Thirteen Ghosts (1960)

 I finally watched William Castle's Thirteen Ghosts.  I hate to admit I actually kind of like the remake that came out in 2001.  I know it is a shitty movie but it is one of my guilty pleasures, like the entire Resident Evil franchise.  I can now add Castle's Thirteen Ghosts to my guilty pleasure list.  I loved every inch of this movie!

Lets begin with the haunted mansion, which looks an awful lot like the Winchester Mystery House (my local haunted joint.)  Paleontologist Cyrus Zorba is a good man, but very bad with money.  He can't even keep his house furnished.  Zorba's luck changes one day when he is informed that his Uncle, Dr. Plato Zorba, has died and left Cyrus his furnished mansion!  Cyrus and his family, wife Hilda, daughter Medea, and son Buck (who named these people?) move in right away.  They are informed by Plato's lawyer, Ben Rush, that the house is haunted with eleven ghosts.  Make that twelve, since good old Plato is refusing to leave.  Seems that Plato dabbled in the occult, and he "collected" these ghosts from around the world.

The family moves in, but immediately begin to experience strange happenings.  It doesn't help that the housekeeper, Elaine, looks and acts like a witch (played tongue in cheek by Margaret Hamilton.)  Elaine knows that the ghosts are real, and that they are beginning to become out of control.  Plato left Cyrus a pair of goggles that allows him to "see" the ghosts.  And this is where Castle's gimmick comes in.  Audience members were given goggles with their ticket.  Brave souls could wear the goggles and "see" the ghosts on screen.  Those faint of heart only had to move a flap on the goggles and they were spared the horror!  Of course, if you didn't wear the goggles you could see the ghosts as well-- but what is the fun in that?

Plato had some very strange taste in ghosts.  One of them looks like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets, another is a flaming skeleton.  One of them is a lion tamer that lost his head, and another is the lion itself!! I love that one of the ghosts is a lion!  The ghosts are actually kind of scary.  They are no Caspers, that is for sure.  Apparently they will not rest until another joins their ranks: the thirteenth ghost!   Making matters worse, there is a fortune hidden somewhere in the mansion.  The Zorba family doesn't know anything about it, but Ben Rush and the witch Elaine do.  As you can imagine, ghosts are not the only threat to the Zorba family.

The special effects are really corny, and much of the film doesn't make much sense, such as the collapsing bed.  Who would built a bed that collapses with the push of a button?  It is as dumb as building a door to the sea in your basement (see The Terror.)  But I really like the Zorba family and the ghosts are really funky.  I want a ghost lion in my house.  Maybe I already have one.  I have misplaced by goggles but that could explain why my cat is acting so weird. 

Happy Thanksgiving !!

Thanks to whoever I took this image from!  Thanks to everyone who reads my blog!  Thank you to Turkey and Wine and the sleepless night that too much of each will give me!  Thank you to my awesome family who totally supports my turn to the darkside.  Thank you for Glee and The Walking Dead.  Thank you Jason and Freddy and Michael Myers and Ghostface (what the hell is he doing in this picture?  I wouldn't invite that poser to my holiday table).    Have a wonderful day everyone!

RIP Ingrid Pitt

I was just reading about her yesterday.  What an amazing woman.  Survived a Nazi Concentration camp.  Rest in Peace Ingrid Pitt.

Happy Birthday Boris Karloff!!!

Thank you for all of the nightmares!

H.H. Holmes: America's first serial killer (2004)

 Like many horror nuts I am as obsessed with real life horror as I am with fictional.  Give me Serial Killer day on Biography and I am one happy girl.  We know all about our modern day Monsters such as Dahmer, Manson, and Fish, but most people haven't heard about the Grand-daddy of them all: H.H. Holmes, known as America's first Serial Killer.

I was introduced to H.H. Holmes by Erik Larson's amazing book Devil in the White City.  Believe it or not I did not pick up this book because of Holmes but because of my weird obsession with World's Fairs.  This book is about both the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and Holmes, who opened a hotel during the Fair and used it as an opportunity to procure more victims. 

Holmes was unusual for a Serial Killer in that he was highly educated.  Trained as a Doctor, he used his ties to the medical world to dispose of his corpses.  He would sell the bones to schools and hospitals to be used as training materials!  As well as being a killer Holmes was also a swindler and con man, taking his victims money as well as their lives.  He was also an architect.  He designed his hotel in Chicago that became known as "The Castle."  He designed it to be respectable on the outside, but a chamber of horrors on the inside.  He built a crematorium, lime pit, and torture chamber in the basement.  He would lock victims into the massive vault he had installed until they died of suffocation.  He killed his business partner and the partner's three children.  When he was finally caught he claimed that Satan had possessed him. 

For more on Holmes please read Erick Larson's book or check out John Borowski's documentary H.H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer.  This short film tells the story of Holmes through re-creations, newspaper clips from the era, and photos of Holmes and his victims.  I found it very well made and more than a little creepy.

Exorcist III: Legion

I have never seen any of the Exorcist sequels until now (I did see the awful prequel from a few years ago.  Lets not talk about that.)  What I had heard is that The Exorcist II is downright awful but the William Peter Blatty directed Exorcist III is a worthy successor to the "scariest film ever made."  Well, I don't really agree with that.  I didn't hate The Exorcist III, but I didn't think it was all that great either.  Perhaps this is because I have never seen the stinker that is Exorcist II.  Nearly every review I have read of Exorcist III mentions it as a "true" sequel, unlike Part II.  So I will revisit this film after seeing Part II.  Wonderful.  I sometimes wonder what the people at Netflix must think of my queue.  I wonder if they go in and read them and think: "My God-this person has no life AND the worst taste in movies". 

The Exorcist III starts out well enough.  The spooky music, the Georgetown setting, the stairs- the stairs are shown over and over again- I loved it.  George C. Scott plays Lt. William F. Kinderman, the movie loving cop from the first film (replacing the deceased Lee J. Cobb.) Kinderman is still good friends with Father Dyer (Ed Flanders) and two get together every year to see a film on the anniversary of Father Damien's demise.  The best part about this film is the relationship between these two very different men.  It is the emotional center of the film.

A series of grisly, satanic murders is rocking Georgetown.  Kinderman thinks it may be the work of the "Gemini Killer", a madman who was executed 15 years prior (around the same time as the events in the first film.)  He has a hard time convincing anyone of this since the Gemini (played by the always awesome Brad Dourif) is clearly dead.  The other problem is that according to the fingerprints, the murders are being done by different people.  Sounds like a case of possession to me!

When the murderer begins to target Kinderman's family and friends, it becomes a race against time to uncover the mystery.  At the local hospital Kinderman is introduced to "Patient X," an unknown man that has been locked in the psych ward for 15 years.

Does he look kind of familiar?  It's Father Damien (Jason Miller!)  At this point things get really crazy in this film, and I was as confused as George C. Scott looks throughout the entire thing.  What begins as a pretty intriguing hunt for a serial killer turns into a strange possession/exorcism/body jumping finale that looks like it was thrown together at the last minute.  The film just didn't feel right, despite some great performances and good scares. 

Upon further research I found that the film I saw wasn't really William Peter Blatty's true vision.  Morgan Creek Productions, the same company that fucked up Nightbreed, insisted that Blatty re shoot some of the film so that there was an actual exorcism in it.  Blatty wanted to release the film as Legion, after his book, but Morgan Creek, looking to cash in, wanted it to feel more like a true sequel to The Exorcist.  Hence, the return of Jason Miller, the inclusion of Father Morning, an exorcist that shows up and has nothing to do with the other events in the film, and the strange ending. 

I would love to see Blatty's original film, but Morgan Creek claims that the original footage has been lost.  Conspiracy!!  The story behind the film was more interesting than the film itself!

What I really liked about the film was Blatty's little touches of weirdness throughout.  From the witty and sometimes strange dialog to the bizarre visual touches, watching this film is a bit like an Easter egg hunt.  If you watch it be on the lookout for Larry King, Samuel L. Jackson, and the Joker.  Seriously, its weird.  In a good way. 

John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe

Early pic of John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe in The Raven, due out next year.  Thanks to "Ain't it Cool News"  http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47452