The world of horror is remembering a legend of the genre tonight.. Betsy Palmer–best known by fans as the woman who played JASON VORHEES’ mother in Friday the 13th 1 and 2–passed away at the age of 88 Friday night of natural causes..
Her longtime manager, Brad Lemack said that Palmer went into the next realm while in hospice care center in Connecticut.
Palmer had appeared in films, on Broadway and in TV shows for decades before she took the role of Mrs. Voorhees. She would say in later years that she only took the role in that first film because she wanted the money to buy a new car
Yet another film is getting this line: The ‘best horror movie of the year’ .. it’s only May. The trailer for acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro is being celebrated.. even being called ”viral” (as so many things are these days) .. This is the official description of the movie:
When her heart is stolen by a seductive stranger, a young woman is swept away to a house atop a mountain of blood-red clay: a place filled with secrets that will haunt her forever. Between desire and darkness, between mystery and madness, lies the truth behind Crimson Peak.
And that all sounds well and good. But horror movie of the year? It has competition with IT FOLLOWS .
The only helpful thing for PEAK vs others: It gets a near Halloween 2015 release in mid-October. Just as the mood turns paranormal ..
Expect to hear lots about this movie soon.. THE NIGHTMARE is a documentary that follows the stories of several people who are afflicted from sleep paralysis.. and along with that curse, they all seem to see the same things: Hat man, shadow people, the same voices talking..
There may be tricks in the brain being played..
There may be alternate dimensions opening up..
Rodney Ascher (from ROOM 237) doesn’t really seem to care about the scientific reasonings to explain away the stories, instead he focuses on the stories themselves and the people who suffer from the visions.. And how it changes lives..
Bloody-Disgusting reviewed this recently and gave it a rave rating–people seem genuinely frightened by the topic.
There are real stories from real people of these events taking place.
The mighty strange aspect of it all seems to be persistent and also relative to the fact that all of the people suffering from this see the same thing. The same shadows.. Hear the same voices. Exact..
That may be the precise reason this documentary is being so widely accepted not only by documentary fans but also the horror community. People are eating up ‘reality’ anymore.. not just slashers and ghouls of nightmares. But the real shadows of reality.
Given history, I suppose it’s amazing I even got the chance to read SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK when I was a kid in the 90s. I was doing more reading on the upcoming documentary being made on this and learned something I never quite knew previously: This was among the most banned book of the 1990s..
The interesting thing that I have been encountering as I begin to talk about this documentary is the question of how I can “bill” the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. It is listed as the most banned book between 1990-1999 and remained at #7 in 2000-2009. It was #1 on the list for several years in the 1990s. In the 21st Century there are a number of other books that have taken the mantel for most frequently banned… Harry Potter is often up there, and recently the bookAnd Tango Makes Three is often high on the list because of the presence of a homosexual couple (animals though they may be). So although Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is no longer top on the list, for the last 25 years that the American Library Association has been compiling a list, it has been a major title on the list. The original books are over 20 years old at this point, and yet they still show up on the lists amongst more widespread and known books such as Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn. That says something.
I remember the moment I got my first SCARY STORIES book.. it was during grade school when a book fair truck came and set up in the school gym.. I found this black book with a skull on it and somehow was attracted to the concept and stories.. It became a treasure for me and then, with each new one, I would buy them up for the collection.
The most amazing part, given history of book bans, is that I bought my SCARY STORIES book at a Catholic school book fair! The same Catholic school that suspended me for a day for bringing a fake Freddy Kreuger glove to class in fourth grade for our field trip..
I suppose the school’s nuns couldn’t be aware of every book that was sold. And even more, I ponder if the book seller was secretly trying to fight the pop culture movement at the time to hide these books from kids.
If it wasn’t for the SCARY STORIES books, my appreciation of the paranormal and even love of drawing perhaps would never have blossomed. I bet there’s a lot of 90s kids in the same boat as me because of this series..
The movie is being released in a limited capacity today.. but that doesn’t matter to reviewers and fans of horror. The film has attracted untold amounts of attention through intelligent social media buzz and positive reviews–the film is boasting a near 100% rating on ROTTEN TOMATOES. Those types of things don’t happen too often..
Here’s a wrap of some of the reviews for the film that seem readable:
SALON: An instant horror classic about the dark side of teen sex: “There are distorted but obvious images of several real-world issues in “It Follows,” including acquaintance rape, teen suicide and mental illness, but you can’t boil the movie down to any of those things any more than to a metaphorical treatment of Detroit’s social and racial divide.”
i09: Proof that horror movies don’t have to be dumb to scare you: ” It offers an unpredictability that’s become increasingly rare in horror. For that alone (and for not being a sequel, a remake, a found-footage extravaganza, or gratuitously gory) It Follows deserves high praise. This movie is absolutely one of the year’s must-see horror films.”
Entertainment WEEKLY praises: “Even with its flaws, though, It Follows is a dizzyingly tense and creepy workout. Oh, and I almost forgot… Hey kids, don’t have sex!”
There aren’t currently too many theaters showing it. I have a feeling word of mouth will create demand.. and create a sensation. It will be the sleeper hit of 2015.
And it’s good horror that has been lacking for too long of a time, besides a few gems that have popped up through thebyears..
This article linked here could help any upcoming writers or directors create a new masterpiece of our time and genre..
I am perfectly fine that the Era of torture porn appears to be coming to a close..
Of course as I say that a popular Go fund Me still exists for 30, Rob Zombie’ upcoming film. .
The masterpieces of yesterday may never get repeated–even though we keep on trying to recreate them over and over again with remakes and redos.. Instead, directors and writers should update the standards, refocus on what is scaring this new generation.. And what isn’t.. Slashers lost their effect.. Our reality is comprised instead of trustworthy men in business suits ruining the world. That’s scary..
Equally scary: The future of robots and nanotechnology.. science fiction and horror can merge in a beautiful and well-made with under the direction of the right producer.
And maybe even more, horror movies should teach lessons again. Become societal commentaries again. Like DAWN OF THE DEAD. That movie held a revolutionary message. Even some say the same for FRIDAY the 13th, calling it a commentary on the Reagan era and the rise of the Religious Right. The SAW films capitalized on America’s newfound love of torture after 9/11..
And now today, as this is written, IT FOLLOW and BABADOOK are celebrated not only in alternative sources but also mainstream press as horror films worth seeing.
That’s a positive.
Horror can be as important as drama or any other genre.. As a matter of fact, even more so: It’s the primal fears, the instincts of humanity, the hopes and prayers of survival.. the scares of what we cannot control. All rolled into one hour and a half (or more) of visual and emotional scares.
Today, IT FOLLOWS is released in a number of theaters–but not nearly as many as I wish. With success, of course, that could change.
For years I have been the anti-horror movie horror fan, usually celebrating movies opposite of what pop culture says they love.. as an emotional and loving father, I am disturbed by many of the films in the horror genre that some praise. I get a little queasy when other sites write stories talking about the ‘best death scenes’ and the ‘kills’ of films.. But please don’t get me wrong, there’s enough room in any genre for subsets of the best.
The real reason that horror, to me, is still important and worthwhile to follow: Because when done right it can put a spotlight on pop culture or societal troubles, drench it with attention, and change the world.. I really do believe that.
The IT FOLLOWS heat is on..
The upcoming horror movie, much anticipated, is being heralded by some reviews as not only the best of 2015 but also the best in a long while..
How they converge is, brilliantly, in this aforementioned post-coital curse, one which carries the everlasting anxieties over where your lover’s been before, but pushes farther into all of life’s stresses. Where am I? Where will I go? Who will I become? There’s a deliberate dread in “It’s” rules. Once you’ve got “it,” there it is, walking slowly, assuredly your way. This is where Mitchell has fun composing wide, confident frames— your eyes engaged, always under attack, searching for “It.” At more reprieving moments, he acknowledges the absurdity of the accursed characters and elicits huge laughs. When more explicitly a threat, the director and cinematographer Mike Gioulakis still employ symmetrical, centered stunning visuals. This time, they’re less paranoid and more confrontational, immediately assaulting. Sometimes, “It” is in your face. Others, it’s throwing electrical appliances at it.
As the review goes on–in my humble opinion–it shares too much of the premise and gives a little too much away of the ending, you may want to shield yourself from the final paragraph that spoils without warning. But the essence of the Zimmerman story yields the result that this film is going to be a bit different. There is a message here.. one that may need to be explored with a deep mental journey.
The plot would be laughable in a movie that doesn’t script it very well, but it seems that IT FOLLOWS makes it work. A entity, paranormal and foreboding in nature, is spread through teenage lust and sex. There is something similar when compared to 80s slasher flicks–such as JASON and FREDDY ruining the lives of the sinning children who act out teenage passion in pre-marital sex. But IT FOLLOWS brings a new darker presence to it: The shadow is cast on the woman by this sexual entity, this curse which is handed down through the false love that happens when you’re a tender teen tot not yet experienced with what love really means..
This strange affliction can only be picked up and passed on through sex, which throws up some fascinating dilemmas. Digital Spy caught up with the movie’s writer-director David Robert Mitchell to find out what inspired the tale, whether a franchise is on the cards and how tricky some of the key plot twists were to pull off…
DIGITAL SPY goes on to interview Mitchell, who says some interesting things about his horror flick that could, including the fact he had a nightmare since youth of entity following him .. the sexual allegory was added to IT FOLLOWS. Mitchell also downplays the idea of a sequel, joking that “IT’S STILL FOLLOWING” just doesn’t sound right..
Monroe is already being called the 21st century scream queen–a champion role that many stars of the 20th century still hold dear to their hearts, even after their careers moved on from horror..
The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive for Mitchell and Murphy..
The ideas presented in the film seem to force questions over sexual morality and the often false safety of suburbia–and even, some say, a certain GATSY like vision of the collapse of the American dream.
This movie has a lot to offer.. a deep meaning, jumps and scares, and perhaps, just perhaps, a brand new scream queen for a new generation that needs horror movies to make a difference again.
She faced a greater amount of prison time than this..
I still don’t even understand how she is getting prison time for showing a movie that released in various venues and one that most people in the class probably already saw in some form or another at home.. A firing justified? Yes. Prison time? I still don’t get that..
Now, the chapter is closed with the sentencing today.. One I still don’t get completely.
But no one else seems to be a little queasy with an African American teacher being thrown into jail for showing a horror movie–a legal horror movie–to a class.
AS a matter of fact, media sources are busy playing up the ‘horror’ of her crime, as evidenced by insane headlines running across the NET:
Another snowy night.. potentially a housebound day tomorrow for lots of folks in the eye of THOR.. So why not turn off the lights, close the blinds, and entice your mind with a movie about the surreal, unreal, and paranormal. DARK SKIES is one of those films. Try it on for size—an abduction movie with dark shadow aliens, the Greys, evolves quickly into what I think was one of the most legitimately scary and good movies I’ve seen in quite some time.
There are some memorable scenes.. memorable characters. Specifically the idea that the other worldly suddenly presents itself into the lives of mundane people is freaky.
Besides one annoying scene I thought was plagiarism—a family sitting down to a dinner prior to an alien invasion like in SIGNS—the movie was strong and had a good alien premise. If you like alien movies. Or scary ones..
Add to the agenda a dark room and healthy snacks..I think it’s worth it.
Find it on NETFLIX if you can’t find it anywhere else..
After the movie, lighten the mood with the Ballad of the Greys.
