Fitting films to mark the onslaught of Halloween
It isn’t difficult to find a horror film this week, as October marks the onslaught of Halloween festivities.
It isn’t difficult to find a horror film this week, as October marks the onslaught of Halloween festivities now lodged firmly on the Australian cultural calendar. For an authentic game-changer in the genre, look no further than director John Carpenter’s seminal, low-budget 1978 Halloween (Wednesday, 10.30pm, SBS Two). Carpenter’s jumpy electronic score and cinematographer Dean Cundey’s slowly gliding camera set the sinister mood for the story of Michael Myers, an institutionalised psychopath who breaks free to wreak havoc in his old neighbourhood of Haddonfield (a name swiped from producer Debra Hill’s New Jersey home town). If you’ve seen the film, it remains remarkably durable on second viewing; if you haven’t, Carpenter’s style will explain just about every other horror film made in the subsequent decades.
For those looking to welcome Halloween early, the morning hours offer a rare and recommended screening of director Mark Robson’s atmospheric, shipboard-set 1943 psychological thriller The Ghost Ship (Wednesday, 1.24am, ABC). Produced by Val Lewton for RKO Pictures following his great early run of Cat People and The Seventh Victim, the film tells of a merchant marine ship on the high seas and the slow mental disintegration of its captain (Richard Dix). Filmed on existing and previously used sets, the film is atmospherically lit by director of photography Nicholas Musuraca. It is rare because a lawsuit kept it out of release for a half-century, and thus worth watching.
For the Halloween deniers out there, several alternatives beckon. Nigerian-born actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, currently seen in The Martian, is the star of playwright turned director Biyi Bandele’s moving 2013 drama Half of a Yellow Sun (Saturday, 10.50pm, SBS). He plays a radical academic trying to hold a family together during Nigeria’s brutal civil war in the late 1960s. Thandie Newton is vivid in support.
To date the only X-rated film to win the best picture Oscar, director John Schlesinger’s 1969 drama Midnight Cowboy (Monday, 1.05am, ABC) is now shown uncut on free-to-air TV, which speaks volumes to the societal changes under way in the late 1960s. Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman are down-and-outers hustling their way through a grimy New York City, with the latter particular memorable for his improvised “I’m walkin’ heah!” to an aggressive cabbie.
It was a dark horse when first released, yet the first of two White House-under-siege movies, Olympus has Fallen (Saturday, NSW and QLD only, 9.30pm, Nine), is far better than Roland Emmerich’s subsequent White House Down.
Antoine Fuqua directs fluidly, Gerard Butler is comfortable in the square-jawed hero role, and the whole thing was filmed in Shreveport, Louisiana. Hooray for Hollywood.
Half of a Yellow Sun (M) 4 stars
Saturday, 10.50pm, SBS
Halloween (MA15+) 4 stars
Wednesday, 10.30pm, SBS Two
The Ghost Ship (PG) 3.5 stars
Wednesday, 1.24am, ABC
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