghosts
A lot of people were confused by this scene but if you didn’t read the book, you’d never know who or what those people were doing. Well, knowing the story behind the characters and to see them just flash in one jump-out moment felt random and even more surreal. The scene also taps into a deeper meaning; it goes into latent homosexual feelings and I think with all these elements at work and that drastic zoom, it just made me feel so uncomfortable.



6: The Fog – The captain’s ghost story
I’ve always loved ghost stories and I was always the one to tell ghost stories as a kid and I think this scene really hit home. Accompanied with the score and the way the captain told the story kept me captivated but it sent chills down my spine. I’ve always been one for the kinds of stories in which a tragedy happened in the past but it never had closure. The score really makes the chills because it adds to the mystic legend that is being told, and with that somber lighting… it makes me feel like I really am in that scene listening to the story and smelling the firewood.



5: Jaws – Quint’s story
Much like the captain’s story in The Fog, this is a chilling tale of survival. It’s a real life story of horror and the idea that you waited there, waiting to see who gets picked off in a deadly game of Russian roulette. What made the scene even more chilling was Shaw’s performance and the way he delivers it. There is no music and it makes the scene even more realistic but the way Shaw smiles throughout the story, you can tell that you’re looking into his psyche… what’s he’s thinking. It was just as scary as a ghost story.



4: Signs – Aliens in the cornfield
It was hard for me to pick the scenes in this film because every scene was very Hitchcockian and there were a lot of scenes that scared me. I wanted to use the birthday party scene but I think this scene is a perfect example of the less you see the better. There is no music until the end and you know something is out there in the field but when light finally touches the alien… all you see is the foot. It made me jump back in my seat.



3: Poltergeist – The tree attack
Much like Spielberg’s experience, I used to have this really creepy tree in our backyard that casted a huge shadow in my room. I always pictured that tree coming to life and grabbing me and after I got done watching Poltergeist, it terrified me. I was yelling at the screen while closing my eyes. Accompanied with that tree attack was a tornado so it was like my worst nightmare rolled into one scene. I could remember the strobe lights flickering as I saw the tree carry away the boy and I ended up staying awake for a while just to make sure the tree in our yard didn’t attack me.



2: The Fly – The maggot birth
Talk about one of the most disgusting, disturbing and grotesque scenes imaginable. I saw this film for the first time after I had to see a live birth in our health class, and even then I was a little disgusted by it. So you can imagine how I felt seeing one of the slimiest living things in entomology force it’s way out of somebody’s birth canal. It was vile, it was ghastly and it made me scream ‘Oh!!” Looking back at it, I would argue that it was an homage to It’s Alive and thank God it was all a dream cause I could not imagine if that thing was alive.

1: Arachnophobia – Spiders in the shower
As light as this may be and as funny as the scene was, I remember screaming like a girl when I saw the spider glide down her body and then pulling my legs up from the ground and shaking. But why does this scene give me the shakes of death? It’s because I have arachnophobia and I am literally scared to death of spiders. Its very plausible for a spider to be in your shower since I saw an earwig in my bathtub at one point. I could not stand this scene it made me double look before I got into the shower. As funny as the movie is, it’s the only movie that still scares me.



So, I ask you my horror friends (that haven’t already participated in this) to give me your top 10 willy inducing moments.

Also, I gotta thank Andre for making me almost piss my pants for the title she gave to her post banner. The piece name is simply named "Willies!"

The Not So Shining Children

I wasn’t a huge fan of The Children when I first saw the movie although I thought it was a pretty solid and original horror film in light of all the remakes and all sequels. However, after I saw it again and I found myself not liking it as much as I initially did and I also noticed that there are a lot of “Kubrickian” techniques that Shankland uses to make the audience scared or uneasy. I thought for a while what these elements were and why they didn’t work in The Children but worked in The Shining and I think I have found out why. Before I even get into why they didn’t work, or should I say why some of them didn’t work, I want to talk a little about what those elements were in the film.

In The Children, there are a couple of shots, accompanied by the score that were very reminiscent of The Shining. There were several shots of the children standing in one position as the camera slowly zooms in on them, while the score gets progressively tenser and tenser… but then it abruptly stops with no scares whatsoever. Much like in The Shining when the camera slowly gets closer and closer to Jack staring out of the window, loosing his mind, then cuts to a title card of ‘Tuesday’ with no jump-scare whatsoever. The technique was used several times within The Children to show that the kids are evil as opposed to going insane or possessed by evil spirits.

I also think that The Children is trying to create a sense of isolation as did The Shining and both stories take place during the winter time so the fact that everything is cold and barren plays into the way the film should feel. The Children had two different tones that I recognized: the cold and bitter tone of the outside and the stale worn out tone of the inside of the house.

The problem with using the technique of zooming in on somebody while the music intensifies is this movie is that it doesn’t fit with the rest of the film. The rest of the film is loud, abrupt and the action sequences are edited and shot quickly… so these slow tracking shots just seem weird and out of place. Whereas in The Shining, the whole movie is a slow-burn movie that progresses to a climax, much like the soundtrack and the way Jack descends into insanity. But, this technique doesn’t always fail; in fact it succeeds at the end of the film when we realize that Casey is infected. It’s the fact that the shots don’t fit well with the rest of the movie and to me; all they amounted to was more noise. Sometimes they even seemed as though they were visual non-sequiturs.

The tone and the ‘color’ of the film also didn’t quite fit with the rest of the film, if that makes any sense. Every color is so dry and stale, which is fine but because the rest of the movie is all over the place and so loud… it seems as though the tone doesn’t fit with how the movie is loudly progressing forward. I think it’s hard for me to explain this specific problem because it’s how I literally felt towards the film. Movies like The Shining or even The Thing are slow burn movies that have a very rich atmosphere to them because it starts up very slow and progresses to a huge climax.

The Children is not a bad film at all. Compared to most horror movies, it’s pretty original and it had its freaky moments but there are certain elements that fail at delivering a certain emotion because they don’t fit with other film elements. I’m not sure if The Shining was an inspiration to this film or not but it’s an element that I noticed right away. If The Shining wasn’t an inspiration or if the director wasn’t trying to homage Kubrick, then these shots and atmospheres would still seem weird in the rest of the movie.

Old Music in Horror

I have seen The Shining well over 20 or so times and every time I see it, it freaks me out or reminds me of that time when I screamed when I saw the twin girls in the hall. However, one thing that has always given me the chills was at the end of the movie when the camera zooms in on the portrait and a specific song plays over the scene. That song was ‘Midnight, the Stars and You’ sung by Al Bowlly in 1934. It got me thinking of other movies that incorporated really old songs as part of their soundtracks and I started to wonder why these songs sound so creepy in horror movies but not in real life.



I think one of the reasons why the Al Bowlly songs was so creepy in The Shining is because of the way it was recorded. It sounds really muffled, very low key, Al Bowlly’s voice is echoing and it sounds so ominous. The intentions of the song are very chipper and very romantic, however, when it’s played… it sounds like the song is actually coming from the hotel. When I hear it, I immediately think of the tragedy that happened and how long ago it was and yet the hotel keeps replaying what happened. It’s repetition.

Another movie that does this quit well is Stephen King’s Rose Red. I will admit that this movie was pretty creepy and sometimes pretty intense. The one scene that I will always remember, among many, is the scene when ‘In The Mood’ by Glenn Miller starts playing out of the flowers. Now, the original recording wasn’t recorded like Al Bowlly’s song but what made it chilling was how the house took such a festive song and made it play out of a flower. I am sure any normal person would freak out over something like that.

Jeepers Creepers was brought up to me by somebody on Twitter as a movie that incorporates such a whimsical song into a dark and sadistic horror movie. I have to agree because the song plays over a tour of the Creeper’s lair. This chilling feeling is somewhat like that feeling of remorse, sorrow and horror in Apocalypse Now when ‘What A Wonderful World’ was playing over the bombings. It’s a They are contrasts of two vastly different feelings and seeing a dark, watery, silent, cold-feeling, eerie basement while hearing an echoing song is pretty terrifying. Plus, since you are the camera, you don’t know where you are headed and it only adds to the horror.

The other example that I have comes from a trailer for a horror themed video game called Bioshock. In the trailer we hear ‘Beyond the Sea’ (1959) sung by Bobby Darin play over while the protagonist tries shooting and destroying the Big Daddies, killing mutated monsters and blowing shit up. The reason why this song is so eerie is because of the same reason why the Al Bowlly song sounds so creepy. The editors tuned it up to make it have an echoing sound and pipe-sound. This tuning makes the song sound as if it was recorded under the ocean and it fits perfectly with the dark and threatening atmosphere.



There are plenty more that I am missing and I only talked about the more prominent ones. I know there is ‘Jazz Traditional – Charleston’ from The Evil Dead and Creepshow and a few in See No Evil. I think the reason why these horror movies are so creepy in horror movies is because of the context that they are used in. Plus, back then, they didn’t have such great audio capturing devices so a lot of times they are muffled, echoed or distorted… giving the song the perfect mood for that horror movies.

The Horror Re-Cuts of YouTube

From Blogger Pictures

After much consideration, I have decided to do a brief rundown of the re-cut horror trailers of the YouTube community. The first time that this was brought to my attention was from my teacher/mentor who showed me the re-cut version of West Side Story. Well, I just wanted to give a brief run down of my favorite re-cut trailers. This is not a top 10 list.

 This was the second one that I saw and it really made me laugh my ass off!! It cleverly manipulates the footage to make the movie center around a dad, who is a struggling alcoholic writer that tries to bond with his son. The point at which this trailer hits hysterical lever is when ‘Solsbury Hill’ by Peter Gabriel. Sheer brilliance.

Ten next one on the list is pretty interesting, it keeps the story of The Ring but it subtracts the supernatural element out of it… therefore it’s a story of a woman who is trying to get as much stuff done before she dies in 7 days. This trailer sure knows how to manipulate video footage to make it seem like it is a hard-hitting drama.

Who would have thought that such a beloved children’s movie could look so wicked, twisted and demented… but somebody decided to give the horror treatment to Marry Poppins in this parody of the faux film Scary Mary. This is one of my ultimate favorites because it’s short, clever and to the point and it takes footage that would normally be funny and makes it seem more possessed the usual.

What happens when you take the love and affection of Free Willy and the cinematic suspense of Steven Spielberg? You get a story about two men who fell in love with a shark in the hit summer movie Must Love Jaws. What a wonderful way of turning such a brutal movie into a heart-wrencher and one of the best scenes has Brody watching Quit get devoured by the shark as he laughs.

With the exception of the tagline at the end of the trailer, whoever did this re-edit took my number one favorite movie of all time and set it to one of my favorite genres of all time. Bravo! But what I enjoyed about this is that it makes it look like some evil force aboard the RMS Titanic was killing off people… a brilliant supernatural thriller.

This is perhaps my favorite re-edit of a movie… through clever editing techniques and some good special effects; the editor took an American musical classic and turned it into a brutally violent zombie movie. I guess it worked cause there is enough random street dancing to look like running zombies, but I can’t help but laugh. Don’t get me wrong, I love West Side Story, but I like the zombie version of it just a little more.

Well, I think this just proves that I may have too much time on my hands or I am really that obsessed with horror. There are so many re-cuts out there but the reason why I chose these is because they were professionally done and they included both a voice over and a wide selection of Immediate Music whereas some are just music and that’s all. I hope you enjoyed these and if you did… look for them online. 

Soundtracks - The Shining (1980)

So lately I have been on a huge horror movie soundtrack craze. I have downloaded the soundtracks for “Signs,” “Dreamcatcher,” “28 Weeks Later,” “Zombie,” “Suspiria,” “Candyman,” “The Fog,” “The Shining,” “The Video Dead,” “Cannibal Holocaust” and “Creepshow.”  What I find interesting is the theme to the movie “The Shining” by Wendy Carlos. The score itself was based on Hector Berlioz’ Dies Irae and Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14: Ronde du Sabbat. Its funny because Die Irae is a Latin hymn that deals with the Day of Judgment and the trumpet summoning the souls from God to deliver the good to the gates of Heaven the bad to eternal flame. Essentially, in “The Shining”  it is exactly that, the conflict between good and evil which is Danny and Jack Torrence. And in the end, Danny and his mom leave the hotel and Jack becomes part of the inferno.

The fifth movement of the Symphonie Fantastique deals with a gathering of hideous monsters and sorcerers who have come together for the characters funeral. I guess in a way, the Overlook Hotel is this gather of monsters, demons and witches considering that the hotel was built on an Indian burial ground. The bell tolls and the witches dance around a bubbly cauldron and the character joins the diabolical orgy of monsters… referencing how Jack has now become one with the Overlook and has taken his rightful place again as the caretaker. Even his reincarnation can’t escape it.

It’s funny since Kubrick has always been a fan of classical music… one can find that out by his earlier work. Although, for me, what makes this music so brilliantly done is the overlaying background chants which reinforces the notion that the Overlook is built on an Indian burial ground.

I guess, for me, I look way too deep into the scores of these movies. But its what I do. This is just my opinion on the score and out of all the other scores that I have, this one seems, to me, more influential and symbolic of the movies theme and setting. Kubrick was an amazing director.