THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1946) d: Robert Siodmak. c: Dorothy McGuire, Ethel Barrymore, George Brent, Kent Smith, Rhoda Fleming, Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver. Effective psychological chiller about a mute caregiver (McGuire) in a small New England town in the early 1900s terrorized by a killer of young women with disabilities. The film’s dense atmosphere creates an almost nightmarish world, while also successfully blending elements of film-noir into the story’s more dominant gothic setting. It should be noted this is one of the first movies to use the “black-gloved killer” that would become so prominent in Italian slashers of the ’60s and ’70s. The cast is good – especially Barrymore as the invalid matriarch of an estate that could house the identity of the murderer – but Siodmak’s direction is often cold, creating a barrier between the audience and the characters and softening the impact. A film that was ahead of its time, but one can’t help wonder how the story could have benefited had Hitchcock or Val Lewton gotten their hands on the material. B
10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (2016) d: Dan Trachtenberg. c: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr. A white-knuckle thrill ride that works on multiple levels, this second film in the Cloverfield universe is perhaps the best sci-fi horror thriller in years. After surviving a car accident, a woman, Michelle (Windstead), wakes up in an underground bunker and is told by a strange man, Henry (Goodman), that some kind of attack has killed most of civilization in the surrounding areas. Things get worse when Michelle realizes Henry is not mentally stable, and the pressure rises as he makes life in the bunker difficult for her and another trapped survivor, Emmett (Gallagher Jr.). A simple premise is made rich thanks to a tight screenplay, which smartly places the audience in Michelle’s shoes and allows us to only know what she knows, which is mostly speculation from Henry. When surprising events unfold, they’re shocking and unpredictable. The claustrophobic environment of the bunker creates unease, especially when tension mounts between Henry and Michelle, creating some genuinely nail-biting moments. The characters are well-written and the chemistry between the actors feels organic and genuine. The surprise ending will leave you both on the edge of you seat and cheering. A
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986) d: Tobe Hooper. c: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow, Bill Moseley, Bill Johnson. 14 years after the events in the first film, former Texas Ranger, Enright (Hopper), is looking for the infamous Sawyer family, unaware they’re now owners of an award-winning food truck (“The secret’s in the meat!”) and living under an abandoned theme park. When small-time radio DJ, Stretch (Williams), records the chainsaw murder of a caller, she uses the tape to help Enright catch the Sawyers, with dire consequences. Taking everything that’s been (wrongly) criticized about his earlier films, Hooper spins a delicious send-up by throwing in everything that was missing from the original Massacre (outrageous gore) and turning up the camp value – Moseley’s Chop Top is essentially a cartoon version of the hitchhiker from the ’74 film, while Williams’s Stretch is Sally dialed up to 11. A fun and colorful example of ’80s horror excess. B+