Matt's Favorite Horror Flicks; Part I

In a peculiar kind of way, the horror genre is sort of like the punk-rock of the movie world.  It began vaguely, on the outside edge of the medium, before crystalizing itself in the late 1970s.  Since then it has become an ever-growing umbrella genre, with a seemingly infinite amount of available methods of execution and niches to satisfy (or exploit).  It is a genre where anything goes.  There are no rules, and sometimes the more recklessly made, potentially offensive, and against-the-grain; the better a resulting product is.  There is an inherent aura of danger involved, and that is what makes them so damn much fun to experience.  

On that note, I decided to make this year's "Noisepaper Halloween Special" a series on my favorite films of the horror genre.  Not a particularly original concept, I know; but every movie included will be one that I hold strong feelings about that I have been dying (horror-themed pun unintended) to put into writing one way or another.  

This first installment features a trio of relatively old gems that seem to be lesser known among todays audience.  They have all aged incredibly well however, perhaps even reaching "timeless" status.  While not usually mentioned among the classics, as far as I'm concerned they are important landmarks in horror cinema.    

Re-Animator

Re-Animator is a film based on an H.P. Lovecraft story originally written as a parody of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  If that doesn't set the stage for this gruesomely entertaining thrill-ride, the satirical take on Psycho's theme music that plays over the opening credits will. 

As noted by Robert Ebert, the film seems to thrive on the balance between director Stuart Gordon's desire to make a good film, and his simultaneous acknowledgement that a film about a mad scientist bringing back the dead is unlikely to be considered "good".  As the film builds momentum off of this tension, it finds its stylistic groove in comic book-esque, out-of-control sci-fi weirdness.  I like to describe this movie as either the scariest funny movie ever made, or the funniest scary movie ever made.  Although it maintains its horror spirt throughout- propelled by perpetually building intensity and gore, the whole story is shaded with a psychotically morbid, pitch-black sense of humor.  

Jacob's Ladder

I'm a sucker for movies dealing with dreams and delusions; where the story and images are presented through an unreliable lens in such a way that anything can happen and the viewer is left questioning whether anything is "real" or just imagined.  I have found very few films that succeed in creating such a palpable atmosphere of unease the way that Jacob's Ladder does.  

Jacob's Ladder places its protagonist (and in turn its audience) in a world shrouded in perpetual fog, where normal characters act vaguely "off" and fleeting glimpses of demonic creatures are made.  The plot navigates a disorienting network of flashbacks as our hero tries to make sense of it all, before all hell (quite literally) inevitably breaks loose.  For much of its runtime we are kept right at the brink of sanity, just as overcome by the unpredictable mystery as our main character is.  There are a few well-placed jump scares thrown in to keep the momentum, but the real terror lies in the constant feeling that something unspeakably scary is just about to happen.  When it finally does boil over with the infamous "hospital scene", the result is one of the most undeniably brilliant sequences in all of horror, and some of the most indelible nightmare fuel to be be found anywhere.  

 Suspiria

In the post-fascist Italy of the late 1970s, a subgenre of horror emerged that has come to be known as Giallo-Horror.  Such films traditionally focus on an outsider protagonist becoming witness to some type of gruesome crime, and as a result finding themselves involved in a story of delusion, diabolical authority figures, Hitchcockian suspense, and violent bloodletting.  Among the most highly regarded of such films is Dario Argento's 1977 classic Suspiria.

Much like Jacob's Ladder, Suspiria creates a surreal atmospheric setting; in this case experienced from the perspective of a young American ballerina attending a mysterious dance academy in Germany.  Unlike Jacob's Ladder, Suspiria relies not on shadows and glimpses of disturbing imagery, but bright, gory, in-your-face terror.  The death scenes play out like works of art, the disembowelment of the ballet students choreographed like a ballet itself, with the surrealistically vibrant blood serving as the main set piece.  Despite a lacking storyline, the film maintains tension not only via graphic kills, but the bizarre intricacies of the setting itself, and the disorienting camera angles in which it is seen.  Add in the terrifying soundtrack by Italian progressive rock band Goblin, and this film is a work of art unlike any other. 

Halloween Album Special: Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician

If Hell has a house band, I like to think that it is the Butthole Surfers.  The Surfers built a career out of making music that at its friendliest is just plain weird, but more often than not is threatening, abrasive, and legitimately frightening.  On their 1996 album Locust Abortion Technician in particular, they have an undeniable knack of putting on tape the mentally unhinged type of sounds that exist in the darkest corners of our psyche, only brought fourth in the unstable mind or to soundtrack tormented fever dreams.  I will go through with the agonizing task of picking one song from Locust Abortion to represent The Surfers on the final Halloween mixtape, but for now it feels necessary to address the entirety of an album that for my money is the most deranged, maniacally twisted collection of songs ever set to tape.

"Daddy?…What does 'regret' mean?"  

"Well son, the funny thing about regret is- it's better to regret something that you have done than to regret something you haven't done.  

And by the way, if you see your mom this weekend, be sure and tell her:

SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN!"

And with that, the Butthole Surfers launch headfirst into 33 minutes of utter nightmare.  The opening track that contains this delightfully haunting intro is Sweet Loaf, a cover/parody of sorts of Black Sabbath's Sweet Leaf.  The hook is a warped version of Tony Iommi's classic original riff, accompanied by effects-laden inhuman shouts and screams.  The vocal effects in question have come to be called "Gibbytronix" after frontman Gibby Haynes, who processes his vocals in various demented ways throughout the album.  It does an admirable job of introducing the general approach of the Surfers:  weird and even disturbing, but at the end of the day still flat-out rocks and is delivered with a sly wink. 

The next few tracks dwell in the deepness of this atmosphere.  Graveyard is rooted in a distorted, downtuned guitar riff that seems to grind its way through it's own sludge, with brief piercing leads occasionally slicing through the mix.  The Gibbytronix makes its presence felt, as the vocals are heavily down-pitched to provide a suffocated, guttural quality as if they are excruciatingly making their way up through six feet of earth.  Following Graveyard is Pittsburgh to Lebanon, a down-and-dirty blues straight from the depths of hell.  It plods along to a lunatic groove as Gibby howls distortedly about such things as buying "(his) first shotgun at the age of three".  

Just as you begin to get used to the downtempo weirdness thus far, The Surfers throw in a subconsciously dreaded monkey wrench, confirming your fears that this rabbit hole does indeed deepen.  The brief instrumental Weber sloppily establishes riffs and motives that are never expanded upon, and leads directly into the farm animal sounds.  The moo's and baa's that carry throughout Hay are soon accompanied by stuttered, disorienting tape loops that flap and reverse over themselves as the animals continue their yelling and are joined late in the track by faint high-pitched human chanting and devilish growls.  At the albums halfway point the relatively straightforward Human Cannonball is a welcome intermission.  More importantly however, it is a very strong stand-alone garage rock song.  Albeit on the terms of the Butthole Surfers; the riffs drone along, the vocals are manic and the lyrics are cryptic; it adds a new level of musical sensibility that will be necessary to carry this album through its home stretch.  

U.S.S.A. shoves us back into nightmareland with a terribly distorted drumroll, or march, or…something.  The brief fade-out provides a teasingly false sense of security right before the grinding guitar noise stutters its way to the front of the mix.  Gibby spends the next couple minutes half-screaming (through filters that give even more edges to his delivery) incoherently over the now familiar, yet no less threatening, chopped up tape loops.  Much to everyone's demented joy, as soon as this madness ends The O-Men pick it right back up.  The rhythm pounds in double-time now, and once the rapid-fire vocals come in spewing nonsense it's obvious there is no turning back.  In what I suppose could be called a chorus, there is a call-and-response from the many schizophrenic voices of Gibby Haynes, as his high pitched worm-voice gives que to his Darth Vader-on-acid voice, which is followed by an unhinged, hyperactive guitar lead before it starts all over again.  The tempo is taken down briefly with Kuntz, but the insanity very much remains.  The song is a remixed version of what seems like an old-time traditional Indian or Middle-Eastern song edited just right (and with extra voices added) so it sounds like the word cunts is repeated as the etherial rhythm drones on.  After that we are treated to another version of Graveyard, this time without any downpitching effects.  Somehow it is even more maddening this way, as the guitar plucks and screams while the Gibbytronix take the vocals to new depths of delirium.  

The darkness all comes to a head with troubling album closer 22 Going on 23.  In audio taken from an actual radio broadcast, a young woman details with disturbing tranquility her "sleep problems" stemming from a sexual assault.  In the background a feral, lumbering riff rises and swells with pure evil as the radio host analyses her issues with echoing terms like "anxiety…sleep programming…conselling…medicine…depression…etc".  After a slowed down, otherworldly guitar solo the same woman resurfaces, complaining of an entirely different set of problems.  The album then fades out into familiar farm-animal noises, and comes to a disturbing halt with crickets and slow-motion "moo"ing.  Upon further inspection, not only are these slowed down versions of the same sample heard in Hay, but the woman's voice had previously been sped up and distorted and used throughout the album, subconsciously tying all of the madness together.  

As you're dropped into silence and left wondering exactly what the hell it is that you've just listened to, the album continues to work its magic as the aural journey through hell sticks vaguely in your mind like the aforementioned fever dreams.  After a little time to readjust to normalcy the appreciation grows for the way Locust Abortion Technician maintains an enjoyable, momentous listen even as it sinks to new depths of psychosis.  The overall haunting atmosphere and gleeful embrace of everything creepy and darkly experimental make this as good of an album as any to give a spin during Halloween. 

Matt's Halloween Mixtape; Part Two

Behind all of the fun and games associated with Halloween lies a very dark and mysterious past.  While customs such as carving jack-o-lanterns, trick-or-treating, dressing up in costumes and so on have become time-honored traditions ubiquitous with the season, and many variations of monsters and ghosts have rightfully become pop-culture icons, we mustn't forget the darkly rich history of the relatively recently mainstream holiday.  The underlying purpose of Halloween is less about celebration as it is paying respect to the certainty of death, and the frighteningly unknowable thereafter.  

This eerie correlation with the the unknown and the otherworldly is, in my opinion, what really makes Halloween special.  Therefore, I've taken great care to include in this series those songs which I feel most effectively acknowledge the darker aspects of the human (or not-so-human) condition, and bring them to the forefront of a fittingly ominous atmosphere.  

Suicide - Frankie Teardrop

Suicide is quite simply a weird "band", both during their active years and within a historical context.  The were the first group to ever use the term "punk music" to advertise a show, yet they were widely detested by much of the punk scene for their provocative demeanor and reliance on keyboards, drum machines, and murmured vocals.  

This artist/audience conflict came together for several stunning moments on their 1977 self-titled debut album however, most notably on side two's minimalist epic Frankie Teardrop.  The song immediately establishes a disturbing claustrophobic atmosphere of doom with a pounding, straight eighth-note rhythm of industrial noise that drones on for its ten minute entirety.  laid over the top of this agonizingly simple beat with unnerving volume are Alan Vega's nervy, tense, half-whispered vocals.  As the metallic noise pounds on Vega weaves a tale of a young father on the brink of insanity trapped in poverty and the maddening repetition of his factory work.  Good ol' Frankie hopelessly grinds through the days to support his family, but when his desperation reaches its breaking point he is left to pick up a gun and let it provide all the "support" his family needs.  All the while the constant pounding noise continues.  The song can explode into hell at any moment, but the real terror is that you know it won't- it will just keep droning on and on.  When listened to in the right setting, you have already long been firmly on edge by the time the utterly blood curdling screams come out of nowhere. 

Acid Bath - Finger Paintings of the Insane

Much earlier in this blog's life I wrote with disturbed affection about Acid Bath's classic "death rock" album When the Kite String Pops.  I am excited now to have an opportunity to more deeply explore one of my favorite cuts from that album.  

In the years before and since I made that post reviewing When the Kite String Pops I haven't come up with a better description for their sound than that which must constantly play within the mind of a serial killer.  From their overbearing menace to the unrelenting brutality of their lyrics and their schizophrenic straddling of genres, Acid Bath creates a musical environment that is directly engaging in it's heaviness yet consistently unnerving in its twists and turns, and it has a way of getting you lost in the fractured mind of the deeply disturbed.

At no point in the album are these qualities on more troubling display than during Finger Paintings of the Insane.  As vocalist Dax Riggs alternates between morbidly dark crooning and agonized verbal assaults of self-destruction, torture and pure evil, the band weaves a spellbinding web of shifting dynamics and jarring tempo changes, bookended by skull-crushing rhythms and guitars that grind and slash their way through the nightmare.  As a listener you are left disoriented; scared and lost in the mind of a psychopath, yet morbidly fascinated and unable to take yourself away from the hellish, unforgiving sonic landscape.

The Beatles - Revolution 9  

Possibly the one song that I would call the creepiest comes from an unlikely yet ultimately unsurprising source.  More widely regarded for their mop-tops and desire to "hold your hand", The Beatles were certainly no slouches when it came to experimental recording, and the results heard in Revolution 9 are nothing short of terrifying.  

Revolution 9 begins with a minor piano theme and a mysterious voice repeating "number nine", panned jarringly between stereo channels.  For the ensuing eight minutes, it spirals deeper and deeper into pure insanity.  The piece consists entirely of various different tape loops that have been treated with odd, disquieting effects.  Most of them are taken from classical music or opera, but there are also everyday sound effects such as crowd noise, laughter, voices, breaking glass, and car horns that in this context are made harsh and grating.  The loops fade in and out, dance around each other, and, at the absolute scariest- burst unexpectedly out of nowhere on only one side of the mix (DO NOT listen to this loudly on headphones late at night).  In a move of subtle production genius, the piano and "number nine" motif recur and echo almost tauntingly in and out of the mix, confirming that the suddenly not-so-Fab Four realize exactly how uncomfortable of a listening experience they have created.  

Running List:

Sonic Youth - Death Valley '69

HorrorPops - Walk Like a Zombie

Suicide - Frankie Teardrop

Acid Bath - Finger Paintings of the Insane

The Beatles - Revolution 9

Matt's Halloween Mixtape; Part One

Sonic Youth - Death Valley '69

With a few weeks left to go, it feels appropriate to kick things off with a song that leaves its intentions shrouded in mystery.  Sonic Youth uses this vagueness to its advantage by crafting an atmosphere of impending doom and an aggressive creepiness on its own terms.  Death Valley '69 was inspired by the ultra-creepy Manson Family; and the pulsating rhythm, screeching discordant guitars, and schizophrenic vocals stay true to the source material in the most satisfying way.  

The Horrorpops - Walk Like a Zombie

To introduce the other side of "Halloween music" are a Danish group of jubilant misfits (foreshadowing definitely intended) known as The HorrorPops.  Taking the "psychobilly" subgenre to the brink of caricature, The HorrorPops energetically combine 1950s rockabilly and doo-wop songcraft with direct lyrical references to the undead, the otherworldly, the luridly sexual, and the violent.  The result of course, is an ominous yet upbeat representation of whatever debauchery comes to life for Halloween.  

With that we reach the point of no return, the Halloween season is upon us.  It is said that this is the time of year in which the barrier between the living and the dead is at its weakest, and later in the week we will take a close look at some songs that unearth the darker depths of our human psyche…

Introducing: Matt's Halloween Mixtape

Among all of the things that I love about music, possibly the most significant is its ability, perhaps more than any other art medium, to play on one's imagination.  The perfect song choice for any particular moment can emphasize, influence, or sympathize with the listener's mindset in a way that is nothing short of magical.  For a certain type (or types) of music, this quality is brought out in spades once the leaves start drop, scary and/or risque disguises are put together, and an aura of mischief and the macabre creeps into the atmosphere.  Whether the music directly acknowledges Halloween and traditional horror tropes or takes a more vague approach, many artists have found their own ways of celebrating the strange sub-season of October.  

Out of fascination for this, I've decided to start a series of posts highlighting my absolute favorite of these songs; culminating towards the end of the month with The Noisepaper's FIRST EVER compilation release.  The selections will range from the lighthearted celebratory, to the deranged and legitimately fear-inducing, to the just plain weird.  The one thing they will all have in common though is an undeniable contribution to the mysterious, sometimes threatening, but always enjoyable and impossible to ignore Spirt of Halloween.  

Starting tonight, I will be adding songs one by one several times per week until the full compilation is released just in time for All Hallow's Eve.  Stay tuned, if you dare!