Weekend horrors.

"Maybe it isn't an accident that Halloween and national US elections fall in such close proximity. Fear is a powerful driving force for both," suggests the AV Club, segueing into a list of eight horror movies for left-wingers and four films and an entire subgenre for right-wingers.

Also: Noel Murray and Scott Tobias discuss the current state of horror. Tobias: "I find that even bad horror movies often have more to say about the times - or least, they reflect the times better - than their more respectable counterparts in other genres." And Murray agrees that "the most relevant-to-American-youth horror films today are torture-fests like Saw and Hostel, and I agree that the relevance is tied to 9/11, but I think it goes beyond the fear of unexpected tragedy. If you look closely at Hostel - and Wolf Creek, for that matter - what they're really about is what happens after everything goes to hell."

The LA Weekly's Scott Foundas has an admiring profile of Tobin Bell, who plays John "Jigsaw" Kramer in the Saw series. Related: Nicole Sperling in the Hollywood Reporter on Lionsgate's high hopes for Saw III's opening weekend.

Dennis Cozzalio: "[I]t is a pleasure to report that screenwriter Leigh Whannell and director Darren Lynn Bousman, well aware of the temptation to amp up the violence to the exclusion of all else, have fulfilled the potential Saw II by creating, with Saw III, not a perfunctory sequel but a superior piece of shock entertainment that takes the series off into yet another narrative direction while expanding on the second film's impulses to enrich the back story of Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) and his demented, self-loathing assistant Amanda (Shawnee Smith)." And he interviews Smith a second time, too.

But for Nick Schager, writing in Slant, "Saw III simply peddles gruesomeness of a disgusting rather than frightening order, its intricate deathtrap set pieces only barely complemented by the tense rapport between Jigsaw and Amanda, and eventually impaired by the filmmakers' desire, through furious flashbacks, to link all three Saw movies together into a grand Jigsaw-masterminded plot that's elaborate to the point of absurdity."

"Dark and mysterious are the twin paths Italian director Dario Argento travels on. It’s a duality that has come to define, and in some cases, confine, one of macabre’s most meaningful artisans," writes Bill Gibron for PopMatters. "[P]erhaps the most telling argument against his later works is the abject brilliance of the movies he made in the past." Also: the "Top 10 Worst Horror Films of All Time."

"Zhang Bingjian, with his first feature length film, may believe that elements of a diegesis are indistinguishable from elements arising from a character's psychological projections, but it's a disingenuous approach to storytelling and induces mistrust in any attentive viewer, to say the least," writes Marlin Tyree. "On the other hand, there is so much visual artistry to Zhixi (Suffocation, as it's called here in the States) that one may dispense with narrative logic and proceed with delight, all while the main character is hounded by demons of his own devising."

Catching up further with Not Coming to a Theater Near You's 31 Days of Horror: Jenny Jediny on Return to Oz and Beth Gilligan on Witches.

Robbiefreeling at Reverse Shot on Creepshow: "The quick-witted, fleet comic book storytelling is a perfect match for Stephen King's dime-store sense of vengeance and tidy resolutions, which in turn provide a neat little stage on which Romero can hone his comic gross-out skills."

Monsturd director Dan West lists his top five horror films and the film critics at the San Francisco Bay Guardian each make a recommendation.

At SF360, Dennis Harvey offers "a partial survey of the scary unreelings available on [San Francisco] screens - and a list of recommended rent-ables if you're really hellbent on staying in whilst goblins, ghoulies, and over-excited inebriates are roaming about."

For those of us who've never slogged through the sequels, Joe Leydon has a terrific primer on the Halloween franchise.

"What movie ad really got you spooked?" asks Wagstaff at the House Next Door.

The Chicago Reader has a terrific guide to Halloween movies screening in the area.

In the Los Angeles Times, Alex Chun reports on the making of the 3D version of A Nightmare Before Christmas and Scott Timberg takes Tim Burton's "tour of frightening spots in Los Angeles."

In the New York Times, Neil Genzlinger reviews a remake of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari: "[W]hat David Lee Fisher has accomplished in his unusual semi-remake is rather startling: he has out-disoriented the original. Probably not in the way he intended, but still, interesting, and kind of dizzying." More from R Emmet Sweeney in the Voice.

Peter Nellhaus catches up with the Caligari remake, but not that one; Roger Kay's 1962 version.

NYT advertising columnist Stuart Elliott: "Madison Avenue is dreaming of a white-knuckle Halloween, just like the ones we used to know." Also, Virginia Heffernan on the second season of Showtime's Masters of Horror anthology and the Sci Fi Channel's Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes.

Cinematical's James Rocchi's got a guilty pleasure: David Cronenberg's Shivers.

For guides to the scary stuff recently released on DVD, turn to Glenn Abel in the Hollywood Reporter and Jen Chaney in the Washington Post.

Online viewing tip. Brendon Connelly's got Tim Burton's video for The Killers. Update: Well, he did. Now, as DeK points out, you can catch it at Shots Ring Out.

Posted by dwhudson at October 27, 2006 4:31 PM