Teke Teke

Teke Teke is a 2009 Japanese horror film based on an urban legend about a girl who falls on train tracks and is severed at the waist. Her vengeful spirit pursues victims and cuts them in half. I tend to like Asian horror films, and at only a little over an hour long, this is well worth watching. There's a scene after the closing credits you don't want to miss, so don't stop watching too soon.

There is a sequel, which is about the same length.

The Snack Bar

The Snack Bar (1930):

by Edward Burra, who died on October 22, 1976, at 71 years of age, his health having steadily declined after breaking a hip.

We're not eating out as often these days, not even at snack bars, but I had a birthday recently and was gifted with a bottle of wine:

I had a glass with some lentil soup:

I enjoy soups, especially during the cooler months. I'm ready for Halloween as you can tell by the mug I've chosen for my after-supper coffee.

Please share a drink over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog, where a weekly T Stands for Tuesday blogger gathering has already begun. You'd be most welcome to join in.

A Warning to the Curious

A Warning to the Curious is a 1925 ghost story by M.R. James. Wikipedia says, "Written a few years after the end of The First World War, 'A Warning to the Curious' ranks as one of M. R. James's bleakest stories." It begins,

The place on the east coast which the reader is asked to consider is Seaburgh. It is not very different now from what I remember it to have been when I was a child. Marshes intersected by dykes to the south, recalling the early chapters of Great Expectations; flat fields to the north, merging into heath; heath, fir woods, and, above all, gorse, inland. A long sea-front and a street: behind that a spacious church of flint, with a broad, solid western tower and a peal of six bells. How well I remember their sound on a hot Sunday in August, as our party went slowly up the white, dusty slope of road towards them, for the church stands at the top of a short, steep incline. They rang with a flat clacking sort of sound on those hot days, but when the air was softer they were mellower too. The railway ran down to its little terminus farther along the same road. There was a gay white windmill just before you came to the station, and another down near the shingle at the south end the town, and yet others on higher ground to the north. There were cottages of bright red brick with slate roofs . . . but why do I encumber you with these commonplace details? The fact is that they come crowding to the point of the pencil when it begins to write of Seaburgh. I should like to be sure that I had allowed the right ones to get on to the paper. But I forgot. I have not quite done with the word-painting business yet.

Walk away from the sea and the town, pass the station, and turn up the road on the right. It is a sandy road, parallel with the railway, and if you follow it, it climbs to somewhat higher ground. On your left (you are now going northward) is heath, on your right (the side towards the sea) is a belt of old firs, wind-beaten, thick at the top, with the slope that old seaside trees have; seen on the skyline from the train they would tell you in an instant, if you did not know it, that you were approaching a windy coast. Well, at the top of my little hill, a line of these firs strikes out and runs towards the sea, for there is a ridge that goes that way; and the ridge ends in a rather well-defined mound commanding the level fields of rough grass, and a little knot of fir trees crowns it. And here you may sit on a hot spring day, very well content to look at blue sea, white windmills, red cottages, bright green grass, church tower, and distant martello tower on the south.

As I have said, I began to know Seaburgh as a child; but a gap of a good many years separates my early knowledge from that which is more recent. Still it keeps its place in my affections, and any tales of it that I pick up have an interest for me. One such tale is this: it came to me in a place very remote from Seaburgh, and quite accidentally, from a man whom I had been able to oblige — enough in his opinion to justify his making me his confidant to this extent.

I know all that country more or less (he said). I used to go to Scaburgh pretty regularly for golf in the spring. I generally put up at the ‘Bear’, with a friend — Henry Long it was, you knew him perhaps —(‘Slightly,’ I said) and we used to take a sitting-room and be very happy there. Since he died I haven’t cared to go there. And I don’t know that I should anyhow after the particular thing that happened on our last visit.

You can read it online here and here. It was adapted for television in 1972:

The Shout

The Shout is an award-winning 1978 horror film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski and starring Alan Bates, John Hurt, Susannah York, and Tim Curry (as Robert Graves, whose short story is the basis of the movie). Bates is a traveler who has spent 18 years with the Australian Aborigines and has learned how to kill with a shout. He intrudes on a young couple, and the effect of his presence is devastating.

You can watch it online at this link. Here's a trailer:

Ferdy on Film says, "The Shout stands today as a lonely island in cinema, one of a handful of entries in the history of the cinefantastique that evokes vast possibilities with a spare, even abstract, method." The British Film Institute says, "Most effective of all, however, is the director’s strange and darkly magical portrayal of the English coastline in his 1978 film The Shout, which contains – among many other unique things – one of British cinema’s most unnerving examples of sound design."

Roger Ebert gave it 3 out of 4 stars and says, "What makes the movie terrifying is the way in which the outback magic is introduced so naturally into the placid fabric of village life." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 82%.

Pigeons from Hell

Pigeons from Hell is a 1938 short story by Robert E. Howard, best known as the creator of Conan the Barbarian. This story is a fine example of the traditional Southern gothic horror tale and appears on various "best horror" lists. You can read it online here. It begins:

1. THE WHISTLER IN THE DARK

Griswell awoke suddenly, every nerve tingling with a premonition of imminent peril. He stared about wildly, unable at first to remember where he was, or what he was doing there. Moonlight filtered in through the dusty windows, and the great empty room with its lofty ceiling and gaping black fireplace was spectral and unfamiliar. Then as he emerged from the clinging cobwebs of his recent sleep, he remembered where he was and how he came to be there. He twisted his head and stared at his companion, sleeping on the floor near him. John Branner was but a vaguely bulking shape in the darkness that the moon scarcely grayed.

Griswell tried to remember what had awakened him. There was no sound in the house, no sound outside except the mournful hoot of an owl, far away in the piny woods. Now he had captured the illusive memory. It was a dream, a nightmare so filled with dim terror that it had frightened him awake. Recollection flooded back, vividly etching the abominable vision.

Or was it a dream? Certainly it must have been, but it had blended so curiously with recent actual events that it was difficult to know where reality left off and fantasy began.

Bloody Reunion

Bloody Reunion is a 2006 Korean revenge horror film. I didn't care for this one. It didn't come together for me, and I still don't see how that twist makes sense. And what happened to the deformed kid? No, I won't watch this one again.

trailer:

HorrorNews.net concludes by saying it "is well worth watching, and without doubt one of the best films of its type."

Slade House

Slade House is a 2015 horror novel by David Mitchell. It's a type of soul vampire story. This was quick to read, and I'm wondering if there'll be a sequel. This isn't a scary tale but is interesting, both in how it's structured and in the characters involved.

from the back of the book:

Keep your eyes peeled for a small, black, iron door. Down the road from a working-class pub, along a narrow brick alley, you just might find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won't want to leave. Later, you'll find that you can't. Every nine years, the residents of Slade House extend an invitation to someone who's different or lonely; a precocious teenager, a recently-divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside? For those who find out, it's already too late....

favorite quote:

Places change you.

*******

The Washington Post explains how the book came to be written:

The genesis of Norah and Jonah’s lair is weird but not much weirder than the genesis of “Slade House” itself. Last summer, Mitchell published the first chapter as a series of hundreds of tweets. Ordinarily, I would rather have my soul sucked from a hole in my skull than read a novel that started on Twitter, but this breezy string of murders is a fiendish delight.

The Guardian says it's "like Stephen King in a fever". The New York Times says, "The biggest drawback of “Slade House” might that it simply isn’t very scary." NPR says, "The less you know about that going in the better, because all the joy in Slade House is in the discovery." The LA Review of Books says, "Like most of his novels Slade House is a page-turner, fast paced, hard to put down."

Annihilation

Annihilation is a 2018 science fiction film (you'll hear some describe it as science fiction/horror, but it's not horror in any meaningful sense of the word) based on the first book in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy. I read the book when it came out and was excited when I heard it was going to get a film adaptation. It is every bit as good as I'd hoped. If you liked the book, you'll like the film. And it's absolutely gorgeous to watch!

trailer:

Screen Rant calls it "an emotionally compelling and exciting film" and "an exciting, beautiful, and thought-provoking adaptation of VanderMeer's novel". The Guardian calls it "unnerving" and says, "it will shock, fascinate and haunt audiences".

Roger Ebert's site closes with this:

“Annihilation” is not an easy film to discuss. It’s a movie that will have a different meaning to different viewers who are willing to engage with it. It’s about self-destruction, evolution, biology, co-dependence, and that which scares us the most—that we can no longer trust our own bodies. It's meant to linger in your mind and haunt your dreams. In this recent wave of sci-fi films, it's one of the best.

Empire Online concludes, "Drawing on mythology and body horror, Annihilation is an intelligent film that asks big questions and refuses to provide easy answers. Sci-fi at its best." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 87%.

Still Life with Open Drawer

Still Life with Open Drawer (1879):

by Paul Cezanne, who died on October 22, 1906.

My own still life is quite different, though more seasonal:

The owl's name is Arthur, and that's Spice Tea for the cup. You can see the recipe for the tea mix in this post from early 2014. That was also a T Stands for Tuesday post. That weekly blogger gathering is an ongoing event. Please join me at this week's edition. Share a drink in your post and leave a link there.

Peeping Tom

Peeping Tom is a 1960 horror movie, a thriller film about a serial killer. Not at all gory, but quite disturbing.

The Guardian says, "if anything deserves the "dark masterpiece" tag, this does: a brilliant satirical insight into the neurotic, pornographic element in the act of filming, more relevant than ever in the age of reality television and CCTV" and includes it on a list of best horror films of all time.

The Telegraph says,

In a modern reading of the film, we can suggest Powell was asking his audience direct questions: you may be horrified by what you see (the shocks, the grisly murders), but to what extent are you complicit in agreeing to sit and watch? Is there are a part of you that secretly enjoys the carnage being served up for your entertainment?

Senses of Cinema has an article which concludes, "Peeping Tom remains an unsettling, disturbing, and unforgettable psychological and visual exploration into the sadistic obsession with fear experienced by a psychopathic killer" and includes this:

Comparisons can be made between Peeping Tom and Psycho, as both these films share a fascination with voyeurism. The two main characters of Peeping Tom and Psycho (Mark and Norman Bates respectively) are both voyeurs. However, Powell takes this voyeuristic notion significantly further in Peeping Tom by implicating both himself and the spectator

It's on Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies. He says, "It was so loathed on its first release that it was pulled from theaters, and effectively ended the career of one of Britain's greatest directors" and "His film is a masterpiece precisely because it doesn't let us off the hook, like all of those silly teenage slasher movies do. We cannot laugh and keep our distance: We are forced to acknowledge that we watch, horrified but fascinated."

Rotten Tomatoes has a critics rating of 96%.

The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral

The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral is a 1911 short story by M.R. James. Wikipedia has this synopsis: "Archdeacon Pultney of Barchester Cathedral dies mysteriously and the new Archdeacon Haynes takes his place. Haynes is very talented and performs the duties of his office with great zeal, however he is haunted by the carved figures in the stalls of Barchester Cathedral."

It begins,

This matter began, as far as I am concerned, with the reading of a notice in the obituary section of the Gentleman’s Magazine for an early year in the nineteenth century:

On February 26th, at his residence in the Cathedral Close of Barchester, the Venerable John Benwell Haynes, D.D., aged 57, Archdeacon of Sowerbridge and Rector of Pickhill and Candley. He was of——College, Cambridge, and where, by talent and assiduity, he commanded the esteem of his seniors; when, at the usual time, he took his first degree, his name stood high in the list of wranglers. These academical honours procured for him within a short time a Fellowship of his College. In the year 1783 he received Holy Orders, and was shortly afterwards presented to the perpetual Curacy of Ranxton-sub-Ashe by his friend and patron the late truly venerable Bishop of Lichfield.... His speedy preferments, first to a Prebend, and subsequently to the dignity of Precentor in the Cathedral of Barchester, form an eloquent testimony to the respect in which he was held and to his eminent qualifications. He succeeded to the Archdeaconry upon the sudden decease of Archdeacon Pulteney in 1810. His sermons, ever conformable to the principles of the religion and Church which he adorned, displayed in no ordinary degree, without the least trace of enthusiasm, the refinement of the scholar united with the graces of the Christian. Free from sectarian violence, and informed by the spirit of the truest charity, they will long dwell in the memories of his hearers. [Here a further omission.] The productions of his pen include an able defence of Episcopacy, which, though often perused by the author of this tribute to his memory, affords but one additional instance of the want of liberality and enterprise which is a too common characteristic of the publishers of our generation. His published works are, indeed, confined to a spirited and elegant version of the Argonautica of Valerius Flacus, a volume of Discourses upon the Several Events in the Life of Joshua, delivered in his Cathedral, and a number of the charges which he pronounced at various visitations to the clergy of his Archdeaconry. These are distinguished by etc., etc. The urbanity and hospitality of the subject of these lines will not readily be forgotten by those who enjoyed his acquaintance. His interest in the venerable and awful pile under whose hoary vault he was so punctual an attendant, and particularly in the musical portion of its rites, might be termed filial, and formed a strong and delightful contrast to the polite indifference displayed by too many of our Cathedral dignitaries at the present time.

The final paragraph, after informing us that Dr. Haynes died a bachelor, says:

It might have been augured that an existence so placid and benevolent would have been terminated in a ripe old age by a dissolution equally gradual and calm. But how unsearchable are the workings of Providence! The peaceful and retired seclusion amid which the honoured evening of Dr. Haynes’ life was mellowing to its close was destined to be disturbed, nay, shattered, by a tragedy as appalling as it was unexpected.

You can read it online here and listen to it here. It was adapted for television in 1971:

Train to Busan

Train to Busan is a 2016 award-winning Korean zombie film directed by Yeon Sang-ho. I can't recommend this highly enough. It's more than "just" a horror movie but is a reflection on modern life, relationships, and sacrifice. It's available as of 9/18/2019 on Netflix.

trailer:

Variety has a positive review. The Telegraph gives it 4 out of 5 stars and says it's "pretty much everything you could possibly want a zombie film to be." The New York Times has a positive review.

Empire Online gives it 4 out of 5 stars and says it's "One of the best horrors of the year: innovative, effective...". The Guardian gives it 4 out of 5 stars and says, "This rip-roaring, record-breaking South Korean zombies-on-a-train romp barrels along like a runaway locomotive," also, "Yeon Sang-ho’s breathless cinematic bullet train boasts frantic physical action, sharp social satire and ripe sentimental melodrama designed to reach into your ribcage and rip out your bleeding heart."

Roger Ebert's site gives it 3 out of 4 stars and opens their positive review by calling it "the most purely entertaining zombie film in some time, finding echoes of George Romero’s and Danny Boyle’s work, but delivering something unique for an era in which kindness to others seems more essential than ever." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics rating of 95%.

The Cigarette Case

The Cigarette Case is a 1911 short story by Oliver Onions. It can be read online here. You can listen to it via Librivox here. It begins,

"A cigarette, Loder?" I said, offering my case. For the moment Loder was not smoking; for long enough he had not been talking.

"Thanks," he replied, taking not only the cigarette, but the case also. The others went on talking; Loder became silent again; but I noticed that he kept my cigarette case in his hand, and looked at it from time to time with an interest that neither its design nor its costliness seemed to explain. Presently I caught his eye.

"A pretty case," he remarked, putting it down on the table. "I once had one exactly like it."

I answered that they were in every shop window.

"Oh yes," he said, putting aside any question of rarity. "I lost mine."

"Oh?…"

He laughed. "Oh, that's all right -I got it back again- don't be afraid I'm going to claim yours. But the way I lost it-found it -the whole thing- was rather curious. I've never been able to explain it. I wonder if you could?"

I answered that I certainly couldn't till I'd heard it, whereupon Loder, taking up the silver case again and holding it in his hand as he talked, began:

"This happened in Provence, when I was about as old as Marsham there- and every bit as romantic. I was there with Carroll -you remember poor old Carroll and what a blade of a boy he was- as romantic as four Marshams rolled into one. (Excuse me, Marsham, won't you? It's a romantic tale, you see, or at least the setting is.) We were in Provence, Carroll and I; twenty-four or thereabouts; romantic, as I say; and -and this happened.

Death Bell

Death Bell is a 2008 Korean horror film. I found this one confusing. I had trouble keeping up with who was who and what their relationships were.

trailer:

Variety says it has "a neat concept" .

Chirpin' the Blues

Chirpin' the Blues:

sung by Memphis-born Alberta Hunter, who died on this date in 1984 at 89 years old.

Lyrics excerpt:

I woke up this mornin', heard somebody calling me
I woke up this mornin', heard somebody calling me
My man had packed his grip, said he was leaving for Tennessee
Bad luck and trouble, looks like they're on me to stay
Bad luck and trouble, looks like they're on me to stay
But good luck is old fortune and it's bound to fall my way

This was the first song I ever heard her sing (not in person, but on the radio back in the day):

She's an absolute delight! Listen to her on Youtube or on Spotify:

Two Cafes by Lesser Ury

Cafe Bauer:

Im Café Victoria, Berlin (1904):

Lesser Ury was a Prussian-born German Impressionist painter, who died on October 18, 1931. Here's a short biography:

Please join the weekly blogger T Stands for Tuesday gathering, where sharing a drink in your post and visiting the other bloggers makes for an enjoyable time.

Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad

Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad is a 1904 ghost story by M.R. James. It begins,

'I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Fall term is over, Professor,' said a person not in the story to the Professor of Ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other at a feast in the hospitable hall of St James's College.

The Professor was young, neat, and precise in speech. 'Yes,' he said; 'my friends have been making me take up golf this term, and I mean to go to the East Coast - in point of fact to Burnstow - (I dare say you know it) for a week or ten days, to improve my game. I hope to get off tomorrow.'

'Oh, Parkins,' said his neighbour on the other side, 'if you are going to Burnstow, I wish you would look at the site of the Templars' preceptory, and let me know if you think it would be any good to have a dig there in the summer.'

It was, as you might suppose, a person of antiquarian pursuits who said this, but, since he merely appears in this prologue, there is no need to give his entitlements.

'Certainly,' said Parkins, the Professor: 'if you will describe to me whereabouts the site is, I will do my best to give you an idea of the lie of the land when I get back; or I could write to you about it, if you would tell me where you are likely to be.'

'Don't trouble to do that, thanks. It's only that I'm thinking of taking my family in that direction in the Long, and it occurred to me that, as very few of the English preceptories have ever been properly planned, I might have an opportunity of doing something useful on offdays.'

The Professor rather sniffed at the idea that planning out a preceptory could be described as useful. His neighbour continued:

'The site - I doubt if there is anything showing above ground - must be down quite close to the beach now. The sea has encroached tremendously, as you know, all along that bit of coast. I should think, from the map, that it must be about three-quarters of a mile from the Globe Inn, at the north end of the town.

You can read it online here and listen to it here. It has been adapted for television twice, once in 1968 directed by Jonathan Miller and starring Michael Hordern:

and again in 2010 starring John Hurt:

Demons

Demons is a 1985 Italian horror film directed by Lamberto Bava. The soundtrack may be the best thing about it. Very 80s.

trailer:

watch it here:

HorrorNews.net concludes a mixed review with this: "by keeping an open mind and a sense of humor, all hope is not lost and who knows, maybe the viewer will actually enjoy it. Modern it isn’t, but for the true fan of horror…". Classic-Horror.com has a mixed review and says, "If you're new to Italian horror, do not start here."

You can check out my other blog posts on horror movies I've watched here, where you can scroll through posts just on that subject.

Rooum

Rooum is a 1911 ghost story from the collection Widdershins by Oliver Onions. In it an engineer is pursued by an unknown, unseen presence. You can read it online here. It begins,

For all I ever knew to the contrary, it was his own name; and something about him, name or man or both, always put me in mind, I can't tell you how, of negroes. As regards the name, I dare say it was something huggermugger in the mere sound —something that I classed, for no particular reason, with the dark and ignorant sort of words, such as "Obi" and "Hoodoo." I only know that after I learned that his name was Rooum, I couldn't for the life of me have thought of him as being called anything else.

The first impression that you got of his head was that it was a patchwork of black and white—black bushy hair and short white beard, or else the other way about. As a matter of fact, both hair and beard were piebald, so that if you saw him in the gloom a dim patch of white showed down one side of his head, and dark tufts cropped up here and there in his beard. His eyebrows alone were entirely black, with a little sprouting of hair almost joining them. And perhaps his skin helped to make me think of negroes, for it was very dark, of the dark brown that always seems to have more than a hint of green behind it. His forehead was low, and scored across with deep horizontal furrows.

We never knew when he was going to turn up on a job. We might not have seen him for weeks, but his face was always as likely as not to appear over the edge of a crane-platform just when that marvellous mechanical intuition of his was badly needed. He wasn't certificated. He wasn't even trained, as the rest of us understood training; and he scoffed at the drawing-office, and laughed outright at logarithms and our laborious methods of getting out quantities. But he could set sheers and tackle in a way that made the rest of us look silly. I remember once how, through the parting of a chain, a sixty-foot girder had come down and lay under a ruck of other stuff, as the bottom chip lies under a pile of spellikins—a hopeless-looking smash. Myself, I'm certificated twice or three times over; but I can only assure you that I wanted to kick myself when, after I'd spent a day and a sleepless night over the job, I saw the game of tit-tat-toe that Rooum made of it in an hour or two. Certificated or not, a man isn't a fool who can do that sort of thing. And he was one of these fellows, too, who can "find water" —tell you where water is and what amount of getting it is likely to take, by just walking over the place. We aren't certificated up to that yet.

He was offered good money to stick to us —to stick to our firm— but he always shook his black-and-white piebald head. He'd never be able to keep the bargain if he were to make it, he told us quite fairly. I know there are these chaps who can't endure to be clocked to their work with a patent time-clock in the morning and released of an evening with a whistle —and it's one of the things no master can ever understand. So Rooum came and went erratically, showing up maybe in Leeds or Liverpool, perhaps next on Plymouth breakwater, and once he turned up in an out-of-the-way place in Glamorganshire just when I was wondering what had become of him.

The way I got to know him (got to know him, I mean, more than just to nod) was that he tacked himself on to me one night down Vauxhall way, where we were setting up some small plant or other. We had knocked off for the day, and I was walking in the direction of the bridge when he came up. We walked along together; and we had not gone far before it appeared that his reason for joining me was that he wanted to know "what a molecule was."

I stared at him a bit.

"What do you want to know that for?" I said. "What does a chap like you, who can do it all backwards, want with molecules?"

Oh, he just wanted to know, he said.

So, on the way across the bridge, I gave it him more or less from the book —molecular theory and all the rest of it. But, from the childish questions he put, it was plain that he hadn't got the hang of it at all. "Did the molecular theory allow things to pass through one another?" he wanted to know; "Could things pass through one another?" and a lot of ridiculous things like that. I gave it up.

"You're a genius in your own way, Rooum," I said finally; "you know these things without the books we plodders have to depend on. If I'd luck like that, I think I should be content with it."

But he didn't seem satisfied, though he dropped the matter for that time. But I had his acquaintance, which was more than most of us had. He asked me, rather timidly, if I'd lend him a book or two. I did so, but they didn't seem to contain what he wanted to know, and he soon returned them, without remark.

*******

If you're interested in other weird tales and ghost stories and such that I've written blog posts on in the past, you can scroll through them here.

Whispering Corridors

Whispering Corridors is a 1998 Korean horror movie, the first in a series. This is more sad than scary. Schools are damaging places.

trailer:

HorrorNews.net calls it "a must". Classic-Horror.com says, "when the film is good, it’s really, really good" and credits the director while finding fault with the story itself.

I've also watched Voice (2005), which is 4th of the 5 films in the series.

*******

The Husband is on vacation and is watching some old monster movies with me to celebrate the October/Halloween season. I rarely re-blog movies I've already seen, but I do have blog posts on these we've watched since my last update on our ongoing marathon:

King Kong (1933)
The Mummy (1932)