The Witching Hour of All Hallow’s Eve has just passed. It is time to pick your poison, so to speak.
It is time to listen to the many readings by celebrities of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem, “The Raven.” The poem actually takes place in December, so there’s no wrong time to listen to the poem again and again. Thanks to a new audio version uploaded this weekend by Sean Astin, we were prompted to search for other famous voices, and we found many interesting celebrities to choose from, many from long ago. Oddly, we found no famous actresses voicing the creepy story–if you know of any please add them to the comments above.
So which do you want to hear first? Why not give an ear to all? As you listen try thinking of the actor, or of that actor’s many roles, from Samwise Gamgee to Gomez Addams, from Saruman to Dracula or Sherlock Holmes, the Headless Horseman or Johnny Smith, Max Schreck or Lucius Fox, and from Darth Vader to Captain Kirk or the alien known simply as Q…
Have a listen to one or all. Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
That’s right, Halloween is almost here. This year we’ve been able to obtain an interview with one of the best horror writers around. Who will it be? Check back here on Halloween for a special borg.com interview.
For many, this week means tracking down spooky shows on Netflix, cable, or in the theaters. Back in 2011 the four borg.com writers posted each of their top favorite Halloween flicks. Since 2011 new films that fit the genre continue to be made, like The Woman in Blackreviewed here last year, but there was also a few to skip, like Johnny Depp in Dark Shadows and John Cusack in The Raven. This year we were impressed by the totally fun and totally watchableAbraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, and the over-the-top but fun Hansel &Gretel: Witch Hunters. There are plenty of opportunities to get your fix of dark, spooky, creepy, or just plain scary movies.
One film available on Netflix we haven’t reviewed yet here at borg.com is 2009’s Orphan, which should appeal to fans of The Others and Skeleton Key. Orphan stars Bates Motel’s Vera Farmiga and Skeleton Key’s Peter Sarsgaard as a couple adopting a third child into their family, played by the brilliant young actress Isabelle Furhman. It also features Warehouse 13’s CCH Pounder and Genelle Williams–both as nuns. Orphan is excellently creepy and an all-around good thriller worth checking out. And speaking of Vera Farmiga, if you haven’t been watching Bates Motel, you should. It’s a great creepy spin-off of Hitchcock’s Psycho, and Season 1 is available now on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.com.
Here is the link to our Halloween movie series from 2011 where you can view all of our recommendations. Some of the staples of Halloween horror did not make our lists, like Friday the 13th, Halloween, Saw, Scream, The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, Poltergeist, Nightmare on Elm Street, or Amityville Horror. Jawsgot our joint highest ranking, making three of our lists, and The Shining, The Exorcist, The Exorcist 3, Watcher in the Woods, The Ring,and Paranormal Activity seem to rise above the rest, showing up on two lists. Seaside locales were the favorite location for scares, with Jaws, Rebecca, The Birds, The Ring, The Fog (both the original and remake) all taking place there, and creepy little girls are the favorite subject of–count ‘em–NINE of our haunts (The Ring, The Exorcist, Let Me In, Paranormal Activity 3, Watcher in the Woods, The Sixth Sense,The Shining, Turn of the Screw,and The Others). And we can now add Orphan and The Woman in Blackto that creepy assembly. (We Are What We Are was due out this year–another creepy little girl story, but it’s only been released in the UK so far). For us the supernatural won out over monsters, saws and axes. Four movies were by John Carpenter, three by Alfred Hitchcock. The oldest movie was Rebecca from 1940, the newest came out in 2011, Paranormal Activity 3. And look, we’ve got another one of those available now, too.
Happy Halloween watching, and don’t forget to come back to see what we have in store Thursday!
Last Monday, January 21, 2013, The Following premiered on the Fox network. It’s a dark, bloody crime drama from Kevin Williamson, creator of the Scream franchise, Dawson’s Creek and The Vampire Diaries. It’s the Scream franchise that might come to mind if you check out the premiere on Free Per View before tonight’s episode “Chapter Two” airs. Expect some horror movie jumps and startling revelations as well as a little more than you might see as far as crime scenes from other series (although not a lot more than what you might have found on something like TV’s Medium when it still was on the air).
The big draw for The Following is the series star, Kevin Bacon. You might also have checked out the pilot if you were a fan of Maggie Grace, star of the Taken film series, The Fog remake, and Lost, the TV series. If you’ve missed the original Law and Order, you might be happy to see the return of Annie Parisse in an ongoing role beginning with tonight’s episode. And if that weren’t enough, you might think you’re watching Warehouse 13, Veronica Mars, Smallville, Lost Girl and In Plain Sight’s Aaron Ashmore as Agent Michael Weston–but you’d be wrong. Turns out Aaron has a clone, twin brother Shawn Ashmore. (And hey, don’t TV writers watch TV? That’s at least the third Michael Weston on TV right now).
It may be the year of dark and chilly genre flicks. The Woman in Black, reviewed here, had some of the best atmosphere of any film in recent memory. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, previewed here and coming this June, also features a dark and spooky vibe. If there is something enticing about the forthcoming The Raven from the new trailer, it is mood. The filmmakers appear to have nailed the “once upon a midnight dreary.” Check out this new trailer–the film’s UK preview, just released:
This is a great lesson in what a good editor with some marketing sense can do when he/she knows how to do the job right. Compare the UK version above with the U.S. version of the trailer:
The UK trailer is pretty ho-hum. Yet the U.S. trailer makes this one look pretty exciting. Why would you bother releasing the UK trailer when the U.S. trailer is so well done?
Like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, The Raven takes a real-life character and places him in a new, fictionalized, alternate history adventure. The challenge will be that not only does the viewer need to suspend disbelief to participate in this cinematic work of fiction, the viewer is forced to put aside his or her assumptions about the historical figure. The harder task may be for the filmmakers addressing a wild rail and vampire splittin’ Abraham Lincoln. But Edgar Allan Poe as a bit Sherlock Holmes and a bit less-than-willing-participant Ichabod Crane? That doesn’t seem too far-fetched for the avid fantasy viewer.
The casting of John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe is interesting. Poe is always shown to be far less outgoing than Cusack’s typical character. To his credit Cusack is often grouped with some of the finest “serious” dramatic actors. Just look at his performances in Eight Men Out, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and Bullets Over Broadway. John Cusack is in a rare league of people we like and want to see more of, like Matthew Broderick, and from the same era. But like Broderick, his choice of film projects is often a letdown (The Road to Wellville, Con Air, 2012), even if his performances are well done. Cusack was great fun in Say Anything, The Grifters, Grosse Point Blank, High Fidelity, Serendipity, Igor and even Hot Tub Time Machine. But where his movies seem to disappoint are his ventures into horror, such as Identity and 1408. Can Cusack give us a good horror thriller with The Raven?
A major marketing plus is the reference that this is directed by James McTeague, who also directed the brilliant V for Vendetta. (although he also worked on Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, the Matrix films and Speed Racer).
The trailer feels a bit like From Hell, Sleepy Hollow, and Sweeney Todd, all based on historic stories. Makes you wonder why Johnny Depp isn’t in this one, doesn’t it? One concern is the rating notation, which I usually ignore, but Rated R for “bloody violence and grisly images” and some of the images in the trailers probably says all we need to know, and would certainly group The Raven with those three grisly concept films.
, you should. It’s a great creepy spin-off of Hitchcock’s Psycho, and Season 1 is available now on DVD and Blu-ray from 
