Two-fer Tuesday - July 21
On Tuesdays Big Heads will "program" a double feature of thematically or stylistically similar films. I will provide links so you can track down where to stream them and turn your house into a got-dang Cinematheque.
This week on two-fer, we revisit a horror relic about something hideous yet strangely sympathetic in the attic and pair it with a modern classic about something hideous yet strangely sympathetic in the basement.
The Shuttered Room (1967), directed by David Greene
Do you have a particular film that was nightmare fuel for you as a kid? This is the one for me. In heavy rotation on the 3:00 film on KING-5, it has now largely disappeared from view. A re-watch had little of the same impact, but they should have been arrested making this readily available to unsuspecting 12-year olds getting off school.
Susannah (Carol Lynley) inherits the family Old Mill, which pretty much everyone acknowledges is either haunted or cursed, in a New England village. Accompanied by her (much, much older) husband Mike (a game, but exhausted-looking Gig Young, showing mad karate skills) they leave New York and visit the Mill with the ill-advised plan to turn it into a Summer Home. A local thug, Ethan (Oliver Reed, exuding rapey sexual menace and sporting a sporadic American accent), Susannah's cousin, begins by resenting her taking over the Mill, which he is convinced is rightly his, then becomes sexually fixated on her ("She is so white. White like a bed sheet straight of the laundry). Ethan's band of scumbag townies, who make the gang in Straw Dogs seem like the Osmond Brothers, contribute to the overall threat to Susannah and Mike.
Meanwhile, there is something unseen, wheezing and murderous in the attic of the Old Mill. Director Greene does a fine job shooting from the point of view of the Thing (years before serial killer POV became a cliche), who is referred to by the townspeople as Beelzebub and the Boogeyman. But just exactly what is the Thing? Flora Robson is along as Aunt Agatha, because of course her name is Aunt Agatha, who knows the answer. What comes next as well as what comes before it was entirely inappropriate for the 3:00 movie.
Barbarian (2022), directed by Zach Cregger
One of the key touchstones of the Horror Renaissance. Director Cregger has proven himself adept at Acts One and Two. As with his follow up, Weapons, Cregger does a great job setting things up using unconventional and non-annoying narrative techniques, but doesn't necessarily land the Third Act.
Another film about the terror of real estate, Barbarian's first act posits the most unsettling thing in the world is an Air BnB. Cregger cannily tells the first act from the point of view of Tess (Georgina Campbell), who has a healthy suspicion of anyone and everything, including the seemingly nice young man (Bill Skarsgard) who has double-booked the rental with her (the casting of Skarsgard is a master stroke. His association with Pennywise and oddball handsomeness cannot help but provoke suspicion).
By Act Two, we have become acquainted with another "Thing," this one in the basement. The hilarious proposition is that the thing lurking below may be hideous, but could never be as hideous as the rapey douchebag actor Justin Long portrays. As Long gleefully makes his way around the Air BnB, which he owns, measuring the newfound basement space for additional square footage for his listing, the audience longs for the Thing to emerge and just kill the fucker.
Tess, the Final Girl, emerges in one piece if not scathed, and the douchebag, like Oliver Reed in The Shuttered Room, eventually gets a satisfying comeuppance. But I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the creature in the basement after such a compelling set up. Similarly, Weapons' third act is a let down. So it's just a witch with wacky hair. There is also a satisfying comeuppance in Weapons, but the unveiling doesn't match the gravity of what comes before (the agony of your child going missing is brilliantly conveyed).
Nevertheless, Cregger, with his narrative instincts, his ability to build tension within a sequence and, most importantly, his sense of humor, is someone to continue to monitor.
Two films about the terror of real estate. Two films where rapey douchebags get their comeuppance. And two films where the "monsters" are nuanced and sympathetic, no matter how many faces they slash or heads they bash.
