2003 Open Water In 1998 real-life couple Tom and Eileen Lonergan were on a scuba diving expedition along the Great Barrier Reef when the group just plumb forgot about them and left them behind. "Thanks a bunch, guys!" In case you can't put two and two together, they be dead now. How did they die? That's the question filmmaker Chris Kentis sought to answer as horrifically as possible for this sleeper hit in which the cause of the doomed pair's demise is ... SHHAAAAAAAAAARKS! With only a half-million dollar budget, the makers used a creative solution to avoid mechanical or CGI sharks: actual sharks. Now that's keepin' it real. youtu.be/dWBRpZhk_vA
Zodiac 2007 David Fincher's masterpiece is based on a pair of true-crime books written by Robert Graysmith, who was a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle during the reign of the Zodiac Killer from 1968 to 1972. In the movie, Graysmith is portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal as a sweetly milquetoast wonk whose obsession with the case surpasses that of both the ace cop assigned to it and a reporter targeted by the cipher-happy serial killer. Although Fincher and his screenwriter James Vanderbilt spent 18 months investigating the material, their supposition of whacko Arthur Leigh Allen as most likely candidate is punctuated by a very loud "... ?" The open-endedness of it is not only honest, but also true to the nature of obsession the film explores. youtu.be/8dWgRfb17-M
The Exorcism of Emily Rose Most exorcist-related movies, including "The Exorcist," have claimed in one way or another to be based on fact, inspired by a true story, or overheard in a crowded lunchroom. For the well-marketed "Emily Rose," director Scott Derrickson and his cowriter Paul Boardman drew on the life of a German Catholic girl named Anneliese Michel, whose diagnosis of epilepsy was reinterpreted by her and two priests as full-on possession. She was given a rigorous four-hour exorcism session 67 times over 10 months before dying of starvation. Geez, maybe try Pilates next time? The Americanized film is based on the resulting trial, but the writers used terrifying audiotapes of the real exorcism to pitch it to studios. Because Religion thats why. youtu.be/lSy7DldFdUI
2005 Wolf Creek In this Australian torture porn, Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) is a kind of Crocodile Dundoom who finds three tourists having car problems and adds "killer trouble" to their itinerary. Mick is based on outback backpacker killer Ivan Milat, who was positively identified by "the one that got away." Jarratt went to great lengths to emulate Milat, including not showering for weeks. The film also borrows from the profile of another grisly murderer, Bradley John Murdoch. Though it takes facts piecemeal from several actual crimes, the film is a subversive twist on modern horror conventions in which a group of young folk get whittled down until, typically, one tough woman remains to confront the killer. That ain't what happens here. youtu.be/Cm8duRDsS8E
The Amytiville Horror 1979 "I just wish all those people hadn't died here. I mean, eww, doesn't that bother you?" And with that refrain begins a take on the ol' haunted house chestnut so potent it managed to spawn seven sequels, a remake and a "Simpsons" parody. The "Amityville" mini-industry would be nowhere, however, without Jay Anson's account of the Lutz family who, like the Lutzes in the film, bought a murderhouse in Long Island for $80,000 dollars (a steal!) and got plagued by flies, ghosts, creepy voices and other stuff not outlined in their mortgage application. The movie featured a still-youthful James Brolin. youtu.be/YOQadoeQims
Borderland This one is another new one and its by no means a masterpiece but the fact it's based off the sadistic real life killing of the Mexican Drug Lords makes it a favorite of mine.
The Mexican Cartels tapped a man to be their enforcer and he also had a satanic site and took to ritually killing hundreds of people and torturing them in all kinds of sadistic and disgusting ways. This story hit the news in a big kind of way when Mexican Authorities and DEA agents found a farm that was used by then leader of the 'cult' to torture, dismember and commit sadistic ritual killings.
The only good news is this killer wont be able to get you since he died in a massive hail of bullets at the hands of Mexican Special Police. Borderland is well shot, with a fascinating story that mixes a fair bit of fiction around a group of young adults who encounter the cult but also just enough real facts to make it a really creepy and entertaining tale.youtu.be/pd2KdO0HBtM
Henry Portrait of a Serial killer This movie is by no means one of my top films but I put it on this list for being very real in its style of film making and extremely gritty. It tells the story of two killers who worked in tandem to murder people.
The real life killer Henry Lee Lucas went on to confess to over 600 murders but it is widely believed those confessions were done for no other reason then to get him better privileges in jail.
As well while he was confessing the police flew him around the United States to participate in the investigations and he was treated like a celebrity. Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer is very dark and very surreal and a disturbing film based on a true story although it's still a mystery just how many people Henry Lee Lucas really did kill. youtu.be/IU3P6WXzvXU
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974 Ed Gein has got to be the most cinematically influential nutjob the world has known. This good ol' boy from Plainfield, Wisconsin, only actually murdered two people; but his proclivity to exhume bodies and make trinkets, masks, and furniture out of their bones and skin has seared him into the popular imagination via "Psycho," "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Texas Chain Saw Massacre." Director Tobe Hooper's use of documentary-style grainy camerawork makes this trip into Leatherface's parlor all the more unsettling, but this killer's no more based in reality than Freddy Kruger or Jason, despite the movie's claims. Influenced by Gein? No question. Real? No, thank God. youtu.be/Vs3981DoINw
This next movie is not one I recommend you watch, heck I wish I hadn't watched it, its terrible because its gruesome and violent and just plain heartbreaking, however whats most horrendous is its true, every last bit. The Girl Next Door tells the story of a girl who is kidnapped by her neighbor, tortured, raped and mutilated in the basement by the local neighborhood kids. Jack Ketchum's dark and disturbing movie is so surreal and violent that it actually made my stomach turn.
What is even scarier is when you look up the case files of the actual crime you will find that Jack Ketchum's telling of the tale was no stretch of imagination. The Girl Next Door is sadistic, disturbing and will have you locking your kids up if you have any. Without question one of the best real-horror movies I have seen in my entire life.
Worth noting their is another version of this film called An American Crime which stars Ellen Page but I for one think The Girl Next Door is not only a better film its also much more disturbing. An American Crime had a more well known cast but its not nearly as good as the film based on Jack Ketchum's book.youtu.be/nBEmRXeJ-C0
Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American drama-thriller film loosely based on the FBI investigation into the real-life murders of three civil rights workers in the U.S. state of Mississippi in 1964 white it seems like a pretty basic southern civil rights tale from the outside, this movie was really my first taste of the "it's so horrible because its real" According to the testimony of Colombo crime family contract killer Gregory S. Scarpa Jr., the cinematic version may have come closer to the truth than the official FBI story out of Washington, D.C. His story has been supported in several news accounts by unnamed FBI agents purported to have worked on the MIBURN case, as well as Scarpa's own FD-209 reports, which were released and made public after his death. Scarpa has said that his father, Gregory Scarpa Sr., capo of the Colombo crime family and Top Echelon FBI informant, offered his services in the case to his FBI handler, Anthony Villano. He made a three-day trip to Mississippi where, posing as a member of the national Ku Klux Klan himself, he and an FBI helper kidnapped a local appliance salesman and Ku Klux Klan member who was viewed by the FBI as a potential weak link in the case. They took the man to a remote location, tied him to a chair, and interrogated him. The first two times he told the story, the agent and Scarpa believed that the man was lying. On the third try, Scarpa pulled his gun on the suspect. "He said he took a gun and put it in the guy's mouth and said: For the last time, where are the bodies or I'll blow your head off", Gregory S. Scarpa Jr. testified. Events similar to Scarpa Jr.'s story are reenacted in the film. The KKK member finally confessed to the location of the bodies, Scarpa Jr. said. youtu.be/0IHmZoSvIXg
The real problem with these movies for me is not that they are Gorey, or have intense music and jump scares, what gets me is the callousness, cruelty, and violence that man perpetrates on his fellow man. What reduces me to tears is the fact that nothing ever changes, that as much as we would like to consider ourselves evolved beings with a conscious and an innate will to do good, we still promote ideologies which beget violence, mistreatment, abandonment and victimization of our fellow man. Perhaps I'm to sensitive, after all the news is filled with atrocities every day and even more going on that we know nothing about but isn't that after all what Halloween is all about? Thumbing our nose at death, while we prepare for the long dark and deadly winter to come trying vainly to forget just how fragile and fucked we really are.
This is why the movie pick of the day is Mommie Dearest is a 1981 biographical drama film about Joan Crawford, starring Faye Dunaway. It depicts the abusive and traumatic adoptive upbringing of Christina Crawford at the hands of her mother...screen queen Joan Crawford. NO MORE WIRE HANGERS EVER! youtu.be/upc8wWI6F7Y
Pin up for today is Mommie Dearest herself Joan Crawford.
No comments:
Post a Comment