Pumpkin / Monster / Secret Past

This week we're mainlining Halloween vibes, thinking about dangerous rabbits, and meeting a long lost slasher . . .

From the Grave.

Three ideas from horror cinema's past.

It’s officially October, and I thought I’d begin the month with a mood-setter. Michael Dougherty’s 2007 anthology Trick 'r Treat, rare for a movie of so recent a vintage, has become something of a Halloween classic. It's also coming to theaters in mid-October, something I was unaware of when I started this piece. I'm skeptical of the way Fathom Events (maybe only sometimes?) streams movies to theaters instead of running a DCP, so set your expectations accordingly. Whether on the big screen or at home, Trick 'r Treat’s aughts-era channeling of E.C. comics is a perfect gateway into a Halloween frame of mind.  Quite light spoilers below (for all three films discussed).

1. The usual. Trick 'r Treat stands out less for its concept than for its full commitment. It must have been a hard movie to pitch. Trick 'r Treat has no big idea, just a simple one: it's a horror anthology with a tight focus on the basic elements of Halloween. This is a movie about poison candy (and blades in candy), pranks, costumes, and jack-o'-lanterns. It draws on the classic range of Halloween “monsters": vampire, werewolf, serial killer, zombie. Trick 'r Treat doesn’t have to teach its audience almost anything about its world. Trickster demon Sam is a new creation—but he’s a Halloween fiend, enforcing Halloween customs. And yet Trick 'r Treat doesn't feel stale. The basic elements work just fine. Trick 'r Treat mines generic holiday culture for everything, but with the care it invests in fitting its pieces together, it's enough.
2. Pumpkin heads. Committing to simplicity has a way of revealing depths.  Is there any other movie this interested in the aesthetic possibilities of jack-o'-lanterns? They’re everywhere in Trick 'r Treat and, while setting a Halloween mood, they also make for potent imagery: a front porch packed full of glowing, smiling jack-o'-lanterns; flames surging, torch-like from a jack-o'-lantern’s top; and, most hauntingly, jack-o'-lanterns carried by kids through a haunted quarry, flickering out, one by one, in thick fog. Jack-o'-lanterns combine two ingredients of evocative visuals—live flame and crude faces. As an element of production design, the jack-o'-lantern provides a versatile fount of dark magic.
3. Anthology worlds. The separate but thematically related stories, all interlocking, give a distinct sense of place to Warren Valley, Ohio, Trick 'r Treat’s fictional town. The effect points to the unique world-building possibilities in the anthology. Anthologies cover a lot of ground, move in multiple directions, but tend to find some way to cohere. When they cohere around a common geographic range, they're mapping a world for us.

Right Behind You.

A thought on horror's present.

4. Cuddle or Kill. There are many kinds of monsters. If you got a quick pitch of Bryan Fuller’s Dust Bunny, you might be expecting a monster that’s more cuddly Pixar creature than merciless xenomorph: Dust Bunny follows a little girl’s attempt to hire a hitman to kill the monster under her bed—its elegantly faded Budapest locations showing a touch of Jeunet’s and Caro’s offbeat fantasy aesthetic (Fuller mentioned Delicatessen in the Q&A at Beyond Fest). And yet, although our protagonist Aurora’s “relationship” with the monster does develop, the monster is always dangerous, always other, never domesticated. It remains exciting as a monster to the end. It is cute, but it’s still a maneater. A dangerous monster makes a dangerous monster movie. Dust Bunny’s energy comes from this balance—there’s a lot of cuteness here, but a lot of killing too.

Living Deliciously.

A recommendation.

5. Reaches of the past. The recommendation this week is not for a specific title but for the project represented by Terror Vision, the film and music label that premiered their 4K restoration of Silent Death (1981) at Beyond Fest on Saturday. An entirely lost film since its release—Terror Vision’s Brad Henderson told us in his intro that this was the biggest audience ever for Silent Death—it was an unusual experience. The sound was shaky, pulled as it was from a surviving VHS copy. The film itself was a sometimes amateurish combination of detective movie, action movie, and slasher, though it did boast a great score, a perfect opening credits sequence, and some indelible moments and images. What’s undeniable is that screenings (and releases) like this one are real gifts. They’re a direct line to a relationship with a fringe past—beyond the classics, beyond nostalgia-shrouded cult favorites, beyond the video store archive. Silent Death isn’t making my Letterboxd Top 4, but it transported me somewhere entirely unknown. It made an impression much stronger than that of whatever glossy 3-star horror the streamers might be touting. Releases like this offer truly rare experiences—they might not be easy or perfect, but they’re glimpses into unknown reaches of the past.

Dead of Night publishes every Tuesday. In Los Angeles, a man severely injured during an ICE raid at a car wash was surveilled in his hospital bed for 37 days. ICE or ICE contractors were with him at all times. His access to family, counsel, and medical providers was limited and he was shackled, for several days, to his bed. He was questioned while in pain and while on medication. He was not placed in removal proceedings, charged with an immigration offense, or processed in any way. He was never given a clear explanation of his situation. He was not allowed to make phone calls. The moment to resist fascism is now.