31 Days of Horror 2013: Days 20-24

31 Days of Horror 2013: Days 20 - 24

20. Nosferatu (1979)

21. House of 1,000 Corpses (2003)

22. Terror Train (1980)

23. Vampyr (1932)

24. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

After watching the silent "Nosferatu" last week, we wanted to see Werner Herzog's remake, which is a rare example of a remake that honors the spirit of the original while also taking the story in a slightly new direction and even improving upon some aspects of the original.  Herzog emphasizes the vampire as the embodiment of the plague, an idea touched upon in the original but not fully developed.  He also makes the story more haunting by giving it a pessimistic ending.

 

What I find so appealing about Rob Zombie's movies is that they are clearly made by a horror fan for other horror fans.  "House of 1,000 Corpses" reveals his love for the "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the Italian horror movie "House by the Cemetery, but rather than simply imitating these movies, he incorporates elements of each into his own vision of a family of psychopaths.  The result is a disturbing but highly entertaining movie about a group of friends on a road trip who end up spending Halloween Eve in the home of the murderous Firefly family, where they're terrorized by a cast of memorable characters, notably Captain Spalding, a clown who runs a horror-themed roadside attraction, and a mad-scientist named Dr. Satan, who attempts to create a master race by performing brain surgery on mental patients.

Set mostly on a train that a fraternity has reserved for a party, "Terror Train" is a dull slasher that fails to take advantage of its setting that seems designed for a high body count.  I had always been curious about this one, so I'm glad I finally saw it, but I won't be suffering through it again.

"Vampyr" is an interesting if somewhat disappointing early horror film that is something between a late silent film and an early talkie.  It features only about a dozen lines of dialogue, and it relies heavily on the kinds of intertitles used to clarify key plot points in silent movies.  It has moments of true horror that it achieves with eerie shadow effects.  It also features a haunting scene in which a man has a vision of his own death, and we see from his point out of as he peers out a window in his coffin.  But it drags with too much nonsense in the middle, so by the end I had lost interest.

"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is one of the first horror movies ever made and remains one of the best.  It's a silent movie that even those who refuse to watch anything that's not in color can appreciate.  With its painted sets full of jagged lines and off-kilter buildings, its visuals are so engaging that you have the sense of watching a demented cartoon rather than a classic of the silent era.