Carrie (1976)

Director: Brian De Palma
Writer(s): Lawrence D. Cohen, based on the novel by Stephen King
Starring: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, and William Katt

For some reason I've never really been keen on seeing Carrie. Part of it no doubt has to do with the fact that I have a problem with most films that have been relegated to the status of “classic”, because I find most of them undeserving of the title; it's like they are passed down from generation-to-generation, much like a family heirloom, with no one daring to question their appeal, or to critique them with an open mind. In my mind, for a film to truly be a classic, it must stand up to the times; such a film must age with grace, and stay relevant decades after its release.

I finally caved in, though, because I was going through a Brian De Palma phase, and what examination of the director would be complete without including Carrie? It's arguably the film that put him on the map, at least for good, and is an adaptation of a Stephen King novel that even the legendary author himself approves of (to put this comment in perspective, and to buck popular opinion, he has been a vocal opponent The Shining ever since it was released); to ignore this would be to ignore perhaps the biggest reason for his success.

Sure enough, I am baffled as to the following that it still has today. It's a good film, don't get me wrong, but it's too patchy and uneven to be considered a great one; the first feeling that I had after the viewing was over was just how pointless the entire thing felt. It's basically a high school melodrama for three-quarters of its length, with batshit religious saga filling up most of the rest; then, there's the ending. The ending that gets all of the attention, and rightfully so, because it's the only point in the film that anything actually happens. The rest just feels like a big lead-up to that climactic scene, chugging along at just the right pace to keep you from falling asleep, just so it can finally unleash Carrie's unbridled fury.

Carrie White is played by Sissy Spacek, in the role that helped to launch her career; just that she manages to keep a straight-face in scenes involving her mother should have been enough to earn an Academy Award nomination. She would be your typical high school teenager were it not for her religiously-obsessed mother, who refuses to at least warn her of things that pubescent girls go through...like getting their periods, for example. Imagine the terror Carrie faces when, in the shower after gym class, she starts bleeding from her crotch. And then just imagine the bemusement the other girls in the class must feel, when she emerges from the shower, in a fit of hysteria, believing that something is wrong with her and that she is dying. Already the awkward, bullied social outcast, this outburst certainly doesn't help matters any, and she finds herself to be the butt of jokes even more frequently.

She does have some allies, most notably in gym teacher Miss Collins (Betty Buckley), who feels sorry for her and takes her under her wing. She gives Carrie an entire week off from gym, and spends that time punishing the girls of the class with strenuous exercises. Most of the class slowly starts to understand the error of their ways (or at least pretend to, for the sake of getting off easier), but not Chris (Nancy Allen), a cocky little wench who has always hated Carrie for no reasons specified, and vows to make Carrie's life a living hell. As if it isn't already.

Sue (Amy Irving), a popular girl and one of the students in Miss Collin's class, has a change of heart, and decides to have her popular boyfriend Tommy (William Katt) take Carrie to the prom. While this can be seen as a genuine act of kindness—and that is how it's meant—it's also preposterous and, in a way, even kind of evil. So this popular guy is going to take Carrie out for a good time, be nice to her, shower her with attention, after which she'll inevitably have feelings for him since she's so sheltered and has no other male contacts, and then he'll just dump her and go back to Sue like nothing happened?  Sounds like just the thing she needs.

Carrie reluctantly accepts Tommy's invitation—she's been bullied long enough to know that it's probably just a setup to a cruel joke, but her mother's coming toward the door, and Carrie doesn't want her mother to even see a boy anywhere near the house. You see, her mother, known as Margaret, has some pretty extreme religious leanings and tends to treat her only daughter as a prisoner, moreso than a daughter.  She also believes any form of sex is a sin, even during marriage...we're talking a class-A nutcase right here.

At first, her mother refuses to let her go to the prom. Carrie expected this, and cements her opinion by using her telekinetic powers to slam all of the windows in the house shut. This mainly just convinces her mother that she's a witch, but also gets her to back off enough to let her go, finally realizing that her influence can only go so far. Before we know it, it's the night of the prom...

Margaret's religious ramblings do tend to border on the comical, so much so that even the actress that portrayed her, Piper Laurie, thought that she was too over-the-top fanatical to be taken seriously. These scenes, while not laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes succeed in diluting the mother-daughter relationship: we are supposed to feel pity for the way Carrie is constantly bullied, but hearing Margaret regale Carrie with the story of the night of her conception is more awkward than anything else, and kind of helps to undermine some of the terror we are supposed to feel from her.

As I alluded to earlier, the pacing is somewhat an issue, with large fragments of the movie focusing on people other than Carrie, to the point that I would sometimes forget that she was even the focal point. I did appreciate that her telepathic powers are kept to a bare minimum, as we only get a few glimpses of them leading up to the finale. Most of them used in just an innocuous kind of way (flipping over an ashtray, or breaking a mirror, for examples), so we really don't understand the true extent that she is capable of until she can no longer hold it in, which is a nice little touch.

But take out the telekinesis angle and you're left with a relatively uneventful, slow-moving coming-of-age tale, though one that's thankfully helped along by great performances and earnest direction by De Palma. The strength of its reputation no doubt hinges on that final sequence, and as brilliantly-executed as it is, it just isn't quite enough to absolve the remainder of the film completely of its sins.

RATING: 6.5/10

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Who Can Kill a Child? (1976)

Director: Narciso Ibanez Serrador
Writer(s): Serrador, from a novel by Juan Jose Plans
Starring: Lewis Fiander, Prunella Ransome, and Antonio Iranzo

Who could kill a child? If taken out of context, a more appropriate question might be, “Who would want to kill a child?” But director Narciso Ibanez Serrador (who also wrote the script, based on a novel by Juan Jose Plans) has a perfectly good reason for asking that question: The children in question aren't normal kids, but vicious murderers, who are inexplicably driven to kill any adult that crosses their path after hearing mysterious voices late one night.

Murderous kids have long been a staple of the horror film, appearing in films like The Omen, or Village of the Damned, or Children of the Corn, or The Brood, or Ils (Them), or...I think you get the point: Evil children are nothing new. But where many films simply toss them in and rely on the “Oh look, a scary kid!” from the audience, Who Can Kill a Child? really explores the idea from multiple facets, resulting in a criminally-underrated horror film that should be at the top of everyone's “must-see” list.

Tom and Evelyn are a newly-married English couple who head to a busy Spanish island during a festival. Evelyn is content to stay there, but Tom has a better idea of how to spend their time: traveling by boat to a more tranquil island called Almanzora, that he had visited twelve years prior. She reluctantly agrees, despite being so pregnant that she could literally pop at any moment. Tom rents a boat, and before anyone knows it, they are being pulled into a dock by several friendly children. Aaaah, life seems to be going swell for the husband and wife. How could things be any better?

Well, there could be other people around, for one. The entire town is desolate, save for the odd child seen strolling about, stopping only to smile and giggle at the English guests, but offering nothing else in the way of help. Where have all the adults gone? The hotel, the bar, the general store...all of these places are completely devoid of people, although there are remnants left behind that hint there were others around, and not too long ago, either. It is only after Tom and Evelyn witness a young child beating an old man to death that Tom and Evelyn get a glimpse of what the children are capable of. Soon, they realize they're going to have to go against decades of common decency, and off a few if they are to make it off the island alive...

Heading into a viewing of this, I really expected a low-budget film that got what small following it has simply from the brilliance of its idea. I'm pretty sure I'm correct about the low-budget part, but contrary to my thoughts, you don't gather that from watching it: it's unusually well-made. The acting is pretty good, it's more than competently shot, and the soundtrack—which is beyond simple—works brilliantly in heightening the tension in otherwise droll scenes. All of this is especially impressive considering that it's a Spanish production from the 1970s. No offense to Spaniards, but their contributions to the horror genre weren't realized until fairly recently, thanks to a spate of well-received films like the [REC] series and The Orphanage bringing attention to Spanish efforts. It's also surprising considering director Serrenado worked primarily as a television director—this was one of only two theatrical films he ever directed (the first, and his debut, was 1970s The House That Screamed).

The film that I can perhaps best compare it to, in terms of “suspense structure” is The Descent: There, the claustrophobic setting of an underground cave lead to several tense moments before the creatures even made an appearance. Here, it's the exact opposite, with the wide openness of the terrain, paired with the clues of the complete sudden abandonment of the town, that leads to chills before we even catch a glimpse of a child; or at least, before we know what they are capable of. Serrador proves himself to be adept at wringing tension from the mundane: a ringing telephone here, a sudden closing of blinds there...scenes that wouldn't even register as a blip in most films, always threaten to become moments of terror.

That's not to discount the effectiveness of many later scenes when Tom and Evelyn start to understand exactly what they are up against. In fact, the film works so well because it defies the modern workings of the evil child subgenre, which seems to think that evil children are only scary when they are trying as hard as possible to be scary. The killer kids here work the opposite way, to much greater effect: They are normal children on the outside, smiling and polite, and they use those innocent characteristics to lure adults to their deaths (their presence is often hinted at in the soundtrack, with the sound of giggles, and it truly sends chills down the spine).

Wisely, the film never explains why the children are acting the way they are; rather unwisely, our only clues come from an unnecessarily protracted opening credits sequence, featuring actual footage of dead children spanning across several different wars. The point, which is also specifically made later by another character within the film, is that children suffer the most during times of turmoil; by this thought process, I guess we are supposed to surmise that they are rebelling for all of the hardships that the decisions of adults have put them through. I love the idea of keeping the specific reasons secret—too many films feel the need to go into too much detail, which often ruins the mystery aspect of it all—but the intro was just too much. To some extent, I have to admit that it's effective, because my wife and I sat in stunned silence, unable to even look at our plates of food for the entire duration of it, but it ultimately serves no purpose beyond apparently being a half-assed attempt to justify the actions of the children.

But once you stomach (or fast-forward through) that, Who Can Kill a Child? quickly becomes a near-masterclass of building tension, and while it can't maintain it evenly throughout, there are enough twists and turns that it will hold your attention from beginning to end. Speaking of the ending, it's rather obvious how it's going to play out, but the final shots still sent chills shooting down my spine. A must for fans of the genre.

RATING: 8.5/10

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Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

Director: John Carpenter
Writer(s): Carpenter
Starring: Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, and Martin West

I discovered John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 a couple of decades ago—if I remember correctly, it was at a video shop in California, where my mother and I were visiting.  I’m not sure what exactly attracted me to this movie in particular, but I had always been into obscure and violent movies ever since I was allowed to watch them, and so this seemed to fit the bill.  I ended up buying a screener for it, complete with scrolling warnings not to copy the film that appeared every few minutes, on VHS for $1.

I watched it shortly thereafter, and was enthralled with the story from beginning to end.  It was this feeling of nostalgia that lead me to pop this movie in again one cold, winter night, just to see if the current experience of watching it lived up to my former memories.

The plot is supposedly (loosely) based on the classic John Wayne western Rio Bravo.  As with many films harboring the “classic” tag, I have not seen it; but the one film that this has always reminded me of is Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero’s landmark zombie film.  That might sound crazy to you now, but the basic outline of both films are very similar: A group of survivors barricade themselves in a nearly-abandoned police station, instead of a house, and must fend off hordes of angry gang members, instead of bloodthirsty zombies.  Even Austin Stoker’s performance, as newly-crowned Lieutenant Ethan Bishop, is strongly reminiscent of Tony Todd’s in the seminal horror film.

Anyway, it’s Bishop’s first day out on the force, and the Captain has a special order for him—head to Precinct 9, Division 13 (odd title choice given these facts), an outdated police station that is in the process of slowly being relocated elsewhere in the city.  His job is merely to answer the phones and notify callers of the station’s impending move, until the morning, when the precinct’s electricity and phone lines will be turned off.  If only it were that easy.

Things are complicated from parallel actions that occurred as Bishop was on his way to the police station: A police ambush leaves several young gang members dead, an action that leads surviving members to take a blood oath to avenge their murders; in another, said gang members kill a little girl, whose father swears revenge, but must retreat to the police station after running out of ammo; in yet another bit of weird luck, a police transport vehicle, carrying a notorious Death Row inmate, along with a handful of other prisoners, must make an emergency stop when one of them gets seriously ill.

And so as night falls, and all of these random characters are getting settled in (along with Julie (Nancy Loomis) and Leigh (Laurie Zimmer), the station’s two secretaries), a seemingly endless group of armed thugs attack the police station, presumably to kill the father of the murdered girl, who killed one of their own.  Or maybe just to kill cops in general, to avenge the slaughtered gang members.  Whatever the reason, all you need to know is that people are out for vengeance against someone in that building, and will kill whoever gets in their way.

Clearly, this is an ambitious film, though its small budget occasionally sabotages the proceedings, mainly in the form of the uneven acting.  A popular case-in-point is Laurie Zimmer, whose filmography begins here and ended a mere three films later.  Though widely panned by internet critics, I actually thought her performance was pretty good—until she gets shot in the arm, merely winces, and then acts the rest of the film like she only received a papercut, as opposed to a chunk of hot metal traveling at a high rate of speed.  Really, though, I guess at least part of that falls on writer/director (and score writer, and editor) John Carpenter, who could have forced her to emote a bit more; maybe he was going for a "tough as nails" kind of woman, which would be admirable of him, but no matter who you are, taking a bullet to the arm is going to have you screaming like a baby.

Speaking of Carpenter, the editing and score are fairly lackluster, with some scenes going on far too long (including one in which thugs randomly fire into the police station for what feels like two minutes of actual screen time), and the music consisting of the same three cues over and over again.  It’s not that the music itself is bad (though it’s synth-heavy and dated), it’s just repetitive, without much variety at all.  

Continuity is also a major factor, with all sorts of obvious errors scattered throughout.  There are some lazily shot sequences that seem to forget the perspective of characters—for instance, a man’s daughter is shot several yards away from him, in broad daylight, out in the open, but even though he’s facing in her direction, he doesn’t see it happen.  A montage of dozens of gang members trying to gain access to the building by crawling through windows, only to be gunned down by the officers and prisoners trying to hold their ground, also goes on way too long, with little variations.  And wouldn’t the gang members learn to take a different way in, or to at least fire off a few rounds first before just trying to leap in?  I’d imagine the thirty dead bodies piling up in front of every window would be a clue that their techniques aren’t working, but the thugs seem to be unable, or unwilling, to change their gameplan, with results that border on self-parody.

Yet there’s still a genuine sense of dread and uneasiness that permeates almost every scene, especially when the prisoners are released--and given guns--in an effort to help the “good guys” hold the fort.  Then ammo starts running low, and the phones go out early, leaving them completely helpless to contact anyone else for help.  Really, the way all the events unfold somehow never feels tacky or forced, even as the coincidences keep piling up, while the film’s pacing is nearly perfect.  Whereas Carpenter’s direction is a little lackluster (though again, in his defense, a lot of it no doubt has to do with his lack of a budget), he certainly makes up for it with his writing, and clear vision.

If you’re looking for an intense actioner, and don’t mind obvious evidence of a low budget, then this one is worth checking out.

RECAP: It has flaws aplenty, ranging from uneven acting, to a repetitive score, and occasionally sloppy editing, but Assault on Precinct 13 is salvaged by some solid writing, and a genuinely intense atmosphere.  There is also a completely shocking scene that involves a little girl and an ice cream cone that will drop your jaw to the floor if you’re not expecting it (and that nearly lead to an “X” certification by the MPAA).  The action scenes are mostly one-note, often clumsily-staged, and can get monotonous, but there’s still enough action and atmosphere to carry this one across the finish line.  Forget the overrated Halloween; this is early Carpenter’s swan song.

RATING: 7/10

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