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From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. June 2025: Countdown to: Top 10: Best horror comedy movies - Upcoming review: There's Still Tomorrow (2023)
Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025)
Showing posts with label great psych. horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label great psych. horror. Show all posts
Something horrible and ghoulish is teased on this effective poster for Robert Wise's The Haunting
A professor wants to find evidence of a parallel world of spirits and therefore invites a pair of relevant women to join him and the owner at the allegedly haunted Hill House manor.
The Haunting is written by Nelson Gidding (Lisa (1962)), adapting The Haunting of Hill House (1959)) by Shirley Jackson (The Sundial (1958)), and directed by great Indianan filmmaker Robert Wise (The Curse of the Cat People (1944)).
Julie Harris (Hamlet (1964)) as our afflicted, independence-seeking protagonist is outstanding, and the film is as much a ghost story as a creepy journey into the mind of a person who is getting near to a psychosis.
The remarkable photography (by Davis Boulton (Children of the Damned (1964))) manipulates with perspectives, distances and more, and the set design is excellent. There's a spiral staircase scene that demonstrates how long a suspense scene can be held. And Lois Maxwell (Lost and Found (1979)) is good in the supporting part as Grace Markway, the investigating doctor's cynical wife.
The Haunting is a study in withheld and insinuated horror that piques the subconscious with its eeriness.
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 1.05 mil. $
Box office: In excess of 1.02 mil. $ (North-American rentals in 1963 only)
= Uncertain but most likely a flop
[The Haunting opened 21 August (USA) and runs 114 minutes. Shooting took place around October 1962 in England, including in London. Harris suffered from depression at the time of shooting, affecting her performance and interaction (and lack thereof) with the cast and crew. With only a 1963 North-American rental figure, (which is unimpressive), the film's theatrical status is impossible to ascertain, - but it seems likely that The Haunting was a flop. It was nominated for a Golden Globe. It was remade as The Haunting (1999), and has inspired Rose Red (2002, miniseries) and The Haunting of Hill House (2018, miniseries VOD). Wise returned with The Sound of Music (1965). Harris returned in Little Moon of Alban (1964, TV movie), Kraft Suspense Theatre (1964, TV-series) and theatrically in Hamlet (1964); Claire Bloom (The King's Speech (2010)) in Il Maestro di Vigevano (1963). The Haunting is certified fresh at 87 % with an 8.00/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
+ Best Cannibal Title of the Year + Best Crime Thriller of the Year + Best New TV-series of the Year + Best Psychological Horror of the Year
Mads Mikkelsen dressed to the nines wipes his mouth with a fancy cloth as the title character on this poster for the first season of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal
FBI Special Investigator Will Graham is initially hunting a killer of girls, as he initiates contact to noted psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter for insights, and the good doctor is only too keen to assist him, although he carefully keeps certain details of his life away from Graham ...
Hannibal is a horror/crime TV-series created by Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me (2003-04)), based on Thomas Harris' (Black Sunday (1975)) Hannibal Lecter novels, Red Dragon (1981), Hannibal (1999) and Hannibal Rising (2006).
The show establishes its really icky, unnerving tone in its pilot (Aperitif), in which we witness Graham's investigative technique of putting himself in the mind of the killer with closed eyes, imagining that he is doing the horrific killings himself. By the second episode, in which young, red-headed, scrupulous journalist Freddie Lounds (played by the beautifulLara Jean Chorostecki (X Company (2015-17))) is also introduced, we have already been dealing with two bizarre serial killers, - beside the doctor himself, whose homicidal tendencies and cannibalistic tastes will be known to most viewers beforehand and are mostly teased to us in the show, as in dinner scenes with Special Agent Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne (Apocalypse Now (1979))), where Lecter serves Crawford suspicious delicacies. Crawford's beautiful wife (Gina Torres (Suits (2011-18)) later starts therapy at Lecter, and the couple are quite moving, when Crawford learns that she has overcome lung cancer without telling him about it.
The show is very dark, and it comes to a dark climax in episode 4 (Oeuf), in which a woman manipulates kidnapped teens into murdering their families! By and by we come to narrow in on the central serial killer of the season, the so-called Chesapeake Ripper, and could he be Eddie Izzard's (Ocean's Thirteen (2007)) incarcerated Dr. Abel Gideon?
Shrinks often have their own shrinks, as we already know, and Lecter's is Gillian Anderson's (Tristram Shandy (2005)) delectable Bedelia Du Maurier, whose doctor-patient confidentiality clause later becomes a point of contention, as Lecter becomes a person of interest in connection to more than one murder case.
Lecter hides from Graham that he is suffering from a brain infection, which causes him to have blackouts. SPOILER In the final episode such a blackout proves disastrous for Graham, as he wakes up coughing an ear up, with blood under his fingernails, getting him locked away in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane!
Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt/Jagten (2012)) first struck me as very Danish as Dr. Lecter, and the pace of the show somewhat rushed. The plot is strange and far detached from any reality audiences will be used to, but it strikes a handsome, nightmarish tone. It takes a while to get into the show's creepy thrills, but I was there by episode 7, especially as the weird triangle of trust between Graham, Lecter and Du Maurier begets suspense. Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy (Our Idiot Brother (2011)), - whose youthfully pretty face actually works against him in a character as heavy and adult as Graham, - and Fishburne all turn in formidable work. Graham's character is constructed carefully and credibly.
The show has a phenomenal grip on digital effects, lighting and photography, which is sublime, always pushing the gross and nauseating plot details to our subconscious examinations. (Cinematography by James Hawkinson (Running Wilde (2010, TV-series)) and Karim Hussain (Ascension (2002)).) It ends on a real high note with a terrific cliffhanger. There hasn't really been a TV-series like it before: Hannibal slow-burns its way assuredly towards goosebumps, nightmares and a strong viewer investment in its horrific plot.
Best episodes:
Episode 8: Fromage - written by Fuller, Jennifer Schuur (Hellcats (2010-11)); directed by Tim Hunter (Glee (2011, TV-series))
A
male couple, who are both violent and homicidal, go through the hands
of Lecter and Graham, whose mental stability is under pressure. SPOILER
Hannibal kills both the men after a wild battle, and hides the fact from
Graham.
Episode 9: Trou Normand - written by Steve Lightfoot (The Punisher (2017-19)); directed by Guillermo Navarro (Narcos (2015, TV-series))
A
nauseating human totem (!) is discovered, and Lance Henriksen (Hard Target (1995)) plays the
psycho culprit. But the episode is more about Graham's instability and a
young woman, the daughter of a now defeated monster, whose own sins are
buried by Lecter and Graham collectively.
Episode 13: Savoureux - written by Fuller, Lightfoot, Scott Nimerfro (Pushing Daisies (2007-08)); directed by David Slade (Hard Candy (2005))
Graham further incriminates himself, - or someone does it for him?, - in connection to the presumed murder of Abigail Hobbs. He is locked away, while his girlfriend suspects that a physical ailment is in play, and Graham himself gets closer and closer to realizing the true, horrific capabilities of his psychiatrist, Dr. Lecter.
Mikkelsen and Dancy on the red carpet in a short clip here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: None - TV-series
= Uncertain
[Hannibal season 1 was first shown from 4 April - 20 June on NBC and runs 13 episodes of on average 44 minutes, coming to 572 minutes. Fishburne was reportedly paid 175k $ per episode, totaling 2.275 mil. $. Shooting took place from August 2012 - ? in Ontario, including in Toronto. The season's highest rating came on episode 2 (4.38 mil.), but the ratings then slipped, and the lowest rating came on the final episode (1.98 mil. ). The season averaged 2.9 mil. US viewers. It was renewed for season 2 (2014). IMDb's users have rated the film in at #215 on the sites TV Top 250 list, sitting between Mob Psycho 100 (2016) and Community (2009). In 2013 Mikkelsen also starred in Charlie Countryman and Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas; Dancy with voice performances in Poe and Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return; and Fishburne in The Colony, Man of Steel and Khumba. Hannibal season 1 is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
The film's graphic novel origin is evident on this busy poster for Marc Meyers' My Friend Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer has a mother, who is crazy, and a father, who is miserable and worried about his son. And then the adolescent also has a strange hobby; he picks up and dissolves roadkill as a pastime in his lonely high school life.
My Friend Dahmer is written and directed by great American filmmaker Marc Meyers (Approaching Union Square (2006)), adapting the same-titled 2012 graphic novel by Derf Backderf (Punk Rock & Trailer Parks (2010)), who in it recounts his personal experience of befriending the later legendary serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in high school in Ohio in the 1970s.
My Friend Dahmer is a very positive surprise and far superior to Dahmer (2002), the preceding major - though similarly independent and low-budgeted - film based on the gruesome killer also known as 'the Milwaukee Cannibal'. Derf's basis creation serves as an original angle on the familiar serial killer territory, namely, how does a boy grow up to become such a monster? In this respect the film lives up to both of the expectations that one could reasonable have for it: 1. It gives insight into the specific case of Dahmer. 2. It gives indications of where his later macabre murderous preferences may have come from, (biological fascinations and deep-seated alienation coupled with sexual frustrations.)
Still there is a chasm between the young fella we meet here, - Ross Lynch (Cleo (2015)) is excellent in the part, - and the horrendous crimes that we know he is going to commit. It is part of the film's sombre mission to lay this before us as our job to try to make sense of. Meyers chooses to be restrained in the use of gore, instead in some cases indicating distressing tendencies using dialog, behavior and animals.
My Friend Dahmer is probably the creepiest film in years, and it isn't one that's easy to wash off your mind after you've seen it. Additionally it has tremendous performances from Anne Heche (Cedar Rapids (2011)) as Dahmer's deeply self-involved mother, Dallas Roberts (Mayhem (2017)) as his father and Alex Wolff (My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016)) as his phony friend, SPOILER who in the film's only nearly terror-inducing scene towards the end perhaps saves his own skin by withdrawing from his spazzed out 'friend' Dahmer.
Some may argue that not much happens in this film, but it is made for those already familiar with Dahmer and interested in serial killers, and for this group My Friend Dahmer is deeply, deeply unsettling, a dark independent movie gem.
= Huge flop (returned in the vicinity of 0.8 times its cost)
[My Friend Dahmer premiered 21 April (Tribeca Film Festival) and runs 107 minutes. Meyers' script was on the 2014 Black List. Shooting took place in Ohio, including Cleveland, from August - September 2016. Scenes of Dahmer's home life were shot in his actual childhood home. The film opened #49 to a 35k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #22 and in 110 theaters (different weeks), grossing 1.3 mil. $ (92.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 50k $ (3.6 %) and Australia with 24k $ (1.7 %). Meyers returned with We Summon the Darkness (2019). Lynch returned in R5: If (2017, music video) and R5: Hurts Good (2017, music video) and theatrically in Status Update (2018); Heche in Armed Response (2017); Dallas Roberts (Dallas Buyers Club (2013)) in American Crime (2017, TV-series), FBI (2018, TV-series)) and theatrically in Motherless Brooklyn (2019); and Wolff in Red Oaks (2017, TV-series) and theatrically in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017). My Friend Dahmer is certified fresh at 86 % with a 7.08/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
