HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021 Pre-Show: The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992)

Tomorrow begins my annual Ghoulish Gauntlet For Altruistic Purposes, as I endeavor once again to watch 31 horror movies in 31 days and write about each one.  This year, the default charity I personally will be raising money for is The Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Support Campaign.  If you make a donation ($10 is suggested, but any amount is good) and forward me the receipt, you will get to sponsor one of the sixteen slots still open.  There's also other ways you can get yourself into the Halloween Horrorfest spotlight--just take a look below.

But first, some unfinished business....

Last year, I came up one day short.  The last day--some would say the most important days of the festival--I failed.  The sponsor was Mike Blanchard, and the film was an entry in the small but noteworthy sub-genre of 'Yuppie Horror'...namely, Curtis Hansen's The Hand That Rocks The Cradle.

Something you're going to learn about me this year is how vividly I remember where I see so many movies.  Before the turn of the century, Manhattan was a literal cornucopia of movie theater.  Going to college at Hunter CUNY in the 80's gave me access to literally a dozen movie theaters--some of which were multiplexes--in slightly longer than walking distance.  I remember seeing this film buoyed by my appreciation for Mr. Hansen's previous film, Bad Influence, and my crushing on one of its stars, Annabella Sciorra.  This was before I learned that Rebecca DeMornay, the other female lead, was the paramour of the exceptional singer/storyteller Leonard Cohen, but if I had known, that would also have entered into the equation.  I saw it during its initial run at a theater on 59th Street just off 3rd Avenue.   I would give you the name, but there were two on that one block between 2nd and 3rd, plus two on 3rd close enough to 59th Street to count...

So this is the first time I've revisited this film and...it's not exactly subtle, is it?

Claire (Sciorra) is expecting her second child when she is molested by Dr. Mott (John DeLancie, who played a similarly sleazy character in Bad Influence...what did he do to Hansen?).  Claire reports Mott to the Seattle Medical Board, which prompts other patients to come forward and sue him.  This leads to Mott committing suicide, leaving his pregnant wife (DeMornay) to miscarry and enter a world where she is without status or money to support herself.  Six months later, Claire is looking for a nanny so she can...build a greenhouse?..and who happens to rock up but Mrs. Mott, calling herself Peyton.  She's got revenge on her mind and plans to take everything away from her--her husband, her child and her status as someone of affluence.

You see what I mean about this being 'Yuppie Horror'?  While there is violence and death in this film, it's implied by Amanda Silver's script that Mrs. Mott's greatest transgression is...trying to get Claire's newborn son Joey to imprint on her by sneaking into his room and breast feeding him.  This is not about people in jeopardy, but social class.  Mrs. Mott doesn't want to kill Claire--who seems a bit odd as a focus of her rage, as the totally irresponsible newscast that names her and shows her photo on television for Mrs. Mott to see goes out of her way to point out she wasn't suing Mott--but kick her out of the affluent nest Claire lives in so she can have All The Nice Things.  Dropping a whole crapton of glass on Julianna Moore's foul mouthed head is just gravy to what our villain really wants...status.

Watching this almost three decades later with an older man's eyes had its moment of cringey-ness.  Making the only non-white member of the cast (Ernie Hudson as Solomon) mentally disabled is fine, I guess, even though it skates towards the 'magic negro' trope that should've died a long time ago...but having DeMornay yell at him for being 'a retard' is winge-worthy to say the least, especially when DeMornay has already effectively conveyed her contempt for the character solely through facial acting.  DeLancie is a much better actor than the broadly melodramatic character he's asked to portray in one of his two scenes, resulting in a scene that is uncomfortable but not in the way the film intended it to be.  The fact that Claire's husband, played with the ultimate white-bread-blandness by Matt McCoy, is pretty much a null save for being one of the things Mrs. Mott wants to deprive Claire of, does not help make this film breathe.  I never got lost in these characters as, you know, characters, and in a genre where empathy for our heroes and victims is very important, that's death.

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle is not the worst or most hamfisted of the Yuppie Horror films--I draw your attention to Pacific Heights, made two years earlier, where Michael Keaton rents out an apartment in Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine's building and Just. Won't. Leave.--and I think almost everything that elevates it lies in Hansen's direction.  This film seems to be determined to do everything it can to make it look as generic as possible, but Hansen finds some moments in amongst the Rustic Swank Porn to let his style come through.  And the cast is game, but it's hard for them to actually bring to life what has no life to begin with...which results in some of them, especially DeMornay and Moore deciding to force life into them by overacting.  And when an actor tries the opposite take, like Hudson, it only emphasizes how cardboard-y the character and the world is.

Sadly, this is a film that was built on a rotten foundation in Amanda Silver's script.  Silver seems to reach for the easy cliche far too often, and those cliches have aged badly.  DeMornay may be giving her role a energy it doesn't deserve, but her performance only throws how lacking in life her character is.  Admittedly, there's something fun in watching Mrs. Mott bully a ten-year old, but when she manipulates things so that Solomon is accused of child molestation, it leaves a real bad taste in my mouth.  I don't know if a better script would have lessened the awfulness I felt watching it--it's hard to feel sympathy for the protagonists in Yuppie Horror films--but as is, I'm not surprised it slipped off the radar.  I cannot recommend this.

So tomorrow begins the Horrorfest in earnest as this year's grandmaster, Director and Fire Stunt Aficionado Brian Trenchard-Smith, presents me with a horror sequel he helmed.  Join me tomorrow for Night of The Demons 2!

There are presently sixteen open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film.  However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.

The First Week of HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021--including RATAPALOOZA--has been scheduled!

 

You can feel the anticipation in the air, can't you?

This will be the fourth time I've challenged myself with the task of viewing and writing about 31 horror films, one for each day, that were chosen by celebrity sponsors, my Patreons, and by random...it's also the first time we have a sub-festival celebrating one of my hometown's biggest claims to fame, Ratapalooza!  A number of films this year focus on our rodent friends who own the subways of New York, and when I turn to the Randomizer this year, it will be chosen from a list of rat-themed horror films.

As we approach this august event, the first week has already been programmed.  Here's what you can look forward to in 2021's Cavalcade of Cinematic Chills!

Sept 30th: There's some unfinished business on the horizon first...last year I fell short by one day, so I didn't get to review and discuss Mike Blanchard's pick, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, directed by the great Curtis Hanson and featuring Annabella Sciorra and Rebecca DeMornay!  We're going to correct that next week!

Oct 1st: My friend and Ozploitation Icon Brian Trenchard-Smith ushers in the ghoulish, gaudy gala with his own Night of The Demons 2, the sequel that tells you what happens when the demonic Angela decides she wants to play some more!  Brian will be representing the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

Oct 2nd: Film critic and proud cinema snob Witney Seibold drops by to choose the Frank Hennelotter classic Basket Case 2, which continues the saga of Belial and his non-deformed twin brother in style!  Witney will be representing The Trevor Project.

Oct 3rd: The suave and charming film critic William Bibbiani presents the Mexican obscurity Curse of the Doll People, an...unauthorized...adaptation of the classic Fritz Leiber tale Burn Witch Burn directed by Alfredo Salazar.  William will be representing The Los Angeles LGBT Resource Center.

Oct 4th: Film critic and expert on all things Christmas Alonso Duralde come by to give us a little early holiday haunting with the obscure Long Island shot chiller Silent Night Bloody Night, featuring the magnificent Mary Woronov!  Alonso will be representing the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

Oct 5th: Ratapalooza officially starts here, as esteemed filmmaker Greg Lamberson presents the great George Cosmatos story of a man, a brownstone, and the rat that becomes his obsession, Of Unknown Origin!  Greg will be representing the American Diabetes Association.

Oct 6th: The rats keep coming as my own personal lab rat, Chris Honeywell, gives me a chance to talk about the greatness that was Glen Morgan and James Wong's remake of Willard featuring the unique Crispen Glover, who may very well be the film's greatest special effect!

Oct 7th: More rodent hijinxs as Rich 'the Monster Movie Kid' Chamberlain lets loose the legendary lunacy that is The Killer Shrews!  Rich will be representing The Mid American Chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

...and the rampage of rodent fear will continue throughout the month with such films as Rats: Night of Terror (sponsored by Dread Media's Des Reddick), Gnaw: Food of The Gods 2 (sponsored by Nicholas Kaufman), Deadly Eyes (sponsored by my Patreon subscriber Sean Taylor) and The Abominable Dr. Phibes (sponsored by Jim and Theresa Moon)!

There are presently seventeen open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film.  However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.

It looks like it's going to be a great Horrorfest, so don't miss out on all the action.  See you on the 30th!

You Know What’s Coming Up....HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021--including RATAPALOOZA!

Banner by Chris Honeywell

It’s almost September, which means it’s time for me to pull myself up by my bootstraps, gird my loins and settle my stomach for the fourth annual Halloween Horrorfest 2021!   

Once again, I will be watching 31 horror films and writing about them throughout the whole month of October, one film for each day!  And as with last year, we’ll have celebrity guests picking some of the films, and on those other days, you can choose what I watch!

And, as if that wasn't enough, the choices some of my celebrity guests made have been horror films with rats in them...which means I have declared a mini-festival within this festival, Ratapalooza!  Whenever I have to go to the Randomizer, I'll be choosing from a list of rat horror movies, and people who choose to program rat horror films will get a special treat.

The fun starts a little early this year, as I cover The Hand That Rocks The Cradle this September.  This was supposed to be the closing film of last year's festival, sponsored by Mike Blanchard of Geek Cast Radio.  I never got around to it, but I will now.

There are a couple of ways you can program a day in the Halloween Horrorfest this year:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

There are 26 slots presently open at this point, although that number will be reduced as some of my lovely sponsors submit their choices.  And if, by some strange reason, I end up with more than 31 films for my Gauntlet of Ghoulishness, I will be going into overtime!  No film will be spared.

For your edification, the (lengthy ) list of movies already covered is below.

So join me in one month and see if I survive for a fourth year!  See you then!

Covered During Prior Horrorfests:

A Bay of Blood, Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood, Await Further Instructions, Cat People (1942), The Mist, Zombie Hunter, Venom (2005), Mayhem, The Whip And The Body, Hello, Mary Lou: Prom Night II, Blue Sunshine, American Psycho, American Mary, Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf, The Mummy (2017), Blood on Satan’s Claw, Witchboard, Tourist Trap, Johnny Gruesome, Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman, See No Evil 2, Sleepy Hollow, It Follows, Rabid, Q The Winged Serpent, Frightmare (1983), The Car, The Lords of Salem, Marebito, Rockula, The Haunting (1963), Dark Age, The Blood Drinkers, At Midnight, I’ll Take Your Soul, Onibaba, Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter, Misery, Horror Express, The Night Stalker, The Exorcist, Bliss, Voodoo Man, The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations, 28 Days Later, The Intruder Within, Creepshow, Tragedy Girls, Theater of Blood, All About Evil, Pontypool, Ticks, The Beast With Five Fingers, The Prowler, In The Mouth of Madness, The Exorcist III: Legion, Cat People (1982), City of the Dead, The Devil’s Rock, Freddy’s Dead: The Last Nightmare, Mystics In Bali, The Old Dark House (James Whale Version), Black Sunday, Gargoyles, Host (2020), Mansquito, Bad Biology, I Saw The Devil, Hell House LLC, Martin, The Devil's Rain, The Thirsty Dead, Below, Friday The 13th, Supernatural (1931), House of Mystery, Pumpkinhead, The Unborn (1991), The Seduction (1982), Cure (1997), Food of The Gods, The Thing (1982), The Man Who Laughs, The Babysitter, The Creeping Flesh, Vampyr (1932), The Raven (2012), Another Kind, Random Acts of Violence

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 57.5 1963 (Doctor Who Short Trips Volume 2, Big Finish, 2011)

Shortly after picking Vickie up, the Doctor seems to have finally gotten Barbara and Ian back to London on November 23rd, 1963--the day they left.  Unfortunately, time seems to have frozen around them.

As I mentioned earlier, at this time the Short Trips range were meant to be short audiobooks that someone could listen to in the span of a train trip.  But even with those restrictions, this tale comes off as very odd.  I'm very puzzled by how the story utilizes Barbara as its POV character, yet has William Russell narrating--I would think Maureen O'Brien would have been the natural choice, even thought Vicki is barely in the story proper.  But that just might be my old man personal preference....

But the thing that nags me about this story is...well, it's not much of a story.  Writer Niall Boyce is making a point about how life goes on in London after the series starts, and ties it in with the fact that the series debuted on the day President Kennedy was assassinated...but there's no connection to said point and our characters.  I felt weirdly disconnected from the whole story, and as a whole it left me...unsatisfied, which is a bit of a surprise given how effective most of the other stories are in this particular box set.

Write this one off as a bit of a misfire, I'm afraid.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 0.6.1 The Butcher's Citadel (The Sleeping Blood Part Two, The Companion Chronicles: The First Doctor Volume One, Big Finish, 2015)

So after spending twenty five minutes of the first half hour of this story setting up the background, Susan works with the soldiers assigned to stop the hacker to find a way to cure them of their present situation and joins them in raiding said hacker's lair.  Susan is able to foil the hacker's plot, but not before the leader of the mission kills him.  After she is returned to the TARDIS and cures the Doctor, Susan plays back a message from the hacker that pretty bluntly spells out the main theme of the story and....that's it.

This ended up being a rather large disappointment for me, and a lot of it involves writer Martin Day's handling of the point he wanted to make.   Because he spent so much of the first half of this tale in expository mode, he doesn't get to what he wants to really discuss until deep into the second half, resulting in that point being savagely hammered into our head.  I certainly don't disagree with what Day is saying with this story--as someone who relies on modern medication to manage my mental illness, I wholeheartedly endorse it--but the way he lays it out in an undigested lump makes me resistant to it.  Listening to this last few minutes reminded me an awful lot of Ann Nocenti's overpraised and overrated run on Daredevil, where pages and pages of each issue were devoted to characters presenting what read like Nocenti's collection of college political science essays instead of engaging in dialogue.  It ended up wearing the reader--or in this case, listener--down so much he or she actively resented the effort no matter how sensible the points being made.

...and it's really sad, because Carol Ann Ford is as good as always, and guest performer Darren Strange is very adept in playing two roles to the point where I didn't recognize they were the same voice actor.  As I stated before, the time Susan and The Doctor spend together prior to 'An Unearthly Child' is a time ripe for exploring by the writers of Big Finish.  It's just...I'm sorry, but this tale doesn't prove to be one worth telling.  This is not a great start to the company's first anthology of Companion Chronicles featuring the Hartnell Doctor.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 0.6.1 The Sleeping Blood (The Sleeping Blood Part One, The Companion Chronicles: The First Doctor Volume One, Big Finish, 2015)

...and here we are all the way back to the time before 'The Unearthly Child'--before the Doctor and Susan ended up on Totters Lane, even!--in a dramatized reading from the first Hartnell-themed Companion Chronicles adventure.

When an injury the Doctor received from an alien plant becomes seriously infected, Susan has to venture forth in search of medicine.  She finds herself in what seems to be an abandoned hospital on a colony world that uses nanotechnology to monitor wellness.  Unfortunately, that reliance on nanotech has left the populace open to terrorist acts from a mysterious hacker, as evidenced by the soldier she comes across that is simply...shut down.

The story, by Martin Day, of 'The Sleeping Blood' is at turns compelling and sound.  It surprises me that the various writers working with Big Finish haven't exploited the time before 'The Unearthly Child' more. However, I found this first part lacking.  Day spends so much time in expository mode where he explains the technology, the culture and the world--he even takes a few lines to explain how this planet was named--that the plot doesn't seem to start until the last few minutes of the episode.  And because it takes so long for the story to get underway, I get no sense of the stakes or the characters--when one is killed by the hacker shutting down the nanotech in her body, I felt nothing.  There had to be a better way to either better disseminate the backstory or put everything in one place.

I'm not sure where this story is going, but the feeling I got was that this segment of the play spent a little under a half an hour to get to the point where the story actually begins.  In these two parters, I should feel in the middle of the second act by the time I get to the cliffhanger...but I feel like we're in the earliest part of the first act.  I'm still interested in what develops...I just worry I am about to be disappointed by this serial overall.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 62. The Centre (The Web Planet Conclusion)

In wrapping up this too-long serial, we finally get to meet the Animus, and it's...a spaghetti-monster perched over a high-intensity flashlight.

Much like the Optera, the Animus' obvious artifice--you can see the dome that gives the mass of felt ribbons its shape--takes away from the story, and no amount of bright lights flashing in our cast's faces can hide how shabby our ultimate villain looks.  Even with the amount of time focusing on getting Ian to the Animus to put paid to its machinations and Hartnell and O'Brien squirming about as if 'possessed,' I can't take this seriously as a Big Bad.  Thankfully, this thingie is put out of business pretty quickly....

...or it would be a thankful thing if we didn't get such an extended 'saying goodbye' sequence where it seems more attention is spent on the various alien races than on our heroes.  Look, I understand the design staff worked hard on coming up with all these costumes meant to represent non-humanoid lifeforms and they want us to appreciate all that work, but the impact is decidedly lessened due to the length of our exposure to it.

This serial as a whole should have been shorter, and there are scenes that could've been cut whole to aid with its plodding pace.  Spending extra time watching the Optera frolicking under the smeary moon does not help any.  I wonder if there is an alternate universe where this serial, rather than the next one (The Crusade), that's missing literally half its episodes.

I respect what was intended.  I just am glad it's finally over.