31 Days of Horror 2013: Days 7-10

8. The Hands of Orlac (1924)

9. The Fog (1980)

10. ParaNorman (2012)

11. Torture Garden (1968)

This week has featured a varied selection so far.

"The Hands of Orlac" is a silent film starring Conrad Veidt and directed by Robert Weine, both better

known for their work on "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."  I had high expectations for this one but was a bit disappointed.  Orlac is a concert pianist who loses his hands in a train wreck on the same night a man named Vassuer is executed for murder.  The doctor treating Orlac also happens to be in charge of processing Vassuer's body, so rather than waste a perfectly good pair of hands, he sews them on Orlac's stumps.  Of course, Orlac's new hands are unable to play, and when he learns where they came from, he falls into despair.

I was hoping he would then go on a killing spree illustrated through several murder scenes where his body was at war with itself: his new hands pulling him toward the kill, while the rest of him tried unsuccessfully to resist.  His new hands do attempt to kill the maid, but Orlac spends most of the movie brooding in the shadows and bemoaning the loss of his talent.  Fortunately, "The Hands of Orlac" does feature more weirdness about amputations and transplant surgery.  Near the end of the movie, Orlac meets a man claiming to be Vassuer. He shows Orlac a scar on his neck and tells Orlac that the assistant of the doctor who gave Orlac his new hands transplanted Vassuer's head onto a new body enabling him to escape death.  This new body is also missing hands and has artificial ones, details Vassuer fails to explain.

"The Hands of Orlac" is one of many movies from the 1920's to deal with mutilated bodies and attempts to repair them.  In his excellent book "The Monster Show:  A Cultural History of Horror," David Skal explains this interest in disfigured bodies by drawing attention to the context in which the movies were made:  the period directly after the First World War when advances in medical science had enabled more soldiers than ever before to survive their battlefield wounds, but with badly damaged bodies.

I'm embarrassed to admit that before this week I had never seen John Carpenter's "The Fog," which is a very effective ghost story about a shipwrecked crew seeking revenge on the townspeople responsible for their deaths.  Carpenter exploits the natural eeriness of fog by using it to cloak his water-logged ghosts as they terrorize the town.  "The Fog" made me wish more horror movies would leave the sharks alone and explore the many other horrifying aspects of the sea.

In "ParaNorman," the second animated movie of the month, Norman can see and talk to ghosts, and he uses this ability to save his hometown from a witch's curse.  For a movie directed toward a younger audience, a few scenes are pretty horrifying, particular the one in which zombies rise from their graves and chase Norman.  Watching this one always makes me wish I hadn't been afraid of horror movies as a kid because I could have had a room just like Norman's: it's filled with horror posters, models and toys, and he wakes every morning to the sound of a zombie groaning from his alarm clock, which is in the shape of a grave with a hand bursting out.  In addition to being a very entertaining horror movie, it also presents a positive message about tolerance and acceptance of differences.

"Torture Garden" is another Amicus anthology, but this one was a snoozer.  The torture garden is a carnival

attraction that's on screen for about five minutes before Dr. Diablo, the attraction's proprietor, shows his rubes true horror: a physic wax figure who tells them each a possible future.  Their different futures make up the movie's four segments. The first features a cat (or a witch in cat form, it's never clear) that convinces a man to kill for gold.  Aside from a hilarious moment when the cat motions toward a man it wants killed, this segment makes a quirky premise surprisingly dull.  The next segment, which put me to sleep, is about an aspiring actress who learns that all of Hollywood's big players are actually robots.  In the third segment, which woke me back up, a piano named Euterpe becomes jealous when her owner falls in love with a woman.  Imagine "Christine" with a piano instead of a car.  In a scene that almost makes "Torture Garden" worth sitting through, the piano pushes the woman out a window.  The last segment revolves around a Poe enthusiast who has found a way to resurrect the writer and now keeps him locked in a secret room and forces him to write new stories.  As with the first segment, this one shocks with its ability to make an interesting idea almost unbearably boring.

Vicki's in Florence tonight, so we're taking a brief break from the horror, but we'll be back with a triple-feature Saturday night.  On Sunday, I'll be experiencing a different kind of horror: Danzig performing classic songs from the first three albums, and Danzig and Doyle performing Misfits songs.