Read my blog for tips on banishing Krampus!
Egg-Noggy thoughts on the Holiday Horror classic Black Christmas (1974) coming soon…
Black Christmas streaming on TCM for Xfinity customers until 1/1/2021. Also broadcasting on Xmas Eve, beginning at 8pm, EST.
With all of the unmentionable horrors in our world, escapism can provide a form of mental self-preservation; a temporary defense mechanism, or “killswitch” to both internal and external uncertainty and turmoil. Whether you seek escape through artistic endeavors, comfort food, Internet cat videos, or riskier means, distraction has been evident since the early humans. Though unconfirmed, some scholars pose that cave paintings and other forms of artistic expression may have been meditations in distraction. After all, it’s a stressful thing to be under constant threat of starvation and/or predation. Perhaps cave drawings soothed the discontents of prehistory. Or maybe they were a form of exposure therapy: “If I draw that giant beast on my wall, maybe it won’t seem so threatening next time I encounter one in the flesh.”
(Image by Prof. Saxx. Public Domain)
During the Great Depression, films and other forms of entertainment provided departures from the bleakness of daily life. More than eighty years later, television and cinema continues to be a major driving force of escapism in Western culture and beyond.
Outside a Depression-era play directed by Orson Welles. Harlem, 1936.
But what if your cinematic leanings involved content considered to be counterintuitive to blissful escapism? What if you prefer the sounds, stories, and images that deal in the morbid and macabre? The disturbing subject matter that exists in the dark corridors of the human mind, brought to life onscreen…I’m talking, of course, about horror films.
Many film experts cite Le Manoir du Diable (1896) as the first horror film. It’s running time is just over 3 minutes (Source image).
As a first blog entry, I’d like to explore my own horror film autobiography as a method of understanding both the genesis and evolution of a scary movie enthusiast.
The 1980s introduced some of the most recognizable horror film franchises in history. The decade entered with a low-budget film called Friday the 13th, which, despite being initially panned, turned into a box-office hit that led to countless unfortunate sequels.
A stack of increasingly campy Friday the 13th DVDs.(Source image)
That same year, a very different film was released, loosely (and I mean loosely) based on a 1977 Stephen King novel called The Shining. Heard of it? In the director’s chair was none other than legendary auteur Stanley Kubrick. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Scatman Crothers provided the lead roles, with an unknown Danny Lloyd in the role of young Danny Torrance.
Jack Torrance in the bathroom of the Overlook Hotel.
While The Shining deserves credit as the masterfully unsettling, visually mesmerizing film that it is, it’s not among the films I most commonly associate with the 1980s horror genre. That honor is bestowed upon my three earliest cinematic memories of gore: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Fright Night (1985), and Gremlins (1984). Gremlins, you ask? Why yes! And if you have any doubts as to the spooky factor, I implore you to revisit the Joe Dante classic (or at least read my upcoming Homage to Holiday Horror post).
Growing up an only child, I spent much of my time around adults. And when I wasn’t with adults, I was with my slightly older, mischievous cousins who (in addition to providing me with my first in a series of atomic wedgies), had a penchant for making me watch scary things. I rarely protested, as I was already something of a burgeoning horror film fan. Even so, I could have done without being barricaded in a room and forced to confront the most terrifying scenes of A Nightmare on Elm Street, while being heckled from the other side of the door. And so begins my long and storied relationship with Freddy Krueger.
Promo poster for the 1984 original. (Source image)
The leathery, burned epidermis. The aquiline nose and sinister laugh. The dusty fedora and tattered, striped sweater. And oh…that weathered brown glove with talon-like metal blades, used to eviscerate victims with complete impunity. Krueger has quite a backstory (spoiler warning): In life, he was a child-killer, turned murder victim; having met his death in a boiler room by a group of vigilante parents. Of course, his corporeal demise is just the beginning of the nightmare, for Freddy now exists only in a twisted teenage dreamscape, capable of killing victims while they slumber.
This is the real horror of the Elm Street franchise. For Krueger himself is almost cartoonish by design, given to crass one-liners like “How’s this for a wet dream?”* Many of the scenes are laughable, even to a youngling who may not yet grasp terrible puns. But his unlimited access to the unconscious mind is the stuff of, well, nightmares. It renders his victims helpless. He is omnipresent in their dreams, consequently reducing them to sitting ducks whose only form of self-defense is to STAY AWAKE. But nobody can stay awake forever. And this concept hit a nerve with me as a child. I rooted for the characters (including a then-unknown Johnny Depp), though, statistically-speaking, they were almost always doomed. And while the Elm Street films had a way of tormenting me, I was also drawn to them for reasons unknown.
I have to smile a little while contemplating that heading. My parents were unconditionally loving, comforting people. I always felt safe in their presence, and wasn’t what you might call a “latchkey kid” until much later. But they were also a bit indulgent with me. I had access to R-rated films, music, and literature at an age when most kids were just beginning to grasp the subtleties of Lamb Chop’s Play Along.
For a short time in the later 1980s, my parents and I moved in with my Grandma while we were between homes. This experience provided the second of many visceral childhood memories of cinematic horror, one which remains with me to this day. It involves the seminal 1984 “average teen vs. neighborhood vampire” film Fright Night.
I could offer a synopsis of the film, but I really think you should just watch it (if you haven’t already). Besides, my “initiation” into Fright Night involved no prior trigger warnings. And I was just under 5 years old. So I think you can deal.
Whilst staying at my grandmother’s for a brief spell, my mother and I would often fall asleep on the living room sofa bed, waiting for my dad to come home from working nights. One night- like any other- we fell asleep with the television on. I’m not certain what roused me from my midnight sleep, but I suddenly felt the drowsy urge to crane my neck towards the small, rabbit-eared television set. What I saw can only be described as a jarring, terrific image of lasting horror. I’m talking about Evil Ed:
See? You weren’t quite prepared for that. Neither was I, before opening my young eyes in an otherwise pitch-dark room. The physiological reaction was swift; heart palpitations, flop-sweat, and the sudden sensation of an overactive bladder. And while I was able to stifle an impending case of pee-pants, I was not able to look away from the savagery before me. The red eyes. The sharpened teeth. The broke-ass Raggedy Ann wig. I clutched at my dazed mother, as shockingly awake as a human can be. My fear response had peaked, and I was experiencing my nervous system’s fight or flight response. But, at 5 years of age, I chose a third option: FRIGHT.
Sleep did not return to me that night. I had experienced the rush of fleeting terror, and the thrill that followed did not permit slumber. With that, a horror fiend was born.
*This line is uttered in Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), which (along with the original) is my favorite installment. It’s a completely tasteless joke that precedes a death-by-waterbed scene.
After browsing a bit, why not take a brief survey about your movie preferences, as well as this site: The Gore Score
If you’re having a bad hair day, these follicle freaks of film might help you feel less alone.
Wikipedia describes modern wearing of dreadlocks as representing “ethnic pride (and/or)…a free, alternative or natural spirit.” But Oldman’s Drexl Spivey represents none of those things. His casual demeanor and low-talking, pimp swagger belies a truly violent, unhinged man. While appearing in only one scene, his glassy eyes, facial scarring, and dirty-blonde dreads stay with us for the duration.
Throughout much of the film, we know Christopher Lloyd’s Judge Doom to be a bad guy. He’s a ruthless businessman who will destroy lives and raze cities to build his empire. He even has the patent on Dip, a type of liquid chemical eraser capable of killing the “Toons.” His appearance is carefully shrouded by a large, cape-like duster, black gloves, tinted glasses, and a fedora that shields his hoary skin tone. But during the film’s climax, it is revealed that Judge Doom is himself a toon, and the devastating violence he’s been perpetrating against the toon community is pure genocide. And that’s when shit really gets nanners. Because that little tuft of bleached blonde hair atop his otherwise shaved head, combined with spun-out cartoon eyes, is enough to make you wish you had a supply of Dip to throw at him. Or at least some Dep.*
Oh, Robin Williams. Your boundless comedic energy can only be matched by your hauntingly subtle portrayals of deeply troubled characters. From Good Will Hunting to The Night Listener, you were riveting onscreen, forcing us to lean in closer to observe you. Sy “The Photo Guy” Parrish might be Williams’ most riveting depiction of a profoundly lonely, socially odd man who is employed at the photo center of a Big Box store. He is unremarkable in every way, even blending into the pale, impersonal florescence of his surroundings. But we knew that Sy had obsessions; and just like the other characters in the film, we felt both empathy and unease in his presence. But this is not a psychological write-up on an unassuming man who is slowly unraveling. This is a fucking countdown about creepy hair. And Sy “The Photo Guy,” your tidy, wispy, unnaturally blonde baby hair was straight weird.
Aging, yet infantile child star with delusions of grandeur? Check. Sibling rivalry-turned abusive, unlawful imprisonment of wheelchair-bound sister? Check. Legendary screen divas Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, together at last? Check. Frizzed banana curls and outrageous vaudevillian dolly makeup? Check-plus! Need I really say more?
“Cousin Itt ain’t got nothin on me.”
Adapted from the 1998 film Ringu (originally a novel by Koji Suzuki), The Ring departs from the Japanese plot in several areas. But the major elements of horror remain: 1) You watch a creepy VHS of unknown origin; 2) Your face starts looking blurry in photographs; 3) One week later, you die a completely natural death by a long-haired girl who emerges from a static television. It’s all very reasonable. My motives for listing the American adaptation is not because I feel it’s superior to the original. But the hair and makeup effects of Daveigh Chase’s “Samara,” along with her unhuman gait and snarled stare raised the creep-o-meter to new heights. As a white girl with long brown hair, I still think of Samara when I emerge from the shower, matted hair dangling flatly in front of my face. I wonder how many lives could’ve been saved if someone just provided the poor girl with a tube of Moroccan oil.
This choice is undoubtedly related to the strong feelings I experienced when first viewing the trailer for Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel. I initially pondered whether this was a return to the atmosphere of earlier Jackson direction (most notably Heavenly Creatures). But then Stanley Tucci appeared. Or at least, someone who looked like he might be a weird Tucci relative from rural Pennsylvania. Without needing an iota of prior knowledge about the story, you know that he is a killer; the killer. It’s written all over him, along with his unassuming khakis, gold-rimmed, Dahmer-chic glasses, and combed-over blonde hair. Tucci was also outfitted with a flesh-toned mustache and striking blue contact lenses that seem almost nonhuman on him. In the dreary, late-fall scenes that take place outside, his hair is unkempt and windswept. This almost makes him seem more easy-going; or at least that’s maybe what the doomed Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) thought when she encountered him. However, when he is indoors, his “true” self is evident in the preciseness of his hair. It is measured and meticulous, much like the dollhouses that he constructs. On a related note, I wonder where dollhouses rank in the Pedophilia for Dummies** guidebook?
We’re not done with Gary Oldman just yet. There is so much hair action in Coppola’s incarnation of Dracula that I’m unsure where to begin. As Vlad the Impaler, Oldman had long and lustrous raven locks, fit for a Pantene Pro-V commercial. But don’t hate him because he’s beautiful. When he re-enters society in a late Victorian-era London, his attire reflects the period, while his hair gives a nod to a more Baroque style. We mustn’t ignore that Van Dyke beard, either. But the truly memorable, freaky-deakiest of hairstyles is that of a reclusive Dracula, meeting Jonathan Harker for the first time in his dark and towering castle. It’s a brilliant sequence, and the hair is more than just an elemental prop. It becomes a third scene partner, of sorts. I’ve always thought of the powdery double bouffant as being almost entomological in the front and serpentine in the back—which might be the weirdest description of a mullet that you’ll ever come across. Plus, it provides far more personality and artistic generosity than actual scene partner/living human Keanu Reeves.
Tom Waits and his raving hair also deserve an honorable mention as the faithfully insane Renfield.
There is a theme in the works of Stephen King. He doesn’t just write about the darkness of the human psyche. He writes about writers who write about the darkness of the human psyche. Is that meta enough for you? His vocational anxieties are put to page in such works as The Shining, The Dark Half, and Secret Window (to name a few). But in Misery, James Caan’s Paul Sheldon is perhaps the least psychologically-burdened of King’s pseudo-fictional writers. That is, until he meets his rescuer-turned-captor, Annie Wilkes. To say that she is an enthusiastic consumer of Sheldon’s book series would be like saying Mount Everest is kind of a big hill. What starts as an irritating (but initially benign) idolatry, soon transforms into a Fangirl from Hell scenario. Poor hobbled Paul Sheldon does his very best to placate the increasingly irrational Annie, but she’s a woman who knows what she wants. And part of what she wants is to don a painfully plain hairdo that abruptly ends where her turtlenecks begin. Held together with a single bobby pin, she looks like the sort of psychotic yet pious Sunday school teacher that made you wish baby Jesus was never born.
Where, oh where do I start…Vincent D’onofrio is a national treasure. As a character actor, he presents a level of commitment to the craft that earns him the common title of the “actor’s actor.” In Full Metal Jacket (1987), we witnessed the transformation from a clumsy, overweight boot camp trainee, to a menacing, rifle-wielding madman in one of the film’s most shocking scenes.* In The Cell, D’onofrio’s Carl Stargher is a serial killer with very particular tastes (e.g. putting women in a sealed tank while it slowly fills with water). Irreversibly comatose due to an accident, he still has a captive victim whose whereabouts are unknown. With time running out, psychologist Catherine Deane (played by Jennifer Lopez) is asked to venture into his twisted subconscious to find clues as to where his last victim is being held. What transpires is a visually-stunning, nightmarish glimpse into a surrealistic kingdom of madness, with Stargher at the realm. The costumes and set designs are fantastical; and the hair is a veritable smorgasbord of creepy. From bull horns, to a shaved head with a golden headpiece, D’onofrio becomes the gleefully deranged ruler of a hellish empire.
So we all know that this hairdo is just an extension of the infamous bleached William Shatner mask, used by the criminally insane Michael Myers for his unwelcome homecoming trip to Haddonfield. And if you’ve ever purchased a cheap synthetic wig from a Halloween store, you’re all too familiar with the dry texture and uneven tufts that sprout from the cap. It’s a truly ugly affair. This unmoving coif (complete with an unnatural hairline) became a part of Myers’ telltale silhouette, as blunt and startling as a shark fin slicing though the surface of the sea. But there are no sharks in Haddonfield, Illinois. Just knife-wielding, Shatner mask-wearing homicidal maniacs.
Thie is a twofer. Pet Sematary did a lot in the way of horror education. It taught us to eternally question the correct spelling of “cemetery” (courtesy of Stephen King’s penchant for playfully taking the piss out of his audience). It taught us that Herman Munster believes that sometimes dead is better. It also taught us not to stand next to a bed when there’s a scalpel-wielding reanimated boy on the loose, who wants nothing more than to slice your Achilles tendon clean in half. Most notably, it taught us to LOOK AWAY during the Zelda scene. What in the entire fucks? That mousy, gingered bedhead compounded by her sallow complexion and contorted body. As a kid, I would’ve swiftly slid beneath the bed to get away from that image, if I wasn’t so certain Gage would be waiting for me under there.
And Victor Pascow, the dead jogger (portrayed by Brad Greenquist)…well that’s easier to get used to, since he becomes a fixture in the movie (much like Griffin Dunne’s American Werewolf in London character). But I still have the urge to say “Dude, you’ve got something in your hair.” Until I remember that it’s, in fact, a gaping head wound that he’s completely neglecting to acknowledge. And for that, he makes the list. You know what- so does Griffin Dunne, for that matter. Because it’s my list and I can do what I want with it.
Javier Barden’s character was the main inspiration for this otherwise useless countdown. According to the verified Facebook page for No Country for Old Men***, Chigurh’s haircut was inspired by a photograph of a brothel patron in the late 1970s. I’m just speculating, but it’s possible that this man was forced to enlist the services of a brothel because of the haircut itself. The flat-ironed man-bob (complete with a deep side-parted bang) doesn’t exactly lend itself to sociability. In fact, it might be most stunning physical manifestation of an antisocial personality disorder that I’ve ever observed. Bardem’s quietly malignant depiction of Chigurh was so effective that it earned him the 2008 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. But I doubt Vidal Sassoon would offer any awards for that ‘do.
* For you later millennials, Dep® was a hair gel popular in the late 80s/early 90s. It could often be located, inexplicably, in your Dad’s medicine cabinet.
**In terms of Pedophilia for Dummies, no such book exists…let’s hope.
***No Country for Old Men was originally a novel by Cormac McCarthy. And while Chigurh’s psychopathy was evident in the novel, mention of his hairstyle was not. Rather, it was the Coen Brothers’ proverbial “cherry on top” that brought visual villainy to a new level.
The Neverending Gory 
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