“The best thing about Red Dragon (Universal), the second adaptation of Thomas Harris’ 1981 novel, is that it reminds you how scary and seminal the first adaptation — Michael Mann’s Manhunter (1986) — was. This new movie, directed by Brett Ratner, recycles the same narrative, many of the same lines, and even some of the same camera set-ups, but it stubbornly refuses to haunt … you could be watching a plodding, Hollywood-studio remake of some idiosyncratic foreign classic: The beats are the same, but the eerie vibe has been lost in translation.” David Edelstein reviews Red Dragon for Slate Magazine, October 2002

Manhunter (1986)
Directed by Michael Mann
Screenplay by Michael Mann, based on the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Produced by Richard Roth
121 minutes (theatrical version)/ 124 minutes (director’s cut)

For those who’ve feasted on almost every variation of the psycho killer genre — particularly through TV forensics shows, with their nice and tidy finishes in under an hour — this special category of crime thriller begins and ends with filmmaker Michael Mann’s fervent and nearly flawless adaptation of Thomas Harris’ 1981 bestseller Red Dragon. The tightly wound source material launched a franchise and still endures as the ultimate dance between predator and prey, yet the original film version has precision moves and timing all its own. FBI Special Agent Will Graham (William Petersen) is semi-retired and living in Marathon, Florida with his wife Molly (Kim Greist) and 11-year-old son Kevin (David Seaman) when his boss Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina) visits the beach with a plea for help.

Graham’s dark talent lies in his ability to enter the mind of a killer and think as they think. To track down a sociopath who’s slain two families — earning the nickname “Tooth Fairy” for the post-mortem bite marks he’s left on the women — Graham reaches out to Dr. Hannibal Lektor (Brian Cox), a homicidal psychiatrist who Graham almost died bringing to justice. A note recovered in Lektor’s cell indicates the doctor is in communication with Tooth Fairy through coded ads placed in a tabloid. A gambit to lure Tooth Fairy to Graham using sleazy journalist Freddy Lounds (Stephen Lang) backfires when the killer makes a date with Freddy instead. Revealed to be a gargantuan, socially awkward lab tech named Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan), “Tooth Fairy” is drawn out of his shell by a blind co-worker (Joan Allen) who threatens to become Dollarhyde’s next victim.

Film rights to Red Dragon were snared by producer Dino De Laurentiis and after David Lynch tangled with the material — which he found too violent for his taste — Michael Mann was approached. The executive producer of TV’s new sensation Miami Vice, Mann had corresponded with convict Dennis Wayne Wallace for a penal script he’d since abandoned. Using an FBI agent to descend into the psychology of a criminal opened a door Mann had been looking for into that world. To play Will Graham, the director held out for William Petersen, who Mann had auditioned for the role that went to Jim Belushi in Thief. In a battle over the film’s title, Mann was overruled by De Laurentiis, who felt Red Dragon was too similar to his maligned cop thriller Year of the Dragon. Released in late summer with scant marketing support, Manhunter was dismissed by many critics. At the time, audiences ignored it as well.

What Michael Mann brings to the Hannibal Lechter game — a pastime revisited by Jonathan Demme, Ridley Scott, Brett Ratner and Peter Webber with diminishing attention — is a relentless pace and brooding chill that evokes Thomas Harris’ page turner, even if much of the author’s backstory is left in the dugout. Instead of focusing on the peccadilloes of the prey, Harris created a hunter whose skills set is far more compelling. Mann knows that guy well. The scenes between Will Graham and his family have an emotional purity, even with the starkest of dialogue, while close attention is paid to the psychologists, cryptologists and ballistics experts working together toward a common goal. Collaborating with casting director Bonnie Timmermann and composer Michel Rubini, Mann was restricted in budget and in time, but in spite of them, perhaps because of them, cranked out the definitive thriller of its class.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 48,623 users: 70% for Manhunter

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: N/A

What do you say?

“The real problem is that Kubrick set out to make a horror picture with no apparent understanding of the genre. Everything about it screams that from beginning to end, from plot decision to the final scene — which has been used before on The Twilight Zone.” Stephen King interviewed for Playboy Magazine, June 1983

The Shining (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick & Diane Johnson, based on the novel by Stephen King
Produced by Stanley Kubrick
146 minutes (original U.S. theatrical version)/ 144 minutes (U.S. theatrical version)/ 119 minutes (international version)

Debating whether or not Jack Nicholson’s fortissimo performance in The Shining — as a family man who slips into homicidal insanity during his season as caretaker of a haunted hotel — needed to be played at such a high volume is like debating whether Jimi Hendrix really needed to light a perfectly good electric guitar on fire at Monterey Pop. There may have been a perfectly good exercise in gothic terror and things that go bump in the night lurking within Stephen King‘s novel, but the film version was designed and constructed by Stanley Kubrick. Drawn up as a last will and testament to the horror genre as far as the high and mighty Kubrick was concerned, the film inflicts such psychic trauma on the viewer that it needs a joker like Jack in the deck to soften its wicked blow.

Striking ominous chords from the start, schoolteacher Jack Torrance (Nicholson) accepts a six month stint as caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, encouraged that winter’s isolation will give him time to outline a novel. The general manager feels obligated to mention a tragedy in which a previous caretaker killed his wife and two daughters with an axe before shooting himself. Jack responds that his wife — a fan of “ghost stories and horror films” — will be thrilled. The skittish Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) finds the illustrious hotel spooky, while 7-year-old Danny (Danny Lloyd) receives visions of the future that are nothing short of terrifying. A departing cook (Scatman Crothers) confides to the boy that they share a special power his grandmother called ”shining”. Assured there’s nothing  to be scared of, Danny senses something bad lurking at the Overlook, particularly in Room 237.

Warner Bros. president John Calley knew that Stanley Kubrick had an interest in the paranormal and sent him a galleys copy of The Shining in 1977. Ignoring a first draft Stephen King had been contractually guaranteed to author, Kubrick adapted a script with novelist Diane Johnson, who was teaching a course on the gothic novel at UC Berkeley. Certain exterior shots of the Overlook Hotel would be filmed at the Timberline Lodge, on the slopes of Mount Hood in Oregon. The vast majority of the film — including the hedge maze — was manufactured at Elstree Studios outside London. Filming commenced in May 1978 and given Kubrick’s refusal to be hurried through a schedule, didn’t wrap until April 1979. Kubrick tinkered with his film even after it was in U.S. theaters for five days, cutting an epilogue in which the general manager visits Wendy in the hospital.

The film departed so radically from his book  that Stephen King authored the teleplay for a 4-hour mini-series version that aired on ABC in 1997. Kubrick ignored many of the elements King found eerie — an elevator, a firehose, animal shaped shrubs — to focus instead on a child’s subconscious dread of a parent turning into a monster. The magnificence of The Shining is how Kubrick exploits that fear viscerally. Snippets of a blood soaked future flash through Danny’s mind while the corridors of the hotel breathe with living images of the past. Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind provided electronic sound elements, which Kubrick sourced with music from classical composers György Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki to create one of the most unnerving film scores ever. Criticized at the time for not watching enough horror movies, the bottom line is that Kubrick’s vision is scary as hell.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 423,027 users: 91% for The Shining

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: N/A

What do you say? The fan trailer below was superior to any I could find from Warner Bros.

“I’ve always have been saying and have been saying for years that the position of the camera is as important as what you’re photographing. A dirty word to me is ‘coverage’. You know, ‘two shot’. ‘Over the shoulder’. It’s stuff you see all the time and it just drives me crazy because this to me is not directing. You have to think about where the camera is in relation to the material.” — Brian DePalma interviewed by Noah Baumbach in New York, October 2010

Blow Out (1981)
Directed by Brian DePalma
Written by Brian DePalma
Produced by George Litto
107 minutes

While cameras didn’t roll until the 1980s, Blow Out is the most deviously engineered political thriller of the 1970s. Veering down an alley familiar to anyone who’s poured over the Kennedy assassination or the Watergate cover-up, it’s also a love letter from a filmmaker to the nuts and bolts of his beloved craft. John Travolta (much closer in age to Tony Manero than whatever growed up moron he played in the Look Who’s Talking comedies) delivers just the right combination of geeky obsession and downtrodden sleaze as a B-movie sound man who records what he believes to be an assassination on audio tape. Quentin Tarantino was such a huge fan of Blow Out (placing it at one time among his three favorite movies of all time) that Travolta was likely cast in Pulp Fiction as a result of his performance here.

Travolta plays Jack Terry, a man whose love of electronics and the solitary hours tinkering over a work bench have led him to a shit job recording and mixing sound effects for a Philadelphia based producer of slasher movies. Sent back to the field when his employer (Peter Boyden) demands new effects for their latest picture Coed Frenzy, Terry is on Wissahickon Creek Bridge when he witnesses a Buick plunge into the water. He rescues the passenger — a daffy blonde named Sally (Nancy Allen) — but later discovers the stiff behind the wheel was Governor McRyan, the presumed frontrunner of the next presidential race. Terry’s ear and his tape enable him to reconstruct the blowout, which he believes was no accident. Meanwhile, the assassin (John Lithgow) comes out of the shadows to clip the loose threads left dangling from his crime.

The inspiration to use a sound man as protagonist came to Brian DePalma while he was mixing his previous thriller Dressed to Kill with sound editor Dan Sable. The idea of demonstrating to an audience how sound and images were synched together in an editing room and how that process might reveal a murder quickly obsessed DePalma as well. Filmways put up financing and permitted DePalma to shoot the picture in Philadelphia, where the filmmaker and his agent/producer George Litto had both grown up (the bridge spanning Wissahickon Creek had been a lovers lane when DePalma was a teenager). The film’s stark tone and jarring, unexpected climax may have given critics and audiences a cold shoulder. When Blow Out opened July 1981 in the United States, the press agreed it was a flop.

Viewed under the ever present magnifying glass that sweeps over the film, neither Travolta or Allen come across as very compelling human beings. The characters act and speak within the confines of a trade paperback plot, but the appeal of Blow Out is the doomed nature of their relationship and the technical virtuosity wielded to express it. DePalma’s passion for the possibilities of filmmaking and its limitations are potent, while watching Travolta splice together a snuff film from scratch is intoxicating as well. Blow Out starts strong, wanders around in a stupor a bit before delivering a knockout ending. As a bonus, Dennis Franz appears in the first of many Dennis Franz roles — as a private dick without a single redeeming quality — while cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond collaborated with DePalma on the film’s intricate, spellbinding look.

As days get shorter, nights get longer and All Hallow’s Eve beckons, I can say that I won’t be wandering the streets dressed as Chewbacca begging for candy. What I can’t say is whether or not at my age, horror movies still have any surprises left in them. In the search for originality, it’d be a good idea to start anywhere but Hollywood. For the month of October, I take a trip around the globe to see what’s scaring some of my favorite countries these days.

The Strangers (2008)
Directed by Bryan Bertino
Written by Bryan Bertino
Produced by Doug Davison, Roy Lee, Nathan Kahane
86 minutes (theatrical version)/ 88 minutes (unrated DVD version)

Freaks, psychos and a leprechaun have launched horror franchises, but The Strangers includes three of the best villains to come along in a while with a kitchen sink thriller that among other things actually offers a point of view. Bryan Bertino had written four scripts in his life and was working as a grip on a low budget movie. Bertino had read Helter Skelter as a kid after his father actually gave him a copy and he was inspired to write a thriller that focused not so much on killers, but the victims who never knew who was targeting them or why. In the fall of 2004, Bertino’s script The Strangers landed him a manager, who found buyers in Doug Davison and Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment. The producers partnered with Nathan Kahane, president of Mandate Pictures, who had a distribution deal with Rogue Pictures.

After other directors were considered, Bertino was offered the chance to make his feature film debut on a budget of roughly $9 million. The exterior of the ‘70s era ranch house was found in Timmonsville, South Carolina. Interiors were filmed in a warehouse in nearby Florence, where the production constructed a collapsible house they could shoot inside. While the couple in Bertino’s script is never really engaging, Liv Tyler gives a gutsy performance that’s in another league from the dead teenagers of the horror genre. When it comes to terror, the rookie filmmaker delivers with the aid of a sensational sound mix. The Strangers is not a movie to be watched alone in the dark. Finally, the masked boogeymen are a gift of imagination, conjured out of darkness with identities and motives left mysteries for the viewer to interpret.

On February 11, 2005, Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and her boyfriend James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) return from a wedding reception in the wee hours to the rustic summer home of the Hoyt family. With their relationship on the rocks after Kristen turned down James’s marriage proposal, the couple are in the throes of making up when they’re interrupted by a knock on the door. Obscured in shadow, a blonde asks: “Is Tamara home?” Turning the stranger away, James offers to pick up some cigarettes for his soon to be ex-girlfriend. Left alone, Kristen hears another knock from the same woman asking the same question. Kristen calls James on the house phone and urges him to come back, but the line goes dead. Surrounded by frightening noises, she looks out a window to find Man In the Mask (Kip Weeks) staring back at her.

Convinced that someone has been in the house, Kristen retreats to a bedroom until her boyfriend returns. From the garage, the couple observes Dollface (Gemma Ward), the strange blonde, standing in the street with a mask covering her face. James leaves the house to retrieve his cell phone out of the car, but is spooked by a third masked stranger, Pin-Up Girl (Laura Margolis). Attempting to flee in their car, Kristen & James are rear ended by a pickup truck in the driveway. James manages to locate and load the family shotgun and when Man in the Mask takes apart the door with an axe, James repels the home invasion. A friend (Glenn Howerton) drops by to check on the couple but does not live long enough to render assistance. Without knowing who their attackers are or what they want, Kristen & James try to survive the night.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 55,773 users: 48% for The Strangers

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 47 for The Strangers

What do you say?

As days get shorter, nights get longer and All Hallow’s Eve beckons, I can say that I won’t be wandering the streets dressed as Chewbacca begging for candy. What I can’t say is whether or not at my age, horror movies still have any surprises left in them. In the search for originality, it’d be a good idea to start anywhere but Hollywood. For the month of October, I take a trip around the globe to see what’s scaring some of my favorite countries these days.

Let The Right One In (2008)
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist, based on his novel
Produced by John Nordling, Carl Molinder
115 minutes

The wonder of Let The Right One In is that you could remove the vampires, clean up the blood and what’s left would still rate as one of the most potent visions of young love in recent memory. John Ajvide Lindqvist transitioned from aspiring magician to comic to writer producing material for other performers in Sweden. Struggling with a “real” novel, in 2001 Lindqvist began writing about his youth in suburban Stockholm of the 1980s. Deciding that his young protagonist would befriend something terrible, a horror story took off. Drawing a title from the Morrissey tune “Let The Right One Slip In”, Lindqvist’s debut novel was rejected until Swedish publisher Ordfront distributed it in 2004. Appearing in U.S. bookstores three years later as Let Me In, the novel was such a success in Sweden that interest in a film version was avid.

John Nordling and Carl Molinder, co-owners of EFTI, secured film rights and hired Tomas Alfredson, a respected young Swedish director who’d never tried a horror film, to direct. The producers raised a budget of €2.2 million (roughly $2.9 million USD). Building strong word of mouth at film festivals, Let The Right One In opened October 2008 in Sweden, Norway and the U.S. to modest box office but instant cult acclaim. Despite confusion about certain elements in the film, its triumph is how deeply it affects the growing pains of two kids in the suburbs rather than throwing horror at the audience. Tomas Alfredson delivers the goods and then some for those in a vampire mood, while 12-year-old Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson cut right to the bone with film debuts sharp enough to detox anyone hung over on Twilight hype.

In a cheerless apartment complex behind the Iron Curtain, 12-year-old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) passes evenings with his single mother, fantasizing about revenge while his days include regular torment at the hands of his sadistic classmate Conny (Patrik Rydmark). Withdrawing into puzzles, Oskar bonds with another solitary 12-year-old, Eli (Lina Leandersson) who appeared in the night to move in next door. Eli’s creepy guardian Håkan (Per Ragnar) wastes no time luring a local teenager to his death in the woods. Håkan’s attempt to drain the teen’s blood is interrupted and he has to flee. Enraged at Håkan’s ineptitude, Eli leaves the apartment for a bite to eat, ambushing a drunk wobbling home. After she sinks her fangs into her victim’s neck and drinks his blood, Håkan disposes of the body.

When Oskar brings home scars from his run-ins with Conny, Eli urges her friend to stand up to the bully. Oskar asks her to go steady with him and on the promise that nothing much will change between them, Eli agrees. Attempting an Indian blood ritual with his new girlfriend, Oskar slices open his palm and is met with a response he did not anticipate. With Håkan out of the picture, Eli is left to fend for her own sustenance and selects another barfly, Virginia (Ika Nord). Her meal is cut short when the victim’s boyfriend Lacke (Peter Carlberg) appears. Waking the next day adverse to sunlight and to cats, Virginia sends Lacke in search of her young attacker. Oskar appears to have gotten the upper hand over his tormentor at school, but protecting Eli while she sleeps during the day proves more dangerous.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 25,029 users: 89% for Let The Right One In

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 82 for Let The Right One In

What do you say?

The Bechdel Test was named for Allison Bechdel, whose comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For in 1985 measured the female presence in movies by employing three criteria: Are there two or more women in it, with names? Do the women talk to each other? About something other than a man? Far too many mainstream movies flunk this test, but in the month of September, I take a look at ten movies that pass.

Jennifer’s Body (2009)
Directed by Karyn Kusama
Written by Diablo Cody
Produced by Mason Novick, Daniel Dubiecki, Jason Reitman
102 minutes

Jennifer’s Body is the Heathers of horror comedies, which could be a checkered flag or a red one depending on how many grade levels you’ve completed. Screenwriter Diablo Cody began working on the script in the summer of 2006 as her first screen credit Juno was being directed by Jason Reitman. Obsessed with ‘80s horror movies like The Lost Boys, Cody wanted to write a genre film in her voice with female characters. 20^th Century Fox took Cody’s script off the market via their short lived genre label Fox Atomic, with Cody’s manager Mason Novick producing with Daniel Dubiecki & Jason Reitman. To direct, Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Aeon Flux) was hired. Financed by Fox in association with private equity partner Dune Entertainment at roughly $16 million, shooting commenced March 2008 in and around North Shore Studios in Vancouver.

As devoted as Diablo Cody may be to horror movies, Jennifer’s Body resembles Heathers more than anything else, laced with acidic wit pointed at high school and the hypocrisies of a community coping with tragedy. Energy is siphoned to poke fun at indie bands as well. While most mainstream horror movies these days are remakes starved for one good idea, Cody crams enough ideas for two or three movies into this one. The problem is none of the threads tie together, while Karyn Kusama isn’t up for the job of pulling together a dark comedy. Even Cody’s pop culture powdered dialogue reaches the point where you can see the tampon joke coming before the characters do. In one word, Jennifer’s Body is lame. Amy Sedaris is criminally underused as Amanda Seyfried’s mom, while Megan Fox — who may never appear in a movie with this much prestige again — is criminally miscast as a girl who speaks.

“Hell is a teenage girl,” reveals Anita “Needy” Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried) from behind the walls of a mental institution. Needy reacts to a comment about Toastems by kicking the tooth out of an orderly’s mouth. Thrown in solitary confinement, she begins her story. In the town of Devil’s Kettle, Minnesota, the geeky Needy has remained loyal BFF to Jennifer Check (Megan Fox), the femme fatale of the flag corps, since they played in the same sandbox as girls. Jennifer pressures Needy to drop plans with her percussionist boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons) and to go see an indie band called Low Shoulder perform at a local bar. The band’s pretty boy lead singer Nikolai Wolf (Adam Brody) sizes Jennifer up as the virgin they’ve been looking for and when the bar burns down in a blaze, makes off with a disoriented Jennifer in his van.

Needy is worried sick about her friend until Jennifer shows up at her house late that night, covered in blood and vomiting an evil black pool onto the kitchen floor. Arriving for the biology class of Mr. Wroblewski (J.K. Simmons) the next day looking fine, Jennifer acts as if Needy imagined the whole thing. Low Shoulder rockets to fame as a result of the fire and their song “Through the Trees” becomes the town anthem as people work to overcome the tragedy. Meanwhile, Jennifer begins luring horny boys to their death, turning into a demon and devouring their innards. She confides to Needy that the night of the fire, Low Shoulder sacrificed her to Satan, who apparently rejected the offering as far from virgin material and endowed Jennifer with the powers of a succubus. Needing to eat in order to stay beautiful, Jennifer sets her sights on Needy’s boyfriend Chip.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 129,517 users: 38% for Jennifer’s Body

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 47 for Jennifer’s Body

What do you say?

The Bechdel Test was named for Allison Bechdel, whose comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For in 1985 measured the female presence in movies by employing three criteria: Are there two or more women in it, with names? Do the women talk to each other? About something other than a man? Far too many mainstream movies flunk this test, but in the month of September, I take a look at ten recent movies that pass.

Orphan (2009)
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra
Screenplay by David Leslie Johnson, story by Alex Mace
Produced by Joel Silver, Susan Downey, Jennifer Davisson Killoran, Leonardo DiCaprio
123 minutes

Orphan has been given a body of sophisticated allure but in an effort to fit in with the crowd, its brain is trailer trash. An executive named Alex Mace with Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way sketched a 10-page treatment, the first three pages of which detailed the past of a sinister orphan named Esther. That material became the basis for a screenplay David Leslie Johnson won the job of adapting. Johnson’s chief inspiration was The Bad Seed, which he referred to as “the quintessential evil kid movie.” Warner Bros. suggested that project would be straight up the alley of Joel Silver’s B-movie shingle Dark Castle Entertainment. Silver hired Jaume Collet-Serra — who got his start in commercials and music videos and made his feature film debut with Dark Castle’s remake of House of Wax — to direct.

Johnson and Collet-Serra were fans of Roman Polanski’s psychological thrillers, but don’t have the nerve to develop their characters, deploy wit or let ambiguity work its black magic. Instead, their ambitions seem to begin and end with the slasher movie, with Esther taking over wherever Chucky left off, but without any of the lil bastard’s glee. Following the rules Roger Ebert laid down for The Idiot Plot, Orphan would be over in 5 minutes if every adult in the story wasn’t an idiot. Vera Farmiga is the saving grace of the project, which is so laughable in its pretense that it would be impossible to sit through without her. Working with a better cast than Elisha Cuthbert or Paris Hilton this time out, Collet-Serra is doing a poor man’s version of Seven designed primarily to give 13-year-olds in the cafeteria something to debate the stupidity of.

Following the stillbirth of her third child, composer Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) works to overcome issues of alcohol abuse and depression, attending counseling with her therapist (Margo Martindale). Residing in picture perfect Connecticut with her architect husband John (Peter Sarsgaard), 11-year-old Danny (Jimmy Bennett) and deaf 6-year-old Max (Aryana Engineer), Kate decides she’s ready to adopt. Visiting a girl’s orphanage, Kate and John connect with a beguiling 9-year-old named Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), who paints and seems to keep her own company. Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder) explains that Esther is from Russia originally and that the family who brought her to America died in a house fire. The sister adds that Esther is uncommonly bright, mature for her age and a bit of a princess.

Adopted by the Colemans, Esther is resented by Danny due to the attention his father lavishes on the girl. She insists on wearing pilgrim attire to school and pitches a fit when a bitch classmate grabs the ribbon Esther keeps around her neck. Kate begins to ponder Esther’s trustworthiness when that classmate mysteriously slips off a fort and breaks her ankle. Max knows that the girl was pushed, but keeps it a secret. Sister Abigail pays a house call to reveal the history of accidents that seem to follow Esther wherever she goes.  Esther uses Max to lure the sister to her death. The hellion hides the evidence in a treehouse and when she catches Danny spying on her, threatens to cut his thing off if he tells. As Kate’s suspicion of her adopted daughter grows, both her husband and her therapist begin to question the woman’s sanity.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 72,046 users: 65% for Orphan

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 42 for Orphan

What do you say?

In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

In Cold Blood (1967)
Directed by Richard Brooks
Screenplay by Richard Brooks, based on the book by Truman Capote
Produced by Richard Brooks
134 minutes

Richard Brooks’ screen version of the “non-fiction novel” by Truman Capote opened the same year as The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde, so if there’s a debate about which 1967 film had the greatest impact on future of motion pictures, In Cold Blood is not in that debate. The murder of the Clutter family never warrants the thousands of man hours that were dedicated to analyzing and recreating the crime, but the film illustrates how a gifted actor, composer and cinematographer can elevate material into something magnificent. Ignoring suggestions by Columbia Pictures that Steve McQueen & Paul Newman play Perry Smith & Dick Hickock, Brooks cast unknowns in Robert Blake & Scott Wilson and tried to inject as much realism as possible into this true crime story, shooting at some of the actual locations and casting participants in the 1959 murder trial as extras.

Playing a natural born killer itched by the occasional impulse to do good, Robert Blake is brilliant. Quincy Jones composed a jazz score that initially seems inappropriate for heavy drama, but the music keeps the viewer off-balance, unsure of how we’re supposed to feel about what’s happening. The best reason of all to revisit In Cold Blood is the cinematography by Conrad Hall, one of the most vivid examples of the harsh beauty he would become renowned for. In terms of precision, lighting a black & white movie is like being called up to pitch in the majors and Hall was one of the league’s superstars; few movies using monochrome film stock or widescreen framing utilize the medium as gorgeously as In Cold Blood. Largely forgotten in spite of the number of actors he directed to Oscars, Richard Brooks brings intelligence and a point of view to the examination of a motiveless crime.

Stepping off a Greyhound bus in Kansas City with a guitar and most of his possessions in a box, Perry Smith (Robert Blake) makes an urgent call to the Kansas State Penitentiary, hoping the pastor there can put him in touch with a friend whose guidance he desperately needs. Instead, smooth talking ex-con Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson) picks him up, violating Perry’s parole by returning him to Kansas. Dick is eager for Perry’s help breaking into a home 400 miles west in the town of Holcomb, where according to a former cellmate of Dick’s, farmer Herbert Clutter has $10,000 or “maybe more” locked in a safe. Chewing Aspirin for chronic leg pain he’s suffered since a motorcycle accident, Perry resists going along with the robbery, but is talked into it by Dick, who has never killed anyone and covets Perry’s experience in that area.

When Clutter, his wife, 16-year-old daughter Nancy (Brenda Currin) and 15-year-old son are found shot to death, FBI agent Alvin Dewey (John Forsythe) begins pursuing leads. With no shotgun shells and no fingerprints to work from, the feds catch a break when Dick’s cellmate comes forward to offer information in exchange for a reward. Dreaming of sunken treasure, Perry drags Dick down to Mexico, a trip his partner finances by cutting phony checks along the way. Missing his gravely ill father (Jeff Corey), Dick compels Perry to return with him to Kansas. Arrested in Las Vegas for a stolen car, the men are interrogated by Agent Dewey and his men. Also hovering around the case is reporter Bill Jensen (Paul Stewart) who is obsessed by the senselessness of the crime and seeks answers of how something like this could happen.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 1,891 users: 83% for In Cold Blood

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes.

Here’s Part 1 of a bill featuring high tech conspiracies in L.A.

The Star Chamber (1983)
Directed by Peter Hyams
Screenplay by Roderick Taylor and Peter Hyams, story by Roderick Taylor
Produced by Frank Yablans
109 minutes

Though Michael Douglas had played opposite Geneviève Bujold in Coma and Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome, uncovering conspiracies in the healthcare and energy sectors, the producer and actor took a step toward becoming a movie star with The Star Chamber, an unabashed B-movie of the type that used to star Richard Widmark or Sterling Hayden when movies titled Panic In the Streets or Crime Wave played the bottom half of the bill. With an irresistible plot involving Superior Court judges rendering their own justice whenever the law gets in the way, The Star Chamber is a Dirty Harry picture for people who can read without moving their lips. Equipped with way more intrigue and drenched with far greater suspense than required, when it comes to audience appreciation, this movie overachieves.

Co-star Hal Holbrook — Old Man Conspiracy in Magnum Force and The Firm — calling Michael Douglas “kiddo” isn’t the only thing that dates The Star Chamber like a vintage coat. While Sharon Gless makes a refined impression in her three scenes, no time is wasted on a romantic lead or subplots that don’t relate to the one we paid a ticket for: judges delegating vigilante justice. The script keeps most of its nuts and bolts out of view, remaining plausible by letting the audience’s imagination do most of the work. Adapted and directed by Peter Hyams, the film has credible dialogue, solid performances, elegant set pieces and is cloaked in the sinister shadow that Hyams would execute as his own director of photography on 2010, Narrow Margin and The Relic. The Star Chamber is the director at his most soldered.

Detectives (Larry Hankin, Dick Anthony Williams) on the hunt for a serial robber and killer in South Los Angeles spot a suspect drop something into his garbage can. Lacking a warrant to conduct a legal search, the cops wait for trash collectors to dump the contents of the can into a garbage truck’s scoop, where they retrieve the murder weapon. At trial, Superior Court Judge Steven Hardin (Michael Douglas) is given no choice but rule the evidence, subsequent search and confession inadmissible on a technicality. Lamenting the miscarriage of justice to his mentor Judge Caulfield (Hal Holbrook), Hardin’s next case forces him to set free two suspected child murderers (Joe Regalbuto, Don Calfa) when LAPD officers (Charles Hallahan, David Proval) produce crucial evidence in an illegal search.

The father (James B. Sikking) of the murder victim opens fire on the suspects in court. Visiting the man in jail, Hardin learns that the body of another boy has been found after he set the suspects free. While Detective Harry Lowes (Yaphet Kotto) begins pursuing leads, Hardin approaches Caulfield, who has tantalized his protégé with hints of doing something about his frustration with the legal system. He invites Hardin to join a panel of nine superior court judges who comprise “a court of last resort”, reviewing cases dismissed on technicality and employing their own executioner to carry out sentences. While Hardin’s child murder defendants are soon found “guilty” by the panel, Detective Lowes produces information that the men really were innocent. Unable to cancel the “sentencing”, Hardin takes matters into his own hands and risks exposing the judges.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 5 users: 80% for The Star Chamber

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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Tightrope (1984)
Directed by Richard Tuggle*
Written by Richard Tuggle
Produced by Clint Eastwood, Fritz Manes
114 minutes

Like a quarter shining in the gutter, Tightrope could stand a polish, but if you catch it on a rainy afternoon or late at night, this unabashed B-movie offers spills and thrills aplenty. Escape From Alcatraz scribe Richard Tuggle took his cue from a series of unsolved rapes in the Bay Area. His research resulted in a cop thriller sold to Clint Eastwood under the condition the screenwriter be allowed to make his directorial debut. Tuggle’s struggles on the set threatened his job security on day 1, but DGA guidelines — amended after Eastwood replaced Philip Kaufman as director of The Outlaw Josey Wales with himself — mandated that Tuggle remain on and receive a credit for directing. Whether you believe Eastwood collaborated with Tuggle from there or it was more likely the other way around, whoever directed Tightrope managed a good film that occasionally flirts with being a very good one.

Tightrope could either be considered a Cannon Films styled cop thriller like Cobra or Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects made with a real script and much better actors, or it could be considered just another Cannon Films styled cop thriller. The business of a serial killing rapist on the loose in a Red Light District is routine, repetitive and almost completely indistinguishable for a hundred other bad movies and TV shows. Where the picture shows life are its domestic scenes — where Eastwood’s chemistry with his 11-year-old daughter Alison glows — and the cop’s relationship with a rape counselor played by Geneviève Bujold. Eastwood relocated the script from San Francisco to New Orleans, and the offbeat French Canadian actress proves as alluring as the city itself. The killer is given no substance, but since the family he menaces is something we care about, at the very least, Tightrope provides a riveting ride to the finish.

In New Orleans, divorced police captain Wes Block (Clint Eastwood) cancels plans to watch the Saints game with his two young daughters (Alison Eastwood, Jennifer Beck) when a prostitute is found strangled to death in her home. When another working girl turns up drowned in a bathhouse, rape counselor Beryl Thibodeaux (Geneviève Bujold) presses Block to involve her office in the investigation. Prowling the brothels of The Big Easy to interview prostitutes, Block finds the time to indulge his dark side with a popsicle sucking tart (Rebecca Perle) and a nurse (Margaret Howell) among others moonlighting in the sex trade. Personal items Block leaves at his nocturnal activities — handcuffs, a necktie — begin to turn up alongside the bodies of the prostitutes he’s frequented.

Once she complains to City Hall about his lack of cooperation, Beryl Thibodeaux receives a visit from Block at the non-profit rape center she runs. The cop later seeks Beryl out at her gym and over an oyster lunch on the Mississippi, bluntly shares his attraction for her. She accepts his invitation to go trick or treating with his girls in the French Quarter and receives their approval to continue dating their dad. Meanwhile, Block and his partner (Dan Hedaya) trace glass fragments at the murder scenes to a local beer bottling plant. The killer responds by visiting Block’s daughters, killing their nanny and almost strangling Block. The cop narrows his manhunt onto one suspect in particular, but while he’s staking out the man’s apartment, the killer goes hunting for Beryl.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 11 users: 82% for Tightrope

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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