Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the next installment of A Movie A Day: Halloween 2010 edition!
[For the entirety of October I will be showcasing one horror film each day. Every film is pulled from my DVD shelf or streamed via Netflix Instant and will be one I haven’t seen. Unlike my 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 seem to be on a run of middle of the road movies now. I know many of you have pointed out that there aren’t many A-list titles this AMAD and that’s true. The whole conceit of the column is that I watch something I’ve never seen before, the kernel idea being a way for me to expand my film education.
So, being a horror fan (and one that has spent the last 13 years frequenting an establishment as horror friendly as The Alamo Drafthouse) I’ve unearthed much horror, especially the super fun horror of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
There’s so much horror out there that there’s still some gems to be found, but also a lot of misfires to wade through as well. That’s exactly what I’m doing right now, searching for the gems… I’m just making you guys read about the misfires, too.
The Mephisto Waltz isn’t exactly a misfire, it’s just a flawed film. The flick starts out great, it ends great, but the time in the middle llllassssttttsss fooooorrrreeevvvveeeerrrrrrrr.
One thing the film gets just right is the cast. Our two leads are the very young Alan Alda and Jacqueline Bisset as a happily married couple. Having attempted being a concert pianist Alda is now resigned to being a music journalist. When a call from a famous reclusive pianist comes in, Alda jumps at the chance to interview him.
This begins a friendship where the older Duncan Ely (Curt Jurgens) seems unusually interested in Alda and his family.
Bisset is weirded out by the sudden interest and they smartly make her a little bit of a bitch at the beginning of the movie to mask her suspicion. I mean, she’s very sweet with her husband, but isn’t exactly supportive, taking a little more than playful jabs at him when he starts playing the piano again, prompted by his new rich and powerful friend.
Normally that kind of behavior really alienates me from a character, but Bisset was not only forgiven-for-anything beautiful, but she shows just enough sweetness to make up for the sour.
Plus I know in a movie called The Mephisto Waltz you can’t trust the old rich people because they probably worship Satan.
And worship Satan they do.
The first glimpse at how fucked up this group really is happens during the New Year’s Eve party. You want to know what the first image we see of this party is? A dog with an eerily accurate and realistic human head mask walking around. This prompted a “Oh, fuck that!” from me. Be it Invasion of the Body Snatchers or A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, dogs with human faces can rot in hell, where they undoubtedly were conceived.
This party also turns into a weird orgy. Bisset is horrified to see Old Man Ely making out with his also incredibly hot daughter, played by Barbara Perkins.
You can probably guess what’s up… a famous pianist is old, sickly, worships the cloven-footed one and is grooming a young man who also has a lot of talent at the ol’ ivories. Guess what the big plan is?
Did you guess that he wants to rip out Alda’s soul and inhabit his young body? Good, so did I.
A nice thing about the movie is that the Satanists know what they’re doing and aren’t foiled at the last second. About halfway through Alda is taken over and it becomes more of a suspense film as we know that Bisset’s husband is really gone and she’s being intimate with the creepy old dude from the beginning of the movie.
The brakes aren’t really put on until a secondary storyline involving a semi-affair Bisset has with the ex-husband of Barbara Perkins’ character that really only serves as a vehicle for delivering a bunch of Satanic cult exposition. It takes up way too much screen time and just falls flat.
But the finale is great and goes into an area I didn’t expect. I won’t be a dick and spoil it, but it’s something I’ve always wondered why more movies don’t take advantage of as a story avenue. You’d never see an ending like this today in a studio horror film, not even close.
Another memorable aspect to this film is Jerry Goldsmith’s score that I originally thought was too much upon first hearing the squealing, frantic strings, but grew to appreciate more and more as the film continued on. It’s creepy, it’s unpredictable… it’s not as hauntingly beautiful as his Poltergeist score, as immediately hummable as his Gremlins score, not as instantly iconic as his score for The Omen, but it’s a striking score that perfectly sets the tone of the movie.
In fact it reminded me quite a bit of what Danny Elfman did in Sam Raimi’s THE GIFT, especially during that crazy vision scene where Elfman himself makes his cameo as the fiddle player.
Final Thoughts: If the filmmakers could have cut 25 minutes out of the movie it’d be much better known. All the pieces are there, the whole is just a little too sloppy. But hey, you get dog with human head, incest, dead children, some really nice nightmare sequences, prime Jacqueline Bisset nudity and a fine finale, so it’s not all bad news.
Currently in print on DVD: YES
Currently available on Netflix Instant: NO
Upcoming A Movie A Day Titles:
Tuesday, October 26th: THE OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT (1981)
Wednesday, October 27th: THE EVIL (1977)
Thursday, October 28th: THE DEVIL DOLL (1936)
Friday, October 29th: DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (1981)
Saturday, October 30th: SCARECROWS (1988)
Sunday, October 31st: RAZORBACK (1984)
Keeping with the devil theme we dive in to Omen III: The Final Conflict tomorrow. I’m one of the few people who really digs Omen II and I have a man-crush on Sam Neill, so this can only be a win-win, right?
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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