Author Archives: Alaina

If I haven’t gone to bed yet, it’s still Halloween, right?

*GASP* SHIT I forgot that It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown was on tonight!  DAMMIT!  I wonder if it’s on On Demand… (Right, because I haven’t watched that every year for the past 28 years…)

ANYWAY.  This is the last ‘horror’ movie I have on Jeremy the TiVo: Episode IV, A New Hope.  So my plan is this: I have tons of candy, already purchased on sale, 2/3 of a Diet Coke left, and I don’t have to work tomorrow.  I’m going to watch this, write about it, and then watch Gargoyles to wash the ick factor out.  [NOTE: If you watched Gargoyles growing up, as I did, Disney did a[[nother]] marvelous thing and put ALL of the episodes online.  INCLUDING “Deadly Force,” which they took out of rotation due to its being deemed “too violent.”  I am SO EXCITED.]

[The other marvelous thing Disney did?  Bought LucasFilms.  But I’ll talk about that at a later date.]

Eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren and his 4th wife, Annabelle, have invited 5 people to the house on Haunted Hill for a “haunted House” party. Whoever will stay in the house for one night will earn ten thousand dollars each. As the night progresses, all the guests are trapped inside the house with ghosts, murderers, and other terrors.

Jesus.  Okay.  Y’know, I seem to remember seeing the remake of this movie years ago.  There was a tank of blood in the basement, and also, Taye Diggs was there?  And I seem to remember that I didn’t actually watch it, so much as stare at a corner of the screen while other friends and acquaintances watched it, because it was uber-gory, and that is something I do not enjoy.  Even when both Geoffrey Rush and Taye Diggs are involed.

All right.  I have now wasted enough time searching the interwebs for other, distracting things; I have no choice but to push play at this point.  My only hope is that this movie is chock full of B-movie ‘horror,’ where you can clearly see the stage craftsmanship and the acting is atrocious.  In other words, more funny than scary.

Oo, Robert Osbourne!  He’s wearing a very green tie.  Apparently the director of this movie hired doctors and nurses to attend showings of his movies in case people fainted from fright.  Shit, did that actually happen?  I mean, I’m not a fainter by any means, but … is this movie actually going to be scary?  I’m not sure I can handle that…

Jesus, this is rated TV-14?  That worries me when I’m watching TCM.  I mean, look, I’ve seen True Blood.  I enjoy it, in fact.  But I know — AACK!  The movie just started with a woman screaming.  THAT’S NOT A GOOD SIGN.  Anyway, I enjoy True Blood.  But I don’t see that show as part of the horror genre; it’s too campy and naked for that.

Okay, woman screaming in the dark.  At least it’s not me!  By the way, this is all happening over a black screen, and there are other Halloween-y noises happening too.  Thank god I’ve got all my lights on, or else I’d be kind of freaked out.  I can see why the director may have needed nurses.

Then this disembodied head shows up.  He claims his name is Watson Pritchett or something, and he owns the haunted house.  Seven murders have occurred in the house over the past few years or whatever.  Watson fades out and the disembodied head of Vincent Price shows up.  Apparently, he rented the House on Haunted Hill for a night so his wife can throw a haunted house party.  Let me just take a moment to digress:  Dear Future Husband: I will NEVER want to throw a haunted house party.  Ever.  And if you’re thinking of ways to surprise me into doing something completely different, for an event or a birthday or whatever, “haunted” is NOT the way to go.  I hate surprises as it is; surprises with ghosts and/or murder?  NO THANK YOU.  Unless you’re trying to subtly hint you want a divorce…

I’ve watched less than five minutes of this movie, and I’ve looped around in my digressions to a fake husband that wants to divorce me.  Why does my life suck so hard?

Vincent Price does a roll call of all the inhabitants of the House.  All the guests are arriving in hearses and in a funeral procession.  All of the people – including some doctors, Watson Pritchett, a test pilot, and a secretary — are attending because they need the $10,000 Vincent is offering if they can survive the night in the house.  Now, I know that when I watched Death of a Ghost Hunter I bitched that Carter or whoever was getting $5,000 and that seemed really low and stupid.  But this is $10,000 in 1959-money.  That’s like … well, according to a calculator, $70,000-ish.  That’s still not enough to get me to spend a night in a Haunted Mansion.  Unless it’s the Disney Haunted Mansion.  (Although I’d still want all the lights on.)

The guests take a moment to introduce each other in the grand hallway, and then the door shuts under its own power.  And then the chandelier starts swaying, and almost falls directly onto the Pretty Secretary!  (Look, the chances of anyone surviving this thing is pretty much nil, so I’m not going to bother learning their names.)  I think it’s Test Pilot that pulls her out of the way, and now I start laughing hysterically, because when everyone was introducing themselves all I could think of was when the group from Clue introduced themselves over dinner with their fake names and backstories and how everyone hated Miss Scarlet at first (except for Professor Plum), and then when the chandelier falls, all I can hear in my head is “It was only one bullet that got the chandelier, so that’s one plus two plus one plus one!”  “Even if you were right, that would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one.”  “All right, fine.  One plus one plus — SHUT UP!!”

Wow.  When you type the word “plus” over and over again, it totally loses all meaning.

Vincent goes to find his wife, who comes out of the bathroom wearing a robe and a corset.  Annabelle doesn’t want to go to the party because Vincent invited people who needed money instead of friends.  But it’s because they have no friends.  As they banter, we learn that Annabelle isn’t happy in their marriage, to the point where she’s tried to poison Vincent a couple of times.  They’re a regular … whaddyacallit … oh god, there’s a literary reference for this.  A husband and wife who won’t divorce each other yet they hate each other and enjoy trying to kill each other … first person to remind my soggy brain of that wins!

Watson Pritchett is entertaining the other guests downstairs by FINDING A RANDOM BUTCHER KNIFE and WAVING IT ABOUT, describing how his family was MURDERED WITH IT.  Okay, that was kind of funny, actually.  “THIS is what she used to sever my brother’s entrails!”  “Dude, put that away, you’re getting intestine in my martini.”

I hate to be repetitive, but there is no amount of money anyone could offer me to stay in a haunted house.  NO AMOUNT OF MONEY, Friends of Mine Who Enjoy Trying to Get Me to Do Things I Don’t Want to Do!

Vincent arrives and he wants to do another roll call, but this time, with alcohol.  My kind of party!  Apparently, the caretakers come at midnight to lock everyone in the house, and there is no way to escape the house.  No electricity, no phone, no internet — oh wait, this is 1959.  Vincent asks Watson to take them on a tour of the house, saying that there are seven ghosts: four men, three women.  Which just happens to make up the current group of partygoers.

They end up in a room that had a stain on the ceiling from a murder.  Blood starts to fall on the Old Woman’s hand.  I yell out STIGMATA!  She and Vincent laugh it off, claiming the roof leaks.  She not-so-calmly wipes the blood off and asks, “Who would want to mark me?”  Watson then leads them down to the wine cellar (which I almost typed as the wince cellar).

The vat in the floor was apparently filled with acid at one point.  The Secretary almost falls in, but the Test Pilot catches her.  Sure enough, the vat is stilled filled with acid, as Watson Pritchett confirms by tossing a dead rat into the vat.  The party files out, looking for more alcohol, but Test Pilot stops The Secretary and asks her what she’s doing here.  She admits that she needs the money, but neither she nor Test Pilot realized they had to actually stay in the house to earn the ten grand.

Test Pilot and The Secretary walk around the wine cellar, opening various doors.  I expect one to have the sounds of a violin playing coming from one, or at least a horse whinny (FRAU BLUECHER), but alas, just wine bottles.  Until Test Pilot opens one, finds a hallway, enters, then has the door slam behind him. 

The Secretary pounds on the door, but the lights start to flicker and go out.  The Secretary sees what appears to be the ghost of the woman dropped in the vat, but the ghost doesn’t come into the room.  She runs out of the cellar to get the rest of the party, speaking rather calmly about the ghost and that Test Pilot was missing behind a locked door.  When they get to the room, the door is unlocked, and Test Pilot is waking up after a bump on the noggin.  The Psychiatrist patches him up in the living room, claiming The Secretary is experiencing hysteria, but that doesn’t truly explain Test Pilot’s injury.

Later, Test Pilot and The Secretary return to the room.  That seems exceptionally dumb to me.  Why return to where you think you may have seen a ghost that knocked you unconscious?  Test Pilot knocks on the walls and finds the walls to be … not hollow, but thin.  He leaves The Secretary in that room and goes to the next, telling her to knock back when she hears him knock on his wall.  NEVER LEAVE THE GIRL ALONE IN A HAUNTED HOUSE, TEST PILOT!  That’s Rule Number 5 in the Rules for Haunted Houses!  (Rule Number One being: DON’T GO INTO A HAUNTED HOUSE.)

As The Secretary is slapping the walls, she happens to turn around and OH SHIT THERE’S THE UGLY GHOST WOMAN THING AGAIN.  As The Secretary screams, the ghost kind of glides out of the room, as if someone were pulling it on a skateboard.  Okay, now I’m laughing at the idea of a ghost statue on a skateboard that you can bring to parties.  (Krieger doesn’t have that much time, though, guys.)  Test Pilot returns from the other room, and I have to give The Secretary props — she screams her pretty little head off one minute, but then goes right back to talking logically and calmly.  Or, it could just be shitty acting.

Test Pilot doesn’t believe The Secretary.  She hands him her candle and storms out of the cellar, and walks right into Annabelle.  Annabelle leads The Secretary to The Secretary’s room, where she tells her to not go out by herself for the rest of the night.  Annabelle leaves The Secretary to freshen up, and then she runs into the Test Pilot.  She leads him to his room, and Annabelle flirts heavily with him. 

Vincent is able to convince Annabelle to attend her party — mainly by pulling her hair and threatening her.  He summons Test Pilot and The Secretary, both of whom state they’ll be downstairs in a minute.  The Secretary finds a severed head in her luggage (WHAT THE FUCK, MOVIE), and instead of running directly to the living room and demanding to be let out, she instead becomes Alice-in-Wonderland curious and goes to find out what’s behind a curtain, where she a GHOST comes out of FUCKING NOWHERE, clamps a gnarled hand over her mouth and says “He’s going to kill you.”

NOW she fucking runs downstairs and demands to be let out.  Luckily, it’s not yet midnight, so she has that option.  BUT FUCKING TEST PILOT TELLS HER TO WAIT.  She — and I — yell FUCK YOUR MONEY (although she says it in nice, 1959-times language), at which point Vincent introduces the caretakers, WHO ARE THE GHOSTS The Secretary keeps seeing.  Awk-ward.

She still wants to go home — good girl! — but apparently the caretakers played a nasty trick on everyone and locked them in five minutes early.  THAT WASN’T PART OF THE DEAL, GHOSTS!  Since the party’s officially started, Vincent starts handing out the party ‘favors’ – guns in coffins.  Motherfucking guns in coffins.  WHAT KIND OF STUPID FAVOR IS THAT.  What about a metal file?  THAT CUTS THROUGH BARS, DUMBASS. 

After everyone has the guns, The Secretary goes up to Watson and asks for clarification: his sister-in-law was murdered and hands and feet were found, but no heads?  Guess what?  SHE FOUND A HEAD.  She herds the entire party up to her room and tells them to look in her suitcase.  All Watson finds are panties.  Because a of all, no, there are no heads, and b of all, all women packed multiple pairs of panties back in 1959 in case they were hit by a truck.  At least, that’s how I understand history.

The Secretary is totally losing her mind, and The Psychiatrist asks her if she wants a sedative.  Ha!  “SEDAGIVE?”  Man, I haven’t watched Young Frankenstein in forever!  And now I totally have to, in light of last week’s Once Upon a Time.

The majority of the party decide to go to their rooms.  Some playwright; a situation pregnant with possibilities and all you can think of is everybody go to sleep.

Soon afterward, Test Pilot goes into The Secretary’s room to try and comfort her, which is of course code for “Consoling We’re Not Ghosts Yet” Sex.  Instead, he finds a severed head in the closet.  He is able to touch it and bring it to Watson, who says that The Secretary will be joining the ghosts soon.  They hear a garbled scream and run out, and see a woman hanging from the rafters in a diaphonous white gown.  (Vocab word FTW right there!)

Test Pilot and The Doctor cut the woman down.  When Vincent arrives at the scene, the camera reveals that the corpse is that of Annabelle.  Aw, poor Annabelle!  She had spunk!  Test Pilot leaves Annabelle’s room and finds The Secretary.  THAT’S who she reminded me of!  Annabelle came downstairs wearing a gown with a trailing white sash, and I kept thinking she was wearing something that Eve wore, but actually, she was reminding me of the Baroness from The Sound of Music!  She wore almost that same dress to the ball!

Okay, anyway — Watson ends up in Annabelle’s death room, and Vincent tosses him out.  He seems genuinely sad to be a widower again.

The party meets downstairs to discuss what to do.  Here’s my plan: all six of you sit in the room for the remainder of the night, staying alive by living together.  IF WE CAN’T LIVE TOGETHER, WE’RE GOING TO DIE ALONE. 

In other news, maybe my NaNoWriMo book will be a series of essays entitled, “Teacher, Mother, Secret Lover: How Television Shaped My Life More Than Anything Else.”  There will be a whole three thousands words (or more!) written just on Lost and how it warped my fragile little mind.

Okay.  I just spent about ten minutes searching for that stupid Jack Shepherd quote, only to be misled about when that speech was given.  Stupid Lost.  All of the guests have gone to their separate bedrooms.  The Psychiatrist looks freaked out, but I’m unsure about what, because I wasn’t paying attention.  Blood was dripping on the Old Lady again, but that’s all I’ve got there.  Test Pilot is back in The Secretary’s room, but I’m not sure what’s going on. 

And … I’m going to take a break.  As in, I’m going the fuck to bed, and I’ll finish this in the morning.

Twelve hours later…

I’m back!  I slept almost seven hours, with no bad dreams whatsoever.  Eat that, Vincent Price!  On the docket for today was to go vote, and also, check out the James Bond Skyfall OPI Nail Polish collection at Ulta.  And when I checked my email to learn that I had a coupon for 20% off my entire purchase?

… It’s only a problem if you think it’s a problem.  (It might be a problem.)

Okay, so I’ve rewound back to where the group has gathered in the living room.  Good news, everyone!  There’s half an hour left.

The Psychiatrist makes a Jack Shepherd-esque speech, saying that in the past three hours, one of the group has been slugged (Test Pilot), one almost had a chandelier dropped on her (The Secretary), one has been scared to the brink of hysteria (The Secretary, again), and one of them is dead (Annabelle).  He wants to find a way out, but Watson claims it’s pretty darned hopeless.  Vincent proposes that Annabelle didn’t kill herself, because there was no way at the point at which she hanged herself for her to climb up/pull herself up that high.

So now they suspect everyone else of being a murderer.  The Psychiatrist proposes that everybody stays in their own room for the next six hours.  (And you, pose as a playwright….)  Because the Innocent won’t have a reason to leave the room, but the guilty will try and murder more people to get more money, or something.  Everyone thinks this is a splendind idea, because this was filmed about fifty years before Jack Shepherd told everyone that IF WE CAN’T LIVE TOGETHER, WE’RE GONNA DIE ALONE.  I swear to GOD, people!!

I REMEMBERED THE REFERENCE!  Vincent and Annabelle are like Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin in The Ghosts Who Stole Christmas, that awesome episode of The X-Files! 

Everyone goes into their bedrooms.  They light candles (which give off a helluva lot of light in 1959).  The Psychiatrist starts to write a note to himself, but something wiggles his doorknob.  Thinking he’s going to catch the murderer, he opens his door — YOU NEVER OPEN THE DOOR! –, but there’s nothing there.  Blood starts to drop on the Old Woman’s hand again, and now she’s freaking out a bit more.  Test Pilot knocks on the adjoining door he so happens to have with The Secretary’s room.  She lets him in (WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT) and he agrees with her that Vincent is trying to kill people.  He wants to go see if there’s a way out so he can contact the police.  The Secretary wants to go with him, but he tells her to lock her door and stay safe in her bedroom.  With a locked door.  And ghosts.  I’m sorry, that’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

He goes behind the Alice in Wonderland curtain, and gets stuck in there when a mysterious hidden panel emerges and locks him in.  Meanwhile, The Secretary is pacing back and forth in her room when the lights go out.  Oh, they do have electricity?  Who’s the continuity maven on this feature?  Lightening flashes, and then WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT IS THAT A SNAKE I SWEAR TO GOD IF THAT’S A MOTHERFUCKING SNAKE COMING THROUGH THOSE BARS — oh, it’s rope.  What?! 

Anyway, rope, of all things, is making its way through the window and around The Secretary’s pretty little ankles.  Oh, seriously?  She is watching it all happen, and she’s not even trying to not get caught?  Secretary, come on.  She keeps moaning “no,” and then she sees Annabelle’s ghost through the window.  But because she asked so nicely, Annabelle’s ghost allows her to live.  For now.  Once the rope retreats and disappears, The Secretary grabs her gun and runs out of her room to Annabelle’s room, where she finds … Annabelle once more hanging from the ceiling?  BUT SHE WAS ON THE BED A FEW MINUTES AGO!  She runs downstairs after almost being quieted by a Creature From the Black Lagoon-esque hand, and when she reaches the living room she tries calling for the Test Pilot again.  The organ starts playing itself in the living room, and The Secretary runs back to her room, screaming.  But you didn’t find Test Pilot!

The Psychiatrist is out walking around.  DIDN’T YOU SAY THAT WOULD BE THE MURDERER?!  He knocks on Vincent’s door, and Vincent answers it, gun drawn, and accuses The Psychiatrist of being the murderer.  WHAT DID I JUST SAY!?  The Psychiatrist asks if Vincent’s seen anyone walking around.  You mean, while he was hiding in his room along with everyone else?  Damn, Psychiatrist, where’d you get your medical degree from, Greendale Community College, or Columbia the country?  (That’s two references for the price of one, folks.  February 7th is October 19th.)

Anyway, the Psychiatrist thinks someone’s in danger and wants Vincent to help him search the house for the someone in danger.  They both have their guns.  Psychiatrist says he’ll take the upstairs, Vinnie can take the downstairs.  Vincent asks at the same time I do, “Why not together?”  HOW MANY TIMES CAN I SHOUT “LIVE TOGETHER, DIE ALONE”?  Apparently there’s not enough time for both of them to search together, it would be quicker if they split up.  Bad idea.

Especially when The Psychiatrist doubles back to check in on Annabelle’s corpse.  She’s still ‘resting’ prettily on the bed.  The Psychiatrist whispers, “It’s almost over darling.”  Wait, what?  And then Annabelle wakes up, and I GET IT!  It’s like the poison that Paolo and Nikki drank on Lost, and then wake up to find themselves being buried alive, only this time, Annabelle wakes up!  So the Psychiatrist and Annabelle are in cahoots, and most likely a relationship as well.  They’re apparently waiting for The Secretary to accidentally shoot Vincent, and the Psychiatrist admits that he was the one who scared The Secretary in the cellar.  It’s all a plot to kill Vincent to escape her unhappy marriage. 

I have to admit — I didn’t see that one coming.  Usually I can pick up when there’s going to be a twist, but since M. Night Shyamalan didn’t direct this, it wasn’t telegraphed from ten miles away.  So good on you, Director of this movie.

Sure enough, when Vincent happens upon The Secretary in the cellar, she shoots him.  But after, like, five whole seconds of staring at him, which, to me, is more than enough time to realize he’s not a ghost.  Especially when Vincent says, “Secretary, no!”  Horrified and screaming again, The Secretary runs out.  The Psychiatrist comes out from one of the offshoot rooms — how did he get down there so quickly?! — and tosses Vincent into the acid pit.  Or so we’re led to believe, seeing as how the screen fades to black.

As instructed, after hearing the shot, Annabelle ventures to the cellar.  She calls for the Psychiatrist, but all the doors start to close behind her, squeaking all the way.  She peeks into the acid bool, and a skeleton emerges from it, completely picked clean.  She tries to run away, but the skeleton gets up and walks her into the acid vat, and of course she falls in.  So both Vincent and Annabelle die in the acid bath.  Also, that was entirely too hokey.

But the hokeyness is explained when we see Vincent come out from behind a wine casket!  Because why would Vincent Price die?  HE WOULDN’T.  So during the scuffle, Vincent must have knocked the Psychiatrist into the vat, brought a skeleton to the Haunted House party, rigged it to scare the bejeezus out of Annabelle, where he pushed her into the vat so they both died.

Vincent goes upstairs and explains everything, and everyone is okay with it.  They find Test Pilot behind the partition, and he’s all right too.  Watson Pritchett says that there are nine ghosts now, and there will be more, because now they’re coming for you.

Uh, no they’re not, because now the movie’s over, and I’m going to turn this off now.  So, shut up, Watson Pritchett. 

Grade for House on Haunted Hill: Meh.

UGH.  I was going to do this last night.  Honest-to-God, I was planning on studiously avoiding the last debate and Game 7 of the NLCS because I a) didn’t care about the former and b) wasn’t totally emotionally invested in the latter.  What ended up happening was finding myself flipping back and forth between Game 7 and the debate, getting pissed off at both candidates for entirely different reasons (though the bayonet crack was funny — come on, guys, lighten up, he wasn’t making fun of the Navy, he was making fun of the antiquated notion of what our Navy looks like!  Jesus!), and then Jeremy the IV wouldn’t let me not watch either The Daily Show or Conan, so Daily Show it was, and then I was able to tune into the very end of Game 7 where the GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!  THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! And it was awesome, because even though I’m a New Englander, my loyalties can be bought easily.  Especially when the Red Sox suck giant donkey dicks and also, my friend Emily lives in San Francisco, so there.

ANYWAY.  By the time I was ready to actually sit and watch The Innocents, it was 12:30, I had written about five paragraphs bitching about the debate and why I don’t really like horror movies, and then I realized I wasn’t truly in the mood to watch a black-and-white psychological thriller, so I put in Season 1 of Archer and kept cross-stitching Babou.

Holy shit!  You guys — look at his little spots! 

(Seriously, everyone’s getting home-made presents this year.  I just realized: I’m po’.  So if you have a favorite quote or particularly geeky phrase that you want to see cross-stitched into a sampler [a la “God bless this swirling vortex of entropy”], shoot me a personal message and it will be yours.  At some point in the future.  Can’t guarantee that you’ll get it for Real Christmas.  We may need to institute Alaina’s Christmas Present Day on, like April 5.  Because that’s how I roll.)

Sweet — IFC is showing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with Martin Freeman!  That was the movie I would always put in when I had to pull an all-nighter back in college.  Well, that and Prisoner of Azkaban.  I could put those on and not need to pay attention to every moment.  Pure background noise.  I swear, those movies got me through Costuming and Makeup Production. 

So back to The Innocents:

The imdb. describes the movie thusly:

A young governess (Deborah Kerr) for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.

Here’s why I’m watching The Innocents: it’s a classic in the psychological/supernatural horror genre, I’ve never seen it, and it’s slightly more than a week until Halloween.  Also on my DVR list is the Vincent Price original, House on Haunted Hill.  I am both interested and wary, on both counts.

See, I may have alluded to it when I watched Death of a Ghost Hunter*, but looking back at that entry, I think I was more vague than I wanted to be.  As much as I enjoyed The Grudge and Final Destination II, they are not movies that I will rewatch on a regular basis.  Actually, now that I think about it, I know I own both of those movies on DVD — oh wait, no; I gave both to the Roommate when I moved out, because I’ve never rewatched them.  Oh, I bought them.  Because I am an idiot who apparently has no real level of responsibility when it comes to money.  And the reason I enjoyed them was because they took themselves so fucking seriously that they completely bypassed ‘scary’ and ended up at ‘stupid.’  If you recall, I was the idiot yelling at Buffy to just kill the fucking demon, why can’t she just pick up her boyfriend, she has superhuman strength, why is she going upstairs?  Doesn’t she know by now you NEVER GO UPSTAIRS?  And then there was the slow clap when that dude in Final Destination II got tri-sected by a barbed wire fence.  That was awesome.

I mean, those events are too ludicrous to believe.  Yeah, sure, there may be a certain amount of plausibility, but, come on; car accident causes a van to run into a tree, the driver lights a cigarette while she waits for the jaws of life, the air bag delays but when it finally does deploy, the driver’s head rams right into the conveniently-placed tree branch, kills her, causes her to drop her cigarette, which lights the gas that is leaking out of the van, which leads right to a tank of methane or propane or something on this farm or wherever, and when that blows up, it blows up a section of fence which happens to slice right through one of the other passengers who had survived up until that moment.  That is a Rube Goldberg machine of epic proportions.

[SIDEBAR: Dear God, I adore Sam Rockwell.  In all of his incarnations.  Zaphod Beeblebrox, Hammer of HammerCorp, everything else I’ve ever seen him in … if he’s not careful, he could end up on my list of Pretend Boyfriends.]

I recognize that the point of horror movies is to scare ourselves.  It takes something that could potentially, actually happen — either through a weird sort of crazy, random happenstance, or through supernatural events — and shows us how horrible it could end up.  When horror is done well — as I assume The Innocents will do — it freaks us the fuck out.  And I don’t know about y’all, but that is not a feeling I truly enjoy feeling.

And here’s where I get back to Death of a Ghost Hunter.  That is a perfect example of a movie that takes itself so fucking seriously that it loops around to being not just stupid, but awful.  However — and Sarah?  I would have said this earlier, but Twitter wouldn’t give me more characters — given the right parameters, I’d watch Ghost Hunter again.  Those parameters include being with friends who either have or have not seen it yet (a game of shared experiences, or a game of Terrify the Ghost Hunter Noob, whichever, either is hilarious), and a lot of booze.  But I would never watch Hobo With a Shotgun.  The violence was really, too terrible for me (although I’m still impressed with the use of hockey skate as murder weapon), no redemption for any characters, and I’m sorry, it was being crude just to be shocking.  I can’t give any empathy to envelope-pushing for no real reason.

Sorry, Sarah – I can’t do it.

Okay, so, how does that loop into The Innocents?  Well, while I’ve never seen the movie before, I may have read that in the end, the governess goes a little crazy and murderous?  And ghosts or not, that can be a very scary thing.  Needless to say, I will be watching this with all the lights on.  Because I really don’t want to get freaked.  I may need to institute a rule like my acquaintance back in college — whenever her boyfriend made her watch either a violent movie or a scary movie (I can’t remember witch), she had to watch Election before going to bed.  I can probably do the same thing with The Avengers.  Or maybe something shorter; it is 1 a.m. after all.

All right — let’s do this.  At least the movie’s only an hour, forty minutes long.

[CASINO ROYALE WILL BE MY ‘BEFORE BED’ MOVIE, DUH AND/OR HELLO.  ALAINA, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!  TWO WEEKS UNTIL SKYFALL HOLY SHIT]

The film begins with a black screen and then a sunrise over the sound of birds singing, and a woman praying.  Or something.  Oh, that’s where I read this!  The movie is based on Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, which is a Book I’ve Never Read.  I think I was looking at books that I know I should read at some point in my life, and the synopsis of Turn of the Screw said that there were allusions to it in The Innocents. 

Deborah Kerr — is it “Carr” or is it “Curr?” — thinks while she prays that all she wants to do is save the children, because what they need more than anything is someone to love them.  Oh, SHIT, NOT THE CHILDREN!

Michael Redgrave plays the uncle of the children Deborah Kerr is going to be the governess for.  His voice sounds familiar.  Hmm… well, apparently I’ve never seen him in anything else.  The children live on another estate, and the Uncle wants nothing to do with them.  Uh, yikes.  Deborah Kerr will be their second governess, and the girl, Flora, was very fond of Mrs. Jessel.  Apparently the Uncle had settled everything, and then the governess “had to go and die.”  Uh, yikes.  It’s Deborah Kerr’s first position, and the Uncle tells her at least three times that, whatever happens, she has to run the show without involving him.  Deborah Kerr promises to try.

I’m ninety percent sure that this movie was filmed after The King and I.  So I could make some jokes in here about the King of Siam, but to be honest, I’ve never seen that movie either, so I’m just going to shut up about it.

Deborah Kerr gets out of the carriage (the film takes place most likely in the 1860s or 1870s, judging by the costumes) and walks the rest of the way to the estate.  It’s a very pretty estate, I’ll give the Creepy Uncle that. 

ALTHOUGH NOT AS CREEPY AS FLORA!  Deborah Kerr hears someone calling “Flora,” and then all of a sudden Flora shows up, the very epitome of “young girl about to be haunted, to the extent that she looks like one of the twins from The Shining.”  Deborah Kerr introduces herself, and Flora says she knows, and does she like reptiles.  Deborah Kerr says wisely that it depends, and asks why Flora asked the question.  “Why, I happen to have one in my pocket.”  WHAT REPTILE FITS IN POCKETS, LITTLE GIRL?  I SWEAR TO GOD IF THERE ARE MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES IN THIS MOTHERFUCKING HORROR MOVIE, I’LL — oh, it’s a turtle.  *phew*  Aww, and its name is Rupert?!  Reference to both Giles and Stewie’s bear!  Okay, I’ll un-pause you now, movie.

Flora introduces Deborah Kerr to the Cook or whatever it is, and the Cook is really overly happy to meet the new Governess.  Deborah Kerr is overwhelmed by the largeness of the estate.

Anyway.  The kid has her bath and then she and Deborah Kerr go to sleep — apparently it’s kosher for the governess to sleep in the same room as the kid.  As Flora’s saying her prayers, she hears a squawk of what could be a hurt animal.  Apparently, Mrs. Groce (the aforementioned housekeeper or cook or whatever) has told Flora to ignore when she hears things like that.  Flora tells Deborah Kerr to ignore it, but apparently compassion is her weakness, and she refuses to ignore it.  Deborah Kerr sleeps fitfully while Flora hums.

The next day, she receives a letter from Flora’s brother’s school, and he’s been expelled for being an injury to other students.  Flora had been saying that Miles was coming home, though both Deborah Kerr and Mrs. Groce said that he wouldn’t be home until holiday.  When Deborah Kerr asks Flora how she knew, she just says, “Oh look, a lucky spider, and it’s eating a butterfly.”  WHAT THE FUCK, FLORA?!

Miles comes home on the train and the two children run off to play together.  That night, Deborah Kerr is doing the rounds before going to bed, and when she listens at the door to see if he’s sleeping, he calls her in.  Miles gives me the impression that, when he grows up, he’s going to be a thankless rake.  He’s practically attempting to seduce Deborah Kerr.  He’s all of eleven!  Anyway, Deborah Kerr tries to get him to talk about why he was expelled, but he keeps his trap shut.  The wind blows the candle out, and Miles says, in what I assume is his idea of Seductive!Voice, “It was only the wind, my dear.”  DUDE.  YOU’RE FUCKING ELEVEN.

The next morning, Deborah Kerr is cutting roses in the garden.  There’s lots of ambient noise — birds chirping, pigeons and doves cooing, and Flora humming her song again.  Deborah pushes some roses out of the way and finds a hidden statue, of a cherub holding the … cut-off hands of someone?  And there’s a fucking cockroach coming out of its mouth?!  EEEEEWWWWW….. And while Deborah notices that, all ambient noise stops.  ALL OF IT.  It’s quiet.  Too quiet.  Not in the good way.  Deborah looks up and sees a man standing on one of the towers.  She crosses through the garden and goes into the tower, at which point the pleasant sounds of birds chirping and cooing fade into the disgusting noise of flies buzzing.  She climbs the tower to find Miles sitting and playing with pigeons.  THOSE ARE THE DIRTIEST BIRDS, MILES.  AND ONE OF THEM IS SITTING ON YOUR HEAD.  DUDE.  Deborah Kerr wants to know where the man is, but Miles tells her she probably just saw him.  He says at one point, “Oh, dear.  I hope you don’t need spectacles; you’re too pretty for them.”  SERIOUSLY, MILES, YOU’RE ELEVEN.

As Deborah Kerr is trying to find out of there are any other people living on the grounds, Flora comes running up and tells her that Miles is ‘running expedition.’  Which turns out to mean riding his pony very very fast, and all I can think of is Bonnie Blue from Gone With the Wind.  Unfortunately, the little imp doesn’t break his neck.  Damn.

The kids ask Deborah Kerr how big her house was growing up.  Miles the Minx asks if the house was big enough to keep secrets.  Apparently not, because her father was a Father, always writing sermons.  But when he’d go out, the family would play Hide and Seek.  That causes the children to want to play Hide and Seek, which is NEVER A GOOD IDEA IN A CREEPY OLD HOUSE.  She ends up in an attic with ANOTHER CREEPY BOBBLEHEAD, WHAT THE FUCK, OLD MOVIES.  She goes over to stop its bobble, but then she runs into the table and starts up a music box.  The song it plays is the same song Flora keeps humming, and there is a cracked picture of a man in the box as well.

And then Miles, the Creepy Fucker, jumps out and frightens poor Deborah Kerr.  He puts his arms around her neck in what I assume is a half-Nelson-type hold, but Deborah at first mistakes it for a hug.  When it turns out to be not that and more of a stronghold, she asks him to stop holding her because he’s hurting her.  He refuses.  MILES, WHAT THE FUCK.  And then Flora shows up and then Miles lets Deborah go, and also, Flora is happy because Deborah found her missing music box.  It’s also Deborah’s turn to hide.

She goes back to the living room and hides behind one of the draperies.  As she’s standing there, she sees a man stalking up to the window.  She tries to scream, but either she’s too scared, or she doesn’t want the kids to find her hiding space.  The man practically puts his nose on the window, then moves back into the dark in the slowest backwards walk ever.  Deborah understandably freaks out, as she recognizes the man as the man from the tower.  When Mrs. Groce shows up, Deborah pretty much accuses the housekeeper of hiding a handsome yet scary man on the grounds.  Then she realizes that not only is he the Man From the Tower, but also the Man From the Music Box Picture.  She’s on her way to the attic to find the picture when Mrs. Groce tells her that the man she thinks she’s seeing is dead.  DUH AND/OR HELLO.

A couple of days later, it’s pouring out and the kids are being little nightmares in the classroom.  A series of stupid little things (squeaky pencil, Miles being a fucktard) cause Flora to cry.  Deborah Kerr decides that instead of learning, they’ll pretend that it’s Flora’s birthday.  The children want to have a costume party, so they go off running to surprise Deborah.  Deborah gets all worried about the kids running off.  Mrs. Groce runs interference, telling Deborah that there was no man, and the dead man was the Uncle’s valet.  He died by slipping on the front stairs while drunk in a snowstorm.  Apparently Miles was the one who found him, which is tragic in its own way because Miles followed after the valet — name of Quint, and I know there’s a Jaws joke in there somewhere, but remember, that’s also on the List — like a little lost puppy.  Worshipped him, which, even if Quint hadn’t cracked his head open like a snow margarita, would have ended poorly.

The kids come down the staircase all wrapped in sheets and crowns, looking like a regular little royal party.  Miles recites a poem about what could he do with his Lord away, and I have no idea if he’s referring to Jesus, Quint, or something else.  The atmosphere is very Macbeth-ish.  Deborah Kerr wants to know more about the mysterious Quint, but then she learns that apparently, Quint and the first Governess may have been having an affair or something.  Mrs. Groce tells her to not worry about it, because the whole thing’s over and done with.  Deborah wonders, is it really?

Deborah Kerr is sitting with the children in the garden, and she becomes convinced that she saw another ghost, this one of the former governess.  That night, Deborah tells the housekeeper her fears, and the housekeeper finally believes that Deborah really is seeing these things.  Deborah does the classic “What do the ghosts want?,” hoping — like Giles and Buffy did fifty years later in “I Only Have Eyes For You” — that if they can figure it out, they can exorcise the area of the ghosts.  Apparently, Governess #1 and Quint were sex fiends, and they didn’t care who saw them.  Uh, yikes.  In addition, Quint was abusive to the Governess, but she liked it.  When Quint died, she became uber-depressed, and she died of a broken heart.

Deborah Kerr has a creepy nightmare that night, full of overlain shots of the kids being creepy, dancing with the ghosts of the dead, and the kids keep whispering about keeping secrets.  Deborah Kerr believes that the children might be possessed by the dead Quint and dead governess.  Deborah wants to convince Creepy Uncle that his niece and nephew are possessed, but she wants to make sure she knows all the details.  Mrs. Groce finally tells her that the First Governess drowned herself.

Deborah wants to go to London, but on the day of her journey, she finds the ghost of the First Governess in the schoolroom, crying.  Like, there are actual wet tears on the chalkboard of sums.  So she decides to not go to London, and to keep the children within her sight at all times.  But then later that night, she goes on rounds throughout the house with her candelabra, and she hears the voices of the First Governess and Quint, with the Governess saying “The children are watching,” and Quint laughing maniacally.  When she returns to the bedroom she shares with Flora, Flora’s kneeling at the window, watching Miles walk around in the garden.  Deborah takes up her candelabra again and runs down to the garden to figure out what Miles is doing out so late.

Miles had decided to run outside with his bare feet because he thought he was being boring.  OH MY GOD.  MILES.  THERE ARE GHOSTS ABOUT.  As she’s tucking Miles in bed, she finds a … a dead pigeon, with a broken neck, UNDER MILES’S PILLOW.  MILES, WHAT THE FUCK.  And THEN, he asks Deborah Kerr to kiss him goodnight, and when she hesitates, he kisses her smack on the lips.  And not an “Eleven-Year-Old” kiss – an “I’m Growing Up” kiss.  MILES, WHAT THE FUCK

The next day, Flora goes missing.  Deborah Kerr believes that she’ll be at the lake where the First Governess killed herself.  Sure enough, Flora and her music box are dancing in the gazebo at the edge of the lake.  Well, Flora’s dancing to the music from the music box.  The music box can’t dance.  Deborah Kerr sneaks up on her and then gently calls her name, in an attempt to not scare the poor girl.  But as Deborah asks her who gave her the music box, and if she can see the spectre of Miss Jessel, the First Governess, because she can, she’s right over there, don’t you see her, Flora?  Don’t you?  Anyway, Flora starts to bawl, just as Mrs. Groce comes up and wants to know what’s going on.  And —

JESUS CHRIST, WEEKLY EMERGENCY ALERT TEST!  BE MORE INAPPROPRIATE!  Good God almighty, I jumped!  *deep breaths* Okay, I’m awake now. 

Also, you know you’ve been up too long when you’re awake for the weekly test of the Emergency Broadcast System.  Fuck.

Oh look, I only have twenty more minutes.  Flora gets scared of Deborah Kerr and demands to never see her again.  Well, in her defense, Deborah, you are becoming kind of a creeper.

That night, Flora is screaming to raise the dead — uh, pun hopefully not intended? — but Deborah is respecting the girl’s wishes to never see her again.  So instead, Flora just screams all night long.  Apparently, she’s also cursing up a storm, but thanks, Hayes Code!  We only hear screaming, no swear words.  Deborah tells Mrs. Groce to take Flora to their Uncle while she works on getting Miles to talk.  Clearly, Mrs. Groce believes Deborah Kerr’s gone ’round the bend, but is in no position to try and convince her otherwise.

Mrs. Groce says goodbye to Deborah Kerr and takes Flora to her uncle’s in London.  Young Master Miles has gone outside to play, so Deborah Kerr waits for him to return.  It’s not until teatime that he decides to deign Deborah Kerr with his presence.  He’s very happy that he’s got Deborah Kerr alone.  He tries to convince Deborah Kerr that he’s happy and Flora’s happy and everyone’s so very, very happy together, but then he runs away, undercutting his entire argument.

She tells Miles that her father — the vicar, remember? — told her to help people, even if they don’t want help.  That’s why she’s kept Miles in here alone.  She asks again what happened at school, and he tries to tell her it’s because he’s different, but then she says that he’s no different from any other boy.  Uh, Deborah?  HAVE YOU BEEN WATCHING THIS MOVIE?!

Finally, Miles admits that he hears voices and that he’d talk in his sleep, frightening the other boys at school.  He then taunts Deborah Kerr, and she sees Quint in the window behind Miles.  He goes a little crazy — possibly possessed — and calls Deborah a damned dirty hussy.  Hey, now.  He runs out of the conservatory, throwing Flora’s pet turtle Rupert out the window.  NOT RUPERT!

He runs into the garden, convinced that Deborah’s gone mad.  She sees Quint replace one of the statues in the garden, and when Miles asks to see him, the devil, he spins around, has a seizure or something, then passes out.  As Deborah Kerr picks him up, strokes his hair, and tells him that she has him now and that Quint’s gone. 

… And then she realizes that …

HAHAHAHAHA I’M SO SORRY.  SO VERY, VERY SORRY.

Finis.

In conclusion, the movie was not as ‘scary’ as I thought it was going to be.  Hurray!  It was still fucked up, and I can’t imagine how everyone must have reacted to the story back when it was released. 

I tell you what, though — I think the next movie I watch is going to be of the Netflix Roulette variety.  I need to be making fun of more things.

*PS: Upcoming H2 Productions:
Ghost of a Death Hunter
Death of a Goat Hunter
And the last in the amazing trilogy: Hunt of a Goat Ghost.

On behalf of the team at H2 Productions: You’re welcome, world.

Aaaaaaannnnd……… I’m back! 

And Caroline the Netbook’s keyboard is acting up once more.  Or, to be generous, dear Caroline: the touchpad is exceedingly touchy tonight.  This will make blogging fun.

I’ve had Jeremy the IV, Part One (also known as Jeremy, Episode IV: A New Hope) set up for approximately three weeks.  And in that time, I’ve become addicted to Go On, The New Normal, and TCM once more.  I have seven movies on my DVR’d list, and the list is already up to 60%.

I have a problem.

I’m sorry – I also have to take a moment of digression.  As I’m writing the preamble to this, my return to Insomniac Theatre, I’m watching last Wednesday’s episode of The Daily Show, and being totally lazy and not fast-forwarding through the commercials.  I just saw a commercial for Patron Tequila, and they’re talking about how Patron conserves water, and recycles glass, and creates renewable compost, and I get that they’re trying to make us like them even more because they’re being all environmentally responsible, but I’m all … I don’t always drink Patron.  But when I do, it’s because a rich frat guy is trying to impress me.

So let’s return to Insomniac Theatre with what is sure to become a Bette Davis Classic, Marked Woman:

A crusading DA persuades a clip joint “party girl” to testify against her mobster boss after her innocent sister is accidentally murdered during one of his unsavory “parties.”

Here’s why I’m excited: it stars Humphrey Bogart AND Bette Davis.  The last time the two were in the same movie, she slapped the shit out of him.  And Bogey don’t take no shit.  The dialogue’s going to be fast and witty, and pretty much awesome, right?

Also, I’m using this as my return to the Mvoies Alaina’s Never Seen stage because it’s an hour and a half long.  Woo hoo short movies!

Hm.  According to Robert Osborne, this movie is the Law & Order of the 1930s: “ripped from the headlines,” and the mobster is loosely based upon Lucky Luciano.  More fun facts: Bogey plays a good guy, whose character is based upon that of Thomas Dewey.  The SAME Thomas Dewey who went on to defeat Harry Truman for one newspaper headline.  (Did I do a history?)

Also: due to the Hayes Code, Lucky Luciano’s prostitutes are here known as “party girls,” or “hostesses.”  Damn you, Hayes Code.

Huh, this is interesting.  It starts with the credits, but then it also goes through a roll-call of sorts, with a few frames of each actor and the character they’re playing.  Whoa, and Mayo Methot is not a looker.  And she was Bogey’s wife before he married Lauren Baccall?  Jeez, Bogey, what was she, funny?

The story, all names, characters, incidents and institutions portrayed in this production are fictitious.  No identification with actual persons, living or deceased, is intended or should be inferred.

But … Robert Osborne just said … ?

A bunch of policemen are hanging out around a place called “Club Intime.”  Jeez, I wonder what *that* could be a front for.  Say “Obvious, much” much?  While the police stay outside, a bunch of goons head downstairs and look at the cocktail bar and talk about turning the private dining room into the gambling room.  Oh, I get it — it’s a mook with his interior decorators.

One of whom is carrying … a spaniel?  Or, a … shit, I don’t know what kind of dog that is.  It’s a lap dog, with longer hair — the kind that old ladies usually tie up in a bow on the top of their head?  A Shi-Tzu?  Crossed with a spaniel of some sort?  Damn.  You know what I need?  Shazam for dogs.  Honest-to-god, I could use Shazam for a lot of things.  ANYWAY.  The Lead Mook pets the dog and then tells the Dog Lackey to take her for a walk, as it’s “too stuffy in here.”  …. What?  What kind of mook takes his dog to his brothel?

The mook’s name is apparently Mr. Vanning.  He tells his decorator he wants a different type of chandelier for the nightclub.  He takes a tour of his ‘party girls,’ one of whom is the lovely Bette Davis.  He then gives a speech about how he’s turning this nightclub into something called a ‘clip joint,’ which must be code for something that in turn was code for brothel.  Again: stupid Hayes code. 

The girls all pile out, told to come back tomorrow.  Vanning stops one girl and pretty much tries to fire her for being too old.  Ouch — first you’re told you’re a whore, then you’re told that you’re too old to be a whore?  That’s gotta smart.  Bette jumps in and tells Vanning to give her a chance, as he’s only just bought the bar and can’t be sure how she’ll work out.  He agrees, taken with Bette’s outspokenness.  He invites her up to his place, but she wisely declines, as she’s got an inkling as to what he’s all about, and since he’s her boss now, that’s as far as it will go.  As she leaves, he tells his decorator mook friends that she’s a smart girl; one of them says that it’s possible she’s too smart.  Uh oh.

The girls all go home to their shared apartment and kvetch about their lovely life.  /sarcasm.  Meanwhile, Vanning has renamed Club Intime into the duh-doi name “Club Intimate.”  I detest idiots with no sense of subtlety.  A woman sings about a silver dollar man of hers, and a group of men call over Bette, her friend Old Estelle, and the nightclub singer. 

Can I just say, without fear of remorse or shaming from anyone I know, that being a whore in that type of joint seems like a swanky job?  The women get to dress up in gorgeous gowns, men fawn over them and buy them champagne, yours is watered down so you maintain your sobriety, but you keep funneling booze down their throat and get to dance and the next night it’s another dude, and sure your wages are cut a little bit by your boss, but come on! 

Bette’s mark is down on the dice table by $1800.  He writes a check and then takes Bette home.  When he tells her he doesn’t have a dime, she tells him to hightail it out of town as soon as possible.  Except the mooks catch him at the Waldorf and beat him up a bit. 

The next day Bette’s kid sister shows up at the girls’ apartment, but the kid sister doesn’t know what Bette and the girls do for a living.  Apparently Kid Sister goes to college – I’ll bet Bette sends what funds she can to help out Kid Sister.  Anyway, two guys come up to the apartment and ask Bette if she knew some guy named Ralph Crawford.  Turns out, Ralph was the guy Bette was out with last night, and also the guy that Vanning’s mooks killed. 

Holy SHIT, Bogey’s young in this movie!  There aren’t any wrinkles!  His voice isn’t as craggy or deep!  Even his five o’clock shadow is somewhat sexy!  I mean, I’ve loved him in Sabrina, and I’ve seen Casablanca and The Big Sleep, but … dayum, Bogey.  I was not expecting that.

The girls are doing a line-up, including the Kid Sister.  Bogey is trying to figure out what happened to Crawford.  He throws Bette in jail for being an accessory to murder, but he really knows that she’s not involved.  Vanning’s lawyer visits Bette in jail and tells her to play ball to protect Vanning, and if she doesn’t she’ll end up like Isobel Flemming, who ended up in the river.  Bette ends up in Bogey’s office again, and she pretty much has a breakdown in his office because she’s too young to die.

And THAT’S the part where I was going to make a reference to Buffy’s great scene in “Prophecy Girl,” where she overhears Giles and Angel talking about the prophecy, and how she’s going to march into the Master’s lair, and she will die.  She starts laughing and then starts throwing books at Giles, screaming “Read me the SIGNS!  Tell me my FORTUNE!” then she breaks down and in a very quiet voice, says, “I’m sixteen years old.  I’m too young to die.”  And I totally felt okay comparing the great Bette Davis to that, one of my favorite scenes ever in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but then I remembered that in this movie, Bette’s pretty much playing a watered-down version of a prostitute, and having her say that she’s sixteen years old is REALLY FUCKING ICKY.

Damn.  I really want to watch “Prophecy Girl” right now.

[Six minutes later…]

Jesus, thank god for Netflix, huh?  *sniff*  How can Sarah Michelle Gellar be so GOOD!?  And how can Giles KILL ME with a crinkling of his eyes?  No, I will not watch “Helpless” again.  Right now.  I’m still watching Marked Woman.

Anyway.  Jesus.  Bette agrees to testify against Vanning, according to the requisite spinning newspapers that movies from this time period are so fond of.  She identifies the perps in front of the entire court, which to me seems rather stupid.  Of course, in this day and age, we have our witnesses testify from behind the curtain of the Witness Protection Program.  So I guess my perception is colored.

Bette testifies, and then the defense calls a cop up who testifies that he had the two perps in custody for drunken driving at the time when Bette testified that they were taking care of the murdered dude.  Turns out, Bette was working with Vanning the entire time to ensure his innocence.  When she returns home, the Kid Sister is hiding from the world, devastated that her sister is a … ‘hostess.’  I swear to god, Hayes code…

Then Kid Sister tells Bette that she can’t go back to school, because she’s humiliated that her sister is a … ‘hostess.’  So she’s just going to hang around the girls’ apartment, waiting for … I don’t know.  Something to happen.  That part wasn’t made all that clear.  (Or, this could just be the fault of me not paying attention.  Hey look, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are going to host the Golden Globes!  Remember when the Golden Globes didn’t have a host?)

Emmy-Lou, one of the girls, comes home to change before going to another party and finds Kid Sister sitting in the dark.  She convinces Kid Sister to go to a party that Vanning’s throwing.  And by “convinces,” I mean “pretty much strong-arms her into going.”  She bribes her with a pretty silver dress, and they’re starting to get changed when the camera decently pans away from the two girls (if they couldn’t say “prostitutes” in 1937, they certainly couldn’t show two women undressing each other) and the camera lands on … holy SHIT.

Only the SCARIEST LAMP I’VE EVER SEEN:

I mean, JESUS CHRIST.  How can anyone SLEEP with that thing staring at them all night?!  Oh, PS, it’s ALSO A BOBBLEHEAD.

Anyway, Kid Sister goes to Vanning’s party with Emmy-Lou and ends up getting tons of cash from a guy.  She had the same idea that I had: that maybe that life ain’t so bad.  Bette wants to keep Kid Sister out of that type of racket, but Kid Sister does what Kid Sisters so often do: run and do the exact opposite of what Big Sister says she shouldn’t do.

And she runs right back into Vanning’s party, and the arms of the guy who gave her the money, but when he tries to put the moves on her she resists.  Vanning and Emmy-Lou show up, and even though she’s not an employee, Vanning sees money in her, so he hits her down a flight of stairs, where she must die, although it’s never actually said that she’s dead.

Bette yells at Emmy-Lou for taking Kid Sister to the party, though nobody tells Bette that Kid Sister’s dead.  Not Emmy-Lou, not Vanning … until she goes to Bogey’s office to try and get him to help her.  As he kicks her out, the coroner brings in reports, at which point he figures out that Case 3B42-A (or whatever) is actually Bette’s Kid Sister. 

After the funeral, Bogey goes to the girls’ apartment and tries to get the girls to help testify.  None of the girls are brave enough to be willing to testify against Vanning.  They all recognize that Vanning will kill them all, just as easily as Vanning killed Kid Sister.

And then Vanning shows up!  And he kicks all the women out of the room and lets Charlie knock Bette around a little bit.  Also, Emmy-Lou is conveniently missing. 

Cops swarm on Club Intimate, led by Bogey.  He’s looking for Emmy-Lou, trying to get the final piece in the Who Killed Bette’s Kid Sister? puzzle.  She was being strongholded in Vanning’s apartments or wherever.  When Bogey comes up in a raid, Emmy-Lou manages to get away – using the elevator, of all things!  She runs straight to Bette’s hospital room, and Bette really does look beaten. 

(Fun Fact!: The Makeup department at Warner Brothers gave Bette Davis very ‘pretty’ bandages for this scene – like a glamour girl’s version of being beaten.  Bette Davis went to her doctor and told the doctor to bandage her like a woman that had just been brutally beaten.  She then stormed back to Warner Brothers and demanded to be shot like that or not at all.  And THAT is why Bette Davis > You.)

Bette manages to convince all the girls to agree to testify against Vanning, so Bogey is finally successful in indicting and arresting Vanning.  The girls end up in jail, mostly for their own protection.  The case goes to trial, and all the girls testify, both to the innocent character of Kid Sister and to some of the deeds that Vanning and his men had done.  Bogey gives a stirring closing argument, calling out the five girls for testifying when men with more power refused.  The jury finds Vanning and his cohorts guilty on all counts.  And because this took place before the Witness Protection Program, the judge sentences them to at least 30 years in maximum lockup, and threatens them with more should anything ever happen to the five women who testified against him.

Bette was going to say something to Bogey, but he was being congratulated by the rest of his team.  So when she leaves, Bogey calls after her to thank her and congratulate her  and he offers her his assistance.  I think, in a roundabout way, he was asking her to go out with him, but she didn’t feel that she was part of his world.  He tells her that he’ll see her again, and she agrees.  The movie ends with reporters conglomerating around Bogey, taking pictures, and the five women walk into the night fog and disappear.

Hm.  Well.  That was … kind of a sad return for Insomniac Theatre, I guess.  I expected more face-slapping.  And yelling.  And sarcastic comments.  I mean, I think the movie was good, but … meh.  There should have been more jokes.

Sorry, guys.  That was lame.  I’ll pick a better one next time.

So this will be a little bit different from my usual Insomniac Theatre fare.  I was scrolling through the entries of TCM one night and came across this, and something in the back of my brain pinged.  I vaguely recalled watching a movie years and years ago, when I was a little kid and we had just gotten the expanded cable package with AMC — back before AMC had commercials; that long ago — and I think I may have actually watched this with my mother.

I seem to remember Doris Day being scared out of her wits, and there’s a phone call, and it seems like a British Rear Window, but with Doris Day playing the Jimmy Stewart role without the wheelchair, and also, she’s the one who’s going to be murdered.  Or something.  Eagle-eyed viewers of this blog will have already noted that Rear Window is on my list.

Anyway.  If it turns out that I have actually seen this movie already, it was so long ago that this will seem like new.  It’s not cheating.  Also, Return of the Jedi hasn’t come in the mail yet.  Also-also, I’m not watching Shawshank for a while, so, suck it.

UH, I’M SORRY — I NEED TO YELL IN CAPSLOCK FOR A SECOND ABOUT NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS MOVIE

So I’m writing this entry in a Word doc first, because I’m sorry WordPress, I have two blogs on you, but sometimes, your post screen sucks the big one.  And I’m clicking to Google Images to find the poster for this movie, when my Yahoo! home page has a link to a video about a PYTHON SNEAKING INTO AN INFANT’S CRIB.

WHAT?!  That is — THAT IS — SO AWFUL AND HORRIFYING I CAN’T TALK ABOUT IT IN A CALM MANNER.

And even though I’m fucking petrified of snakes, my curiosity is aroused.  I had actually seen a highlight video a couple of years ago, where a cobra snuck into a house.  That was in China.  So when I saw the thing about the python and the crib, my first thought was, “This was in China, right?  Or India?  Or some other country where pythons run rampant and could indeed end up in a child’s crib accidentally?”

IT WAS IN FUCKING INDIANA. 

“Well, maybe it was their pet?  Because some parents are stupid enough to think, ‘hey, snakes like kids, right?'”

IT WAS NOT THEIR PET.  A RANDOM PYTHON SNUCK INTO THIS APARTMENT IN FUCKING INDIANA AND TRIED TO SQUEEZE THE INFANT AS A SNACK.

WHAT THE FUCK

I MEAN — WHAT THE FUCK

You know what I’m going to do tonight before I crawl into bed?  If you answered “check my bedroom for fucking SNAKES,” you would be correct.

Jesus God, I — I —

*deep breath*  Okay, let’s start our harmless little Doris Day movie.  Maybe that will make the abject terror of SNAKES IN A CRIB seem less real.

Oh, this one also has a Robert Osborne Introduction.  Apparently, this role was Doris Day’s most dramatic and intense performance, causing her to have a breakdown, in fact.  Oh, in all of the screaming about random pythons, I forgot to include the synopsis from the imdb.:

“In London, a newlywed American woman’s sanity comes into question when she claims to be the victim of a stalker.”

So let’s begin.  Oh look, a Bobbie!  We see a constable walking past the American consulate.  And here comes Doris Day, in a white fur coat, walking out of the American Consulate.  A gentleman offers her an escort, but she declines, as her home is only across the park (Grosvenor Square).  But apparently, London fog isn’t just a trenchcoat.  It is so thick (HOW THICK WAS IT) that Doris Day can barely see in front of her face.  She hears a noise — hahaha it’s a mysterious ticking noise!! — but it turns out to be a blind man, not a pipe bomb.

And then there’s Creepy Stalker Voice, who jumps right into threatening to kill her.  For no readily apparent reason.  I can only assume that there will be a reason?  I mean, it doesn’t have anything to do with her wearing fur, does it?  That would be lame.

Doris Day runs into her apartment and calls for Nora but finds her husband, Rex Harrison, instead.  Rex calms her down by telling her that when the fog is really thick, a bunch of practical jokers inhabit the parks, just waiting to torment the old ladies.  Well — I guess I should be glad that they’re not wankers?

It’s too bad — I honestly think that Rex Harrison is now only known for his role of Henry Higgins.  He was truly a versatile actor.  Well — My Fair Lady and Doctor Doolittle, I guess.  Although I can’t think of anyone who goes to Doctor Doolittle first.

Oooh!  Title reference: Doris Day goes shopping and then stops by Rex Harrison’s business to take him out to lunch, and shows off a little negligee she bought that is apparently made out of midnight lace.  Then, as all businessmen husbands do, he tells her he can’t go to lunch with her, so she takes her boxes and returns home.  But there’s construction going on outside of her apartment building and she’s nearly flattened by a steel girder!  Anyway, she makes it, and then runs into her neighbor on the stairs.  Doris makes small talk with “Peg,” whose husband is docked on a ship in Singapore. 

This conversation is very awkward.  Peg keeps trying to go downstairs to mail a letter to her husband, but Doris just keeps calling her back to ask her more inane questions.  I’m surprised Peg didn’t go, “Dammit Doris!  Ask all at once or not at all!”

So the guy calls the apartment and freaks Doris out, so she and Rex go to Scotland Yard and they learn that these phone calls are also kind of run in the mill in London.  Jeez. 

They return home, and then Doris goes to pick up her Aunt Bea, who’s visiting from America.  Rex comes home late and gives her a diamond brooch in the shape of a gondola (because they were going to go to Venice), but then tells Doris that they can’t go to Venice so soon, because Tony’s business needs him.  Hunh.  That feels familiar.

Then the Stalker calls again, and Rex runs upstairs to hear the guy on the extension, but Doris hangs up the phone before Rex can pick up.  When he asks her why she hung up, she claims that she couldn’t stand it any longer.  Rex calls Scotland Yard, and they say they’re going to change their phone number to unlisted, but they also insinuate that perhaps Doris Day is making it all up.  Rex defends her, but the question sticks with him…

… into the next scene, where Doris and Rex are having dinner with Aunt Bea and a former beau of hers.  When Charles takes Doris to the dance floor, Rex tells Aunt Bea about the latest Stalker call, and Scotland Yard’s claim that maybe Doris is a wife who is pretending to be stalked to gain the attention of her husband.  Aunt Bea refutes that claim, but then asks if the call came before or after Rex called their Venice trip off.  As we scroll back up, we see that the call came after the calling-off of the Venice trip, giving Rex some more food for thought.

That night — or possibly another night, I’m not sure — Doris is seated by the fireplace in the dark, thinking.  When she moves to the bed — WAIT A MINUTE.  Rex and Doris sleep in twin beds!  Oh man — oh Hayes Code, how stupid you were in retrospect. 

Doris goes out the next morning — or, at least she tries to but the elevator gets stuck.  The lights go out and she’s stuck in the box all alone.  She starts to scream for help, but then she sees a shadowy man walk up the stairs around the elevator, and she gets all freaked out.  Especially when the man starts beating at the door on the floor above (oh, that sounded bad, Alaina — that’s not what I meant.)  Anyway, he is able to break open the door, and Doris is having a full on panic attack — she’s crying, screaming, and overall flipping out.  The guy gets the hatch open to the elevator car and drops himself in, and then it turns out to be Mr. Younger, who was at the construction site the other day when she almost got flattened. 

And that’s why, whenever you’re being stalked, you always take the stairs. 

She goes and has a drink with Younger to steady her nerves, and he reveals that when he was in the army, a shell got stuck in his tank and he thought he was going to blow up.  Now he’s an architect, working in open spaces.  Doris feels better and happy now that she’s made a friend, and she goes off to run her errands.  The pub’s lady owner comes over and comments on how pretty Doris is, and then asks Mr. Younger if he wants to add his phone calls from last night onto his bill.  DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN

Doris, Rex, Aunt Bea, and Charlie are watching a ballet.  I apologize, I did not catch which ballet it was.  I’m going to go with The Swan Princess or whatever it was that Natalie Portman wanted to be the Black Swan in.  She and her party are sitting in one of the boxes, and I’m sorry, I’m an avid theatre-goer, and I still can’t understand why anyone would want to watch a staged show from a box.  You can’t see the entire stage, and in many cases, you can see directly backstage where the actors and actresses are waiting to make their entrance.  To me, it loses something.  I’d rather sit center.

Swan Lake!  That’s what the ballet’s called.  Rex got called out for a phone call or something, and Aunt Bea and Charlie are on their way home when Nora’s creepy son Malcolm shows up in the box, and asks about paying for Nora’s medical bills.  Doris is put off, and it seems that Malcolm is about to threaten her with worse, when Rex comes back to the box.  He threatens Malcolm in turn, and throws him out of the box.  But Rex has to go to work, because someone has found something.  Looks like someone is embezzling!  And it may be Aunt Bea’s friend Charlie!

Rex goes home, and he’s staring into the fire, going over everything that happened, and then Doris goes into her little twin bed which is just so damned ludicrous and stupid.  And then Doris sees a shadow climbing around in the scaffolding from the construction site next to their flat.  She freaks out, Rex offers to call the cops, she says no, because they don’t believe her anyway.

Ugh … this is so … things go well, then the phone rings.  Doris gets freaked out, then screams for help.  At this point, the movie’s been going on for over an hour, and we still don’t know why the stalker wants to kill her.  The Scotland Yard comes along and then, using logic, makes it seem as if Doris Day is making the whole thing up.  I’m starting to get bored.

Although, do I recall that, in the end, it’s Rex Harrison doing it?  I seem to recall that Rex is behind everything, because he was the one embezzling and he wanted to escape without his pretty American wife.  I don’t know, that’s what my gut is telling me.  (Although my gut is also very hungry…)

Anyway, things progress.  She’s attempting to get on a bus but then she’s pushed-slash-trips and lands in front of the bus.  She meets up with Peggy and asks her to lie to Tony about hearing the Phone Guy, because then someone would believe her, but the lie doesn’t work when the phone ends up being out of order.  Then she has a nervous breakdown, and Rex and Aunt Bea put her into a psy — HOLY SHIT IS THAT DOCTOR BELLOWS?!

‘m sorry – I was recapping the scene where Doris goes to the psych ward, and I happen to look up and the psychiatrist is played by Dr. Bellows from I Dream of Jeannie!  I loved him growing up!  He and the Professor from Gilligan’s Island — although, I’ll be honest here, I had more of a crush on the Professor.  I just kind of felt bad for Dr. Bellows for four seasons.  I’m honestly surprised that Dr. Bellows didn’t end up in therapy.

Okay, moving on.  How much more of this movie do I have to watch?  [Only about half an hour.  Thank god.] 

Mr. Younger goes back to the pub and actually sees the guy that ended up in Doris’s apartment that one time.  Meanwhile, the stalker calls Doris, and this time, she actually gets Rex to pick up the phone and hear the guy on the other end.  Rex calls the Yard, and he is told to pretend to go to a meeting so the stalker can make his move, leaving Doris alone in the apartment.  Mr. Younger’s hanging around outside, smoking his pipe, when he sees someone sneak into the construction site.  He follows the guy, doesn’t find him, but accidentally — I kid you not — trips over a wheelbarrow and scares the bejeezus out of Doris.

Then the creepy guy breaks in through the terrace, and he and Rex fight, breaking like, everything in the apartment, and then the gun goes off and Rex gets up, the other guy dead. 

And then — AS I CALLED IT — Rex reveals that he never called the police, and that he had planned to kill Doris all along, in order to gain her inheritance to help cover up the embezzlement that Rex had done. 

Oh, ‘Enry ‘Iggins.

In the end, Doris escapes through the window and across the scaffolding — oh, and Doris’s friend Peggy was Rex’s mistress and in on it the whole time — and the Yard had bugged the phone and was able to confirm that, not only were the calls real, but also that Rex was behind it all.  So he gets arrested and Doris escapes with Mr. Younger and Aunt Bea, and now, I can finally go to bed.  In the ninety-degree heat. 

Hooray … ?

Grade for Midnight Lace: Meh.