"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." — Orson Welles

“I like the dark. It’s friendly.” — Simone Simon as Irena Dubrovna

In 1942 at RKO Pictures, Orson Welles had been given the boot by the studio’s top brass because he cost the studio too much money, on movies they could not figure out how to sell to the public. It was a dismal end compared to the fanfare that greeted his arrival in Hollywood in 1939, when the sky was the proverbial limit to what he would accomplish. But RKO was battle-scarred having suffered the full wrath of the William Randolph Hearst publicity machine over their objections to Citizen Kane, while The Magnificent Ambersons was all but junked in a panic over its length and sophistication. RKO was now determined to do things differently—to rein in costs and start churning out movies without the controversial flair that Welles brought to his projects. The new motto at the studio after Welles left was “showmanship in place of genius” – a direct rebuke to Welles the troublemaker. Around the same time that Welles was finished there, a writer from New York named Val Lewton was hired to helm a string of B horror pictures to compete with the highly popular Universal horror films. These films would be made quickly, for very little money, and would have really silly titles whenever possible. But the ironic thing, and something that no one at RKO expected, is that Lewton was a serious artist, almost as revolutionary as Welles was, in terms of what he brought to a genre that no one expected anything from except cheap thrills and a good time.

Viy (Spirit of Evil) is a classic Russian horror film based on a story of the same name by the acclaimed Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. It is a dark, yet humorous film set in medieval times, in the Russian countryside, and it involves demons, witches, and wayward priests.

The story begins with three traveling priests who, after being on their journey for some time, decide that it would be better to find a house to sleep in instead of a field. They soon find an old farmhouse and knock on the gate. The call is answered by an old crone who instructs the priests that if they are to sleep in the farm they must all sleep in separate places.

The story then begins to take on a more sinister tone as it develops around one of the priests, a man named Jhorma. As Jhorma is sleeping he is paid a visit by the old crone who makes an attempt to tempt the priest. At first the priest laughs it off, but he is soon put under a spell by the old woman and she rides his back like a broom into the air and they land together in a remote place. Jhorma, taking the old crone for a witch begins to beat her repeatedly with a stick. In the middle of his beating a young voice cries out, "You're killing me," and the priest looks down to discover that the old crone has transformed into a beautiful woman. The priest, in horror, runs back to his father, who is the local high priest.

Ok, so Darkplace is a 1980's horror television show... no wait. It's about this horror author... no, that's not right either. You see, I have to pretend I don't know how to properly describe Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, not only as a silly writer-ly way to start a review but also because I genuinely have a hard time doing it.

Garth Marenghi is a creation of actor Matthew Holness. He is not a real person. Much like Stephen King, Marenghi is a horror novelist who specializes in turning the mundane into the horrific. But then back in the 1980's Marenghi grew tired of books and decided to turn his attention to television and Darkplace was born! Being the way-ahead-of-his-time writer that he his, Darkplace was pulled from television for being either too frightening or possibly too moronic (depending on who you talk to) and never shown again... until now.

The only thing more frightening about Midnight Meat Train the film, is the way the film itself was treated by the powers that be. Apparently, the ‘train’ came to a screeching halt when Joe Drake (President of Lions Gate) forced a poor turnout to this film by way of limiting the release to roughly 100 budget theatres in order to draw attention to schlock garbage like The Strangers, which could be seen in multiplexes across the country. In my humble opinion, if properly marketed, Midnight Meat Train could’ve sparked the next huge horror franchise. But then again, I like my horror films dirty, dark and dreadful. Not the kind of things that shiny studio films are made of.

Midnight Meat Train opens with a disturbing encounter on an anonymous subway in an anonymous city, which we’re made to believe is New York. This is where we meet our big bad villain superbly played by ex-footballer, Vinnie Jones. And thus begins our train ride into the dark annals of the human mind… led by your conductor, Mr. Clive Barker.

A curious mix of autumn colored nostalgia for a small town early 1960s childhood and a supernatural fantasy with an icky child murderer sub plot to round it out, Lady in White is something of an anomaly. Released at a time when horror films were gorier than ever (think Freddy, Jason, et al.) this quietly creepy little movie made a virtue of suggestiveness rather than overkill and at least the hint of psychological complexity that works to the film’s favor even if the execution is a little clumsy. Still, the film has a couple of genuinely haunting moments that have some of the visual poetry of the classic Val Lewton horror films that he made for RKO (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie).

Little Frankie Scarlatti (Lukas Haas) is a sensitive kid and a budding writer who loves to scare people with his monster stories. After terrifying his classmates with a special story he wrote just for Halloween he is tricked by some of his bratty classmates into being locked in the school coatroom after everyone else has gone home. He falls asleep only to wake up hours later, trying not to panic in his little Dracula costume, with the glow of moonlight shining in the window. It’s this scene that stays with you—just a simple, almost completely still shot that speaks artfully of the very real childhood fear of being abandoned, of being lost in the darkness that you are too young to comprehend.