In
honour of, and sadly not in time for, Halloween 2013, this Movie Showdown pits
two pre-apocalyptic, religious horror films against in each other.
In one
corner we have the iconic and much loved Roman Polanski suspense movie, Rosemary's Baby-- in which Mia Farrow
goes through one heck of a hellish pregnancy (see what I did there? Because
she's pregnant with the antichrist). In the other we have a surprisingly
philosophical consideration of the old 'science vs. faith' argument and lots of
cool 80s special effects in the haunting Prince
of Darkness by the master of cool genre cinema, John Carpenter.
Which
should you see? Read on, friends of
the night.
Rosemary's Baby
(1968)
When
you're a full-blown horror fan, it becomes hard to be genuinely frightened by things.
That's because horror fans have seen it all. We've been terrified by the
soulless, knife-wielding maniac Michael Myers. We've dreamed of Freddy Kruger
with his finger-knives. And we've spend hours pondering just what the hell
happened to the kids at the end of the The
Blair Witch Project.
Imagine
my delight when I discovered Rosemary's
Baby by Roman Polanski. Sure I had heard of it before. In-fact, I remember
picking up a VHS copy of it in a video rental store as a teenager (yes, I am
that old) and looking at Mia Farrow holding a butcher's knife and thinking,
"No, this is too scary for me." I bought it on DVD the other day on
sale at K-Mart and it scared the living shit out of me...And I'm not even
religious!
Polanski
masters the slow build here. Things begin normally, with Mia Farrow and her
husband moving into a new apartment in New York. After a horrifying dream
sequence (art-house style with scattered and horrifying images) in which she is
raped by a demonic figure, things start to quickly deteriorate.
Now, I'm
not even a believer and I was scared. You sort of get attached to Farrow's
Rosemary. This is primarily because Farrow brings a vulnerable pixie innocence
to the role. By the end, it's not entirely clear whether she's going through
some kind of post-partum psychosis, or whether the devil is a very real threat
to our beloved protagonist.
And the
ending! Oh my. It's just something you have to watch and see for yourself.
Suffice to say that Polanski nails it in such a weird and wonderful way. All
the suspense pays off and you leave the movie with this gnawing sense of
hopeless dread that just sticks with you.
Prince of
Darkness (1987)
Watched
this one last night with an 80s movie buff mate of mine, and really enjoyed it.
The impression I get of John Carpenter is that he's this cool skinny guy who
smokes a lot of pot and spends a lot of time reading stuff by Carlos Castaneda.
Prince of Darkness is filled with
metaphysical questioning, and includes an old Asian physics professor spouting
off stuff like: "Reality, as we know it, completely breaks down on the
subatomic level. Prepare to enter into a world where the rules of classic
reality doesn't apply."
If you're
not a fan of philosophical rambling (I most certainly am), don't be deterred though, because at its core, Prince of Darkness is a tremendous horror
film about demonic possession. A team of scientists and religious scholars are
sent to study a strange artefact discovered in the bowels of a church. The
artefact is eventually discovered to be the tomb of Satan himself, and manages
to possess each scholar one-by-one.
The
greatest thing about this movie is the use of 80s special effects. If you're a
kid of the 90s, who grew up watching movies you weren't allowed to watch from
the 80s (movies your parents said were just too scary/violent/sexual for you),
you're sure to love Prince of Darkness
(if you haven't seen it already). There are cool possessed people prosthetics,
including one that is particularly haunting near the end of the film. There is
a large John Coffey-esque black man who whimpers nervously as he cuts his own
throat with a jagged piece of wood.
Also,
look out for a cameo from Alice Cooper, who is fucking terrifying as a
murderous hobo.
So, which movie should you see?
Rosemary's Baby
Even
though I thoroughly enjoyed Prince of
Darkness, it's just impossible to overlook Rosemary's Baby as a horror film
and as a work of pure suspense. It just really stayed with me, and the ending
is an example of a perfect ending for a horror movie for me. One that is
utterly hopeless, and utterly horrifying.
Enjoy it
if you haven't already.
No comments:
Post a Comment