A double dose of the devil from the year of my birth

The first movies I've rewatched in ages whose release year didn't start with "201" were actually released in the year I was born.

On Saturday night, I had planned to actually watch a different movie from the year of my birth and then a movie from the 1990s, but I had to adapt on the fly and ended up with quite the spontaneous double feature.

Jesus Christ Superstar from my own collection was supposed to be that movie from the year of my birth, 1973. But we've been having problems with our DVD player lately and it just wouldn't play. I got the little red Ghostbusters symbol when I pushed the play button on the face of the player. The ability to remotely control this device from its native remote control, a different smart remote control or an app on my phone is part of its myriad problems and has long since gone by the wayside.

So I had to pivot to what ended up being another movie from 1973, The Wicker Man. This was only a coincidence, as the way I found it was not thinking "What's another good movie from 1973?" but rather looking at the stack of movies I just borrowed from the library on Friday. (Incidentally, one of my favorite moments from the new viewing year is when you go to the library and load up on titles without worrying about whether they help you form some kind of list or not.) The Wicker Man was actually the only movie in that group that I had already seen -- once, about four years ago -- so it helped scratch the itch of rewatching something rather than watching something new. That it would keep the groovy vibes of 1973, which I had intended to produce via Jesus Christ Superstar, was an added bonus.

You might have expected me to run into a similar wall as I had with JCS, since both were DVDs, but my player would play this one. Who knows. Maybe the issue was that JCS originated in the U.S. while this one was an Australian DVD, but it shouldn't matter since our player is region-free. Anyway.

The second movie was going to be The Cable Guy, just because. But once I'd gotten to the end of The Wicker Man, I tried JCS again to see if the successful playing of The Wicker Man had somehow resolved the player's stubbornness about JCS. It had not. But having made this attempt, I realized it would be nice to keep going with the early 1970s vibe I was working on, and having to pivot again from JCS allowed me to keep the horror vibe going as well.

I'm not sure if it was the release year itself that was more responsible for the pivot I chose, or the fact that I've been trying to get this movie on my viewing schedule for the first time in two decades, but I ended up finding The Exorcist streaming on Netflix, remembering correctly that I'd seen it there. It was kind of a shame not to watch this in October, as I did the last time I saw it (Halloween of 1999, in the theater no less), but I didn't want to wait another nine months to watch it when I could watch it right now.

It may not be totally accurate to call these both "devil movies," as the paganism of the citizens of Summerisle sets itself up in opposition to Christianity in a way that does not specifically align itself with the devil. An outsider might (and does) characterize them as devil worshippers, but they would not see themselves that way. But they were definitely both 1973 horrors, which made me realize what a great year for horror that was. There may not be any other examples (I'd have to look), but I reckon truly chilling horror movies that endure for decades don't come along very often. You're lucky to get one per year let alone two.

I also noted that the films would make a great double feature for Ari Aster to show anyone who wanted to understand his influences. The impact of The Wicker Man on Midsommar is obvious to the point of hitting you between the eyes, and this viewing was particularly instructive for me in light of seeing the latter film twice within the past six months. You wouldn't call Midsommar a remake of The Wicker Man, but it has enough elements in common that The Wicker Man is certainly the first film you'd name if you were trying to find a film most similar to Midsommar. It warrants no additional examination here.

The influence of The Exorcist on Hereditary might not be quite as evident, but it's plain as day as soon as you unpack it. Both films deal with the incursion of the devil into an innocent host, and this innocent host is actually a young girl (a 12-year-old girl?) in both instances. (Nope, Charlie is 13 in Hereditary -- totally different.) Hereditary's Gabrielle Byrne even looks a bit like Jason Miller's Father Karras, plus Toni Colette and Ellen Burstyn both give tour-de-force performances of grief.

But the thing that really interests me is the way the physicality of devil possession in The Exorcist influenced countless future horror filmmakers, Aster in particular. Regan McNeill is of course famous for the way her head can spin all the way around and the way her body can contort -- not only the writing of "help me" in her stomach and the way her body folds up at 90 degree angles to the bed, but, in a director's cut that I did not see on Saturday, the way she crawls down the stairs, crab-like, her stomach pointing toward the ceiling. That same sensibility appears in Hereditary when [a character] (might as well not spoil it) is seen clinging to the underside of the attic door, repeatedly banging his/her head against the door in a rapid motion no human being could produce.

I've probably taken up enough of your time but I'll end with a few assorted observations from my viewings of these two films.

- Brit Ekland's seductive Wicker Man nude dance remains a terrific moment of 1970s glory, as does the use of the song "Corn Rigs." In fact, I wondered as I was watching whether this movie was nearly as good when it came out as it is now. Its ability to capture a specific place and time is one of its charms, and in 1973, it would have just been a contemporary movie.

- I love the moment when Edward Woodward's character is searching houses for the missing Rowan Morrison, and what appears to be the body of a young girl falls out of a wardrobe. She seems perfectly corpse-like when she hits the ground. But then she kind of rolls her eye up toward him and grins, to indicate it's all been a joke. It's a neat acting trick and it's creepy as hell.

- The strength of Woodward's religious fervor at the end is something to behold, especially when contrasted with the similar level of fervor displayed by Lord Summerisle and his followers. It's an interesting potential bit of commentary by Robin Hardy. Who is the real wacko here?

- I'm not sure if this was the first use of animal masks in a horror movie -- probably not -- but it's incredibly chilling.

- I love the final shot of The Wicker Man, as the camera travels past the burning head of the wicker man to the setting sun, which goes behind the clouds in the time it takes for the credits to roll. That could not have been easy to pull off.

- I love the Northern Iraq prelude in The Exorcist. It doesn't at first seem like it has anything to do with the rest of the movie, but it sets the tone, which is particularly interesting as it all occurs in the daylight.

- I can't believe that Max Von Sydow, who is still around at 90 years old, was playing old in a movie that came out 46 years ago. He was only 44 in this movie and yet he has to take pills to control some kind of palsy in his hands. Also, the other priests in Washington openly wonder if he is too old to perform an exorcism. Now granted, they used makeup to make him look older, but there's no way Von Sydow looks two years younger than I am now. Maybe I'm baby-faced but it was a bit shocking to consider. It made me think of how young Ian McDiarmid actually was when he played old as the emperor in Return of the Jedi, a fact I feel like I discuss on a regular basis because I'm just so impressed by it. Which is funny because Von Sydow also appears in a Star Wars movie, very briefly, playing old when he was actually old in The Force Awakens. When you consider that The Wicker Man's Christopher Lee also has an extensive Star Wars history from the prequel trilogy, that is quite the set of coincidences indeed.

- I still think possibly the single most disturbing moment is when Regan comes downstairs during her mother's party and looks blankly at the guests, saying "You're going to die out there" and urinating on the floor. I'm getting goosebumps just typing it.

- I continue to remain impressed at how raw they allow things to get in terms of Regan's language and actions, as she drops a bunch of f-bombs and appears to stab herself in her own vagina with a crucifix. This was not your father's horror movie.

- I love the editing in this film, as William Friedkin (or really, his editors, Evan Lottman and Norman Gray) have no trouble smash-cutting out of a seemingly important moment and into the next scene. I refer specifically to Father Karras sitting with the other priest in the diner (I believe it is) and saying "I've lost my faith." Most films would allow a moment for the other priest to react and try to convince him that this is too rash of a stance. Instead, by cutting immediately to the next scene, it leaves no doubt about the fact that this is a true statement and he really means it. Which makes his steady recovery of his faith over the course of the rest of the narrative all the more powerful to behold.

Okay, fast forward again to present day, and onward.

Which is Witch?

I’m usually pretty good at keeping different movie personalities straight, whether in front of the camera or behind.

But the confluence of three new(ish) young(ish) white men breaking through as horror directors in the past five years has thrown me for a loop a bit.

Those three men are Robert Eggers, Ari Aster and David Robert Mitchell, and the similarity may all be in my head. But bear with me.

The three came into our sphere of awareness in different years, but the fact that they’ve all had their follow-up to their breakout movie in the same year – this year – has kind of cemented their similarity in my head. Even though at least one of their follow-ups is not a horror movie. (Unsure about the third director’s follow-up as I haven’t seen it yet.)

Chronologically, the first to come on the scene was Mitchell, both in terms of his earlier films and also his breakout film. He’s also the oldest (45) and the one whose name I tend to forget because all three of his names are fairly indistinct in terms of the larger continuum of whitebread American names.

Mitchell grabbed our attention in 2014 with It Follows, which was the unlikely follow-up to a movie I still haven’t seen (but probably should), 2010’s The Myth of the American Sleepover. Suffice it to say that that one’s not a horror movie. Despite its flaws, It Follows really whetted our appetite for what Mitchell could do, and would do next.

Well, what he did next undoubtedly demonstrated a command of the language of cinema, but it was not a horror movie. Appropriately, it was also the first of the three follow-ups to come out this year, Under the Silver Lake. I admire that movie but boy is it tedious at times. I’m not sure how possible it is to like it, but it does present us a visual stylist at the top of his craft.

Next up was Eggers in 2015 with The Witch, or The VVitch, or however you want to write it. Although the subject matter is not at all similar to that of It Follows, I began to think of them in the same boat because they both represented new creative voices giving us something clearly outside of the standard way horror movies were being made by studios. And like It Follows, The Witch had significant flaws for a viewer to contend with, which similarly didn’t detract from the sense of being in the hands of a cinematic visionary. Eggers is also middle in age at 36, by the way.

Eggers’ follow-up to The Witch is the last of the three to be released, just this past week, which destroys a little of the nice chronological symmetry we had going. That’s The Lighthouse, the only one of the six films mentioned here that I have yet to see. Though I’m champing at the bit. It looks even weirder (in a good way, of course) than The Witch. I can’t find an Australian release date yet for that.

Then you have the prolific young prodigy, Ari Aster, who is only 33 and yet has now had buzzworthy horror opuses released in back to back years. Given the scope of the films he makes, it seems hard to believe that it was only last year that Hereditary came out. He followed it up this year with Midsommar, beating Eggers to the theater by a couple months. Both of Aster’s films can fairly be described as great, and both also have pronounced flaws. I see a pattern here.

I don’t actually have trouble remembering which guy directed which movie, though I do sometimes need to remind myself that it was Mitchell who started out with The Myth of the American Sleepover and not Eggers. If I’d seen that movie I’d probably recognize it as a lot more similar to the aesthetic of It Follows than The Witch, but I haven’t yet.

The point of this post is not really that I confuse them, but more, that we are living through an exciting period in which new horror names are regular presenting themselves as more than just any other studio hack. They’re coming with enough frequency that the possibility exists to confuse them. If we abandon my premise that I'm confusing them for one another, you could also mention Jennifer Kent, who has a similar career trajectory to date, having knocked our socks off in 2014 with The Babadook and then followed that up this year with The Nightingale – which could be characterized as a similar type of historical horror to the ones Eggers prefers. Then of course you’ve got Jordan Peele, who can’t be confused for the others in terms of his racial identity, but who has also had his sophomore horror film Us come out this year, following on the heels of 2017’s Get Out. He might be most similar in execution and aesthetic to Aster.

It is a rich time for horror indeed.

But it could be another white man who has me most excited, though we’ll have to wait until next year for his next. That’s Osgood Perkins, and a weekend rewatch of The Blackcoat’s Daughter – which has a release year of anywhere from 2015 to 2017 depending on festival/theatrical release – reminded me why I ranked it as my #3 movie of 2017. He’s also a bit different from the others as he had two movies come out practically on top of each other, the other being I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. That one kind of went in one ear and out the other for me, but considering that I saw it before Blackcoat mesmerized me, I should probably watch it again. Perkins has Gretel & Hansel coming out in 2020, and I’m really excited for it.

Who are your favorite horror visionaries to come on the scene in the past five years?

The masterpiece tease

Ari Aster is a tease.

In parts of Hereditary (which I’ve seen twice) and Midsommar (which I just saw for the first time on Wednesday), he announces himself as a new master of horror, a stylist capable of a true masterpiece.

But it’s all just a tease. In fact, Aster’s in danger of becoming a one trick pony, a horror Guy Ritchie, because his two films contain almost the exact same strengths and weaknesses, echoing each other in both plot and structure.

The strengths are magnificent. Like, truly jaw-dropping.

But the weaknesses …

First let me say that the first half of Midsommar is my favorite movie of the year. I won’t spoil anything substantive, even the thing that happens so early that most people are probably including it when they write plot synopses. (I’m not reviewing it so I don’t have to struggle with that particular dilemma.) The way that opening thing is handled is brilliant and haunting, and the movie’s greatness continues pretty much through to [that scene where those two people do that thing, you know what I’m talking about – the 72-year-olds]. The shot over the car that goes upside down is probably my favorite single cinematic moment so far this year.

But then …

Aster doesn’t know how to provide a satisfying ending to his movies, but it’s not because they are not endings. They don’t just stop in the middle of a scene, the kind of thing we saw in Martha Marcy May Marlene. They have a certain completeness to them, and yet they are not satisfying.

Part of the problem is that he goes on too long. Both of these movies are probably 20 minutes longer than they should be, than they need to be. And those 20 minutes are crucial in losing what has made the previous 90+ minutes so distinct and so disturbing, turning them instead into something unintentionally comic. And I do really believe it’s unintentional, though whether that’s better or worse I don’t know.

The thing Aster truly has mastery of is grief. In both films he captures the absolute soul-wrenching horror of trauma through the performances of his female leads, Toni Collette and Frances Pugh. (Pugh, by the way, is fast becoming one of my favorite actresses … she has a kind of empathy that’s disarming, and is appropriate for the themes of this film.) The traumas portrayed truly are awful, and the reactions to them are pitch perfect. Aster somehow makes you scared at the intensity of a person’s grief. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that in a movie before, and yet I’ve seen it in both of Aster’s movies.

He explores the byproducts of that grief expertly. The schisms in a family. The recriminations. The depression. The way guilt and depression actually make you apologetic to the people who should be apologizing to you. The fragility of not knowing what you might lose next, who might leave you next. It’s all in there and it’s all true.

Aster (correctly) realizes he needs to include actual genre horror elements in the films as well, blood and guts and jump scares (a few) and moments of slow dread. They are horror movies, after all. But he gets everything just right in those until he opens the bag of tricks too far and too many thing spill out. Most of those extra things spill out in the last 20 minutes of the film that should never have been.

When I reviewed Hereditary I concluded by saying “[Aster] should be delivering plenty of other films that stick in our consciousness as he blossoms and matures.” I guess one year is too soon to say he’s done that yet. But I kind of wish he could have made Midsommar when he’d already gotten there. So much of Midsommar speaks to a particular part of my cinephile lizard brain that it leaves me with an inevitable sense of what it could have truly been, and therefore, a sense of disappointment. A four-star disappointment, but a disappointment nonetheless.

Ari Aster will stop teasing us, one day, I think. I just hope he hasn’t used up all his best ideas before he gets there.