a demon banished

 

A childhood demon has been banished after 45 years.*

After my freshman year of high school, I spent part of the summer at the Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, Illinois. As I was waiting at the gate before my flight, airline personnel announced that the flight was overbooked, and they were seeking volunteers to be get bumped and wait for another flight a couple hours later. They were offering $100 (I think). According to Google, that’s the equivalent of $359 today – not life changing money, but nice. My parents, who were at the gate with me (yes, you could do that then) talked it over, but decided against having me volunteer -- this was my first time flying alone without anyone to meet me at the destination, and I was nervous enough without a change in plan.

I remember thinking that it would have been great to get that extra money for doing nothing other than waiting. I understood my parents’ logic, but part of me felt bad about missing out on the cash.** And I thought that, if I ever had another opportunity, I would volunteer my spot in exchange for cash. And in the decades since, I have never been in that situation again. I have had delayed flights. And I have had canceled flights. But I have never been bumped from a flight. And I have never been on a flight where they were seeking volunteers to get bumped in exchange for cash. Not that I’ve lost sleep over it, but I’ve thought about it every so often.

But a week ago, Blair had the experience. She had been in Vermont for a relative’s graduation. On Monday morning, her flight was oversold. And she volunteered to stay behind – in exchange for $1900, meal vouchers and a hotel voucher for the night. Technically, the money went to Blair and not to me. But it’s all the same, so I think of it as a victory for both of us. And now the monkey’s off my back.

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*In fairness, calling it a “demon” is too strong, as is saying it’s been “banished.” But drama requires me to use such words. And technically I wasn’t really a child. Stop being such a stickler.

**It’s worth noting that my parents would have likely kept the cash, since they were paying for my airfare. But that’s beside the point.

cinema history class: walpurgisnacht

In honor of Walpurgisnacht, the eve of May Day, Keith chose four films about demons, witches, werewolves and vampires.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

The third and fourth movies were much more to my liking than the first two. Demon Witch Child tells the story of a teenage girl possessed by a demon. It borrows heavily from The Exorcist and, if I recall correctly, Keith said that it has been called the Spanish Exorcist. The elements that it borrows are hard to miss. But, in some ways, it exceeds The Exorcist in that it's much more expansive. In Vampire's Night Orgy, stranded travelers are stuck in a little mystery town. Everything seems fine, at first, but eventually things turn south. It borrows heavily from Night of the Living Dead. The ending -- practically an epilogue -- reminded me of 2000 Maniacs! -- though Blair pointed out to me that that's a common trope. I guess I need to see more movies, since I don't recall seeing the device elsewhere. Damn, was it creepy!

The first two movies in this session were good films for what they are, but neither one really grabbed me. Strange Love of the Vampires had a lot of good elements, and it was a good, original take on the vampire legend. But it was another vampires-in-castles movie, and I've kind of had overload on those. Curse of the Devil stars Paul Naschy as a werewolf. Where have I seen that before? Others in the class love Paul Naschy, but I just haven't been able to get into him. These two were good movies, but just not my thing. And my ratings for them reflect that.

The Trailers:

Strange Love of the Vampires (1975)

Curse of the Devil (1973)

Demon Witch Child (1974)

Note: I don't think this is an actual trailer. But it's what I could find.

Vampire's Night Orgy (1973)

cinema history class: monsters in the snow

To say a group goodbye to winter, Keith decided we should screen four films set in the wintery cold. Films to make us feel as if we were still freezing.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
In some ways this seemed like two distinct mini-sessions to me. The first two films were distinctly out of my wheelhouse. The Werewolf and the Yeti was a Spanish Production starring Paul Naschy. While Naschy is a favorite of some -- often ranking right up there with Peter Cushing or Lon Chaney Jr. -- I have never really warmed up to him. And this, a story about a Yeti expedition gone awry, just kind of left me cold. The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas was a much better film. And it benefitted from starring Peter Cushing and (pre F-Troop) Forest Tucker. It could almost have been called a buddy movie as the mismatched pair lead an expedition into the Himalayas. It's better thought out than the first film, though the anti-Western message hits with all the subtlety of a flying mallet. It was a very well-done movie even though it was, in many ways, not my cup of tea. I gave it a reasonably high grade on that basis.

The last two weeks were much more along the lines of what I like -- American-made (admittedly, one was Canadian, but in this realm, that's largely the same) horror from the '70s and '80s. I saw The Brood some (ten?) years ago at an all-night horror festival. It's a deeply creepy story with mutant kids running amok. It really gets under the skin. And, surprisingly, it kind of all makes sense by the end. But my favorite of the session was The Thing, a remake of a 1951 classic. It tells the story of researchers in the Antarctic trying to survive with a shape-shifting space alien on the loose. That was really good stuff, and it allowed this session to end on a high note.

The Trailers:

The Werewolf and The Yeti (1976)

The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas (1957)

The Brood (1979)

The Thing (1982)

cinema history class: they're not horror films, but they may as well be

 For this session, Keith chose four movies that weren't technically horror films, but that may have been. These all told stories that were miserable, depressing, and/or scary. They were, effectively, horror-adjacent.

Reaction and Other Folderol
This may have been the best session Keith has ever put together. There's usually one movie that I doesn't really catch me. But this? Wow! I could easily have justified rating any or all of these a 10. And yet I likely would never have heard of any of these movies if Keith hadn't chosen them for us.

The movies were all very different from each other, both in subject matter and feel. But there are some elements they all share in common. All four films involve people caught up in a hellish nightmare scenario beyond their control. All four films are at that stage of being almost-epics; They have, in some ways, almost the feel of an epic, but don't quite get there. And, of course, all four build that edge-of your seat tension that can leave you breathless. Which, of course, is why Keith said they may as well be horror films.

The Music Lovers is a sort-of biopic of famed composer, Peter Tchaikovsky. It focuses on sexuality -- specifically his homosexuality and his unhappy marriage to asexual enthusiast. There's glorious music playing in counterpoint to the scenes of abject misery and no one escapes happy. I don't know how much of the presentation is established fact, how much is consensus, and how much is simply purely speculative fiction. And, honestly, I don't care.

Fraulein Doktor was also based (loosely, I presume) on true-life events. This one, a joint Italian/Yugoslavian production, was about the exploits of German spy, Elsbeth Schragmuller, during World War I. This was an excellent blending of spy thriller, war film and caper movie. Not a whole lot is known about Schragmuller, so a lot of the movie is necesarilly speculative. I will note that there were some breathtaking battlefront scenes, including horrifying visualizations of combat with mustard gas. The cathartic, tensive-reducing ending was perfect.

Sorcerer tells the story of four men trying to stay alive while driving trucks of nitroglycerine through the jungles of South America. The movie starts with four vignettes, each telling the backstory of one of the men. After that, it turns to their existence in South America before signing up for their dangerous mission. Throughout, there are great visuals, and tension. It is a little long, clocking in at two hours. But it never feels slow. There were times, especially midway through the film, that I had trouble following certain specifics, but ultimately that didn't matter.

Wake in Fright is an Australian production, telling the story of a seemingly mild-mannered teacher who, goes on vacation and finds himself stuck in an outback town (admittedly, he teaches in what seems to be too small and rural to be called an outback town) where life seems to center on beer and violence. So much of this movie portrayed events that were both inconsequential and fascinating. It was exciting and horrifying. I kept guessing at what would happen, and I kept being wrong, which was good.

In the end, I only rated one of these movies a ten, but the fact is that, had I been in a slightly different mood, I could have rated any or all of them as 10's. It's not the purpose of the class to just watch great movies -- Keith has shown us things like Snuff, Blood Freak and Russ Myers' Vixen!. But I have to acknowledge how greatb it is when a session involves four absolute gems -- especially when they're gems that I never would have heard of if not for the class.

Trailers

The Music Lovers

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Fraulein Doktor

Sorcerer

Wake In Fright