Retro
Horror Girl Power
by
Kristin Battestella
Gather
the girlfriends 'round and go back thirty years or more for this
batch of foreign and domestic chillers steeped in murderous
sisterhood, paranormal dames, and sexist serial killers.
Alice, Sweet Alice – Frantic
Hail Marys, church bells, rectories, and crosses in nearly every
scene steep this 1976 slasher in layers of iconography alongside
matching yellow jackets, similarly named long hair lookalikes,
sisterly favoritism, and saint versus sinner parallels. Little Brooke
Shields (Suddenly Susan)
is fond of her priest, goes to confession, and is gifted with a
crucifix necklace while twelve year old Paula Sheppard (Liquid
Sky) wears a mask to scare
the cook. The ceremonial crown, veil, and white dress feel medieval
bridal amid the Latin sanctity and old fashioned Sunday best
formality – composed women in hats, gloves, pearls, and Jackie O
suits are soon hysterical once murder blasphemes the sacred within
its very walls. Creepy hints of the strangling attack, feet dragging
beneath the pews, and a charred fate intercut the kneeling at the
altar and passing wafer, turning the white confirmation into a black
funeral. The uptight roosts point fingers, cast blame, and belittle
husbands, but the parents are also too busy to notice the gluttonous
downstairs neighbor obsessed with cats promising not to bite Alice if
she visits him. Out of wedlock, divorced, and remarried taboos
squabble while hidden periods and no long playing with dolls maturity
layer the well done shocks and mask scares. Intense lie detector
tests, cold yes or no questions, and scary needle movements add
atmosphere along with thunderstorms, bugs, and basement hideaways.
This murder acerbates a preexisting family strain, and such repressed
attitudes would almost rather there be a grief approved death than
admit to potential schizophrenia problems. Retro cameras,
typewriters, big phone booths, classic cars, old school police, and
formal psychiatrist interviews reiterate the mid-century rigid while
prank calls, cramped stairs, and penetrating stabs invoke a frenzied
response with violent twists. Do some of the victims get what they
deserve? Confessions, warped revelations, mother madonna saintly and
magdalene whore shaming cloud the case, and the children pay for the
sins of the father indeed. This is a taut little thriller with fine
scares, mystery, and parables made horror.
The Hearse – Divorced
teacher Trish Van Devere (The
Changeling) deals
with nosy realtor Joseph
Cotten (Citizen Kane)
not to mention ominous headlights, dark roads, phantom winds, visions
in the mirror, and a freaky uniformed chauffeur in this 1980 spooky.
There is an initial proto-Lifetime movie feeling and the picturesque
Golden Gate Bridge vistas remain just another driving to the horrors
montage as our jittery dame heads to the recently bequeathed home of
her late aunt for the summer. The Blackford neighbors, however, are
unwelcoming gossips, and the minister says any standoffishness must
be her imagination. Of course, her shorts are very short and despite
a flirtatious sheriff, cat calls while jogging, and compliments about
the resemblance to her aunt, all the men must help her roadside and
make women driving jokes while doing so. Those trees just jump out
into the road! Thanks to whispers of past pacts with Satan, they
don't expect her to stick around long, either. The then-edgy music
knows when to be quiet, adding to the isolation, crickets, and woman
alone creepy. Covered antiques, leftover fashions, period pictures,
and attic relics invoke a museum mood – an intrusion by the living
justifying the faulty electric, slamming doors, creaking stairs,
rattling pipes, and ghostly faces in the window. A music box plays on
its own while a mysterious necklace, ironic radio sermons, and the
titular highway pursuits escalate along with footsteps, intruders,
and shattering glass. The tracking camera pans about the house in an
ambiguous move that's both for effect and someone – or something –
approaching. Likewise, reading the diary of her devil worshiping aunt
alongside a new whirlwind but suspicious romance creates dual
suspense – which can certainly be said for that Hearse when it
pulls up to the front porch and opens its back door. The black
vehicle, white nightgown, and choice reds increase with candles,
coffins, and funerary dreams. Pills and long cigarette drags
visualize nerves amid bridge accidents, disappearing bodies, rowdy
town vandals, and gaslighting decoys. The solo reading aloud and
talking to oneself scenes will be slow to some viewers, and at times
the car action is hokey. The mystery can be obvious – it feels like
we've seen this plot before – yet the story isn't always clear with
low, double talk dialogue. However, it's easy to suspect what is real
with interesting twists in the final act, and the adult cast is
pleasing. Well done clues keep the guessing fun, and several genuine
jump moments make for a spirited midnight viewing.
Phenomena
– Jennifer Connolly (Labyrinth)
and Donald Pleasence (Halloween)
star
in this 1985 Italian
production from director Dario Argento along with Walkmans,
a giant computer, overhead projectors, retro school buses, huge
headphones, big boob tube TVs, off the shoulder sweatshirts, and
crimped hair. The horseshoe phones are so hefty one breaks through
the floor when it falls, and top heavy metal names such as Iron
Maiden anchor the score. Pretty but bleak Swiss scenery, foreboding
roads, suspicious chains, and an isolated cabin speak for themselves
with blood, shattered glass, cave perils, scissor attacks, and
strangling violence contrasting the rural vistas and scenic
waterfalls. The on the move camera tracks the scares, panning with
the staircases, chases, and penetrating knives rather than hectic
visuals working against the action – leaving heartbeats, ticking
clocks, and rage music to pulse the frenetic dreams. Congested
tunnels, dark water, and rotting heads build tension alongside
sleepwalking shadows, blue lighting schemes, and saintly white
symbolism. Insects,
monkeys, and bizarre medical tests collide with missing teens,
amnesia, and an old school sense of being lost in the foreign
unknown. Despite the young protagonist, the horror remains R without
being juvenile or nasty. Although necrophilia and rape are implied
amid girls in short shirts, dirty old men, and killer penetrations,
the innuendo isn't like today's overt teen T-n-A exploitation.
Doctors and a strict headmistress suspect epilepsy, schizophrenia, or
drugs before the otherworldly but friendly communication with animals
– cruel schoolmates and religious extremists view such talents or
swarming commands as demonic rather than embracing the literal fly on
the wall fantastics. Would you follow bugs to the scene of the crime
to see the decomposing victim through their eyes? The notion to be
in tune with nature and commune with insects as allies is unique in a
genre usually reserving such crawlies for scares, and cool bug eye
viewpoints, covered mirrors, freaky dolls, and maggots accent the
deceptions, twists, and escalating revelations for some gruesome
surprises and a wild finish. And oh my gosh there is a classmate
wearing a Bee Gees t-shirt. Want it!!
Tenebre
– Onscreen book pages set the deadly state of mind for this 1982
Argento thriller as retro airports, phone booths, jealous dames in
furs, and saucy innuendo give way to duty free shoplifting, vagrants,
and daytime assaults – building intrigue that is both crime
thriller and horror with killer vignettes, gore, and bizarre scenery.
Pages shoved in the victim's mouths add warped personality as
reporters cry sexism and cheap thrills inspired by the manuscript.
Stylish nudity and slasher voyeurism raise tension as the camera
peers through windows in search of the next victim while the pulsing
electronic score peppers the clashing metaphors – disloyal literary
agent John Saxon (Nightmare
on Elm Street), male
versus female cops, a feminine voice wielding a straight razor male
weapon. Subtitles would
have helped the low volume and off dubbing, but typewriters, record
players, and flash cameras accent breaking glass frights, dark room
developments, and pieces of the unseen killer's lair. Although
murders in a book made real may be a common plot now, the slightly
abstract lack of polish and low budget freaky adds to the American in
Rome angst, threatening phone calls, shoe fetishes, and phallic
parallels. The stark visuals mirror the cold, harsh detachment –
something is hiding in plain sight with white clothes, red symbolism,
beach-side sexual aggression, and gender bending encounters as our
clues. Are young women flirting with older men asking for violence?
The multi-layered life imitating art giallo expectations add
commentary on such tropes with dual investigations, puzzling notes,
and a detective reading detective novels but unable to solve what's
on the page. Breaking and entering violations, symbolic penetrating
attacks, and a whiff of Catholicism accent killer dogs, chases,
double crossings, repression, and frazzled nerves as the quality
deaths escalate into bold violence and visual confirmations. Despite
a previous Nasty notoriety, this isn't torture porn for the sake of
it and may actually seem tame compared to today's shocks.
Fortunately, this remains an intelligent cross genre thriller and
taut mystery with red herrings, insider psychosis, and wild film
within a film veils. After all, who is the voyeur if not viewer?
Avoid!
Don't Answer the Phone –
Sweaty rituals open this 1980 bizzarity before a nurse in white, heavy breathing, strangulation fetishes, and sexual violence. Old
radio designs, big headsets, giant switches, tape reels, pay phones,
and chalk boards in the precinct add retro pastiche, however, a
padding police research montage merely opens file cabinets, passes
papers, and sighs over manila folders as our killer strolls along the
Walk of Fame before finding the seedy side of town. We know nothing
about him save for an army jacket, and the fake Spanish accent used
in calling the radio psychologist is pointless. Snippy cops say this
serial strangler is good overtime money, and hokey killer
workouts/pep talks don't mix with serious patients and therapy
sessions recounting abuse. Rather than sticking with the forensic
samples, hairs, and bite mark clues or the female doctor who could
solve the crime, every strong woman with a breakthrough dies. Such
prey rather than empowered gratifies the violence – apparently it's
not the killer's fault when he replays the abuse of an incest victim
as sexy. Um, no. Prayers, candles, and warped visuals try too hard to
be inside the scandalous when the detectives and radio host evidence
should be the core. A crime thriller peppered with real world
heightened horror moments is fine, but interesting police
psychologist theories are ignored for a black pimp more upset at
being called dumb than a racial slur – amid a supposedly comical
raid where the cops bemoan filling out the forms for shooting said
black pimp. o_O This needed either the investigation perspective with
his prank calls alone or an unseen following of the killer. Hearing
his cues at the photography sessions and luring models are enough
fearful suggestion. Instead, all cops are wisecracking assholes one
step behind what we've already seen because evidently we're supposed
to feel sorry for the crying killer when he's selling his fetish
photos of the victims. This is not PTSD from the Vietnam psychopath
trope, as the murderer whines about the usual childhood killing of
the dog, wetting the bed, and a step-dad who didn't like him, and the
attempted gritty defending of this crazy racist vet rapist who's just
getting a bad rap seems more like porn or snuff with the hardcore
excised. I would say it's dated in this approach, but female
exploitation used for manpain excuses is still onscreen today. I'm
repulsed by this terrible film, least of all because nobody even
noticed the killer never wore gloves.
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