THE GOLDEN AGE OF PRACTICAL EFFECTS.

 I’d like to look at films featuring practical special effects, and focus on some of the artists and directors that made films which utilised them during the 1980’s. Not elaborate computer effects but the much more refined use of practical effects. Practical effects, when done correctly, can be much more involving than computer generated imagery, and can be both effective and memorable.

With the advancement of HD technolgy and ever advancing picture quality, practical effects are showing their age. Latex is very visible in high-definition, but computer generated imagery is still looking worst after 12 months than these movies that are around 30-40 years old now.

In essence, anything you feel you can reach out and grab with your hands is much more effective on film and in its relationship with the human brain. We see with our eyes and our brains interpret what we are seeing, and if practical effects are done just right, they can have the power to make audiences believe in fantasy, some of the imaginative creations I've chosen here and many others.

When we short-cut cinema with cheap computer generated imagery, we undermine the audience, we undermine cinema as an institution, and audiences cannot engage in the suspension of disbelief film-makers hope will cast its spell on the imaginations of cinema-goers all over the world. 

Incidentally, some films dabbled with CGI in its infancy and combined practical effects. For instance, science fiction sequel Alien 3 would dabble with computer generated imagery in the early 1990's and balance it out with practical effects for close up scenes, and in my opinion, they pulled it off. I think the computer based imagery looks fine in this particular film, and the practical effects timeless.

This was a wise choice to put the practical effects first. Even though computer imagery was in its infancy, they could have over-used it. Today film-makers are too confident such imagery works and either make their film completely with it, or use it too much.

Once you're engaged in a film the effects should be believable; I still think much of the computer generated imagery is a detriment to film after years have passed. If anything, films in this effects driven gore genre should use a combination of practical effects, which are complimented by computer generated imagery where needed or vice versa.

There’s nothing on here remotely offensive by today’s standards, some audiences may even find the films amusing, but if you appreciate the craft that went into them, and can forgive the passage of time, then they’re all worth revisiting.

Anyway, lots of variety here too, so I’m sure something will appeal.

 Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4 – The Dream Master (1988)

After a dreadful first sequel and a solid third in the form of  Dream Warriors, The Nightmare on Elm Street Series had enough fight in it for one more breathe of imagination, and it came in the form of A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master.

The franchise had gradually begun to enter its formulaic style by now, but there was still leaps of imagination, style, and creativity present.

The special effects for part 4 were handled by Steve Johnson and his team of practical special effects wizards, and they are particularly vivid and striking.

Horror cinema, especially gore and effects driven 80's cinema, gave me something to relate to. It was my oxygen during my British schooling, without them I just would not have survived at all. Whilst British society, the establishment, and the curriculum were idealising the human form and celebrating it in the form of selective history, biology, science, and physical education, I was enduring months spent in intensive care after multiple evasive surgeries for burns and disfigurement.

Burns are tough. I like to think of them as being symbolic of the frailty of the human body. We are no creation of God; we are very vulnerable, and even things such as the Sun have a detrimental effect on us in the long term. I respect people with burns and scars, but I just think when we consider how easy it is to be scarred, it makes you question our evolution as a species.

Look at Turtles with their hard shell, which protects its soft, vulnerable flesh, and are T-Shirts, which incidentally are man made that cover our skin. Society is in denial over scars, and as much as I love A Nightmare on Elm Street, the creation of Freddy Kruger is a kind of toxic stereotype of evil, in the sense his scarring is  antiquated with  evil.

Or ugliness is associated with evil, never beauty.

Bottom line is there is yourself and modern medicine, and not a lot in-between, other than personal responsibility, save accidents, that keep us alive. Life is cruel this way as it feels cold and clinical, but it is. Life is pretty much as black and white as it gets, but human beings tend to romanticise the world  around them and draw symbolic meaning out of everything from child-birth to naturally occurring geographical occurrences. Whilst we can be in awe of the truly amazing natural occurrences like rainbows and shooting stars, we sell our selves short by implying symbolic meaning to them.

This is emotion. The part of the brain which relays an emotive feeling or response to a given stimuli.

Feelings are just a part of the brain, so in brain death, those feelings cease altogether. Hence, any given emotion or thought or feeling is rooted in the brain, and not in otherworldly connections or that which we give spiritual significance.

There is nothing wrong with giving something symbolic significance, but in the case of A Nightmare on Elm Street, we are suggesting the badly scarred Freddy Kruger is a representation of evil. I love the film, and its one of my personal favourites, and I wouldn't have the depiction any other way, but I still like to question it.

Anyway, truth be told, the character present in 1985 classic does not resemble a burns victim at all, rather it is suggested he is, with some ghoulish, lurid, yet iconic make-up. The disastrous 2010 remake attempted to craft something closer to a real-life burns victim, but, like the film itself, was a complete misfire of an attempt to try to bring this character back to cinematic life.  Freddy Kruger should remain a product of a by gone cinematic era, but as a cinematic horror creation, he's an admirably memorable one.

As for The Dream Master, the final scene involving souls escaping from its badly scarred villains body are quite spectacular.

The Dream Master clearly has feminist overtones and actress Lisa Wilcox presents a very strong and likeable female character in her role as Alice Johnson.

The Dream Master is a strange film, but next to Wes Craven’s first instalment, I think it’s the strongest sequel, and has aged very well.

The films various deaths are imaginative, and the special effects strong. Freddy Kruger has a nastier edge than in later efforts also.

The follow up 'The Dreamchild' suffered from

an overly elaborate set-up, which is a rejection of horror movie/slasher law, and I felt it was very poor, along with the practically unwatchable 6th installment. Both these films have poorly staged effects sequences too.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare is worth a watch, but I'd class that as film inspired by the Freddy Kruger creation only.

Finally, Freddy VS Jason represented what can be achieved when you take two horror movie icons and undermine them on the screen with a non-existent screenplay or story. The film is worth checking out for decent turn from Jason Voorhees.

 So, sadly this would be the last significant jolt of imagination this series would receive, but this one sequel is worth revisiting, along with Dream Warriors.

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The Thing (1982) 

John Carpenter’s The Thing (he attached his name to his films as a stylistic choice) was overshadowed greatly by the release of E.T the Extra Terrestrial, which was a huge crowd-pleaser.

Subsequently, The Thing failed at the box-office, along with another commercial failure, Big Trouble in Little China, causing director John Carpenter to distance himself from big budget Hollywood movies, to which never looked back.

John Carpenter's later films were not particularly low-budget but they didn't have the  studio backing like The Thing did and in my opinion, post 1990, they are all pretty awful, if I'm being honest. 1998's Vampires is ok, though.

His sequel to 1981's Escape From New York was a notable 90's misfire amongst many. I remember being in town and seeing a poster for Escape From L.A in 1996 at bus stop and thinking wrong time and wrong place, and it died at the box-office. 

Young people didn't know the character, and adults couldn't relate to them anymore.

As for the film itself, it was  a mess. It has some ok moments at best, including a deranged plastic surgeon, but that is it.

People had moved on since 1981, and John Carpenter would fail to keep up with the changes of the 1990's. However,A Nightmare on Elm Street director Wes Craven would understand the period well and the audience and smartly work with Dawson's Creek writer Kevin Williamson to create Scream, a self-referential horror for the 1990's generation.

As for The Thing, its most memorable element would be the special effects by Rob Bottin. They were really cutting edge back in 1982 and are still effective now. Such an intricate attention to detail was present in these designs, and they are equally repulsive and quite breath-taking in equal measure.

The film itself has classic Hitchcock suspense overtones, and relies on dramatic tension built up in the first hour with the special effects extravaganza taking up the latter half of the film.

It’s director John Carpenter’s best film after Halloween, and one of the most original horror films of the 1980’s.

Poltergeist (1982)

Poltergeist was a joint effort between The Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper and director Steven Spielberg. There is some debate to this day over who had more involvement on the production, and I personally can’t see definitive Spielberg or Hooper in the film. So, it was probably an equal combination of both. The film has shades of typical Spielbergian sentimentality and the raw terror we would associate with Tobe Hooper.

 Poltergeist has some quite heavy-going horror sequences, and typical sentimental Spielberg tropes.

The film incorporates lots of special effects courtesy of regular Steven Spielberg collaborators Industrial Light and Magic, and the effects may have aged, but still have power and resonance.

The beauty of Poltergeist is it starts off very subtlety, and uses its ending for some really well staged, majestic, and awe-inspiring creations. True, it’s a horror film, but there so much craft presented here that  it's hard to not just admire it as benchmark in the abilities of special effects and even cinema.

The film contains a veiled stab at the political climate of the time, and the suburban nuclear family. It’s not by coincidence the films plot is centred around a television set.

During the 1980's many movies would have political subtext, such as Ghostbusters, and more importantly Gremlins, which was released in 1984 and had exactly the same anti-corporate blood running through its veins. It would take its satirical stab at corporate America up a notch with the much more interesting sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

All of these films would incorporate practical effects, and the latter would make ingenious use of stop-motion, which still looks fine to this day.

An interesting yet problematic sequel would follow in 1986 entitled Poltergeist 2: The Otherside. This film would be directed by relatively new, at the time, British film-maker Brian Gibson who had caught Hollywood's attention with the stylish Hazel O' Connor vehicle  Breaking Glass.

 The film itself is flawed as a whole, because it gives way to Hollywood conventions. The plot is threadbare and more or less a re-run of the original, but it does introduce the character of Rev Kane . Rev Kane is a sort of  manifestation of the entity present in the first film, and takes on the guise of a god-fearing preacher to lure Carol Anne Freeling away from her family.

Unfortunately, the film feels the need to pad out the plot with random unnecessary characters including a do-gooder Indian and a sentimental sub-plot involving the death of  Carol Anne's Grandmother. These plot mechanics smack of Hollywood style conventions, and we get a sadly over-top finale too, which just goes more than a little overboard.

The films strengths involve the scenes with Rev Kane, as they are sincerely menacing, the score, and of course, the practical effects, even if they are overdone at the end of film.

The cast is strong and Hollywood has failed to replicate 'The Freeling Family' either in remakes or just in Horror cinema. In the sense, that the original cast did a good job of making you believe they were a family, and this was crucial for the plot dynamics to work anyway. Hollywood struggles to cast families and make them believable.

I've said this before, but the recent remake of Poltergeist was insidious. I'm at a loss at how the director even entered the industry. It was a truly, abysmal work of cinema which undermined the Poltergeist film legacy, harmed the industry, and disappointed audiences all over the world.

It was text-book corporate cinema designed purely for profit alone, but by golly did it show a lack of craft or inspiration.

Poltergeist 2: The Other side sounds phenomenal on paper, but it doesn't work as cinema. To tell this story correctly requires a great command of film and director Brian Gibson and the screenplay just didn't do this concept justice.

 I wrote this from memory, but returned to the sequel recently, and it is more flawed than I recall. It is still a worthy sequel, but only just.  The whole film has aged badly, and the production design and particularly the lighting are problematic. There is a strange hazy 'Wizard of Oz' type  vibe running through the set design which incorporates lots of large cheap plastic sets and bright pastoral colours.

It could be budget restrictions, but you'll find, as is the case with the Halloween sequels, that producers and film-makers don't make a real effort the second time around and franchises follow the rules of diminishing returns.

I believe this is the role of capitalism bleeding into art. In the sense, there is so much beauty and craft applied to an initial film in a franchise, and then the producers, greedy off the financial return, want a sequel fast. So there is a lack of sincerity or desire to just produce a great film; rather, they just want the money.

All three  of the directors that worked on the Poltergeist series  were particularly capable

including director Gary Sherman who worked on the sadly watchable but  by the numbers third sequel, but I suspect their qualities were at odds with Hollywood tropes (extravagant effects driven conclusions/sentimentality) and all three struggled to get their ideas fully realised, and had  conflicts on set during the productions of the

films, with Gary Sherman's third sequel being a particularly problematic shoot, not least due to actress Heather O'Rourke's illness, and untimely death during post-production at just 12 years of age.

I watched Poltergeist 3 recently and was surprised how well it has holded up, although; I feel this was partly related to my disdain for the agonising and sickening remake. The remake had no redeeming features at all...zilch. It was real - bollocks in the meat grinder- cinematic moment that, along with The Nightmare on Elm Street remake, had been very concerned for the future of the horror genre.

Each film manages to capture something or say something visually about those who worked on them, but it is the first effort that fits comfortably into the list of amongst the greatest horror films committed to celluloid.

Either way, they all have their strengths, unlike the 2015 remake which is cast-iron Hollywood by product of the first order and is unwatchable as a result. I can't see any nuance or reflection of the film-maker in it--zilch. Plus, the film is just atrocious and with no intrinsic value. It's bad cinema. It's bad horror. It's just bad period.

It's the cinematic equivalent of ordering fast-food and asking for the 2015 Poltergeist remake meal. You know, something that is very superficial with no nutrients or intrinsic value.

 ‘Whenever the time was right, he’d come back..’

The Prowler (1981)

The Prowler was one of those systematic 1980’s slasher films with a difference. It had some very well-conceived special effects courtesy of effects artist Tom Savini, whom served as a combat photographer during the Vietnam war and used his memory of incidents in that conflict to influence his work. 

The effects in The Prowler are only used sparingly, and this was refreshing for a 1980's film where effects could go overboard. It is also much more effective and admirable to use effects sparingly. The effects are still sharp and effective today. 

 I mean the film isn't a masterpiece by any stretch as a narrative work, but if you consider it was released in the early 1980's and the amount of effects driven films that came out during that era, it has just about stood the test of time and retained a sort of garish kitsch 80's feel to it.

 This film is probably amusing to contemporary, audiences, but there’s something so unpretentious, yet well-crafted about it.

Cinema doesn’t need so much dressing or exposition; modern cinema is drenched in exposition.

Ulitimately, The Prowler’s title sort of speaks for itself, but for fans of subtle, yet effective special effects driven slasher movies,  can’t go wrong with The Prowler.

It’s one of those formulaic, slightly grainy, yet confidently crafted nostalgic gems of 1980's slasher cinema.

Pumpkinhead (1988)

Special Effects artist Stan Winston was certainly a pioneer who would go on to do some extraordinary work, and left behind an amazing legacy.

His directorial debut came in the form of Pumpkinhead (a twisted morality tale with Grim Fairy-tale elements), and it didn’t disappoint, but it also didn’t quite present what you’d expect of Stan Winston either.

Stan Winston, on his first and only shot at directing, decided to play it safe, and his work here is vivid and effective, but it’s also very subtle.

We only see the creature Pumpkinhead – named after its particularly large occiput, or ‘The Vengeance Demon’, sporadically and towards the latter half of the film.

The film is deliberately formulaic, and reminiscent of 1950’s era monster movies, only with lots more style. Stan Winston is effectively re- imagining the cinema of his youth.

Pumpkinhead plays it safe. The director is clearly not overly confident and this is a good thing. Restraint is important in cinema. It is good to not be overly confident. Too much confidence creates unrestrained cinema and this can poison the creative process and lead to nothing.

As it stands, Pumpkinhead is a magnificent creation, and despite its strange shaped head and demonic proposition, Pumpkinhead is quite a wonder to behold.

There is an excellent  score too... a sort of backwoods hocus pocus meets Deliverance.

‘In space no-one can eat ice-cream..’

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

 

 

 

The Chiodo Brothers would make a name for themselves in the 1980s in the form of a film featuring strange, murderous, and unpleasant creatures from another planet called ‘Critters‘ but it was in ‘Killer Klowns From Outer Space’ that they would seal their legacy as cult film special effects artists and film-makers.

Believe it or not the clowns in the film aren’t really clowns but homicidal aliens that have taken the guise of clowns to harvest human beings for sustenance.

Despite the bizarre premise, this is well a crafted film, and the Clowns themselves are really menacing and disturbing. The film has tongue in cheek sense of humour, but still manages to get under the skin.

The film has grown into a cult classic and holds a decent 74% on Rotten Tomatoes with possible sequels or television shows on the cards.

‘Demons to some. Angels to others..’

 Hellraiser (1987)

English writer and director Clive Barker's novella ‘The Hellbound Heart’ would be made into classic 1987 horror film ‘Hellraiser‘. The film has exquisite fetishistic costume design, and atmospheric cinematography, but it was Bob Keen and his effects teams jaw dropping special effects which really made Hellraiser memorable, and Robin Vidgeon's unforgettable cinematography.

Upon release, Hellraiser received some criticism from some very well regarded film critics. They failed to comment on the films style, production design, effects and cinematography and chose only to criticise what they perceived as un-wholesome and mean spirited cinema.

Whilst aspects of the film have aged, it still holds much power and I don't believe that will ever leave it.

The film and Clive Barker's novella on which it is based, dig deep into human choices and the internal need to explore the otherworldly (or unorthodox) even if it results in damnation and eternal pain.

There is an element to the human condition that seeks out that which would ultimately harm us and we take great  pleasure in the pursuit, but reluctantly except the consequences.

Frank Cotton's character is ultimately very human and three dimensional, yet he is clearly the villain in the film. His brother, Larry, on the other hand

is purely one dimensional and is representative of good. Therefore it is debatable what defines goodness and what drives the human condition. That being said, Frank has a particularly distasteful attitude towards women (he has homicidal tendencies towards his own niece), so it sort of

figures that he would truly suffer in hell, and whatever tools that are utilized in his suffering in this particular fictional tale are fitting (bloody chains, hooks, blades).

Hellraiser is not so much about raising hell as it is about recognising the darker hidden areas of your soul, the parts that you won't except, but that are yearning to be unleashed. In this particular instance it is extreme violence, physical human suffering, and the need for tangible philosophical answers as to why we are even here and what if anything what the human condition is really about.

In 2020, human beings and indeed cinema itself is on the tightest of leashes. We won't except our internal desires or the darker parts of the human condition. This has manifested itself into a very  unhealthy, toxic and dysfunctional global society; we are all to keen to praise God and define ourselves through the teaching of Christ, yet all the internal anguish is going inside us and it always finds away through. Human beings are always a combination of good and bad...and we need equal parts of both to survive.

Never trust or learn from anyone whom presents themselves as just being good, or who is doing God's good work.

As for cinema, Hellraiser was the start of a new wave of horror cinema that would examine human beings, and examine our flaws and desires in a really darkly beautiful and imaginative way. This would continue through the 80's and 90's particularly in films from directors such as David Cronenberg and Wes Craven, whom managed to re-invent horror cinema and give it a complete 360 degree turn in the form of  Scream.

To date only American film-maker Ari Aster has shown enough flair to truly offer audiences something new in this particular genre of cinema, and it comes as no surprise that Hellraiser is an influence on many of these aforementioned film-makers in some way or another.

WE HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOW YOU...

The scene in Hellraiser where the character of Frank Cotton is reformed from blood, incorporated reverse photography, and you witness a physical rebirth of a man, with all the pain, goo, and majesty you’d expect if such a process was real. The scene and the film are complimented by a powerful orchestral score by Christopher Young. It’s easily one the most memorable sequences over the past 30 years of horror cinema.

Hellraiser ticks all the creative boxes and excels on its relatively small budget. It’s a testament to just how good this film is that none of the sequels captured anything close to its perfection.

The house featured in the film was a real property in North East London, and I’ve seen it and it’s creepy.

Down the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of Heaven. Complete the pattern, solve the puzzle, turn the key....

The film would produce a decent sequel, followed by a problematic, yet enjoyable third sequel. Then,

it would run out of steam altogether, with some very weak cash-ins to present day.

Hellraiser 3 or Hell on Earth is where the series ended for me but I'd check out Hellraiser meets police procedural , Inferno, too. It had some great ideas, but it had some bad ones too. The dialogue ranges from being really sharp, and witty to just dull and effortless.

I recall first getting the videotape as a teenager, in around 1994, and was so keen to play it. I remember enjoying some parts the movie and being disappointed over all. It had such potential. I enjoyed the concept of the pillar of souls, and some of Pinhead's dialogue was sharp, but it had lost touch with Clive Barker's original creation altogether.

Basically, there is two ideas at play here. One is a decent, and logical follow up from the first sequel and the other idea is to fill the film with cheap Hollywood  movie mass-audience conventions such as explosions and a high body count. Some people aren't satisfied unless there is a large explosion...such is their fascination with fireworks.

"...The key to dreams...to black miracles, dark wonders, another life of unknown pleasures."

The cenobite designs range from truly inspired (The Dreamer/Terri) to just really poor efforts. Many critics claimed at the time they looked like Borg knock-offs from Star Trek.

 On the positive, the  film builds up a decent character with the vulnerable and drug addicted Terri, and then just when it's getting interesting, the film dispatches of her. Her cenobite form looks the part, but doesn't have the depth of writing that was provided for the character of Terri. The dialogue and the scenes involving Terri and 'The Pillar of Souls' are really interesting too.

 

Where the film succeeds is the  pieces of originality that shine through sporadically, and the interesting story arc involving solder Elliot Spencer (Pinhead before he was turned into a cenobite).

                                                                                                  

 This contrast of good and evil is interesting, and there was enough potential here to make a great horror/fantasy film, but the pressures of money hungry film executives just thinned the story right down for the masses, who just wish to see pyrotechnics, sex, fire, and gore. I was more interested in the notion of evil being an embodiment which is separate from the good in any given person.

For instance, the film is moving along perfectly but when Terri unleashes Pinhead from the Pillar of Souls, it just falls apart.

Pinhead effectively just goes on the rampage for 15-20 minutes in some really poorly orchestrated scenes involving blowing up cars, and a uninspired mass slaughter night-club scene.

There is, however, an interesting scene in a

Church where Pinhead mimics Jesus Christ and removes a nail embedded in his skull which happens to have some kind of  worm wrapped around it. He then puts the nails straight through the palms of his hands to mimic the crucifixion and says: ''I am the way.'' It does go overboard but credit to them for at least going there in first place.

To be fair, it's this no nonsense approach to horror that still makes it an effective watch all these years later.

We are going through a really watered-down period for adult horror these days and rarely do I see anything that is pushing any boundaries, which is what film should always be about. I did enjoy the recent film Hereditary though and thought that offered something new.

 The Hellraiser series is in a bad place right now. I watched the most recent effort Hellraiser Judgement this year and thought it was the worst so far. The film had a very small budget and an even smaller imagination, and it shows.

Basically, Pinhead sadly fell into the same trap that Jason Voorhees and Freddy Kruger did at exactly the same point in their film cycle - after the third installment. After the third sequel, the horror movie antagonist becomes a caricature of what they started off representing. In other words, the imagination of the screen writers is running on empty, but the box-office cash-flow of these movies isn't, so they keep churning them out by just using each character as a transferable template from one movie to the next. The problem with this process is that despite it generating copious amounts of money from the given horror film franchise, it eventually neglects the character that badly that it effectively kills them off, in all these cases, sadly, for good.

Aside from the original Clive Barker directed original Hellraiser film and Wes Craven's A Nightmare On Elm Street, none of these movies are classics but the first few sequels were all perfectly worthy of the initial film. Then, however, they start to diminish greatly and very quickly.

I think going forward the film industry needs to treat these creations, and future ones, and their given licences with much more care and respect. In doing so we create franchise horror cinema that keeps on giving rather than drying up for good.

As for Hellraiser they should not bring the character of Pinhead back, but instead explore, directly, the themes present in the original films and re-work those themes into a new franchise. That is the only way to dig these characters back up from their celluloid coffins (in spirit only).

There is just a fascinating combination of  pleasure and pain that isn't touched upon so much in modern horror, and certainly not as effectively as the first three Hellraiser films.

Audiences are starting to tire of classic franchise horror film icons, so we need to make some new ones.

Anyway, Hellraiser 3 just had so much potential, but sadly it was certainly not fully realised. We just get a small taste of what have could have been...

The Beyond (1981)

I’m going to switch it up a little, in the form of Italian director Lucio Fulci’s surreal horror masterpiece ‘The Beyond’.

The Beyond features lots of practical effects, but the film overall has a style all its own. In other words, despite the use of vivid practical effects, they never seem out of the ordinary as the whole film is unusual.

I’m a huge fan of Italian Cinema, especially horror cinema and giallo. Lucio Fulci was an excellent director, who didn’t always give it 100% which is unfortunate, but his strongest efforts are classics.

I'm being polite here. Fulci's work is extremely uneven. But you can apply that to Argento and other Italian horror directors' too. I just think The Beyond is something of unsung masterpiece and it is amongst my favourite films. It just comes to life, as all good cinema should.

There is a scene in ‘The Beyond’ involving Tarantulas which is creepy, especially if you’re an arachnophobe.

1980’s Italian horror film directors do appear to have an overwhelming aptitude for style and mood, but may not always capture the most effective use of their cast. That being said, you never watch these movies for the acting. It's always the style. Many Italian horror films use contemporary rock music style scores and some are excellent, and some are the wrong fit.

To Conclude..

I love practical effects and prefer them to computer generated imagery. I like subtle use of special effects in film or for them to be crafted intricately. No rushed, cheap, computer generated imagery… yuck!

Lots of film directors still use practical effects on their film productions, but they are certainly not as prominent as they used to be.

CGI for the most part looks dreadful, and it is testament to flaws of technology that we have created something that’s ageing quicker than practical effects ever did.

I’d like to see CGI ditched altogether. I think it encourages film-makers to not to use their imagination. I think backdrops can be understood by a good cinematographer without filling them in with a computer.

I mentioned strong female characters once or twice here, and realistic effects. When cinema reflects real life themes it’s trying to be organic, and there’s no wrong in presenting strong women in film or channelling practical effects that imitate real life trauma. When we don’t do either, we’re left with synthetic, corporate cinema which has been manufactured to fit political correctness, subdue new generations, and distance the audience from the film.

To Conclude

Most of these films came out in the early to late 1980’s, and they all have stylistic similarities, perhaps they were testing the waters in the 1980’s. I think Cinema moves that way or it did. It tests things out to see what it can or cannot get away with.

From the much more expansive 1960’s, to the really controversial cinema of the 1970’s, through to the 1980’s and closing with  the self-referential period of the 1990s, cinema progressed. Now we’re just re-going over the same themes repeatedly.

This years Hereditary was good, but nothing I’d not seen before.

It has become unorthodox to want to connect to the otherworldly, alternative, topical, divisive, controversial, or even the natural and organic, in terms of cinema. It has become unorthodox to challenge the audience, evoke discomfort, shock, engage and entice. Instead, we are seeing so many carbon-copy Hollywood movies that just play it safe to the masses.

There’s no debate – there has been a seismic shift away from cinema that may have subversive or alternative overtones. In a metaphorical sense the camera is slowly moving away as opposed to getting right up in your face.

Perhaps we’ll all get a reboot of ‘Little House on the Prairie’ commissioned for us to watch when we get back from work in the evenings just to makes sure everyone is watching wholesome family friendly television.