SOUND OFF: Halloween 2011: Theatre Of The Damned

Since the spookiest and scariest of seasons is aggressively upon us, now is the perfect time to take a look at some selected clips from the most theatrical and horrifying of Halloween treats available to view on YouTube and beyond - especially these six specially-chosen, seriously spooktacular entities! While SILENCE OF THE LAMBS has recently given birth to some new mutton in the form of the Off-Broadway camp spoof musical SILENCE! starring Brent Barrett, there are some surprisingly effective and engrossing horror-themed musicals on our list, as well - REEFER MADNESS: THE MOVIE MUSICAL and THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW included - but, also, some theatrically-themed flights of fearsome fancy - such as Dario Argento's OPERA and Darren Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN. Also, we have a historic classic helmed by the director of two of the most beloved movie musicals of all time - WEST SIDE STORY and THE SOUND OF MUSIC - Oscar-winner Robert Wise and his original black and white horror-fest, THE HAUNTING - and a look at a modern-day master from the other side of the planet, Japan's Takashi Miike and his banned-from-American-broadcast gore-and-geisha-fest, IMPRINT. Julie Harris to Kristen Bell; Tim Curry to Alan Cumming; Ana Gasteyer to Natalie Portman - this Halloween countdown is definitely one that is all treats and no tricks! Well, maybe just one...

The Stuff

What makes horror truly horrifying? What jump-cuts really make you jump? What characterizations plumb the psyche and reveal the worst of humanity - and the worst of us all, in the process? Modern-day classics like John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, Tobe Hooper's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and Brian DePalma's CARRIE all take on the tried-and-true terror trope of following a group of highschoolers into the mouth of Hell - some escape unscathed (usually virgins) and are the wiser and better off for it (such as CARRIE's Sue Snell); some escape but are rendered shells of their former selves as a result of the horrors they have witnessed (HALLOWEEN's Laurie Strode); and, then, there are those who are much less lucky (pretty much everybody else in any of the above). Indeed - more than in any other genre - in any horror film, there are certain rules and requirements - dramatically, thematically, characterlogically and beyond - that horror fans enjoy seeing turned on their heads, and, all three of the examples cited managed to do so in a multitude of shocking ways when they first premiered. For more about the rules of scary movies, look no further than the excellent first two parts of the quadrilogy created by VAMPIRE DIARIES writer Kevin Williamson and horror film maven Wes Craven with their smash hits SCREAM and SCREAM 2 (the latter of which takes on the rules of sequels in its expansive stride). While this year's return to Woodsboro in the form of the tongue-in-cheek ten-year-reunion, SCREAM 4, had more than a customary scary movie's fair share of thrills, chills and unexpected kills, outside of the admittedly out-of-left-field twist-ending, it failed to generate the fiery heat and palpable passion for the genre exhibited in the first two ventures. And so it goes: sequels are, in many ways, the Achilles heel of the horror genre, because, no matter how good the intentions of the creators may be - or how poor, desperate and money-grubbing - a return to the unexpected usually leaves the audience anticipating all too much and enjoying all too little in spite of everyone's best efforts. The same goes for remakes - almost to the letter. In my opinion, Rob Zombie is one of only a tiny handful of twenty-first century filmmakers who has remade a horror classic (or semi-classic, in the case of the latter) in an inventive, innovative and surprising way - and he did it twice; first, with his grungy, trailer-trash take on HALLOWEEN, and, more recently, with his even filthier and more lowdown approximation of themes from the second HALLOWEEN, his being titlEd HallOWEEN II. Without question, I suppose your enjoyment of that sequel comes down to whether the white horse imagery knocks your socks off or not - and it did mine, so it worked well for me. As with all genre study, your use and appreciation may vary. This list attempts to combine classics with the contemporary, theatrical with the filmatic and solid entertainment that any (make that: many) can enjoy, mixed liberally with outright debauched depravity - like any Halloween entity worth its weight (in ashes; or burnt offerings) most certainly should.

So, now, with all of this copious - if cursory - background on horror being accounted for, these are the six horror films with a theatrical bent that I have personally found to be the most unusually intriguing of late and thus deem the must-see films for BroadwayWorld fans for Halloween 2011.

BLACK SWAN

Starting with the most recently released entry in our countdown, witness Natalie Portman in the Dostoyevsky's THE DOUBLE-inspired dual-lead roles - for which she expectedly and deservedly took home an Oscar for Best Actress earlier this year - in the gripping surrealistic thriller/chiller by REQUIEM FOR A DREAM directing genius Darren Aronofsky, BLACK SWAN. Has there been a mother/daughter relationship depicted onscreen this diabolically depraved since MOMMIE DEAREST - and, even, CARRIE - before it? Has a modern-day film managed to capture the breathless (literally) excitement of an opening night like the final twenty minutes (or final twenty seconds) of this acid nightmare does? Did you see the twist with Mila Kunis and the mirror(s) coming long before she met a piece of one in an all-too intimate manner (or, not at all)? BLACK SWAN is overflowing with so much shock - and, also, inspires so much awe. A masterpiece.

THE HAUNTING

Next, let's cast a glance at perhaps the most hallowEd Halloween film of the last fifty years - Robert Wise's claustrophobic and mysterious 1963 haunted house tale, THE HAUNTING. While this film has been remade a number of times - with two coming in the same year roughly a decade back - the ghostly atmosphere and perfectly-pitched performances in this gothic melodrama make it near-impossible to ever beat. This is one of those films that everyone claims to have seen but few seem to really know what it is all about, so if you fall into the former category - or if you've never seen it at all - now is certainly the time. Who could channel the confusion and relate the unknowingness of the character portrayed by Julie Harris such as she does here? Could Claire Bloom be more strange? The whole affair has an air of foreboding menace and high tension so thick that in order for it to make a mark it could only be cut with Michael Myers' kitchen knife. A classic ghost story for the ages - no matter what your age actually is.

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

With the first of two musicals on our horror hayride from Hell, we have the most successful independent film of all time which is also still shown in hundreds of movie theaters across the country on Saturday nights at midnight thirty years after its initial release - the one; the only; THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. If you've never seen it, stop reading and run out and do so this minute - especially since it has just been released - pristinely - on Blu-ray in a packed-to-the-rafters special edition (Note: Make sure to select the UK Version in order to see the awesome "Superheroes" musical finale). The Richard O'Brien songs are better than ever and the whole vibe is so utterly addictive as to be tantamount to illicit substances, yet, it is the performances by each and every one of the principals - many having come from the stage iteration of the show, such as Tim Curry and Meat Loaf - that make this not only one of the most unique and entertaining American horror films, but one of the finest movie musicals of all time, as well. So, whether for you it will be the very first time (virgin!), or, for the four thousandth - let's do the time warp again... dammit.

REEFER MADNESS: THE MOVIE MUSICAL

The second movie musical on our Halloween countdown is certainly lesser-known than ROCKY HORROR, but it succeeds just as well in what it sets out to do - if not even more so. Loosely a campy spoof of the original anti-marijuana propaganda film from the 1930s, REEFER MADNESS: THE MOVIE MUSICAL is a Technicolor(-ish), all-singing, all-dancing treatment of the property specifically produced by Showtime and YOU AGAIN director Andy Fickman mines every production number for its litany of similes, metaphors and subtleties, all the while whipping up an arresting witches' brew of Broadway-style razzmatazz - complete with, in one number, jazz hands in the form of zombies' limbs jutting up from the dirt below a haunted hash farm's grinning, living scarecrow. Broadway names like Ana Gasteyer, Amy Spanger, Steven Weber and Alan Cumming add so much delightfully bizarre and ingratiating character work to the proceedings - not even mentioning their seriously killer solo song-spots - that they almost manage to outshine the simply spectacular leads, expertly essayed by a pre-movie-fame Kristen Bell and original stage show (ideal) Jimmy, Christian Campbell. But, then, comes Jimmy and Mary and company's  "Mary Lane / Mary Jane" to give it classic status; the award-winning earworm written especially for the film that you will be humming many months - even years - after your viewing of this stupendous film - and Halloween itself - have long turned to dust. This - right here - is the stuff. Take a toke.

IMPRINT

Originally scheduled to air as part of the mid-00s Mick Garris series MASTERS OF HORROR, Japanese powerhouse director Takashi Miike apparently took his entry in the series far too far for cable standards, and, as a result, the unedited version of the film was released on DVD - and only on DVD. To say that this film goes too far is the understatement of this column. This film will enrage you. This film will repulse you. This film will haunt your dreams and nightmares. It may be too disgusting to take - but, you have to admit, it's all very, very theatrical. The whole tone of the piece is like a surreal geisha ghost story played out in extreme, nightmarish Kabuki theatre - except with the elegant indication of action inherent to that form of expression replaced by graphic, in-your-face, brutal violence and gore. This is a horror film for the real horror fans - and, it is not pretty. Actually, it is quite pretty in some depraved way in many of its most terrifying sections - and, perhaps, it is the beauty Miike finds in the most evil and nefarious aspects of humanity that make his films far more intellectually arresting than virtually any other so-called torture porn or shock horror director today. Plus, IMPRINT imparts a quite valuable lesson: never - I repeat, never - listen to the little voice inside your head (even if you have two).

Dario Argento's OPERA

The final and, perhaps, most obscure of the horror films on today's countdown comes from the Italian maestro of visually decadent horror himself, the one and only Dario Argento. While SUSPIRIA and DEEP RED shall forever remain his hallmarks, the later-career inventiveness in his camera work and overall contemporary gothic style of OPERA makes it strong enough to stand tall alongside those truly magnificent opuses in surreal terror. For any fan of opera or theatre, this film also provides a gripping and semi-realistic depiction of the behind-the-scenes goings-on at a company and how gruesome murder is never that far out of anyone's mind, whether or not they will readily admit it - especially when it comes to dueling divas. The scenes from Beethoven's opera of Shakespeare's MACBETH are thrillingly staged in a semi-modern dress, chromatic setting and the opening raven shot is revolutionary (as is the later raven sequence when they attack the audience itself). With a Heavy Dose of Alfred Hitchcock to make it go down smoothly, Dario Argento is the modern-day master of mood, set-pieces and integration of music into the thrills - and, additionally, Darren Aronofsky owes him a huge debt in his BLACK SWAN, as anyone who is familiar with Argento's work before seeing that film will be amply able to point out at the drop of a hat - or, make that, the drop of a feather.

Now, as a super-special bonus, here are the trailers for my personal favorite horror films of all-time - both co-written and directed by Dario Argento - SUSPIRIA and DEEP RED.

SUSPIRIA

DEEP RED

So, what horror films give you nightmares and convince you that you still need your night light? What horror film would you like to see follow in the steps of CARRIE and REEFER MADNESS and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS to become a musical - perhaps even a movie musical - someday soon? So many possibilities - and so many, many scares worth devouring and savoring!