Only now does it occur to me... THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1999)

Only now does it occur to me... that the most concentrated five minutes of sheer "1990s" ever spat out upon celluloid probably occurs at the beginning of William Malone's (fortieth anniversary) remake of William Castle's THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL.

Within a single, five minute span we have: Geoffrey Rush doing a Vincent Price impersonation (his character is even named Price) and making Beanie Babies (!) references,

 

 

 

 

 

 


"the '90s-personified" singer-songwriter and glasses enthusiast Lisa Loeb as a local reporter interviewing him,

 

 

 

 

 

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER's James "Spike" Marsters as her hapless cameraman,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(oh, did I mention this is set at an amusement park with X-treme rollercoasters?)

 

Loeb and Marsters riding an X-treme rollercoaster,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cut to: an early Macintosh PowerBook rocking some clip art,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

haunted '90s email which deletes text on its own,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Famke Janssen (GOLDENEYE, ROUNDERS, THE FACULTY, MELROSE PLACE) in a luxurious '90s bubble bath,  discussing her birthday party,

 

 

 

 

 

 

followed by a montage of the party attendees, which include Taye Diggs (GO, HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK, ALLY MCBEAL),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Peter Gallagher (AMERICAN BEAUTY, MALICE, CENTER STAGE, WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, THE PLAYER),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Ali Larter (VARSITY BLUES, FINAL DESTINATION, DAWSON'S CREEK, LEGALLY BLONDE, SUDDENLY SUSAN),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
who is waving around a Sharp ViewCam camcorder like she just don't care,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras (BILLY MADISON, MORTAL KOMBAT, SAVED BY THE BELL, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, HIGHER LEARNING, THE LAST ACTION HERO)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the latter two actresses of whom, slight hairstyling differences aside, I defy anyone to tell apart. And that's not all! Before the five minutes have elapsed, we meet SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE's Chris Kattan

 

 

 

 

 

 
in a serious (?!) role. And there you have it. I'm not sure there's a more concentrated dose of '90s out there. You might try HACKERS, sure, or REALITY BITES, EMPIRE RECORDS, SPICE WORLD, BIO-DOME, maybe even BATMAN AND ROBIN, perhaps TANK GIRL or THE PHANTOM, but I'm not sure you'll find it.

However, it brings me no joy to also tell you that: the rest of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL '99 is pretty mediocre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
There is a fun homage to SUSPIRIA with primary colored stained glass falling down to (near) murderous effect:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
And a blink-and-you'll-miss-him cameo by REANIMATOR's own Jeffrey Combs as a mad scientist:

 

But, anyway. Aside from the 90s nostalgia, there's zero reason to recommend this over the William Castle original, which features everything from acid skeletons to a lesser Mitchum to Vincent Price doing whatever the hell he wants.

Film Review: MATINEE (1993, Joe Dante)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 99 minutes.
Tag-line: "Lawrence Woolsey presents the end of civilization as we know it. Make that... Proudly Presents!"
Notable Cast or Crew: John Goodman (C.H.U.D., THE BIG LEBOWSKI), Cathy Moriarty (RAGING BULL, COP LAND), Simon Fenton (THE POWER OF ONE, A KNIGHT IN CAMELOT), Omri Katz (EERIE INDIANA, HOCUS POCUS), Lisa Jakub (INDEPENDENCE DAY, MRS. DOUBTFIRE), Kellie Martin (TROOP BEVERLY HILLS, ER), Robert Picardo (TOTAL RECALL, GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH), Dick Miller (GREMLINS, THE TERMINATOR, A BUCKET OF BLOOD, CORVETTE SUMMER), John Sayles (novelist and director, LONE STAR, THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET), Kevin McCarthy (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, THE TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE), William Schallert (THE PATTY DUKE SHOW, THE TWILIGHT ZONE), Naomi Watts (MULHOLLAND DR., KING KONG '05).  Music by Jerry Goldsmith (ALIEN, POLTERGEIST, GREMLINS).  Makeup effects by Rick Baker & Co. (VIDEODROME, THE HOWLING, STAR WARS, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON).  Written by Jerico Stone (MY STEPMOTHER IS AN ALIEN) and Charles S. Haas (OVER THE EDGE, GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH,
Best One-liner: "Young lady, human/insect mutation is far from an exact science!"

Ah, MATINEE...  I saw this film for the first time back when it came out in '93, and despite having no idea at the time who William Castle was, I was immediately drawn to the film's layered nostalgia and infectious sense of harmless fun; it's a paean to dedicated showmanship in a scary world.  Probably not before or since has a movie so thoroughly and tenderly explored the life-affirming thrill and ultimate social value of horror cinema––it's about taking yourself (and perhaps a date) to the Lovecraftian brink and back again in a safe, controlled environment; to forget, even for eighty minutes, the considerably less exhilarating, quotidian terrors that linger beyond the limits of the screen.

Equal parts fan service and a sincere coming-of-age, MATINEE is for every lonely kid who grew up on B-movies, late-night TV spook shows, and monster magazines; the socially awkward ones who imagined that Vincent Price, King Kong, and Dracula were sort of their friends.  It'd make a fine double feature with FRIGHT NIGHT, I must say.

Castle's career lived primarily in the shadow––or is that silhouette?––of Hitchcock.  Castle believed they were equals; personally, I tend to wonder if Hitchcock even knew who he was.

Set in Florida during the Cuban Missile Crisis, MATINEE follows movie producer/director Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman, playing a not-even-thinly-disguised version of the manic, cigar-chomping, creature-feature ringmaster and gimmick-king William Castle) as he brings his new film "MANT" to Key West, forever changing the lives of a few teenagers who are making the transition to adulthood beneath the (anticipatory) shadow of a mushroom cloud.

And God bless William Castle––John Waters has said he'd rather have sat on his lap than Santa Claus' when he was a child––and damned if Castle isn't essentially the halfway point between Santa and P.T. Barnum. Here was a man who playfully threatened to kill audience members in his promotional materials, pioneered the Illusion-O Ghost-Viewer and Ghost-Remover, shoehorned contest winners into bit parts, handed out plastic coins in an attempt to energize cinema-goers, let the audience vote on killing off a character via a "Punishment Poll",  marketed a film (sucessfully) to children about kids who must murder their uncle before he murders them, stuck vibrators on seat-backs and called it "Percepto," used fake life insurance policies to hype in-movie scares, and handed out cardboard axes for a movie where a fifty-nine year old Joan Crawford plays a twenty-year-old (in a flashback).

What Castle called "barnstorming" (following your film cross-country to promote it in person, maximizing the asses in seats like a carnival barker) is Woolsey's bread and butter, and he'll employ every trick in the book to make sure his audience has a once-in-a-lifetime film experience, combining all the joys of live theater, the haunted house, and a boardwalk magic show.

This is all handled expertly by Joe Dante, who infuses the proceedings with equal doses of nostalgia, silliness, and a genuine humanity (that feels as well-earned as anything from masters like Renoir or Altman).  It's pretty damned great.

Without further ado, I'd like to delve into my eight favorite elements of MATINEE:

#8.  The authenticity in storytelling and art direction.  Not being a child of the 50s, I may be way off base, but there's a definite eye for detail in Steven Legler's production design,

and I appreciate little details, like burgeoning teens listening to a Lenny Bruce record

and hurriedly shutting it off when Mom pulls in the driveway.

#7.  And whaddya know––Omri Katz!  The kid in the striped shirt in the above screencap is none other than the star of Dante's EERIE, INDIANA, one of my favorite (albeit short-lived) TV shows as a child.  He's effortlessly likable, and it's a shame he hasn't done much acting since the early 90s.

#6. The in-jokes.  There are more obvious nods, like references to Castle's "rivalry" with Hitchcock; but there are deeper cuts, too––posters for everything from CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM EATER to THE DEADLY MANTIS appear frequently in the background, and a fictionalized version of Samuel Z. Arkoff (of American International Pictures) even shows up to the MANT screening!

#5. Cathy Moriarty as the washed-up starlet turned horror vixen; basically she's Joan Crawford in STRAIGHT-JACKET or Barbara Stanwyck in THE NIGHT WALKER.  She gives fewer shits than Bob Mitchum and has her most fantastic bit as the lobby "Nurse" in a nod to MACABRE's mock insurance policies.

She very nearly steals this movie away from John Goodman and a giant "Mant" prosthetic, which is, at the end of the day, quite an achievement.

#4. Dante crony and "that guy!" legend Dick Miller and novelist/director John Sayles as Woolsey's shills:

out-of-work actors pretending to protest MANT in order to amplify the word of mouth (any press is good press, eh?).  It's a classic technique, and one that I imagine the real Bill Castle must have employed at one time or another.  In between the whimsy, however, Dante manages to sneak in a sobering aside about the Hollywood Blacklist.

#3. Robert Picardo as the scaredy cat/wet blanket theater manager, who happens to have a personal fallout shelter in the basement.

Picardo's twitchy demeanor and knack for physical comedy make the character especially vivid, but even as you laugh at his panicked clowning, Dante never lets you fully forget that the man has some valid concerns (it's October '62, after all!) about nuclear annihilation.  (It's the same humanism that allows Dante to give real pathos to character deaths in something like GREMLINS, even though the methods of murder are borrowed straight from the Looney Tunes.)

#2.  The film-within-a-film, Lawrence Woolsey's MANT.

Tonally, it's spot-on––a hilarious mashup of THE TINGLER, PANIC IN YEAR ZERO!, THEM, and THE FLY with perfectly stylized imagery and dialogue.  It certainly helps that he's packed it with B-movie actors from the era, including INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS' Kevin McCarthy

and THE TWILIGHT ZONE's William Schallert (both of whom also appeared in Dante's segment of THE TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE).

It lives up to the (Castle-styled) hype and is one of the most memorable 'film-within-a-films' I can think of.

#1.  A second film-within-a-film, "THE SHOOK-UP SHOPPING CART" has a shorter, though no less memorable appearance.


Intended to be a spoof of eye-rolling, "safe" live-action children's fare of the era, like THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR, CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG, or THE LOVE BUG, it features a sentient, crime-fighting shopping cart and a young Naomi Watts.  Even the film stock and color correction are spot-on––it's clear that every aspect of this production was a labor of love. 

Five stars.  Perhaps one day, some inspired filmmaker will tell a thinly-veiled story of the effect the consummate showman Joe Dante's films had on their childhood!

––Sean Gill

P.S. I also recommend you check out J.D. of Radiator Heaven's nuanced take on the film here!

Only now does it occur to me... THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN

Only now does it occur to me...  that if William Castle had ever directed a James Bond film, it definitely should have been THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.

What would the gimmick have been?  Flying skeletons?  A full-on working fun house in the lobby?  13 GHOSTS-style Scare-o-manga-vision?   A free novelty rubber nipple with admission? (Christopher Lee's character Scaramanga has a notable extra nipple.) Something to do with a gang of little people at the theater?

Of course, with the latter, I'm alluding to the irrepressible Hervé Villechaize (FANTASY ISLAND, FORBIDDEN ZONE), whose measured performance as "Nick Nack" reaches levels of subtlety previously reached in a Bond movie only by Bruce Glover in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER.  I'm going to choose to believe that the incongruous beauty of a little person in a Bond flick is what sparked the imagination of the makers of FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY, the first of many glorious Weng Weng Agent 00 movies from the 1980s.

As far as Bond flicks from the Moore era go, this is one of– if not the– best.  I have some fond memories from childhood of seeing this on TV, and though that may color my opinion, it's got a taut storyline, a great villain in Christopher Lee's titular assassin,

those great "Dark Carnival" sets on Lee's private island, a solid 70s Bond girl in Britt Ekland (best known for THE WICKER MAN and being Peter Sellers' wife)

and it even has Bond doing an embarrassing  loop-de-loop bridge jump like something out of a DUKES OF HAZZARD episode or a Burt Reynolds movie, complete with a slide whistle sound effect.  Whew!

[Also, despite the fine opening song collaboration between John Barry and Lulu, I can't help but think Alice Cooper's unused title track would have been a nicer (and more rockin') fit.  That is all.]

Junta Juleil's Top 100: #95-#91

95. ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (1938, Howard Hawks)

I'm not sure anyone has ever matched the skill with which Hawks integrated exposition, character development, and sheer entertainment. He makes it look so damned easy, too. He often sets up a situation where men are doing a serious job, a dangerous job, and then events simply unfold. As they unfold, we learn everything we need to know about the characters because we've been there with them, in the trenches, seeing how far they can be pushed, and how hard they can push back. You don't feel as if you're watching something contrived by sheltered Hollywood-types, because it's not– he's incorporating details, the way his men act under pressure, the way he directs a picture, even, from his real-life experiences as an aviator, a race-car driver, an army man, and a factory worker. This is the sort of film to which I give my highest recommendation; I don't even think I have to tell you about the plot. Just another one of his immaculately constructed tales of men's men and ladies who pull no punches. Did I mention that Hawks' middle name was WINCHESTER?

94. MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (1937, Leo McCarey)

"It would make a stone cry."

–Orson Welles.

Sweet God in heaven, I'm not sure that any movie has ever jerked as many tears from its audiences, per capita, as MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW. Leo McCarey, who won a Best Director Oscar the same year for the well-made, but far lesser film THE AWFUL TRUTH, said in his acceptance speech: "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture." It'd be a difficult movie for audiences to 'enjoy' in any time or place because it asks difficult questions about the relationship between parents and their children; how we care for them, how they cared for us, and what fate is to be earned for all "as the long day wanes." Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi play the elderly couple at hand, delivering a couple of the most purely, emotionally reactive performances in the history of the medium. The clock ticks, the children wait, and the old couple relive youthful memories, a moment of respite before moving on. Dr. Samuel Johnson said it better than I ever could: "We never do anything consciously for the last time without sadness of heart..." And so I join the ranks of viewers who find themselves grasping for the telephone as the final reel ends, calling up loved ones, contemplating these fleeting moments, and hoping for the chance to have more of them.

93. ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968, Roman Polanski)

From producer William Castle– yeah, you heard me right!– comes one of the finest horror films of the 1960's, or of any other era. Castle recognized his dramatic limitations (handing the reins ultimately to master of claustrophobic/metropolitan/conspiracy-horror, Roman Polanski), but he does show up for a brief, wordless, yet somehow amazingly hammy cameo during the phone booth scene. Regardless, this is really Polanski's film, and he spins the tale with paranoid gusto and eye-popping imagery; swirling, hallucinogenic dream sequences and off-kilter quotidian happenings. It's a hotbed of primal fears and existential dread: Polanski has got his finger on just the right nerve, and he plucks and twangs it unceasingly– rape, domestic terrors, body horror, the things we try to hide, the things we don't understand, our fear of doctors and the elderly and babies and enclosed spaces and antiquarian objects and of failure and of seeming crazy and of going crazy; and it all begins to collapse upon you like a black hole and a cry unto the pit– SWEET GOD, WHAT A MOVIE!!!

Also, Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer are just about the most adorably frightening and frighteningly adorable elderly actors I've ever seen (not to be confused with the elderly actors from #94!). And I have to say that John Cassavetes' "I didn't want to miss baby night" has got to rank as the most hilariously inappropriate excuse ever uttered, on or off a camera. (You'll know what I mean if you've seen the film– yikes!)

92. FAIL-SAFE (1964, Sidney Lumet)

It's difficult to incorporate methodical, systematically structured storytelling with genuine emotional stakes, but goddamn, does Lumet pull it together, and with the fate of the human race in the balance, no less! Most prefer DR. STRANGELOVE, which is sort of a loose, parodic retelling, but for my money, FAIL-SAFE's the stronger film. Some have said that STRANGELOVE's satire cuts to the bone, but I say FAIL-SAFE cuts to the bone, then fractures the bone, and then looks down at the bone, somberly, as tears well up in FAIL-SAFE's eyes. FAIL-SAFE then clenches its jaw; anguished, but with an abundance of dignity. As a side note, by and large, though your average fictional president is more appealing than your average actual president, I have to say that Henry Fonda's portrayal in this film goes beyond that– he is so sincere, so thoughtful, so determined, so damned invested, that you wish he really was the president. Also: Dom DeLuise in a serious role– chew on that for a little while.

91. BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986, John Carpenter)

"Have you paid your dues, Jack– yessir, the check is in the mail." I've written a few observations about BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA before, saying "it's about the exhilaration of being ALIVE in a world of unfathomable mystery," and, of Kurt Russell's performance, "he's a runaway train of swagger, guts, and bluster...I never tire of his maniacally youthful cackle, or his proclivity toward moaning 'Awwwwww, CHRIST!'" In short, it's one hell of a time, written, directed, and performed by artists and craftsmen who are having one hell of a time. But it's no mindless shoot-em-up: it's a Hawksian ode to the bonds of friendship, the measure of character, and those ecstatic moments of temerarious action, where, against all better judgment, you feel damn near invulnerable. (Also, you just drank from the six-demon bag.) And, while we're at it, how 'bout that kickin' song over the end credits?


Coming up next...
George Romero's favorite movie, a legendary documentary, and... a movie with a lesser Baldwin!

13 GHOSTS (1960, William Castle)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.
Running Time: 85 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Charles Herbert (THE FLY, HOUSEBOAT), Jo Morrow (OUR MAN IN HAVANA, THE THREE WORLDS OF GULLIVER), Martin Milner (SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, ADAM-12), Rosemary DeCamp (BLOOD ON THE SUN), Donald Woods (TRUE GRIT, THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR), Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West in THE WIZARD OF OZ).
Tag-line: " 13 Times the Thrills! 13 Times the Chills! 13 Times the Fun!"
Best one-liner: "He doesn't mess up the kitchen often, but when he does, WOW!"

One of William Castle's most beloved films, 13 GHOSTS gave the world Illusion-O. Illusion-O so irrevocably altered the landscape of cinema, that no one has dared to work within its eerie confines since. Illusion-O, plainly speaking, is a form of film-making, that, when observed in concert with a ghost-viewing apparatus (like the one seen below), allows us to... well, view ghosts.

It's extraordinarily complex, but I'll attempt to explain. By peering through the red cellophane on the upper end of the mechanism, the ghosts will appear, quite vibrantly. Using the blue end of the device, however, allows us to remove ghosts.

This begs the question of 'who would choose to attend a film entitled 13 GHOSTS and then decide they'd prefer not to see any ghosts?', but this is a William Castle picture, so we oughtn't to split hairs. If you elect not to use the contraption at all, you'll see ghosts all right, but faintly. Don't worry, though, all of this is adequately explained at the picture's start by William Castle himself. "Do you believe in ghosts?," he asks.

"Personally, I do," he confesses. After explaining the minutiae of ghost-viewer usage, he urges us to explain the whole thing to any late-comers who missed his special introduction. This is perhaps the only time in film history that a director has urged an audience to interrupt his film after it's begun, and it's even for the convenience of the tardy! It's sort of like Hitchcock's "No one...BUT NO ONE will be admitted to the theatre after the start of each performance of PSYCHO."

Except if it was more like "No one...BUT NO ONE will be admitted to the theatre after the start of each performance of PSYCHO, unless there are audience members ready and willing to provide a rundown of everything that's happened thus far, including the quoting of pertinent dialogue."

Anyway, I don't wish to entirely spoil the majesty that is 13 GHOSTS with a synopsis (that's probably the job of the person sitting next to you when you roll in late), so let's explore ten of my favorite things about 13 GHOSTS.

#1. Why is the family's last name Zorba? Why do some of them have 'Greek' names like Medea Zorba and Plato Zorba? Is this some kind of hi-larious gag devised to make us think, subconsciously, about ZORBA THE GREEK? Why do the other family names like Cyrus and Buck and Ben and Hilda not adhere to this principle?

#2. The paintings of the Ghosts from the opening sequence.

I'm hard-pressed to imagine anyone not falling in love with them.

#3. The way that characters refer to 'speaking about ghosts' as "spook talk." Which is exactly what Vincent Price called it in Castle's HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL!

#4. The killer pinwheel of fire ghost.

Why?, you might ask. "WHY NOT?!", Bill Castle might reply. Seriously, though, what the hell is going on there?

#5. Emilio, the murderous Italian chef who occasionally meat-cleavers the hell out of the kitchen.

And I know they had to make sure it was visible in Illusion-O, but look how overboard they went with the mustache:

It's not even hair- I think it's an enormous piece of paper cut into the shape of a mustache. God bless Bill Castle.

#6. This creepy housekeeper. She just looks kinda familiar.

Something about her and that old broom.

Like she should be riding it or something. Hmmm....

#7. The fact that the dad is not overly concerned that his 8-year old kid has a "big secret" with a random lawyer fellow. The dad merrily announces, "Buck's got a secret...I bet you could cut his arm off and he wouldn't tell!"

Buck considers the lawyer's proposition.


The skeezy lawyer in question.

#8. The way that the family pendulates between extreme horror and utter boredom. At one moment, they're dodging floating meat cleavers and screaming.

In the next, they might be calmly reading a book on the divan, wondering why the other family members are making such a fuss about these 'ghosts.' My guess?- it was probably shot so quickly (and out of order), that the actors didn't know at which points in the script they'd already had 'ghostly encounters' and ought to be acting accordingly.

#9. Not only does William Castle have a skeleton receptionist, the doorknob to his office is...a cobweb-encrusted skull!


#10. The ending. Like LET'S KILL UNCLE, Castle opts to end on a faux-cheery note of unbridled optimism which reaches such heights of absurdity that it can only be labelled as subversive.

Then William Castle appears once more, and challenges us- should we still refuse to believe in ghosts– to take our ghost-viewers home, get up in the middle of the night, and look through the red end of the device...if we dare!
Amen.

-Sean Gill