Movies for Halloween

Catching up on unseen horror movies.

(1) Karin has a friend who arranges “watch parties.” Everyone stays at home, watches simultaneously, and exchanges text messages.

Are they good movies? They are not.

How can a person love camp to the exclusion of all else? How does she persuade family and friends to watch with her, month after month, year after year? It boggles the mind.

Two sub-genres of camp are represented at these parties: Hallmark and horror. ’Tis the season for horror. (Hallmark is for Christmastime.)

I relate this, not to complain, but to admit that last week’s selection was well above average. I’m referring to Dario Argento’s Phenomena (1985). (Philomena, I kept wanting to call it.) It’s set in a girls’ boarding school in the Swiss Alps. Jennifer Connolly and other girls climb out of dormitory windows and wander through forests, at night. Some girls are murdered.

Then there’s the little matter of Connolly’s ability to communicate with insects.

Baddie going to slice you open? Just summon a swarm of flies to protect you.

And there’s a hyper-intelligent monkey. And there are turns by Patrick Bauchau and Donald Pleasance.

This is the second of Argento’s movies I’ve seen. Suspiria (1977), an earlier “watch party” selection, was much worse. Karin’s friend loved Phenomena so much, she was ready to watch it again the next day. I might choose to watch it again on an airplane, or in prison.

(2) Midsommar (2019) is a tedious Wicker Man rehash with an awesome performance by Florence Pugh.

It’s sometimes remarked that the character of Hamlet is much too splendid for the rest of the play. Something like this can be said of Midsommar. What if Ophelia (not Hamlet), inarticulate but facially and gesturally exquisite, were to visit a savage (Swedish!) tribe? What if her companions – one of them, her loutish boyfriend – were a bunch of Rozencrantzes and Guildensterns?

That’s what Midsommar is.

It must also be said that the opening scenes, which involve a murder-suicide, are genuinely wrenching. Everything turns silly after that.