Part of Hoop-Tober

“But they haven’t been good, merely easy to live with.”

Beware the well-read virgin. So the saying goes. The imagination will be well lubricated by the endless tomes over which she has pored. She will know of the world, but will not be a part of it—what is worse, she will see this as a virtue rather than a liability. Hers will be a conviction that treats faith as the evidence of things unseen, an unseemly melding of hope and conclusion and fancy into an irrefutable approximation of truth. She will insist upon nothing but the best from people, and will assume nothing but the worst.

Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr, in a tour de force performance) is…

#12 of 31 - CineMonster's HOOPTOBER 4.0

I never would have selected this film for viewing in a gazillion years however it became an absolute must see when I had to fulfill CineMonster's HOOPTOBER 4.0's "1 terrible oversight" requirement! I received 3 Horror films via snail mail and I was dreading the time wasted with my butt firmly planted in my chair imagining myself literally counting down the milliseconds till conclusion of the film! Hence it is easy to surmise why I had saved it for the very last film of the night!

Much to my surprise I became thoroughly engrossed with the story unfolding upon my big screen TV! The children actors Martin Stephens (Miles) and Pamela Franklin (Flora)…

Viewed on DVD

Criterion Collection #727

Hoop-Tober #12

Miles: What shall I sing to my lord from my window? What shall I sing for my lord will not stay? What shall I sing for my lord will not listen? Where shall I go when my lord is away? Whom shall I love when the moon is arisen? Gone is my lord and the grave is his prison. What shall I say when my lord comes a calling? What shall I say when he knocks on my door? What shall I say when his feet enter softly? Leaving the marks of his grave on my floor. Enter my lord. Come from your prison. Come from your grave, for the moon is…

Transparent overlay, a visual echo, off-centered slightly, repeat overlay, off second-center, a stutter or a clatter, the flapping of wings catches and tangles, the whooshing of wind in the trees. Dissolves too long is a persistence, a staining. The unheard voices come later over a delay, stacked atop each other then scattered like cards sprayed atop a table, falling to the floor in silence one at a time, a fluttering trajectory. Rot an embral fire hidden within the wood, a dissolution of heat sheltering the light given off by decay until unbearable any longer or kicked over like a stone after the rain has loosened its soil and all of what is underneath suddenly visible. A hum of insects lingers…

Part Three Of Rolling Fog, Creepy Passageways, Murderers In The Dark: My Own Halloween Challenge

The Innocents, both literally and figuratively, is utterly haunting in every respect. Gorgeously shot, impeccably paced, terrifying to the core, and mainly, wonderfully complex; the film builds to a cathartic shriek of intimate proportions. Truly, If I had to pick one film that you HAD to watch ASAP, it would be The Innocents.

Centering on Miss Giddens, incredibly performed by Deborah Kerr, and her recent employment as a governess watching over two children; the film follows her as strange occurrences in an old mansion start to stir up repressed emotions within her. Ingeniously told by Jack Clayton, the film's director, he weaves an emotional and…

[31 Nights of Horror Vol. I - 2018]


#17 - The Innocents (1961)


Miles: It was only the wind, my dear.


The Innocents is the perfect psychological thriller, the ultimate ghost story, and one of cinema’s most potent horror films. Through spectacularly gothic production design and the marvel of CinemaScope, seemingly endless invention in the evocation and inculcation of a supernatural atmosphere through sonically unsettling sound design, and dynamic editing and visual imagery as well as iconography throughout its runtime, this is a film that is singularly sublime.

Though rich in decadent design and devilishly deep in dialogic subtext and psychoanalytic potential, impressing on a visual and aural level in a manner that festers in the mind far beyond the…

HOOPTOBER 5.0 - #32

Exquisite and captivating. Even when it doesn't surprise, it dazzles. The deep focus photography and subliminally distressing sound design are to die for. It's the only movie I've watched this Hooptober that has genuinely scared me. Squirming, nail biting, chills down the back, all of it. The Henry James novella on which the film is based is titled "The Turn of the Screw," and while I have not read it, that title is perfectly emblematic of the sensation that director Jack Clayton manifests. This thing just tightens and tightens and tightens until the wood splits. It's all so carefully choreographed, sumptuously lit, and deliberately paced. The production design establishes a firmly set geography of Bly manor,…