September Films Update 1

Ten films I watched earlier this year

****

1. The Shining

The Overlook Hotel in remote Colorado needs a caretaker overwinter; Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes the job, despite hearing that a previous caretaker, snowed in, killed his wife, his daughters, and himself. Meanwhile when Jack’s son Danny has a fit, Wendy, Jack’s wife and Danny’s mother, tells the doctor about Danny’s problems, including when Jack dislocated Danny’s shoulder while drunk. Jack, a writer, has been having work difficulties, hopes to use the quiet winter to get a novel done.

Arriving at the hotel as it is closing down, the chef Dick Halloran recognises that Danny has psychic powers like his own, something his grandmother taught him about and called "The Shining". He warns Danny against room 237, which shines.

Obviously the hotel is haunted. Danny has visions and is lured to room 237 where he’s injured; Wendy blames Jack. Jack, who has sworn off booze finds a ghostly bartender who serves him, encounters a hideous ghost in room 237 but blames Danny for his injuries. Wendy is doing all the work; Jack having set up his writing desk in the atrium that leads to many of the spaces complains at any interruption. Things get out of hand and Danny is able to contact Dick Halloran in Florida, who comes back despite the hotel being cut off by snow.

This is a classic horror film, one that builds slowly and relentlessly, yet has scares and shocks in reserve. Danny’s performance is pretty good and everyone else better. The empty hotel is masterfully shot, slightly off kilter from the start and slowly becoming more unnerving.

Watch This: Scary, haunting story of haunting and descent into madness
Don’t Watch This: Child abuse, blood, violence etc

2. Minesweeper (1943)

Houston, a deserter from the US Navy joins up under the assumed name of James “Tennessee” Smith after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Linking up with “Fixit” Smith, a former Chief Petty Officer, the two are assigned aboard a minesweeper. Japanese submarines keep laying mines off San Diego so they’re kept busy.

Houston falls for Fixit’s niece Mary, competing for her affections with Eliot Nash, another seaman. He goes out gambling to try and get a ring to propose, and misses his ship, Fixit taking his place and is blown up. Houston’s distraught, considers deserting again.

He doesn’t, though all this nonsense has brought him to the attention of an officer who realises he’s a deserter. Rather than turning him in, the navy needing every man, he's sent out with Nash, diving to try and deal with a mine. They realise that sound from a low flying aircraft releases the mine from the bottom. Houston sabotages Nash’s air so he surfaces and tells the officer. Houston is killed. Low flying aircraft criss-cross the channel and the mines are all released allowing the minesweepers to destroy them.

A fairly slight bit of wartime propaganda, lifted a little by the efforts to show the real work of minesweeping. The characters are mostly ciphers, only Houston having much to do – his reasons for deserting were gambling debts, and he immediately goes back to gambling again.

Watch This: Interesting bit of military fiction on the work of minesweepers and the men who served on them
Don’t Watch This: Paper thin characters get blown up

3. Icefall (2025)

A gang of thieves break into a secret vault beneath a pawn shop; afterwards the $20 Million they steal is put on a plane that crashes. Sometime later one of the containers surfaces on a frozen lake and is found by a poacher who has been camping out looking for missing family members. A National Park Ranger finds him, arrests him, but then the gang of thieves arrive. They escape to start a game of icy cat and mouse with bear traps, bows, breaking ice and more.

There’s a few efforts to complicate the situation – one of the gang is local to the area, both Native American and a priest. Meanwhile the ranger is also Native American though the other Native Americans disapprove of her as she keeps busting them for poaching. But in the end the film is about getting people into complicated fights and stunts on a frozen lake.

Watch This: Stunts and fights on a frozen lake
Don’t Watch This: You want more than stunts and fights on a frozen lake

4. The Devil’s Partner

An old man does a ritual in a shack in New Mexico. Later Nick Richards arrives in town, chats up the owner of the diner then talks to the sheriff claiming to be the nephew of the old man, who was found dead. He asks about his death and no one seems to want to answer him. He gets between Nell and her boyfriend. He moves into the shack and does more rituals; animals start attacking people (mostly off screen). Everyone notices that despite the heat he doesn’t sweat.

The film’s at it’s best when everyone wonders around trying to dismiss all the odd things going on. The rest of the time it kind of slogs along, the nature of the rituals, the bargain and the partnership rather confused.

Watch This: Spooky occult mystery
Don’t Watch This: Animals, people killed, very unclear

5. The Crow (2024)

Shelly, a musician, is sent a video by her friend Zadie that shows Vincent Roeg, musical patron, killing/sucking the soul out of someone. Shelly keeps the video, goes on the run chased by Roeg’s henchmen. She escapes them by getting arrested for drug addiction and is sent to a facility. There she meets Eric, who is plagued by nightmares.

Roeg captures Zadie and interrogates her, revealing he made a deal with the devil and is immortal in return for sending souls to hell in his place. Whispering in her ear he makes Zadie kill herself. He sends lackeys after Shelly to the facility; she and Eric escape and take refuge in a posh apartment owned by a friend. However they are tracked down and killed.

Waking in a purgatorial railyard, Kronos tells Eric that to be with Shelly he will have to kill Roeg. Using some water/drowning stuff combined with crows Eric returns to the regular world. He discovers that his injuries heal fast. He then proceeds on the usual Crow roaring rampage of revenge.

This Crow film doesn’t trust us to figure things out, which I guess is fine, especially as there’s some very specific bits of lore and world-building that don’t really fit together. Eric’s crow powers are apparently drawn from his love for Shelly; Roeg wants the crow powers for himself, is confident he can get them somehow.

Watch This: Stylish supernatural revenge film
Don’t Watch This: Over-explains a lot of stuff that makes no sense, also many gruesome deaths

6. Undergods

Two men in a van are driving around an estate, collecting dead bodies. They begin to discuss their dreams, one of them recounting his. It involves a couple in a brand new housing block (a little like the one they are driving around, though much newer and cleaner). A neighbour knocks on the door claiming to have got locked out, and building management are absent so can't let him in until the morning. The husband invites him in. After this he keeps coming around and there’s some jealousy, an affair, and the building manager informs them that they’re the only ones currently living in the block. At the end the husband chases the not-neighbour into the lift; at the bottom he falls lifeless out of it in front of the building manager who is showing a family the block.

Next the family move in, the father telling a bedtime story to his child daughter, that’s about a man stealing an invention, and in return having his adult daughter kidnapped. At this point we find the father has stopped telling the story as the child is asleep. Still, the story continues as the invention-stealing man and his daughter’s boyfriend encounter the two men in the van from the beginning/frame story; the invention-stealer is killed and the boyfriend imprisoned. The boyfriend then dies, but another prisoner is released.

There’s a final one even more complex and strange than those two, as the released prisoner mysteriously appears in the home of a man; it turns out the former prisoner was the first husband of his wife. This inevitably ends badly and violently after the boss’s birthday party goes wrong.

This nesting set of stories, recognisable situations seen from askew and strange ones treated matter-of-factly – what to make of them? That they’re asking questions about families, and in particular husbands and fathers is clear. But the very oddness of the surrounds – explicitly dream-like – makes the nature of the question vague. Leaving us with disturbing, low key horror of unexpected people emerging into almost-regular lives.

Watch This: Peculiar, uncanny film about what hides beneath the surface of family life
Don’t Watch This: Dreams of violence

7. The Barbarians (1987)

The Ragnick people, traveling entertainers, are attacked by Kadar and his forces, who wants the magic ruby. Canary, queen of the Ragnicks, hides it; when the Ragnicks are captured twin boys Kutcheck and Gore bite off some of Kadar’s fingers. To save them Canary agrees to enter Kadar’s harem.

Kutcheck and Gore are brought up separately, punished, one by a man in a black helmet, the other by one in a gold helmet. When they have grown enough to be enormous muscular men Dirtmaster, in charge of their training, puts one in a black helmet and the other in a gold and makes them fight. However in the fight the helmets come off and after a moment’s confusion ("Why do you have my face?") they escape, and come across the remnants of the Ragnicks along with Ismene, a thief. After a brief bit of confusion where the Ragnicks try to hang them they convince them of who they are and plan to rescue Canary.

They then move through a number of standard sword & sorcery setpieces – the tavern where they’re trying to buy weapons and it turns to a brawl; infiltrating Kadar’s fortress and harem; raiding a legendary tomb to get the weapons to defeat the dragon that guards the ruby etc. Complicating this is China, Kadar’s sorceress, who is jealous of Canary, and wants the ruby for herself. Not that complicated though; this is a film of action sequences, comedy confusion, and confused comic action sequences.

Watch This: Breezy, fast paced fantasy action film
Don’t Watch This: Lightweight, derivative, very silly fantasy action film

8. Atomic Rulers

On the Emerald Planet they detect radiation coming from Earth. Worried that they might be contaminated they send Starman* to try and prevent this. Arriving he discovers a plane with nuclear material on board being hijacked and stops them.

They’re Magolians, from Magolia, a fictional and ontologically evil country with secret agents trying to capture nuclear weapons and technology. A Magolian plot runs into a group of kids from the orphanage. They help Starman by telling him about their activities, but also get into trouble, being kidnapped by Magolians.

Put together from a Japanese kid’s serial, this combines some fun and strange costumes and sets, with very mundane bits of Japan – taking a long time to cross a railway bridge, the orphanage being run by a nun, Starman disguising himself in a suit etc. The Magolians have a quite exciting secret base, which is entirely unequipped to deal with the rather over-powered Starman.

Watch This: Super-powered alien attempts to end Nuclear Proliferation
Don’t Watch This: Nonsensical, has superfluous kids wandering about

* Not that one 

9. Sherlock Holmes: The Hound Of The Baskervilles

Dr Mortimer leaves his walking stick at 221B, allowing Dr Watson to entirely mis-deduce who he is. When he arrives he tells Sherlock Holmes of a problem; his patient and friend Sir Charles Baskerville died of a heart attack outside Baskerville Hall, his remote Dartmoor manor. However there were strange things about it – he had a look of horror on his face, and there were giant paw prints. This matches an ancient family curse – The Hound Of The Baskervilles. Dr Mortimer does not believe in curses but he does believe that Sir Charles’s heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, arriving from America, is at risk.

Strange events have already occurred at Sir Henry’s hotel; first one of his new London shoes went missing, then it reappeared, only for an older shoe to vanish. He also received a note telling him to stay away from Baskerville Hall. And someone seems to have been following him around London. Sir Henry intends to go to Baskerville Hall anyway. Holmes says that it would be wise to have another pair of eyes there but is unable to go. Dr Mortimer has his own practice, and also his archaeological dig, so Dr Watson goes with him.

We’re introduced to the familiar elements of this story: The Grimpen Mire, a dangerous swamp. An escaped convict on the moors. The remote house with husband and wife family retainers. The local village – of which Sir Henry is the landlord, and from where Dr Watson sends regular reports to Holmes. And the local society, which includes the Stapletons. Friendly Jack Stapleton, who is painting. His sister Beryl who initially mistakes Watson for Sir Henry, tries to warn him away, only to later warm to Sir Henry, both young, attractive and single. Also neighbour Fredrick Lyons, who likes watching what’s going on with his telescope, and who has an estranged daughter who apparently Sir Charles looked out for.

What does this adaption of one of the most famous Sherlock Holmes stories have to offer? As a long episode of the Granada TV series, Brett as Holmes and Hardwicke as Watson have an easy relationship, perhaps too easy. Watson is mildly annoyed at Holmes’s deceptions, only to have forgiven (forgotten) by the end. This show was willing to flirt with the uncanny in a way that modern adaptions often don’t. When the stories were written it had not been codified that detective stories ought to have mundane explanations, and so here – though the glowing spectral hound is a bit stylised at this late stage. It doesn’t quite show the most gruesome parts, but we know they’re there.

Watch This: Excellent adaption of the Sherlock Holmes story, with good chemistry from a classic pair in the lead roles
Don’t Watch This: Very familiar story, ropy effects, and Watson further down the bumbler route than is interesting

10. Man In The Attic (1953)

It’s 1888 and notorious (real*) serial killer Jack The Ripper is on the prowl. Mr Slade (Jack Palance), a forensic pathologist hires a room and also the attic of Mr and Mrs Harley, intending the attic to be for some of his experiments. Slade turns the pictures to the wall to avoid the eyes, goes out late at night and is close lipped about his work and experiments.

Mrs Harley’s niece Lily Bonner arrives from Paris. She’s a singer and dancer, performing risqué song and dance routines on stage. Slade leaves the house in an Ulster coat and with a black bag, is seen by Lily. At the theatre Lily meets an old friend Anne who has fallen on hard times. Later that night Anne is murdered by the Ripper, and when Inspector Warwick comes to question Lily passes on witness reports say it was by a man with a black bag wearing an Ulster coat.

Slade gives his opinion, that the Ripper will never be caught. He acts suspiciously, though there are reasons – he burns his black bag, but Mr Harley shows his black bag which he’s not using thanks to the reports. Lily is courted by Inspector Warwick, including a trip to the Police Black Museum – an archive of items used in murders. However Lily is fascinated by Slade, and brings him to the museum with her. Slade reveals that his mother was an actress, who was cruel and brilliant, and ended up as a sex worker, very like Anne.

An early Jack Palance sinister role, it makes up a lot about Jack The Ripper, as well as very anachronistic stage shows – almost as though it’s designed for a 1950s film thriller rather than a serious period piece. There’s some thought about the nature of obsession with women, but nothing especially interesting for a modern thriller or horror viewer.

Watch This: Dark thriller about Jack The Ripper with some sparkling song and dance numbers
Don’t Watch This: Based on a novel, there are four other adaptions, including Hitchcock’s first (silent) film

* Never definitively identified, some theories suggest he was as much a creation of the press and popular outcry as a real man; nevertheless five women were killed