Flame-Colored Glasses

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we're still wandering the forests of folk horror with yet another Shudder reissue of a Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched referenced film, and yes, IT'S MORE HISTORICAL HORROR. 

But this one...

This one has laser stuff.

Quick Plot: In 1750, teenage Fanny and younger Meg are found wandering French territory by a pair of unfriendly soldiers who don't take kindly to colonial pioneers. Fanny begs the soldiers to let them stay, recounting her tale of the horrors they discovered in the wild forest.

It began earlier in a British settlement, where Fanny's mother was nearly executed by the rigid Puritans who didn't approve of her shacking up with the preacher William Smythe. Smythe is noosed up and dropped from the gallows, but a mysterious surge of energy saves him.

Nobody notices that said laser surge occurs as his foster daughter (of sorts) Leah shouts some gibberish. 

Leah, you see, is a bit of a wild card. Her mother was burned as a witch, her own life spared by William's intervention. Since then, the young redhead never quite assimilated into the Puritan way, though her premonitions and ability to manipulate the natural world is certainly a handy tool to have when on the run.

Smythe gathers a few more townspeople to head west, where they quickly discover they're in uncharted Shawnee territory and worse, territory too terrifying for the indigenous people who have been surviving on the land far longer than our pasty white settlers.

What follows is a pretty groovy delve into haunted forest lore, with spirits' faces poking out of trees, ready to devour the woefully unprepared caravan. It's up to Leah, all frenetic red curls to match her fiery screams, to battle the horrors and see her surviving adopted family to safety. 

Like Dark Waters, Eyes of Fire is another of those "how have I never HEARD of this?" movies. It's simply unlike the typical titles I would have passed by on VHS shelves, and that is a damn shame. Once again, I'm left wondering how many other cult horror films owe it residuals (A Field In England pops to mind first) and why it's so hard to find more work from writer/director Avery Crounse (his other efforts, The Invisible Kid and Sister Island, are nowhere to be found in accessible release). 

It's weird, creepy, and best of all, surprising. What a find. 

High Points

Look: I know I started this review by teasing you with lasers -- and make no mistake, there ARE lasers -- but Eyes of Fire is wonderfully committed to its period, with admirable discipline to sticking its scenery, attitude, and actors in true 18th century sensibility

Low Points

I hate to pull the old job interview trick of "my weakness is that I work too hard and there are only 24 hours in a day" con, but it's true here! There's so much more I wanted to know about the forest's mythology and Smythe's shady past, about the origin of Leah's powers, and so on. I don't know if Eyes of Fire was always intended to be such a brisk 90 minute ride, but I would hang a witch for a director's cut

Lessons Learned

Old tricks are old tricks because they work

All ghosts are scary, but the ones that steal bonnets are truly terrifying

Indigenous children of the 18th century rocked perfect bangs

Rent/Bury/Buy

I'm a very easy mark for historical horror, but as The Last Thing Mary Saw should tell you, the movie still has to be GOOD. And Eyes of Fire is a blast. WITH LASER THINS NO LESS. Have at it. 

Alison, It's Your Birthday

Dear readers and lovers of all things horror, I should hope that by this point in our odd internet relationship, I don't have to still pitch the benefits of subscribing to Shudder. It remains such a wonderful destination for the genre, both new and old, hosting titles we've all long loved and even better, those we've never heard of. 

Their biggest recent release (literally; it's 3 1/2 hours long) is Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror. It's a must-watch for any genre fan, shining thoughtful discussion on both well-known titles like The Wicker Man and a whole batch of more obscure work previously unavailable on general home media. 

But it gets better! Dozens of titles referenced in the doc are also now streaming on Shudder, which makes perfect sense (though try telling that to other streaming sites doing similar work). I'll warn you that I've definitely fallen down the grassy hole of the genre, so expect the next several weeks to include a LOT of forest haunts. 

First up: 1981's Alison's Birthday, a folk horror so folksy it has its own tiny Stonehenge. 

Quick Plot: A trio of teenagers are having fun with their homemade ouija board until things turn dark. Chrissy is possessed by a spirit from the other side with an important message for young Alison: don't return home on your 19th birthday, because Mirne is after you.

Alison doesn't know a Mirne, and before the night is over, she'll no longer know a Chrissy. An unusual breeze blows a bookcase on her friend, killing her instantly.

Three years later, Alison has moved away from her suburban hometown, eking out a living at a record store while she dates the charming Peter. Aunt Jenny, who raised her after her parents died in a car accident, calls Alison begging her to come home for her fated 19th birthday. Sure, it's not an exciting age, but Uncle Dean is dying, and Jenny has big party plans for their last family celebration.

Peter and Alison head home, and while Jenny and Dean are nice enough, Alison quickly remembers the many reasons she moved far away. There's something off about the place where she grew up. Maybe it's the non-suspicious replica of Stonehenge hiding in the backyard or the Minnie Castevet-ish tonics Aunt Jenny is always pushing down Alison's throat. Perhaps it's the bizarre nightmares now haunting Alison, visions of ritualistic sacrifice causing her to toss and turn as her 102-year-old great grandmother wheels herself into Alison's bedroom to watch her sleep. 

Yes, you really can't ever go home again.

Written and directed by Ian Coughlan, Alison's Birthday is a genuine treat. A sad, haunting little taste of something unnerving, but a satisfying bite nonetheless. It somehow feels both oddly familiar and completely fresh. The story is smartly small, focusing so finely on poor Alison's fate, wisely fleshing out Peter just enough so that we're equally invested in his mission to save her. 

There are serious Hereditary vibes circling the themes, and I'd be shocked if a VHS rental of this movie didn't imprint on a young Ari Aster. I'm also fairly shocked this movie hasn't been discussed more over the years. Maybe it was its lack of easy availability or small scale: ultimately, this is a very intimate story about one young woman's fate. Let's face it: that type of material doesn't always connect with a general fanbase who would rather see women in a very different light.  

Make no mistake: there is a lot of pain in Alison's Birthday, and a mounting sense of sad, inescapable dread. The ending packs an incredibly powerful punch that I won't forget. 

This is good stuff.

High Points

One of the key factors in making Alison's Birthday work is how the characters actually address the far-fetched supernatural possibilities at play. Alison is logical but dubious, and Peter, as he becomes deeper and deeper involved in solving the mystery, enlists the aid of his professional psychic pal. She in turn doesn't speak about these cults as if they're an ear to the underworld, but is very clear that Peter needs to know WHY and HOW they think the way they do if he has any hope of saving his girlfriend. It's an important distinction that helps ground the chaos

Low Points

It's the era, and that's that, but some of Alison's Birthday's score occasionally dates itself with such an electronic action-packed sound that doesn't quite align with the old-world eeriness of its folk horror roots

Lessons Learned (The Oz Edition)

Lyle was not a popular surname in 1980s Australia

All Australian babies are born with blue eyes

Pagan rituals down under call for the finest formalwear

Rent/Bury/Buy

I adored Alison's Birthday, and would be shocked if you didn't too. Go get it.  

Childhood IS Terrifying

While this website might have been born out of a passion for killer doll-based horror, I think I'm finally ready to accept that thirteen years into this blogging thing, homicidal children just might have clawed their way to the top of my heart, likely by slicing some porcelain achilles heels with tiny kid-sized scalpels. Whether it was Esther the Orphan's perfect curls or the Bloody Birthday trio's wacky antics, somewhere over the last decade, I've come to crave more monster youths than possessed toys.

Granted, part of that might be due to the requirements of both subgenres: anyone can shake a plaything around and call it a villain, but coaxing an actual performance out of a young actor is generally a far more challenging feat.

Now don't worry: as is tradition, we will indeed have ONE killer doll movie during February's Shortening. But today, today is for the kids.

Quick Plot: In 1957 suburban Australia, Celia Carmichael (the incredible Rebecca Smart) starts her ninth birthday with a batch of life-changing events: the death of her beloved, Communist-sympathizing grandmother, the arrival of the Tanners next door, and finally, the gift of her chunky pet rabbit Murgatroyd. 

If you're thinking "none of that sounds very horror genre-related", you'd be right, so let's address the elephant in the outback first: though she may rock perfect Rhoda Penmark braids, Celia is no bad seed. Much like Paperhouse (a movie that tonally feels very close), Celia is more whimsical childhood drama than horror, lightly filled with some fantastical elements tied to our title character's favorite, incredibly disturbing fairy tale. Shudder isn't really the natural place for this to stream, but you know what? I'm not complaining.

Long out of print (seemingly like most of writer/director Ann Turner's work), Celia is a special, special little film that deeply understands and achingly translates what it means to grow up. Honestly, that IS terrifying.

Celia is a sensitive, assertive kid, much to the chagrin of her bullish dad and subservient mom. She's instantly drawn to the warmth of Alice Tanner, the matriarch of her more liberal neighbors, whose own Communist ties sit poorly with Mr. Carmichael (though Alice's pretty face certainly doesn't). Between Australia's red scare and pet rabbit persecution, all the things that seem to bring Celia joy are threatened at once. It's heartbreaking.

So Celia copes with her fantasies. There's the recurring dreams of the dreaded Hobyah, goblin-like creatures lifted from Celia's favorite schoolbook (and yes, as the great documentary Woodlands Dark & Days Bewitched suggests, The Babadook definitely took note). An abandoned, terribly unsafe rock quarry becomes a playground for Celia and the Tanner kids, occasionally invaded by her snotty cousin with dire consequences. Celia deals with such slights the way many a spirited child might: by setting ritualistic bonfires and burning effigies of her enemies with the hopes that it will translate to real-world payback.

And eventually, it does.

I won't spoil Celia, which, despite being a fairly free-wielding character study, does indeed throw us a twist in the fifth act. But yes, at a certain point, something very big happens, and I suppose it can technically nudge Celia into the genre category (particularly with the VERY final scene, that almost reads like the preface to a glorious queen bee origin story). Celia is apparently often compared to The 400 Blows in how it taps into a child's perspective, but my mind went straight to the champion of the 2020 Shortening: Poison for the Fairies. Both films understand that to be a little girl means feeling in a very big way, that the world is as scary as it is exciting, and everything that threatens what you love is a danger the bravest must face head-on. 

 

High Points

There's so much to love about Celia, but an area that really elevates the film is the nuance that Turner brings to Celia's parents. Yes, her father is a brutish jerk, but he does indeed love his daughter (even if, like so many fathers, he'll never understand her). 

Low Points

I'm going back and forth on the rather shocking plot twist towards the very end, and while it sits better with time, I still think it doesn't quite get the room to breathe that it probably needs

Lessons Learned

In a world before ergonomic Jansports, the baby boomer generation of Australia likely experienced early onset back problems

Animals In Peril Alert

Bad things happen to adorable bunny rabbits and kids have to deal with the outcome and I'm saying this now so you're well-prepared because IT'S TERRIBLY UPSETTING AND YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

Rent/Bury/Buy

Rabbit funerals aside, Celia is a gem of a film. It's by no means an easy watch (nor really a genre film) but it's so worth the effort when you're ready for a heavy dose of powerful childhood anxiety.