THE IRISH FILM INSTITUTE HORRORTHON 2015: THE MOST FUN YOU CAN HAVE IN A TIP-UP CHAIR...!!! BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
As this was to be my first proper,
full-on Horrorthon at the Irish Film Institute on Eustace Street in Dublin, I'd been looking
forward to this annual event for some time. Of the thirty-five or so
cinematic treats on offer over the five days (22nd-26th
Oct., 2015), I attended roughly seven. If that doesn't sound like a
lot to you, believe me when I say that you get pretty hot 'n' bothered
running up and down the same road seven times in four days! (I didn't manage to attend anything on the first day.)
By the end of the four days (I told you I wasn't
there for the first day!), I was frazzled, utterly exhausted and
overwhelmingly, achingly happy but also sad that it was over.
I can honestly say that it was the best Bank Holiday weekend of the
whole year. And the clocks went back an hour on the Saturday as well,
giving me an extra sixty minutes in the sack in the morning. What
more could you possibly ask for...?
The
first film I saw was a Friday lunchtime screening of THE HOUND OF
THE BASKERVILLES, the Hammer one
from 1959 starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. The film was
preceded by some gorgeous publicity stills of Sir Chris in his heyday
and also of iconic horror director Wes Craven, both of whom passed
away earlier this year and whom the Horrorthon was honouring with the
screening of five of their respective films.
Christopher
Lee looked fantastic as Sir Henry Baskerville, striding around the
moors of Dartmoor in his jodphurs with his riding whip tapping
impatiently against his exceptionally well-sculpted thighs.
Hee-hee-hee. Well,
it's no secret that I have a massive crush on him and that he's my ideal
male, haha...! Anyway, seeing him for the first time ever on the big
screen was a deeply erotic experience (hee-hee-hee again!) and I went
off to do my grocery-shopping afterwards with my head in a whirl.
I was
back at the IFI later that night- 11pm, to be precise- to watch the
brilliant Wes Craven commemorative double bill. THE SERPENT
AND THE RAINBOW (1988)
was followed by THE
PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (1991).
The first is a fast-paced movie
about Haitian voodoo rituals and 'zombies' who are buried but then
come back to life, and if you're undecided as to whether to dig it
out and watch it for yourself, let me tell you that it's probably the
only film in existence in which Bill Pullman gets his scrotum nailed
to a chair. Hope that's not a big fat spoiler, snigger...!
THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS tells
the story of a kooky, kinky brother-and-sister couple who live in a
big old mausoleum of a house and keep a bunch of pale-faced,
straggly-haired prisoners in their basement. If you should ever pop
by their gaff for a cup of tea, make sure you see no evil,
hear no evil and definitely
speak no evil, the
couple's pet peeves, or you just might find that you're not permitted
to leave their abode of the damned. And I mean ever...
When
the double screening ended at 2.30am, I stumbled out of the theatre
exhausted tired and hot but filled with the undeniable joy of Wes. Both
films were great craic and
I couldn't keep the smile off my face as I battled my way home
through the Bank Holiday drinkers- and pukers!- who were out in full force.
The
following night- the Saturday- I watched THE DEVIL'S WOODS
(2015) by up-and-coming Irish
horror director Anthony White, who was there on the night along with
his entourage to introduce his movie. It's the story of four chums
who go camping in Ireland's most haunted woods, and it's terrific fun
and a full-on tribute to slasher movies like HALLOWEEN and
FRIDAY THE 13TH and
cult folk horror films like THE WICKER MAN.
I wrote
a review of THE DEVIL'S WOODS in
which I rather cheekily cited the leading lady's fit backside as the real star of the movie. After posting the review in the Horrorthon group,
I subsequently made the online acquaintance of director Anthony White and it
turns out that he was chuffed to bits with the review. I think that
the leading lady (not to mention her lovely butt) might think differently about it, somehow...!
After
the extra hour in bed, I was up early (-ish...!)
the next morning for an 11am screening of THE GOLDEN VOYAGE
OF SINBAD (1973) with my kids.
Over the course of the next two hours,
we were treated to the glorious sight of Ray Harryhausen's
stop-motion animation creations mingled with the no less glorious
vision of Hammer actress Caroline Munro in a barely-there outfit as
they all sailed the seven seas in search of a Fountain Of Eternal
Youth, Unlimited Riches and A Load Of Other Great Stuff As Well.
Caroline
Munro, of course, would be the special guest at the following day's
commemorative screening of Hammer's DRACULA A.D. 1972
(1972). My son, incidentally,
developed an instant crush on the legendary Hammer beauty when he saw
her in THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1973). Then, when he met her the next day in the lobby of the IFI when she
was just arriving for her film, he was bright pink-in-the-face with
embarrassment and as happy as a dog with two tails.
Later
that Sunday night, I was back in my comfy seat for THE
EXORCIST 3 (1990), a
film that I thought might ease me into the whole 'watching the
original film of THE EXORCIST' thing.
The original is a film I've always wanted to watch but was
permanently too scared to attempt. THE EXORCIST 3 seemed
like a good place to start and, as it happened, I was okay with it.
It was
creepy in places but it was nothing I couldn't handle and George C.
Scott was brilliant as the world-weary cop who's called in to solve a
series of satanic crimes set in a woefully-understaffed and
poorly-lit hospital, haha. I slept fairly soundly that night- I
think!- and was up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning for
(sob!!!) the final day
of the Horrorthon.
THE NESTING (2015),
aka APPARITION, which
I watched at lunchtime on the Bank Holiday Monday, is a pretty decent
film. It's about a man who loses his fiancée
in a car-crash shortly after
they move into a spooky old fixer-upper of a house with a troubled
history situated in the middle of bleedin' nowhere. But is she really
gone...? You'll have to watch the film for yourselves to find out
what I mean by that cryptic remark, heh-heh-heh.
Unfortunately,
the screening itself was beset by problems. The sound went off on the
dialogue for about two-thirds of the film and the director Quinn
Saunders, who was coming over to Ireland from America to introduce
the film, didn't quite make it to the party on time but, mishaps aside, I
really enjoyed the film.
It's my
favourite kind of horror film, the kind where a couple moves into a
haunted house and a load of weird s**t starts going down. It reminded
me a little bit of a film I recently reviewed called THE
INHABITANTS, the latest horror
offering from independent film-makers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, the guys who wrote John Carpenter's comeback film, THE WARD.
When they asked me personally to review it... Well, there's no ending
to that sentence. I just wanted you guys to know that they asked me
personally to review it, hahahahaha...! (That was manic laughter, by
the way, so please read it as such).
The
final film for me was the special commemorative screening of DRACULA
A.D. 1972 (1972) at 5pm on the
Bank Holiday Monday. This is my personal favourite of the Hammer
DRACULA movies and, to
gild an already fabulous lily, beautiful Hammer actress and Bond Girl
Caroline Munro was there to introduce the film, to answer questions
afterwards on all or any of her films and to sell signed copies of
her gorgeous pictures, of which I bought two.
Miss Munro
was so nice and friendly that everyone who was there warmed to her
immediately. For me, it was the highlight of the Horrorthon and I
think it was for many others too. I was there in my capacity as a
Hammer fan and I took away memories from that day that I'll hold in
my heart forever. Oh Lord, how soppy I sound...! Better sharpen
things up a bit.
In
other news (is that sharp enough for you...?), the Surprise Film THE
WITCH (2015) seems to have quite
literally been the surprise hit of the Horrorthon. I'm kind of raging
that I didn't think of going to see it myself. The closing film TALES
OF HALLOWEEN (2015) was either great
fun or not nearly scary enough, depending on who you talked to. The
person I talked to
about it loved it to bits and was glad to close her own personal
Horrorthon with it.
Oh, and I saw
director Richard Stanley coming out of a screening of one of his own
films, HARDWARE, distinctively dressed in a big, wide-brimmed hat and long
greenish overcoat. Oh, and I saw an ex-boyfriend
of mine coming out of the same film and I had to turn my face away
from him so he wouldn't see me because I dumped him by text and, to
this day, I still don't know how he feels about that.
I think you guys
now know literally as much as me about the 2015 Irish Film Institute
Horrorthon so it's time for me to love you and leave you. Goodnight
and God bless and safe home. Over and out. Adieu, adieu,
parting is such sweet sorrow and
all that jazz. Shut up, Sandra. See you all in the next cartoon...
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based
performance poet, novelist, film blogger, sex blogger and short
story writer. She has given more than 200 performances of her comedy
sex-and-relationship poems in different venues around Dublin,
including The Irish Writers' Centre, The International Bar, Toners'
Pub (Ireland's Most Literary Pub), the Ha'penny Inn, Le Dernier
Paradis at the Trinity Inn
and The Strokestown Poetry Festival.
Her
articles, short stories and poems have appeared in The Metro-Herald
newspaper, Ireland's Big Issues magazine, The Irish Daily Star, The
Irish Daily Sun and The Boyne Berries literary journal. In August
2014, she won the ONE LOVELY BLOG award for her (lovely!) horror film
review blog. She is addicted to buying books and has been known to
bring home rain-washed tomes she finds on the street and give them a
home. In 2003, she was invited to be a guest on Niall Boylan's 98FM
late-night radio talk show purely on the basis of having a 'sexy
voice.'
She is the proud possessor of a pair of unfeasibly large bosoms. They
have given her- and the people around her- infinite pleasure over the
years. She adores the horror genre in all its forms and will swap you
anything you like for Hammer Horror or JAWS memorabilia. She would
also be a great person to chat to about the differences between the
Director's Cut and the Theatrical Cut of The Wicker Man. You can
contact her at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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