The horror!

Again, it’s that time of the year we’re all set to scare the wits out of ourselves. Not an easy task, mind you, given that collectively we’ve been numbed by the horrors delivered to us by primetime television, newspapers or just the latest chain text going around. There are days where we wary of even stepping out of our doors at all. As the statistics show, riding the car is proving more of a risk than ever – and the dangers are everything from drunk drivers to car hijackers. Water is becoming increasingly unsafe and what we eat is insidiously poisoning us. Deadly bacteria are growing in our toothbrushes and even our kisses can be fatal. The world is indeed ending…so why not watch a movie?

The coming of a heightened realism to cinema – at least as far as the horror movie goes these days – is futile and unremarkable. Given that it cannot hope to win in a competition with today’s headlines, the cinema must put into play its imagination, the lucid dreaming that it induces, and the mystery when the lights go out. Our picks for Halloween this year might be slim in number but are abundant in enchantment. We hope you’re able to find time and let their dark spell work on your wearied and jaded eyes.

Night Of The Demon (Jacques Tourneur)

The mysterious demise of Harrington, a colleague in England, prompts the skeptical psychiatrist Holden to continue the inquiry into the affairs of the occultist Karswell and his followers. It appears that even his peers are not dismissing the possibility that the supernatural is involved and everything comes to a head when Holden is himself given the fortune that he will meet the same fate in three days if he does not back off the investigation. Scoffed at by Holden, Karswell slips a parchment with runic symbols from an accursed book into Holden’s papers – a facsimile of the one he gave Harrington three days before he died. Disturbing events follow and – with the help of Harrington’s niece – Holden must question if his skepticism might not cost him his life.

Based on M.R. James’ classic story Casting The Runes, this fluent adaptation by B-movie eminence Jacques Tourneur is among the director’s finest work. Apart from the insistence of producers and distributors to included shots of the demon itself early in the picture, it is near flawless in its invocation of dread. Though you can never really accuse a horror film of subtlety, this one manages it. The scene wherein Karswell conjures up a windstorm in the middle of a clear day is particularly memorable.

Black Sunday (Mario Bava)

After being condemned to a brutal death for adultery, Asa vows to take her revenge on those responsible, particularly her brother the local inquisitor. Two centuries later, a doctor finds himself in the Moldavian community and is beguiled by the heiress Katja Vajda, the spitting image of her ruined ancestor. Slowly however, Asa’s influence starts to grow strong and threatens to take over the virginal Katja and it seems that the curse will now come into fruition.

This plot is of course hokum in spite being loosely based on the story The Vij by Nikolai Gogol. But the superb black-and-white cinematography and the eerie score by Robert Nicolosi is pure cinematic bravado. Of course, the unsettling beauty of Barbara Steele – here introduced in all her terrible glory playing both female leads – is the center of fixation. Director Mario Bava did his apprenticeship doing cinematography for other directors such as Riccardo Freda even co-directing the latter’s I Vampiri. At the height of his powers on this one, his technical skill and poet’s eye suffuse this grim fairytale most of its potency.

Sa Ilalim Ng Cogon (Rico Ilarde)

It starts out with a robbery before it goes wrong for the group of bandits. One by one, they cancel each other out in a cruel demonstration of Darwinian theory. The only one left standing finds himself wandering into an abandoned community with only one tenant — a lovely lass for whose charms he quickly falls for and might just be the death of him. That’s the least of his troubles: there’s the kingpin who wants his money and sends out his goons on the errand; and there’s the possibility that a monster is lying in wait in the whispering vegetation of the idyllic town. Who’ll survive? One can never be sure.

Perhaps the most controversial independent film this year, Sa Ilalim ng Cogon is perhaps the film we’ve all been waiting for from the young upstart Rico Ilarde. From monsters to sex, all his trademark obsessions are there. But his latest film finds Ilarde tending more carefully to the growth of his mutant offspring than any of his previous creations. It is meticulously created and throws up more balls in the air than any other film this year is willing to risk. (Not every ball is caught though.) Unpretentious and more immediate than any artsy-fartsy jerk-offs we’ve seen this year, it’ll be a shame if the public will never get to see it.

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