The Seduction

A sexy, young local newscaster starts receiving creepy phone calls from "Derek," who unbeknown to her is a photographer who lives across the street and likes to take pictures of her from his window. She tries to brush him off as a harmless weirdo, but of course he's a dangerous stalker, and its only a matter of time before his obsession veers into deadly territory.

The real "find" (although I guess technically I found him two years ago, when I first saw Tourist Trap) for this year's YVIAHMMAOIHTNQ is David Schmoeller, a director mainly unknown today who worked in the era of John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper and Brian DePalma and notably shares some of their aesthetic talents . Crawlspace, an elegantly sleazy slasher movie with a great villain performance by Klaus Kinski, proved that Tourist Trap wasn't a fluke. And Catacombs, if a disappointingly typical Exorcist knockoff, still showed a real sense of style and intelligence often missing in that particular subgenre. (He also did Puppetmaster, which I recall hating, but now I wonder if I should give it another shot).

I knew I wanted to work one more of his films into this month's activities, and it was between The Seduction and what appeared to be a Full Moon cheapie called Neatherworld. Since Seduction sounded not unlike Crawlspace, I was more stoked to check it out.

Voyeurism is one of my favorite themes common in thriller and horror movies. Obviously, the concept of someone watching you from the shadows is a creepy one. More importantly, though, voyeurism works well because it goes hand-in-hand with the medium: film is a type of controlled voyeurism, offering the same thrill of watching someone who doesn't watch us back. This isn't a new insight, and horror films from Peeping Tom onwards frequently comment on the voyeuristic elements of the medium.

The first 2/3rds or so of The Seduction effectively exploits this, inviting the audience to watch the reporter as the villain does, making us uncomfortable for sharing his hobby. The film's polished style, upper class settings, and cheesy 80's score are somewhat reminiscent of late night, softcore, cable pornography, and I don't think its entirely accidental. Two of the film's most effective sequences (the opening scene where Derek photographs the heroine swimming nude from his apartment, and a later sequence where he hides in her closet and watches her undress) seem like commentaries on the objectification of women in mass media. The heroine is a reporter, getting by in part on her good looks, and her first line in the movie is something like "I like being watched." (spoken to her boyfriend). By making the villain a photographer, Schmoeller might even be implicating himself in all this.

It's Hitchcock by way of Zalman King, at least for a while, and makes for an effective thriller, before throwing it all out the window by becoming a standard issue, overblown serial killer movie during the finale. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for a neat twist or some indication that things weren't going to play out by the numbers. And for a few minutes, the film teased me that this would happen: the heroine turns the tables on the villain, the watchee because the watcher, etc. This would have been an appropriate turnaround for the film, but instead it devolves into a standard, boring action movie climax complete a life or death struggle in the bedroom, shotgun blasts galore, and a worthless plot device of a character arriving with clockwork timing to save the day.

I'm still supportive of the film for the first 2 acts, and still plan to see more of Schmoeller's films, but there is a lot of wasted potential on display here.

Grade: B-

Catacombs, a.k.a. Curse IV: The Ultimate Sacrifice

A young woman comes to study at a monastery. She and the monks soon fine that an ancient evil dwells in the nearby catacombs.

Oops. Don't know why when I put this on that I thought it was the 3rd movie in the Curse nonseries. At least in part, it was probably due to my enthusiasm for seeing another movie by David Schmoeller, the director of Tourist Trap and Crawlspace, for whom I'm starting to acquire a real taste.

Catacombs is not as good as those films, not by a long shot, but it's far more interesting and atmospheric than its disreputable pedigree would imply. It's a nicely pieced together haunted house/exorcist movie with a strong cast who actually get the opportunity to play somewhat fleshed out characters. Schmoeller has a real feel for the genre and how to toy with the audience (nice use of out-of-focus motion in the background). On the downside, it's a little too uneventful and its climax is stunningly unexciting. Far be it from me to not appreciate a horror movie that tries to take its time, but its atmosphere is not rich enough to warrant the degree of nonaction on hand. Not to sound too much like a philistine, but a little more violence might have been appreciated.

Grade: C+

Crawlspace

Klaus Kinski stars as Dr. Guenther, a former Nazi scientist now hiding out in America as an landlord. He only allows pretty young women to live in his building. He also likes to crawl around in the air ducts to watch the women in their apartments, which he has fitted with all sorts of weird devices and boobytraps.

Based on the synopsis, I was expecting Crawlspace to be a sleazy, low budget horror flick along the lines of Maniac, one that makes you feel dirty just for watching it. It's a little like that, I suppose, but mainly it turns out to be a clever and well constructed suspense film that elevates its sleaziness with its wit and faux-classy style. Think bargain basement De Palma or Argento.

What I didn't realize before I watched it was that its director, David Schmoeller, also made Tourist Trap, an all time favorite of mine. Crawlspace is not that good, but has some of the same virtues. It's a stylish thriller with a strong cast, crafted well enough that it almost doesn't seem like an exploitation film (though, it is). The kind of film where you can enjoy how absurd it becomes, instead of scoffing at it. At a lean, mean 80 minutes, it efficiently gets the job done and without overstaying its welcome. So far, it's the real "find" of this year's YVIAHMMAOIHTNQ.

Grade: B +

Tourist Trap

As befits this genre, a sexy group of youngsters on a road trip break down off the beaten path. They are picked up by a friendly old man who owns a run down tourist trap, filled with weird mannequins made by his mysterious brother Davey. What could have been a decent Texas Chain Saw Massacre ripoff turns into something far more strange, eerie and fun than its premise would indicate, an oddball and darkly humorous riff on House of Wax, heavy on atmosphere, with a quirky Pino Donaggio score.

I watched Tourist Trap last year for the original YVIAHMMAOIHTNQ and knew immediately that I had to own it. Despite the fact that the story makes little sense and doesn't adhere to much continuity, this is a classic, an all time favorite of mine, genuinely creepy and unique. Where to begin? Davey likes to kill people and turn them into mannequins, but the mannequins are still somehow alive (maybe haunted?) and Davey can also control them with psychic mind powers. Davey is not a mannequin, but he likes to dress up as one, sometimes dressing up as the person he last killed.

Tourist Trap is a masterpiece of set design. I've always known mannequins were creepy, but no other movie has exploited them so well, or in such a strange manner... grotesque mannequins, disembodied mannequin parts, people turning into mannequins, mannequins turning in to people, the film is wall to wall mannequins and they are all scary as fuck. I'm not sure the movie makes much sense from one scene to the next (Davey and his mannequins seem capable of anything, their powers seem to change from scene to scene), but that matters not. I bitch a lot about arbitrariness in horror films, but it's a moot point in a movie like Tourist Trap when all the arbitrary stuff is effective at skeeving you out.

Stand out scenes include suffocation by plaster, attack by cowboy and indian mannequins, the infamous "crackers" sequence, and a twist near the end that has to be seen to be believed. I love this movie.

Tourist Trap

HALLOWEEN NIGHT

I used to see this box in the video store and thought it looked like one of those no-budget, camcorder horror movies that are unwatchable. The box was just that shitty looking. But it turns out my impression was wrong, this is a lost minor classic from the 70's that I will highly recommend to anyone who likes these kinds of movies.

It's basically a spin on House of Wax's story, with some weirdo who lives in the middle of nowhere and abducts people, kills them and makes them into mannequins. Also he likes to dress up as mannequin versions of his victims and treat his mannequins like they are real people (some of them seem to be alive) and at one point keeps shouting "little girl!" while chasing one of his victims around.

I don't care what any Andrew McCarthy movies lead you to believe in the 80's; mannequins are fucking creepy as shit and are not to be trusted. There are a lot of scary as fuck mannequins in this movie, and other creepy shit like people being smothered to death by wet plaster, and at least one weird twist that has to be seen to believe. But there's also some really strange dark humor that pops up now and again, usually involving the killer talking to his mannequins.

It's a bit in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre vein of oddball low budget horror movies from the 70's, and it's just so weird and creepy that I think it's a must-see for fans of this stuff.