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A Movie A Day: MACABRE (1980) + THE BEYOND (1981) If that’s not the lobe of a human ear, then tell me what it is!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the newest October special horror run of A Movie A Day!
[For the entirety of October I will be showcasing one horror film each day. Every film is pulled from my DVD shelf, recorded on the home DVR or streamed via Instant Netflix and will be one I haven’t seen. Unlike my usual A Movie A Day or A Movie A Week columns there won’t necessarily be connectors between each film, but you’ll more than likely see patterns emerge day to day.]
I’m afraid I’m going to spoil this movie something fierce. I usually try to avoid getting into end-of-the-movie spoilers in these reviews, but with Lamberto Bava’s MACABRE I can’t help myself. Almost everything I want to talk about happens in the last 20 minutes of the movie.
In the interest of fairness for those who might not want to be spoiled, I’ll give a short, sweet spoiler-free review before diving headfirst into spoiler territory (marked by a big, red SPOILER tag).
Supposedly based on a true story we have the story of a middle aged woman (Bernice Stegers) who has a bit of a breakdown when in one afternoon her 5 year old son and bohunk mustached affair die. Set in New Orleans, this woman ends up moving into the same boarding house her ex-lover used to live in after being released from a nuthouse. Her husband has their creepy little daughter (Veronica Zinny) and Stegers spends most of her time flirting with the blind manager only to leave him worked up while she goes to bed, masturbating furiously and with great noise.
The flick is a slow build that pays off in a couple creepy reveals. However, like most Italian-made horror of this era the actors are all dubbed (although clearly speaking English) and, in this case, with the most amazing horrible southern accents imaginable. It’s like Lamberto Bava assigned a team that watched GONE WITH THE WIND and decided that was close enough to what all Southern accents must be like and then tried to recreate it with deaf people speaking the lines.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but the accents are horrible.
The spoiler-free overall view is that the film is slow, but if you love ‘70s and early ‘80s Lamberto Bava or Lucio Fulci, this film might be a little too slow and without enough good kills to live up to the best of their films, but it shares a similar tone. I don’t know if it’s the film stock of the time or just the Italian horror sensibility (or both), but Macabre fits the tone of those films, the visual signature that’s unique to movies like CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and THE BEYOND.
Okay, enough of playing it safe.
SPOILERS BELOW!
Let’s let it all hang out, shall we? So, we start off the movie knowing the little girl is bad news. You can’t get more evil than drowning your own little brother in a bathtub because you don’t like that your mom went off to fuck some dude instead of taking you to a movie.
What’s really interesting to me about this movie is in the last act when the mother and the daughter seem to be trying to out-crazy each other with the poor blind landlord (Stanko Molnar… what an awesome name, right?) caught in the middle.
The little girl is trying to drive her mom crazy by placing trinkets around her room, like framed photos of her now dead son. Little does she know her mom is already fucking bugnuts.
When Stegers first checks into her room she spends every night noisily flicking the bean and we come to find out she’s not exactly alone… Even though her lover was decapitated in a car accident she still carries a piece of him. Literally. No, it’s not that piece, but I like where your mind is at you little pervs. That would have been pretty amazing.
No, she has his head, which she keeps locked in the freezer when she’s not making out with it and double-clicking her mouse.
How could I dislike a movie that has all that going on? So, despite the horrible dubbing and slow pace I have to give this one a recommend. That comes with strings, of course… You have to like crazy cinema and be willing to stick through some slow going to get to the good stuff. If you like Italian exploitation of this era then that’s not too hard as your nostalgia sweet-spot will be tickled by the look and feel of the movie. If you don’t, however, I can imagine it’d be a chore to get through the movie. Your call.
My recommendation this week I’ve already mentioned above. I mean… let’s look at a checklist. What other Italian horror film is set in New Orleans and has a blind person in it? Oh, I know!
Lucio Fulci is a favorite of mine. I love Dario Argento, of this time especially, and consider him a better filmmaker than Fulci, but you know what? Fulci swung for the fences every goddamn time and always made entertainment the priority.
There’s a good chance you might have been exposed to this movie via Quentin Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder Pictures releasing which saw the theatrical restoration and release of indie and cult films, the last of which was Fulci’s The Beyond. God, I wish Tarantino could still be picking and releasing these cult movies to get big-screen play again.
That was my first exposure to Fulci back in ’98 when Tarantino premiered this newly struck print at his QT Fest here in Austin.
I will say upfront that this isn’t my favorite Fulci. That award goes to CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD for sheer gut-puking awesomeness. But in many ways THE BEYOND is a better movie. It’s less schlocky, that’s for sure, and goes for a more disturbing tone.
The concept of the movie is that a young woman inherits an old building in New Orleans and moves in only to discover that it rests atop one of the seven doors of Hell. Naturally, sharing a wall with Satan has its downsides and as the film goes on Hell’s influence over this world gets stronger.
What’s great about this movie is the slow-burn as the evil slowly gets a foothold into our reality leading to a moment when all the streets are deserted and the undead rule the city.
Everything’s at work here from direction to acting to cinematography. The dubbing is a little wonky as usual, but you’re so freaked out the whole time you won’t really care.
And the ending is bleak, bleak, bleak. The limbo land between our world and hell is a place I don’t want to end up, let’s just say that.
Super cool flick. Make sure to check it out if you haven’t yet.
Here are the next week’s worth of AMAD titles:
Saturday, October 10th: PRIVATE PARTS (1972)
Sunday, October 11th: ROAD GAMES (1981)
Monday, October 12th: DEAD END DRIVE-IN (1986)
Tuesday, October 13th: PSYCHIC KILLER (1975)
Wednesday, October 14th: THE BODY SNATCHER (1945)
Thursday, October 15th: THE LEOPARD MAN (1943)
Friday, October 16th: WOLFEN (1981)
You may have noticed this column is a bit late. My body clock is all kinds of messed up since returning from Ireland. I woke up late yesterday afternoon and haven’t slept since. I’ll be caught up by the end of the weekend, promise.
Tomorrow we dive into some ‘70s weirdness! See you folks for that!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
AMAD Halloween Spectacular 2009:
October 1st: Nothing But The Night (& The Wicker Man)
October 2nd: Beware! Children At Play (& The Devil Times Five)
October 3rd: Cameron’s Closet (& Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood)
October 4th: Afraid of the Dark (& The Lady In White)
October 5th: The Pit (& The Gate)
October 6th: Brain Damage (& Basket Case)
October 7th: Brain Dead (& Braindead, aka Dead Alive)
October 8th: Visiting Hours (& Dressed To Kill)
Click here for the full 215 movie run of A Movie A Day!
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But that movie sounds balls-out CRAZY! Gotta go look for it today.
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god bless Fulci
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..especially THE BEYOND! God I love that confused mess.
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rather than a visual stimulation of your optic sensors.its about imaginary,not characters and plots.Hellraiser has been influenced from this movie,and really whats the last time u watched in a horror movie,hellspawn spiders eating the face of a crippled alive man? thats the visual horror in its true form.
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...we reviewed it a while back - http://www.dvdactive.com/reviews/dvd/macabre.html - Cheers! K & N
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Damned alcohol!
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Nice poster, http://sickpicks.blogspot.com/
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English isn't your native language is it? Please accept my apology for previous writing criticism if this is so.
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Knock it off awready ya drunk pimp!
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yep,apologies accepted
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i want to know since i am always trying to improve my english.
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I think Albert Finney was a little drunk or stoned throughout the whole picture. He kind of shambles through it, but I kind of love it for that. And you'll notice how Horner steals entire sections of the score to be used again in Aliens.
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.. speaking of hellish gateways, I must have been in a bizarre alternate dimension myself last night because EVIL DEAD 2 was shown on TCM of all places!!! Followed by a so-so Tigon flick called HORROR HOUSE with Frankie Avalon and a couple of 60's Brit babes.... but they more than made up for that mediocre movie by showing 2 AIP Vincent Price flicks after that! I wish every month was freakin' October!
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b-movie Vampiros Lesbos.
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The intro, especially, is among Fulci's most restrained, but effective, works. Atmospheric, unexpected, and scary as hell. Once the movie gets going it has a few awkward moments (Spiders = scary. Rubber spiders wobbling side to side = not so scary) but it stays alive because of Fulci's unexpectedly strong sense of atmosphere, and that ending. Wow. Bold and well executed, and unlike many horror flicks with unexpected endings, it actually fits into the plot without being an obvious twist. Guess I'll have to see MACABRE now.
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the new limited edition looks nice though....
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Limited-Tin-Al-Cliver/dp/6305972079
very much a fitting image of the dreamlike tone. Doesn't it suck that you have to shell out the cash for some fancy edition if you want to get even passable cover art? -
You want us to knock it off? As pimps, we have to say "That'll cost you another $20, my man!"
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I will always pick Fulci over Argento. Argento gets too bland, Fulci is more hamfisted but more entertaining.
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Here's my edit of the post that clued me into your not being a native English speaker: It's not so much of a visual stimulation of your optic sensors, it's about imagination, not character development and plot. Hellraiser was influenced by this movie, and really, when's the last time you saw hellspawn spiders eating the face of a living, albeit paralyzed man in a horror movie? That, is visual horror in its true form.
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poor shmuck tried to sue peopleofwalmart.com yet?
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"... just to drive to my babay..." $20 ? TOOO MUCH. Carry on my dear pimps, carry on, no arbitrators to worry about here...
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so funny
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Honestly. I was drawn in by the tragedy early in the film, but the frickin sick build up to the end was enthralling! The accents were terrible...this one sucked me right in regardless. The last scene MAKES this film... "Based on a true story" lol.
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but I'm suprised they get away with it lol. Some of the mutants in those pics.
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FUCK YOUR HAM HEADS!
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and I think I bought it for a whopping $7 at Best Buy back in the day (I don't think they really knew what it was or how much awesome they were giving away for a measly $7). The tin came with the movie (of course) and I believe seven different lobby card inserts (everybody remembers when DVDs used to actually come with those, right?). Stuff like The Beyond or The Sentinel are great finds for the budding Horror junkie, especially for a person that takes the pursuit of unseen films to heart like I do. I love how The Beyond starts off in WTF territory and then proceeds, throughout the duration of the film, to constantly (and exponentially) increase that level of WTF-ness. It is like literally watching a nightmare unfold. I love it and it's great for parties because there's almost always something going on that makes people pause and look at the screen.
I've never seen Macabre but I plan to remedy that, but The Beyond is a solid recommendation for anyone that is looking for something twisted, unnerving, and just plain scary for Halloween. -
I think if I had a DVR-TIVO device that I would use up a good portion of that device's memory with things shown on TCM. I don't know of another tv station with better programming 24-7.
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That while I love BEYOND, HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY, and DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, I find ZOMBI to be incredibly dull. No atmosphere at all, just a few good gore moments (although its very very end does redeem it a little). Pity that's what he'll always be known for.
Soylent -- rock that tin, baby. May your story inspire many an aspiring horror nerd. -
AICN already had a fucking story about LEGION. They showed that exact same photo in their story as well.
AICN isn't the best site, and I find a lot of flaws in it, but to fucking just create shit to bitch about... -
do The Beyond.
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People with real deformities were used. Creepy, man. Just creepy.
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45 minutes into this and I'm fighting to stay awake
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I made it a solid 11 days into your october-fest- but I gotta stop lol. I am behind and cannot keep up via netflix!
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but I sure wish it was!
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it does suck and is boring. but it's the kindo of sucky boring that i have a soft spot for and that maybe nostalgiacs are weakened by. same with movies like 'god told me to' and aforementioned 'evil dead 2' - terrible, but fantastic in their own way. context and relative merits do a lot when considering these types of films. when you take into account the puny budgets and challenging FX shots, and everything else the directors were up against, they are formiddable achievements that, let's face it, we'd be worse off without.
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I have never seen a Lucio Fulci movie. Any of you geeks would be kind enough to advise me on which fulci movie i should start with, consideng i'm totally ignorant about the man's work?
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With Fulci, there are two obvious choices. ZOMBI 2 (aka ZOMBIE, ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS, ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD and ZOMBI -- yes, they're all the same film, and it's not a sequel to anything but rather an attempt to look like a sequel to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD). That's probably his most famous, and most indicative of his crazy over-the-top gore which he became known for. Its a little lacking in atmosphere and plot, though, but filled with great inventive and transgressive gore moments.
The second is HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY (aka Zombie Hell House), which is a bit slower but features both a more typical Fulci atmosphere of dread AND some great gore effects and general craziness. It's pretty great. The BEYOND is less typical Fulci because its not as heavy on the over-the-top gore and zombie stuff, but its his best, IMHO. You could also try NEW YORK RIPPER if you are in the mood for something thoroughly gruesome and really unpleasant. Those are the best to start you off and give you and idea what the man is about before you dip into older or less essential stuff like DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN, or CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD. -
would be my choice asimovlives, i think it a bit more conventional if i remember correctly, but still fairly creative with the gore. don't expect y'know the tarkovsky of horror or anything.
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