HOUR OF THE WOLF

Okay, folks. First I'd like to get the big Nordic elephant out of the way: Oscar-nominated Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann is basically Chris Colfer's face-twin. It was a little distracting.
                  

            

Alright. On with the review…
              

                      

I had never seen an Ingmar Bergman movie before Hour of the Wolf. Everything I knew about Ingmar Bergman I learned from Simpsons references and Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. I knew that he was a Scandinavian director who did a bunch of artsy black-and-white movies and that Woody Allen loved him. I also knew, almost without a shadow of a doubt, that his movies were not my style. I pictured long, murky parables about war and death. I pictured beautiful cinematography and absolute boredom. I didn’t picture horror movies. And yet, here I am, writing about an Ingmar Bergman movie in my horror blog.
                

Hour of the Wolf, from what I could tell, is about a pregnant woman and her older husband who live on an island. The husband is slowly getting crazier and crazier because of his interactions with the island's other residents, a castle full of wack-jobs, including a woman that he fooled around with before knocking up his current wife. This guy is pushed to the edge by the surrounding characters, and his wife is becoming increasingly afraid that she’s starting to share her husband’s psychosis. I’m not going to continue explaining the plot, because it isn’t exactly linear, so let’s instead talk about how I might interpret some of the events of this story.

               

               

ONE: The husband is a crazy artist who has retreated to this isolated island to be alone. He lashes out at everyone he meets (including the little boy on the beach) because of some intense distrust of the outside world. He has his pregnant wife to cling to, but when he finally lashes out at her (he shoots her), that’s the final straw and he cracks, disappearing forever into himself.

                

TWO: None of the characters are real except for the husband and wife. The husband has elaborate delusions about the strange people he meets. Slowly, his wife begins to see them too. When one of these delusions gives him the gun he uses to shoot his wife, then his psychosis has finally crossed into a level where he can no longer be cured. At the end of the movie, his wife talks about a scar that the bullets left on her, thus implying that not only is she now damaged by her husband’s psychosis, but now she’s fully succumbed to it, too.

              

            

I could go on discussing about a dozen theories that try to tie together all the loose ends and abrupt moments of violence (and cross-dressing). In fact, that’s probably what Bergman wanted. But I’m of the mindset that reviews aren’t about interpretations, they’re about recommendations. Did I enjoy this movie? Was I intrigued instead of confused? Would I recommend this? I think I’d say yes to all three questions.
            

This is a difficult movie, one with characters that don’t really behave like real people and situations that don’t quite gel. Intellectually, I’m frustrated. Emotionally, I’m highly pleased. This movie kept me surprised, tense, and weirdly curious. The dinner scene at the castle… the violent outburst with the little kid… the laughing ex-girlfriend corpse lady… these were moments that will probably stick with me for a while. As a whole, I prefer my movies to be a little more straight-forward than this, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating how unsettling everything comes across.

                

Is this a horror movie? Sure. I have a fairly inclusive definition of horror. Everything from Jaws to Rosemary’s Baby to Silence of the Lambs fits under the umbrella. This is psychological. It’s a lot like 2010’s Antichrist without all that squicky gore. Is it wall-to-wall scary? Nope. But I think this one will linger with me.

           

            

I just don’t think it completely works as a narrative film. It’s like watching a hallucination, which is a pretty powerful experience. Sure. But once you realize it’s just a hallucination, it’s hard to really care about what happens.

FOR MORE HOUR OF THE WOLF FUN, CHECK OUT THESE OTHER, MUCH BETTER REVIEWS:

Moon Is a Dead World
Lerner International
United Provinces of Ivanlandia
The Lightning Bug’s Lair

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA

Creature from the Haunted Sea is a Roger Corman horror-comedy from the early 60s. You can watch it for free on Youtube, along with such wildly different Corman movies as Beast from the Haunted Cave, Devil from the Haunted Forest, and Thingy from the Haunted Laundromat. Corman basically made 17 movies using the exact same script and a Mad Libs cheat sheet.

My fellow bloggers over at The Moon Is a Dead World have pooled together a bunch of movie reviews for the Halloween Fifteen, and my contribution is a write-up for Creature from the Haunted Sea. Check it out, along with 14 other reviews covering everything from Japanimation to torture porn. I am excited to see what people say.

LGBTerror Is IRRESISTIBLY SWEET!

I write horror movie reviews. I judge movies on the amount of decapitations and male toplessness. I’m not Tolstoy. So needless to say, the last thing I expected was to get an award for writing this blog. But guess what. This morning, I found out that The Moon Is a Dead World, one of my favorite horror blogs, bestowed unto me THE IRRESISTIBLY SWEET BLOG AWARD, complete with strawberries and a Harlequin Romance font.

Now, let’s be honest for a second. This award is basically the chain letter version of the Golden Globes. I seriously doubt that the person who invented it had any idea that it would eventually end up on a horror blog that reviews movies like Humongous and Evil Bong. That said, I am so freaking excited to get this, especially since it came from Ryne over at Moon Is a Dead World, a guy who puts out a really great site.

I highly recommend this site to anyone interested in horror movies. Not only is it a great resource for the latest DVD releases, but it offers reviews and articles daily. He is way more active with his site than I am with mine. Like LGBTerror, Moon Is a Dead World doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it is slightly more journalistic than mine. It’s a great reading experience. Check it out.

So as part of the terms of the award, I am supposed to write seven previously unknown things about myself. Lets see…

7.         I don’t eat mayonnaise. I think it’s the devil's food and I cannot stand to even have it on my skin. I think that my aversion has to do with the time I ate a bad chicken sandwich at Rubys in Newport and threw up on my grandma. (True story.) Fricking mayonnaise.

6.         My dad was an animator. Back in the 70s, he worked for a studio called Filmation, where he drew for some of their Saturday morning cartoons. He has some interesting stories.

5.         I cry every time I watch Babe: Pig in the City. If you haven’t seen that movie, you have to. It is an experience and you will love it with your soul.

4.         I lived in South Africa for a year. Cape Town, specifically. I loved it there and plan to go back as soon as I can afford it. Great town.

3.         I met Kimmy Gibbler. Everyone has celebrity sightings, and I’ve seen some interesting ones in my life, but my fondest star moment was when I was six and I saw Andrea Barber by my house in Whittier, California. She played Kimmy Gibbler, the annoying next-door neighbor on Full House. We had a moment.

2.         My first horror movie was Leprechaun. I saw it at my aunt's house when I wasn’t supposed to. I was seven. I loved it then and I love it now.

1.         My brother accidentally pushed me out a window when I was two. I think that story is pretty self-explanatory. I’ve since gotten over it. I have a cool foot scar, though.

And that, my friends, is a little something about me. Now I hope you enjoy my upcoming posts about Saturday the 14th and Bloodsuckers from Outer Space. They don’t call me Irresistibly Sweet© for nothing.