Boys Are So Icky

Aside from James Cameron, most of us mere mortals can easily be named our own worst judges. Need proof? Take the fact that Roman Polanski, if Googling is to be believed, doesn't think much of today's feature, 1965's Repulsion.

Oh, Roman. Chill. You’re a perfectly incredible filmmaker who made at least three masterpieces and your false humility is hardly endearing. You’ve got other problems. We’ll just enjoy your films.

Quick Plot: Famed ice queen Catherine Deneuve plays Carol, a Belgian manicurist living in a London flat with her older, sassier sister. Pretty as a picture and blond to boot, Carol is overwhelmingly apprehensive when it comes to the opposite sex, an inconvenience when you happen to be, by conventional standards, an absolute fox. Even those with more gentle approaches, such as her chief suitor who seems genuinely concerned (and clearly, emotionally masochistic), do nothing to calm her nerves.

For about the first 45 minutes or so, Repulsion is a slow, tenuous journey through Carol’s daily life. Clearly, this is a damaged woman with emotional issues, but this being 1965 and Carol simply being a pretty beauty salon employee, nothing seems especially out of the ordinary. When her sister leaves town for vacation with her married boyfriend, however, Carol is left to her own crippling psychosis.

It doesn’t take long for the world to cave in on our virginal headcase. Between sexually abusive nightmares, a rotting skinned rabbit, and helping hands that occasionally grope through cracking walls, Carol creates her own male-dominated hell in her lonely low-rent apartment. 

Filmed in black and white and scored to insane beats of angry jazz, Repulsion is your signature Criterion feature. Unarguably a classic worthy of impressive vocabulary filled essays, but also genuinely fascinating and an intriguing example of what cinema can do. As Carol loses more and more of her grip on reality, Polanski’s camera becomes a terrifying barometer of her insanity, jerking along with fierce percussion beats. It’s haunting, painful, thoroughly unsettling, and ultimately, a fine example of classic cinema holding up forty years, new colors, and creepy sex crimes later.

High Points

While I would probably never want to turn it on the background, Chico Hamilton’s expressionistic jazz score does incredible things when paired with Carol’s fraught mind

Much like her similar turn in Belle du Jour, Catherine Deneuve delivers a striking performance as a woman that must connect to the audience even though, by her very nature, she comes off as a cold and distant mess

Low Points

A constant pet peeve gets renewed in black and white:

How can you be a ‘special guest star’ in a film? Especially when you have multiple scenes and play an actual character? Why, opening credits, whyyyyyyyyyyy?

Lessons Learned

Never trust a manicurist who bites her nails

There is more than one way to pay your rent, especially if you’re an attractive young woman with mental problems

Not just in Clue: Candlesticks can be effective murder weapons 

Rent/Bury/Buy

Repulsion is a must-see for any genre film fan or cinema snob, a masterfully crafted thriller that draws you into a woman’s head, then shakes it around like an excitable maraca. The DVD includes a few featurettes well worth investigating, so buy at the right price and enjoy with prestige.

Goodbye to the Great Pumpkin King

Was it good for you? I hope so, but ten popcorn balls says my Halloween was the best ever! It was actually life changing: I now officially heart New Jersey as it's home to Chiller Theater, a bat sanctuary, and fantastic people that have incredible weddings. 

As expected, our Clueful costumes were a hit. Dear friends/foes Erica and Lisa dazzled as those saucy sirens, Mrs. White and Ms. Scarlett. My Mrs. Peacock was simply divine in a gold lamme top (Burlington), horrendously mustardly flowered blouse (Filene's Basement), and shimmering A-line skirt brought to you by the Gap, Joanne’s Fabrics, Erica’s handiwork, and sticks of hot glue. It held up through gleeful Monster Mash-ing and uncoordinated Electric Sliding, plus countless queries by party guests about where our Colonel Mustard was.

Are we missing something? When did Martin Mull’s military murderer become the most beloved Clue character? Isn’t it more fun to say “Professor Plum?”

Anyway, that was my official Halloween. Sunday was spent at Chiller Theatre, a gigantic horror convention held in Parsippany, NJ, and perhaps the first one I’ve ever attended that was not being trolled by the scowl of Tom Savini. Fun was had, and my highlights are as follows:

-Buying a DVD of Frogenstein, a collection of a few Muppet meetups with horror icons such as Vincent Price

-Touching my cheek to Davy Jones for a photo op that made me swoon. He’s very tan, very sing songy, and still very damn adorable

-Narrowing my eyes at Richard Dreyfuss when he walked through the line I was waiting on without saying excuse me

-Chatting with the Brothers Hodder about disco, Davy Jones’ fans, and Hatchet 2. Apparently those are the kinds of questions I should have been asking at our “interview” last month

-hearing Louise Robey, the flame-haired lead on Friday the 13th: the Series, belt out a few notes to an adoring fan. It was weird.

-Having a very interesting conversation with artist Roger Kastel, the artist who designed such iconic posters as Jaws and The Empire Strikes Back. He had a wonderful attitude about his work and seemed to genuinely enjoy discussing his process

-Discovering that every single female that once posed nude has either the world's best stylish, plastic surgeon, or blood supply from virgins to maintain healthy glows. Also, most actresses that have ever appeared in genre films are so tiny, they make Dreyfuss look only slightly shorter than average height

We closed out the weekend of amazingness with an evening trip to see Saw VI, which I’ll review this week (hopefully) as soon as I find the power to harness any remaining energy bestowed upon me by discounted fun-size bars.

It’s been a beautiful October and I’m sadder than a fat kid with a dropped ice cream cone that it’s over. Dearest horror bloggers and readers, I pose this question: How can we make November a worthy, or mildly not-too-much-of-a-letdown followup?

There just aren’t enough films about killer turkeys, pilgrims, or the voting public. Deep sigh, silenced by an early round of stuffing laced with candy corn.

A Preview

Guess what?


It's here!





And so is my costume. Last night was the trial run for Mrs. Peacock, whose feathers remained inside her head. As was expected, many a party goer didn't quite get the look (one man was fairly convinced I was an owl). What surprised me was that both myself and Ms. White were such a big hit with Little Red Riding Hoods. While I don't know what inspired so many Long Island ladies to dress as the woodsy tease, I was more than happy that of all the people who stared at my costume last night, the only two to immediately get it before any explanation or waving of my giant Party City hunting knife were dressed as so.


Anyway, today is more costuming and a Halloween wedding. Tomorrow is Chiller Theater, where I'm hoping to touch my first crush ever, Mr. Davy Jones. What the sprightly Monkee has to do with horror is beyond me but the very fact that I can see, in the flesh, a man whose poster once graced my seven-year-old bedroom wall is fine by me.


I was an odd kid.


HAPPY HALLOWEEN!