Day 8: Bug

You may remember I mentioned a 1975 movie called Bug in the Horror That Made Me series. Well, today’s Sham Shocktober entry is an entirely different Bug, directed by William Friedkin and released more recently in 2006. The fact that Friedkin is behind it is enough on its own to make me want to see it, since I generally find his stuff pretty interesting – well, apart from CAT Squad, which he must’ve been seriously hard-up to have considered making (although, while making one CAT Squad movie might be considered a misfortune, making two?! That’s just careless).

Anyway, the two Bugs have nothing to do with one another. Bug #1 was a 70s creature feature about pyromaniac cockroaches, while Bug #2 looks to be a psychological freak-piece about two mentally unsound lovers (Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon) holed up in a rotting motel room and facing a possibly imaginary insect infestation. Harry Connick Jr. seems to be in it as well (the film, that is, not the motel room), possibly crooning a few appropriate songs like “I Got You Under My Skin” and “Lofty’s Roach Soufflé”.

What I find interesting about the idea of watching Bug #2 is that it looks to encapsulate perfectly how my idea of horror has changed in the years since Bug #1 had me quivering under the bedsheets in fear of flammable cockroaches. To wit, things that scared me as a pre-teen included mutant killer cockroaches, cockroaches on fire, cockroaches crawling down my ear, and cockroaches in my bed. These days, I’m far more likely to have nightmares about mental illness, bad hotel rooms, and Harry Connick Jr.

Day 7: The Bad Seed

Oh dear, I do hope that Sham Shocktober isn’t just turning into a daily dose of me reeling off a film title and saying “OMG! I can’t believe I’ve not seen this!” – because that would be so boring. I had hoped the idea might have a little more depth than that. On the other hand, in respect to The Bad Seed, OMG! I can’t believe I’ve not seen this!

Now, I’m not totally clueless when it comes to the movie – I mean, I know it’s not about gardening or anything – but, considering how synonymous its title is with the notion of devil-children, it’s surprising how little I actually do know about it. I know it stars Patty McCormack as the eponymous pipsqueak, and I assume she gets up to some things that just weren’t socially acceptable in 1956 – like holding her cutlery in the wrong hands or perhaps even shouting “atom bomb!” in math class. I saw 1993’s The Good Son, which everyone compared to The Bad Seed, and that had Macaulay Culkin throwing a mannequin off a motorway bridge and calling Elijah Wood a shithead or something, but I doubt The Bad Seed is as histrionic as that (or as goshdarn funny).

Patty returned to her suburban-psycho roots in a couple of other 90s movies, Mommy and Mommy 2: Mommy’s Day, this time playing a bad seed who’s grown up, germinated and produced seedlings of her own... Uh, yeah, that’s about as far as I can run with that metaphor. I doubt they’re as good as Serial Mom, anyway.

Day 6: Sheitan

Vincent Cassel. Is. Scary. One minute he’s goofing around like a silly French puppy; the next, BAM! Your teeth are halfway down your gullet, your feet are encased in cement, and you find yourself flying off the end of a jetty somewhere sur la Seine. That’s why I wouldn’t want to run into Vincent Cassel on a dark night – which is exactly what happens to the young cast of Sheitan, who encounter Cassel dressed as a shepherd on their way home from a nightclub. But this shepherd is one sheep short of a flock, and the friends are soon fighting for survival at a remote country house.

I’m itching to see Sheitan, which is strangely apt because one of its plot keywords at the Internet Movie Database is Scratching. I’ve no idea how “scratching” fits into the story (perhaps Vincent’s sheep have fleas) but the rest of the keywords include: Threesome, Disco, Female Nudity, Puppet, Bathtub, Locust, Hair Pulling, Blood, Goat, Christmas, Incest... Now, can you honestly say you have anything better to do than watch this movie right now?

Day 5: Terrified

1963’s Terrified is quite obviously the best movie ever. It’s about two fun-lovin’ teens travelling to a ghost town to meet someone called Crazy Bill. But when they get there, they discover Bill dead – impaled on the railings outside a cemetery. Yes, a cemetery! In a ghost town! Is that not the scariest location ever?! Not only that, but there’s a masked killer on the loose who’s intent on getting rid of any witnesses... It’s the perfect horror set-up! Of course, like all the movies I’m pseudo-reviewing for Sham Shocktober, I haven’t actually seen Terrified but, wow, if I had, I’m sure I’d be just... terrified!

Oh, and that masked killer I mentioned – apparently his outfit consists of a tuxedo topped off with a balaclava... Freaky! I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it, and I don’t mean the series of children’s books. In all, Terrified sounds like a little-known and neglected influence on the slasher genre... and most definitely not a derivative, boring melodrama produced on the cheap for the drive-in crowd. I hope.

Day 4: Tentacles

Okay, I’ll admit I’m cheating slightly here because I already own the DVD of the 1977 octopus opus, Tentacles. But I haven’t watched it yet, so it still totally counts as a Sham Shocktober movie, right? Right!

Oh, so many reasons to watch Tentacles... not least of which is the presence of Shelley Winters, playing the wonderfully named Tillie Turner. She was such a good swimmer in The Poseidon Adventure (well, until she drowned) that I feel sure I’m in for some stunning aquarobics here as Tillie battles the many-tentacled menace, armed only with a nose-peg and verruca sock.

Then there’s the film’s preponderance of hilarious foreign titles. Yes, “tentacles” is a pretty funny word in English, but just you wait till you see it in Italian (Tentacoli!), French (Tentacules – so classy), Polish (Macki!), Finnish (Lonkerot!) and Norwegian (Blekksprut!). But my favourite has to be the German title, Der Polyp, which isn’t, of course, a direct translation of the word tentacles, but instead refers to the film’s marauding creature – or, as we call it, Shelley Winters.

So what’s holding me back from watching Tentacles? I’ll tell you – it’s the violence. Not the chewed-up humans; I can handle that. It’s the reports that the climax of the film features puppetty killer whales attacking and maiming some not-so-puppetty octopuses. Killing living things for the sake of a monster movie is just not cool, and it’s the one thing I’m squeamish about when it comes to exploitation cinema. Bad killer whale puppets... Go to your rooms!

Day 3: Killer Klowns from Outer Space

It’s time now for Sham Shocktober to move away from the classics and look instead at a Klassic! It was the late eighties... Everything I knew I learned from House, Troll and Critters, so I’ve really no idea how I managed to miss out on Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Must’ve been home watching MacGyver when it came into the video shop or something. Anyway, it’s recently been released on DVD in the UK by Optimum Home Entertainment, apparently because they noticed it’s this country’s most illegally downloaded title, and I was a little surprised to see it now has a 12 certificate. I mean, I’m sure it’s a pretty goofy film, but all I really know about it (other than the fact it apparently concerns some “klowns” who are “killers” and come from “outer space”) is what I heard in the school yard – most of which came from a friend who loved to tell me in gory detail about the victims who become “human hand puppets” whenever we got onto the subject of scary movies. Human hand puppets? In a 12-rated movie? What’s the world coming to? It sounds like something out of Brian Yuzna’s Society. Of course, I may be wrong...

Day 2: Dracula (1931)

What is it with 1931 and films I haven’t seen?! First M, now this... Anyone would think I’d been avoiding the year, which is technically true because I hadn’t actually been born yet. But I assure you, 1931, it was nothing personal!

“Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make...” Yup, I may not have actually seen Bela Lugosi in his most famous role as Drackie O, but I can at least quote his most famous line (as well as the spoofy reference in Love at First Bite, in which George Hamilton says, “Children of the night... shut up!”). I also heard that, at any given moment in time, some TV station somewhere in world is showing this version of Dracula, which means it’s actually on right now (...or even now, if you’re reading this later). So why haven’t I seen it? Well, Bela never struck me as a particularly menacing count. He just seems to lack the stature, the fangs, the sinister sexuality of the Dracula I grew up with, Christopher Lee. In fact, he looks a bit like me in a cape. And who wants to see that?

I’ve also heard the film takes some strange liberties with Bram Stoker’s source novel – like sending crazy bug-eater Renfield off to Dracula’s castle at the start instead of Jonathan Harker (although that’s still marginally more believable than having Keanu Reeves in the role). And then there’s that rumour that the Spanish version, shot at the same time on the same sets (but with different, more Spanishy actors) is actually superior. Is there anything that Dracula ’31 has going for it? Be sure to let me know!

What? You liked this movie? Gah! Tell it to Chud Emmet Walsh.

Day 1: M

It’s the first day of Sham Shocktober so you’ll have to forgive any factual inaccuracies this month, as I’ll only be “reviewing” horror films I haven’t seen. And don’t forget to let me know if the movies any good or not so I’ll know which ones to buy for Halloween. (Hey, that rhymed... I’m a poet and I didn’t realize it!) Anyway, let’s kick off with a classic: Fritz Lang’s 1931 chiller, M.

Dame Judi Dench stars as M, a child-molesting serial killer stalking the streets of an unnamed, highly expressionistic German city. From what I gather, the only clue to M’s identity is his whistled signature tune – “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by the Crash Test Dummies. Can the police catch him, or will it be left to the city’s other criminals to implement their own form of justice? What are you asking me for? I haven’t the fucking foggiest. But, since M is at #44 in the IMDb Top 250, I’m guessing it’s a pretty good film. So good, in fact, that its influence continues to be felt in contemporary culture over 70 years later, from the ongoing prevalence of child molestation, to the rumour that respected character actor M. Emmet Walsh was so impressed by the film he actually named himself after it. Lucky for him he wasn’t a big fan of C.H.U.D. huh?