Black Sunday (1960)

Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio (original title)) is an Italian horror movie from 1961, directed by the great Mario Bava. It's dubbed in English, so no subtitles to read. This movie went from campy to scary and back again. The beginning lays out the history of a witch trial in the 17th century, which is a good story in itself, and then fast forwards to the 19th century where the descendants of the witch have an underlying feeling of gloom and doom that they can't understand until all hell breaks loose.

There are bats, fog, a creepy castle with a crypt beneath an abandoned chapel, vampires rising from the dead and corpses turning up all over the place. The scenery, atmosphere and story were creepy and well done, but the dialogue and acting in some scenes was so over-the-top dramatic that it was funny. It's a scary movie with little hope for a happy ending as the young Dr. Gorobec (John Richardson) tries to get to the bottom of the horrific happenings. 

Then enters the priest. He's not much of a talker as he listens to the young doctor rant about all the freaky events at the castle and his desire to save the beautiful princess, played by the wonderful Barbara Steele (in a dual role as Asa the witch). As the doctor speaks, the priest wears this odd half smile the entire time with his buggy eyes and cheap wig. I laughed out loud during the conversation:

Dr Gorobec: The maid's daughter claimed to have seen Dr. Kruvajan get in the carriage to come to the castle. It wasn't the castle's driver though. The driver resembled the man in the portrait at the castle.

Priest: The portrait that hangs by the fireplace?

Dr Gorobec: Yes.

Priest: The portrait of the man who died 200 years ago?

Dr Gorobec: Yes. What's so special about the man in the portrait?

Priest: (His eyes seem to get even bigger) Nothing.

Ha!

However, the odd priest was instrumental in helping to rid the castle of the evil curse, but he was a weird one! You can check this movie out on Netflix.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

Snow White and the Huntsman's Queen Ravenna's (Charlize Theron) need to suck the youth out of the kingdom's girls to maintain her own perpetual youth and beauty is similar to the crazy medieval Blood Countess of Slovakia, Elizabeth Bathory, who killed hundreds of girls to bathe in their blood to maintain her own youth. The difference is that Ravenna was able to use other females to remain young and beautiful with the help of a magic spell, while Bathory was just a sadistic nut because we all know that doesn't work.

Fairy tale remakes are cool, so this new twist on Snow White intrigued me. The movie cast Snow White (Kristen Stewart) as more of a self-possessed fighter standing up for the oppressed and not as a helpless domestic servant for the dwarfs waiting around to be rescued. It was cool that Snow White was not only the key to giving Ravenna eternal life and beauty, but was also the one person who could kill her. 

I'm a fan of computer generated imagery, which was used nicely to create the coolest effects like the magic mirror, the dark forest creepy crawlies and those cool little fairies. I really liked the fairy land and everything in it. The evil queen's transformations and her ravens were cool too, especially in the forest after Snow White bit the poison apple.

At the end of the movie Snow White was crowned as queen standing alone as lone ruler with her choice of lovers, which was apparently the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), since his kiss and not her childhood friend William's, was the kiss to bring her back to life after biting the poison apple. The ending was set up nicely for a sequel as Snow White stands in front of her throne watching the Huntsman pass discreetly behind the crowd. Who would have guessed that the sequel would become a prequel?

The Last Circus ("Balada triste de trompeta" (original title)) - 2010

The Last Circus is an extremely well made, masterpiece of a Spanish movie that is gruesome, grotesque, disturbing and darkly funny all at the same time. It's mostly a love triangle between a trapeze artist, Natalie and Happy Clown and Sad Clown, but it's also about politics, obsession, social status and human dignity among many other things. I'm sure I would have gotten even more out of the film if I knew anything about Spanish history, especially during WWII, but it was so packed full of psychological drama, insanity and Christian symbolism that it was more than enough to make a strong impression.

Since it's a Spanish movie I had to read the English subtitles, which I don't usually like to do because I start paying more attention to the text than the scene; however, the story and acting was so gripping, I barely remember having read the subtitles. This is the darkest clown movie I've ever seen. Some of the scenes made me laugh because of the intense gruesomeness, while some were just plain funny. There were a couple of scenes that made me almost feel ashamed for laughing because the characters were at such low desperate points in their lives. 

Both clowns were obsessive revenge seekers, intent on coming out on top no matter what the cost. Natalie, the love interest and trapeze artist, was just as obsessive playing the two clowns against each other and getting off on her high-risk provocative manipulating.

A main theme of this movie is the need and desire to win, but nobody wins in this movie.

Dracula: A Working Class Mourning Custom

Some Victorian mourning customs are shown in Wuthering Heights after Catherine Earnshaw Linton's death as I listed in a previous post, but I was intrigued by one mourning custom used in Dracula after Mrs. Westenra's death.

In Dr. Seward's diary post describing his consultation with Dr. Van Helsing after finding Mrs. Westenra dead and Lucy Westenra on the brink of death, he mentions the darkness of the dining room, where they closed themselves in for a private conversation:

"The shutters had been opened but the blinds were already down, with that obedience to the etiquette of death which the British woman of the lower classes always rigidly observes."(Bram Stoker)

I wondered about the significance of that custom since I leave my blinds down 24/7. It's just a privacy thing with me, but in the mid-nineteenth century it had real meaning. I looked it up and found in Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1970-1914, by Julie-Marie Strange, that people in the working class would draw the blinds after a death in the house to notify the neighbors or anyone passing by of the death. This way anyone coming to the house would know before visiting that the household was in mourning. Some neighbors would also draw their blinds out of respect until the funeral. During the funeral every house on the street would draw their blinds. After the funeral, all blinds went back up.

I suppose this custom came about because it didn't cost anything, since the working class was pretty poor. They certainly couldn't afford the jet jewelry and decorations with the black drapery around the house that the upper classes could. 

Drawing the blinds is a logical, useful custom that communicates an important message to everyone in the neighborhood. I was kind of hoping it would have some superstitious significance, though, like they draw the blinds to keep evil spirits from getting in and taking another life, or something like that.

Wuthering Heights: Heathcliff Under the Larch Trees

After Catherine's collapse when Edgar returns home from church to find her cradled in Heathcliff's arms in her bedroom, Heathcliff instructs Nelly to bring him word of Catherine's condition in the morning as he'll be in the garden under the larch trees.

Why did Bronte choose larch trees? Was there symbolic significance to larch trees? Was she just thinking of a group of larch trees she knew of and imagined it as a good shelter for waiting?

A quick Google search  for the significance of larch trees brought me to a website called woodland trust.org.uk where I found that larch trees are significant in that both male and female flowers can be found on the same tree. Maybe Bronte did choose the larch to symbolize the inseparable souls of Heathcliff and Catherine.

Also, the larch tree was used to ward off evil spirits and enchantment. Since Heathcliff could be pretty evil, maybe that's why Nelly didn't find him under the larch trees after all, but leaning against an ash tree instead.

That same Google search also found a website called ancient-wisdom.com which has a page on tree lore that is pretty interesting. In ancient folklore, according to the site, trees were used as symbols of birth and death and spiritual ceremony and growth. The ash tree in particular is a Druid sacred tree associated with magic for, among other things, karmic law! 

Is it coincidence or Bronte's deliberate choice that Heathcliff sacrifices his own blood on the trunk of the ash tree by smashing his head against it, more than once, as Nelly observes by the amount of blood, fresh and dried, as he prays aloud that as long as he is alive Catherine's soul, which he claims is one and the same as his, will never rest, but stay with him always?

 

Dracula: Lucy's Near-Death Experience

Lucy describes her sleepwalking experience to Mina a couple of days after the event. Mina was reluctant to bring it up for fear of causing Lucy anxiety and anguish by bringing up the bad memory. However, Lucy wasn't disturbed by the memory at all and gave Mina a detailed description of her experience.

Her memory of the sleepwalking part where she left her bedroom in her nightgown and walked through the streets, over the bridge and up the stairs to the bench overlooking the harbor near the churchyard had a dream-like quality, although she was consciously aware of a fish jumping as she crossed the bridge and dogs barking as she climbed the stairs. 

However, the part where she's on the bench with the black figure with red eyes (Dracula) seems like a description of a typical near-death experience:

"My soul seemed to go out from my body and float about the air. I seem to remember that once the West Lighthouse was right under me, and then there was a sort of agonising feeling, as if I were in an earthquake, and I came back and found you shaking my body. I saw you do it before I felt you."

It's really cool how, as the reader knows that this is when Dracula is drinking Lucy's blood, she's having this out-of-body near-death experience. When Dracula is scared away by Mina's approach and Mina resuscitates Lucy, Lucy's essence returns to her body.

Fear the Walking Dead

I didn't start watching The Walking Dead until 4 seasons were already posted on Netflix and I was instantly hooked. I don't have cable so I can't watch it on AMC or AMC.com because they make you log in with your cable/satellite provider to watch any episodes of their shows. 

Now I'm in agony as I want to see the first episode of Fear the Walking Dead, but can't. I hate to pay that exorbitant cable fee just to watch one show! The other shows I watch are on Hulu or Netflix. I guess I'll have to wait and hope that Fear the Walking Dead will also be posted on Netflix.

One more lesson in delayed gratification.