Halloween TRIPLE Feature! Nosferatu/The Nightmare Before Christmas/The Descent

Went all out for Halloween! It was mostly a product of having the day off, but anyway, here's my Halloween Triple Feature.

First off I watched the vampire movie that started them all, F.W. Murnau's silent Nosferatu. Let me start off by saying how much I love German Expressionism, namely The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari--such an amazing film. I don't think Nosferatu ever quite reaches the stellar imagery of Caligari but it still has a similar mutated sense of reality found in Caligari. For a 1920s vampire film Nosferatu is actually pretty freaky looking with his long fingers, batlike ears, and long fangs. It's really fascinating to see the root of the modern vampire we've come to know (and I'm talking ones that sparkle). Some of the movie is of course outdated (and what silent film doesn't have some outdatedness), such as what I found to be a rather humorous scene of Nosferatu carrying his coffin about town, but it makes it all the more interesting to see where modern horror came from. A good classic film that's a great look back.

9/10

My next film was Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. I have of course seen this movie tens of times since my childhood and I even reviewed it last year but it screams Halloween so much I watched it again for the holiday. It's such a great film, truly. The music is stellar and catchy, the story is original and engaging, and the animation is mind-blowing. After having done some stop motion myself it's absolutely remarkable that anyone could create a full length stop motion film and keep their sanity. Every move of every set piece matters, and it's in this it's consistently fucking gorgeous.

That's all I'll say about it as I just reviewed it last year, and basically all my opinions on it still hold true from that review. I am, however, upgrading the rating to a 10, because really... separate the movie from the culture that's grown around it and it's a pretty perfect film.

10/10

Now, for the grand finale of the month... Neil Marshall's film The Descent. Essentially the movie follows a group of young women that go on an expedition into an uncharted cave and after a cave in find themselves trapped with the way out a mystery.  As they search for an exit they begin to find that they are not alone in the cavern. 

The films major strength is it's stellar ability at transferring the claustrophobia and helpless of the characters onto the audience. After the cave in blocks the way they came in you as the audience member feel you are right there with them, lost in the cave without a prayer. Marshall uses lighting (or lack there of) to it's utmost power, making the only ambient light in the cave that of either the spelunkers headlamps or flares. Just as they are lost in the abyss so do you feel lost with them and as they descend into madness, paranoia, and panic so do you.

Now, this isn't often said about horror movies but I'm going to say it about this one: the monsters are unnecessary. As they women delve further into the cave they discover subterranean batpeople-things that begin hunting them--and with their arrival much of what was making the movie so good is ruined. Sure, without the creatures the film would have been something totally different but I was finding myself really sucked in simply by the character's predicament and their interplay with one another; the creatures kind of shatter that and, for me, were totally unnecessary. It's sad quite frankly, as what Marshall had going was a very unique film that he soiled by making into another monsters-hunt-people movie.

That said, if you almost separate the monsters from the film The Descent stands as a very uncommonly terrifying film. Even as someone who's not claustrophobic such as myself the idea of being lost in a maze of caves with no idea how to get out is fucking terrifying. I have to applaud Marshall on the ending as well (which I read was ruined by Part 2), as it held to ambiguous hopelessness; an ending that, when the director has the balls to do it, is my favorite type of ending because it's real.

But really... you coulda had a 10 here if it wasn't for those damn monsters, bro.

8.5/10