From Sarah: A "Horrifying" Weekend!

Hello all!

One this past Memorial Day weekend, I took some time (because my arthritis in my feet forced me on the couch, not that I made much of a fight...) to step outside my comfort zone and watch some horror films from different eras.  Digging deep in a couple cases into what my Amazon Prime membership had to offer, I saw a few things that caught my eye enough to watch from start to finish.  Here's what I found:

Fall of the House of Usher (1948)

I'm a HUGE Edgar Allen Poe fan and I am well acquainted with the Vincent Price version of this particular story. I was not, however, aware (because I'm only now just digging into the deepest recesses of old films, thanks to my many streaming service subscriptions) that there were other, earlier film adaptations of Poe's story about familial insanity.

If you keep IMDB.com handy while watching movies, (which I do) you'll find that the trivia for this particular version is telling. No actor other than Gwen Watford (for whom this was a film debut) made another movie after this one.  Let's think about that.  NO ONE ELSE MADE ANOTHER MOVIE after this one.  Was this going to be the finest work of film EVER? Did the actors finish this one and say, "I simply cannot do any better than this...this is the height of art."

Ummmm, no.

I'm not going to say the film was bad. And I do give them points for having the nerve to attempt to convey that Daddy Usher was into some pretty heavy bondage and sadism in his personal life. That's pretty out there, given the times. However, I have to mention that much of the dialogue was tossed in post production (ponder that) and that film opens...not on a dying mansion, but in a reading room of an exclusive upper crust men's club where dusty old white guys are sitting around talking about books and one of them decides to grab a copy of Poe's completed works and read from it to prove Poe's work is superior to any others.

Well, Poe's work is superior, but this film is not.  Unless you are really into films with zero production value, maybe leave this one alone.

Asylum (1972)

If you've read any of my reviews, you know I believe there is a film DEAD ZONE between 1969 and 1980 where the vast majority of films made are simply unwatchable either because the editing or filming technique is bad or the acting is just awful.

"Asylum" has many great pieces. The opening music is great, the set up for the plot is really, really good. A young psychiatrist goes to a mental asylum to interview for a job. As part of the interview he must meet each of the patients and, after completing his interviews, tell the doctor in charge which of the patients was the now insane head doctor of the asylum, If he gets it right he gets the job.

GREAT set up.  What follows are four separate stories from each of the patients...and this is where the film falls apart. Not in the stories themselves, but in the quality of the filming. Seriously...this was done in 1972. Granted, it's a British film, and their sense of horror/special effects is different, and I'm they weren't working with Hollywood money.  Still, there are moments, especially in the first story, where the effects are so beyond ridiculous, you wind up laughing at the campiness.

That said, with everything "Asylum" had going against it from the outset, I stuck with it and find some moments of real entertainment and an over all sense of time well spent at the end.  This is a very, very, very British film, and the ending is indicative of the bigger problems I find in films in the dead zone.  But, overall, this is a worthy 88 minutes.

Dr. Sleep (2019)

When this movie was first announced both my daughter and I were excited for it. She is a hard core horror film fan, and I love Stephen King's genius novel about a writer completely losing his crap in an empty hotel.  Unlike most of the movie going public, I do not worship at the alter of Stanley Kubrick, so I prefer the 1997 mini series adaptation of the book to the 1980 classic film. All that said, We were excited to see this movie.

Which we watched yesterday.

Friends, I'll be honest. I haven't read the book. But I have read the trivia comments and this film, Dr. Sleep, is a sequel to the Kubrick film...not necessarily the book. And, being a sequel to the film, means, director/screenwriter Mike Flannigan took up some of the film techniques used in the 1980 classic.  Unfortunately, he used the bad elements instead of the good ones.

The movie is too long by about 45 minutes and if you ask my daughter or me, we can tell you exactly what to cut.  We did not need the long intro to the bad characters or the reminder footage using a fake Danny and fake Wendy. Basically, the first half hour is not needed, it's confusing, and, if you've seen the Kubrick film, (and why are you watching Dr. Sleep if you haven't?) then you don't need the bits with fake Danny.  The first half hour drags the film down.  Ewan McGregor and young Kyleigh Curran play well off of each other and Rebecca Ferguson is plausible as a villain.  Once we get to the meat of the plot, the movie starts rolling along nicely, but then Flannigan remembers he's writing a sequel, so once again we get dragged along in a direction that is not necessary and wind up with an ending that is befuddling at best.  This film could have been great, there are many great pieces to it. But it feels way too much like the pieces from two puzzles shuffled together in one box.

If you're a hardcore horror fan, there are some thrills and chills, but really, this is too much of a first draft mess to really bother.