Month: August 2020

Amidst the vast wasteland of grindhouse trash and no-budget schlock to come out of the periphery of the 1970s film world, the cult horror/black comedy Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things proves to be a rare gem of a find. Make no mistake; it’s nowhere near remarkable enough to be considered ‘misunderstood classic’ or even exceptional horror by any, uh, sensible interpretation, but in a weird workaround way that’s exactly the point—the apparent effects of the film’s almost nonexistent budget, amateur production values, and bare-bones story are exactly what adds to its charm. For in the manifestation of those things we can sense that there is an unhinged, demented kind of inspiration at work—a kind you don’t necessarily find in ‘the Greats.’

Some of the most fascinating things about the film can be found in the miracle of its own making: Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things was directed by Bob Clark, for one thing—the same Bob Clark who would later direct Porky’s (1982) and, amazingly, the much-beloved family classic A Christmas Story (1983). It was produced on a budget of only $50,000 and involved 14 days of shooting in Miami’s Coconut Grove district, with much of its cast comprised of Clark’s real-life college friends, lending the film a kind of authenticity and casualness that makes it somewhat refreshing to watch.

The movie’s plot is laughable in its stark plainness. At night, a troupe of six theater companions travel to a small island just outside the twinkling lights of civilization, used largely as a cemetery for deranged criminals and delinquents. A long night of shenanigans and snappy banter ensues as our group, spearheaded by its leader Alan (Alan Ormsby), digs up graves, performs satanic rituals, and executes pranks at the careless expense of whatever respect the cemetery ought to have warranted in the first place.

Eventually, things take a step too far when Alan orders his ‘children’ to exhume a dead body from the ground, where they proceed to host a mock wedding between him and the deceased inside an abandoned caretaker’s house. It’s at this point that the dead, rest their souls, have apparently had enough of these ill-mannered transgressions; they then crawl out from the earth to inflict their wrath upon the group of troublemakers, and the result is a satisfyingly chilling and blood-curdling zombie infestation of Night of the Living Dead proportions (or flat-out replication, if you wish to see it that way).

It’s worth noting, however, that we don’t really see any evidence of zombies for the entire first hour of the film. This may be off-putting to folks who want their zombie flicks laced with action, gore, and thrills from the get-go, but I cherish the slow, languid pace of the movie, which ends up making for excellent build-up material in light of the impending climax anyway.

And while not much action takes place for the first two-thirds of the film, that doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining. I actually found it captivating to just watch these six different character types try to interact with each other. By far the most ostentatious of them is Alan, whose long-winded orations and attempted witticisms are both obnoxious yet fascinating to listen to (in a sardonic sort of way). And the rest of the group constantly jabs at his self-perceived eloquence and self-grandeur, which allows for plenty of amusing dialogue and banter to take place throughout the film’s first sixty minutes. There are also a couple of wonderful self-referential nods in the script (a tongue-in-cheek staple typical in films not beholden to reputable subject matter) such as when, referring to Alan’s incantations, one of the characters says, “Good thing he’s a director, because wow, what a bad actor.”

The slow-moving, first two-thirds of the film is also when we get a chance to absorb the film’s eerie atmosphere. The interesting thing is that, production-wise, it’s not fueled by much; the low budget ‘aesthetic’ of this film, far from being a creative hindrance, actually turns out to be somewhat of a silver lining. While our characters tend to be lit by some kind of flashlight, the background is almost always immersed in the darkness. Sometimes we can’t see the background at all, just that obvious foreground light tracking the characters as they walk across an empty void of blackness—triggering such phrases like ‘left to the imagination’ and ‘fear of the unknown’ to spring to mind.

In the same vein, sound in the film is likewise enhanced by its moderation. Too many horror films, it seems, try to punch up their scares with loud clangs, big bangs, and *way* too much screaming. Others opt for a buffed-up soundtrack in hopes that it will cue the audience as to exactly when they should be frightened, excited, unsuspecting, curious, etc. However, it tends to be that true horror is born out of uncertainty and restraint; and fittingly, the soundscape of Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things is comprised of sounds that are used sparingly to great effect. There is a persistent, spooky ambiance of chirping insects, croaking frogs, cooing birds, and noises of whatever other creeping organisms lie in the island’s dense, Floridian wilderness. A mix of experimental-like sounds and oh-so-’70s atmospheric ‘throbs’ also punctuate the film’s creepier moments in a surprisingly effective manner, far from the rehashed ‘suspense cues’ that are clichéd to death in much of today’s horror.

To top it off are the generally morbid subjects of exhumation, satanic rituals, and even hinted necrophilia adding to the film’s bizarre quality. While the PG (!) rating of the film ensures that the amateurish-looking makeup and lack of explicit gore somewhat dilutes the impact of these themes, it thankfully does not change the delightful fact that they’re there at all. On one hand it’s a given that these elements exist to up-play the ‘horror’ element of the film, but it’s the sheer, flat-out ridiculousness of these topics—as we watch them play out in amateurish fashion on the screen—that ultimately redeems the film. In other words, the ‘horror’ aspect of the film plays ultimately to its warped sense of humor, which is what ends up making the film so precious. In some scenes you’re not sure whether to look questionably at what’s unravelling on the screen, or bust out laughing; and usually, it’s this tension itself that ends up prompting the latter.

All in all, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things—just take a moment, if you haven’t yet, to appreciate that title—is an eccentric mix of strange horror and macabre humor, with a charming degree of amateurish giddiness to make the viewing experience all the more enjoyable. We live in a world, for better or for worse, where some of the most forgotten, most obscure, and oftentimes most terrible low-budget films are being endowed the prospect of immortality with 4K restorations, deluxe Blu-ray treatment, and widespread prominence on major streaming platforms. So if you ever find yourself dabbling in this genre for whatever reason, keep my recommendation in mind that Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things makes for a worthy choice, Halloween or otherwise. Or if not—well, come Christmastime, just watch A Christmas Story and appreciate that Bob Clark has since moved on to finer things.

I’ll just say it right off the bat: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite movie. I’m left spellbound every time I see it. I’ve seen it more times than I can quantify, yet I cherish it so much that I deliberately try to avoid seeing it so as not to make it lose its luster on repeat viewings. Whether or not I’ve succeeded with this (spoiler: I haven’t), I’ve come to find that with every revisit, the movie remains as fresh and riveting as ever. I really find it that great.

Yet it’s actually not easy to explain why. It’s not that I regard Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as the gold standard of cinema, as some poster child for what all movies should strive to be. It’s not as if it contains certain special things that if only other movies had them, they would be as equally great. All I can really say is that I’m prejudiced: this movie is my favorite simply for what it is. It has a huge, cavernous, Gothic castle. It has dementors, werewolves, hippogriffs, ghosts, and all sorts of mythical, magical creatures. It has a haunted house. It has the memento mori of skulls, skeletons, and shrunken heads. It has humor. It has secret maps. It has old-world, mechanical clocks. It has rain, snow, clouds, and dramatic moonlight. It’s as if all the elements that appeal to my particular sensibilities and fancies have all been brewed together into a magic elixir, whose power will forever entrance a select few. Well bloody hell, it worked on me.

So for the time being, I’ll elaborate on some of those fine ingredients I cherish. Again, it’s not that I wish more films had them. It’s that when all of these particular cogs and gears and rivets and bolts are put artfully together into the eventual working apparatus that is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, it works like clockwork, and it works beautifully, producing something in effect that is greater than the sum of its parts.

I will admit that this probably wouldn’t be my favorite film if the Harry Potter series didn’t mean a thing to me. Of course I grew up with the Harry Potter books and films; it was essentially my generation’s Star Wars (along with, perhaps, Lord of the Rings, but that was just before my time), wherein we were presented with a fantasy world and pure spectacle nobody had ever seen on the silver screen before. Yet the decade-long reach of the Harry Potter movies meant that, in order for it to remain fresh, fulfilling, and interesting throughout its run, it had to evolve, change, and explore new ground in some way.

It just so happens that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was the first Potter film to be at the helm of a new director—that of Alfonso Cuarón, who continued the Potter saga from where former director Chris Columbus left off. Now, I really like what Columbus did with Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets. I think that Columbus’ more conventional approach to the first two films perfectly suited the innocent, wide-eyed fascination embodied by Harry and his first and second-year peers as they, like us, stepped into a new and exciting world.

However, by Prisoner of Azkaban, change was in the air. Columbus had already ventured into darker territories with Chamber of Secrets, a trend that would then be inevitable for the rest of series. And perhaps most drastically of all, Harry and his friends are now 13, which means that the once novel entrancements of Hogwarts are now but nostalgic memories, and in its place the imminent and uncertain world of adolescence now lies at the forefront.

Surely, all of this necessitated a change of tone in the Potter series, which Alfonso Cuarón’s new direction achieved perfectly. Bridging the innocent past of the first two films with the vast, uncertain grayness that lie ahead, Prisoner of Azkaban is a darker, moodier film that still retains an air of whimsy and fantasy to keep things in just the right balance.

For one thing, Prisoner of Azkaban is unique in the Harry Potter series in that it’s the only film we don’t see Voldemort in one form or another. In one sense this gives the film more latitude to expand its showcasing of the wizarding world: we are introduced to Hogsmeade, new castle towers, new characters, dementors, boggarts, divination, hippogriffs, shrunken heads, werewolves, and so on. And while the tone of Azkaban is darker, this really is the last film that doesn’t have the pervasive threat of Voldemort or his band of Death Eaters weighing down upon the more whimsical elements of the wizarding world, allowing for some playful mischief to remain sprinkled well throughout Azkaban.

In another sense, though, it allows the film to focus predominantly on Harry, and how, faced with the threat of his parents’ murderer, he must learn to cope with the troubles of his past. Thus, it makes it all the more fitting that Cuarón deliberately set out to make Azkaban from Harry’s point of view. While the first two films were very much about Harry, Azkaban concerns itself more than ever with Harry’s inner life. There is a heightened subjectivity to each of the stylistic choices in Azkaban, from the shadowy lighting, subdued color palette, lively camerawork, etc., as if each of these elements were illustrative of Harry’s own internal state. The stylized visuals, in this sense, are windows into Harry’s inner emotions, which in turn further validate the weight of the story and enliven the wizarding world he interacts with.

In tandem with Harry and his peers’ foray into adolescence, the atmosphere of Azkaban is suitably more somber, and wreaked with excitement and paranoia between pauses of introspection and whimsy. While Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets surely had their ‘scary’ moments, there was nothing ever quite as threatening as the prospect of an escaped serial murderer on the loose; reaper-like dementors who thrive off sucking the living daylight out of your soul; and an ending that, all things considered, leaves the stakes grim and uncertain at best, with the imminent possibility of the Dark Lord rising more palpable than ever before.

But despite the burgeoning gloom and doom of Azkaban, I also love it for its mischief and mildly irreverent spirit. I find Prisoner of Azkaban to be the most humorous of the Potter films; its quirkiness is unmatched, as in the incident with Aunt Marge, the frenetic sequence on the Knight Bus, or the ‘riddikulus’ lessons in Boggart training, each of which introduce us to the fringier, stranger elements of the wizarding world. Whereas in the first two films, magic was for the most part innocuous, delightful and wholesome, in Azkaban it takes on an uncannier and zanier quality, contributing further to the film’s eccentric sense of humor. The dialogue is also playfully clever at times, such as when, on the first day of class, the absent-minded divinations Professor Trelawney proclaims, “You will discover if you possess the Sight…” just as she stumbles into a table. The film is sprinkled with irony, puns, and little absurdities like this, helping to stir the pot and break up the film’s more serious scenes.

Also, the cinematography of this film is stunning: there are several shots in this film that render like Romantic or Gothic oil paintings come to life, as when we see the panoramas of dementors floating spectrally over Hogwarts, backdropped by a cloudy, moonlit sky. Moreover, the visual style of Azkaban indicates a noteworthy departure from what we’ve gotten used to in the prior two films. Gone are the bright and saturated blue/gold hues of Sorcerer’s Stone—instead a perpetual rain-drenched palette characterizes the third film, as if the dementors themselves have sucked out the vibrant impressions of years past. Lighting also takes on a harsher and more naturalistic look, allowing for more pronounced shadows and a silvery, natural light to permeate the frame.

In further regard to the film’s more ominous tone and look, it’s always interesting to observe the role of weather when watching a Harry Potter film. Nigel Stone, model-unit director of photography on Azkaban, recounts that “Alfonso and [cinematographer] Michael [Seresin] were brave—they let the weather in Scotland influence the look of the film.” Michael Seresin himself mentions that “in 30 days, we had 28 or 29 days of rain . . . We had that soft, gray light, which dramatically is incredible. And the continuity is amazing.” Indeed, whereas nature seemed to provide nothing more than a picturesque backdrop for the previous films, by Azkaban it plays an active and vigorous role, almost as if it were a magical force of its own, mirroring the varied emotions of Harry himself. Whereas one scene will emphasize the tranquil, temporal beauty of the changing seasons, the next will depict nature as an incursive and virulent force not to be reckoned with. It’s amusing to see just how progressively awful the weather gets as the series moves on: in the first film, a game of Quidditch is played atop a bright green field against a clear blue sky; in the second, it’s played in slightly overcast conditions; and by the third, whatever spectacle Quidditch used to possess now pales in comparison to the interference of a full-fledged lighting storm. In fact, there’s not one clear blue sky to be seen in the entirety of Prisoner of Azkaban.

Continuing with the cinematography, I absolutely love the camerawork in this film. Unlike the more restrained camera from Harry’s simpler years, the camera this time around is as mobile as a flying broomstick, which helps elate the frenzied emotions and sense of adventure experienced by our characters. Director Alfonso Cuarón was particularly intent on establishing a “geographic eloquence of space and time” throughout Hogwarts, and the result is indeed a living, breathing castle that could very much be called a character itself. And the way the camera elegantly sweeps through windows and mirrors fits only too well in the magical world of Harry Potter, where the boundary between the material and immaterial can be playfully bent to accommodate the fantastic.

Furthermore, isolated shots and scenes are stitched together is a way that is strikingly…poetic. Unlike the unmotivated shot changes or thoughtless transitions that are all too common in comparably big-budget studio releases, one can tell that a true artistic vision is at work behind Prisoner of Azkaban. The examples are in the details, such as when the camera tracks a flying bluebird to gracefully establish the castle grounds; in the visual parallels between “Lumos” and the Patronus charm; the artful effect of water turning into ice at the presence of dementors; a shot in which the camera pans to follow an owl heading toward Hogwarts as the seasons magically transform from Fall to Winter; or when Harry stares at his reflection in a train window, only for the image to subtly transition into the form of a puddle just outside the Hogwarts grounds during a rainstorm. Such visual continuity is the very ‘language’ of cinema, and Prisoner of Azkaban is made all the more enriching and lyrical because it implements these techniques so masterfully.

Perhaps the thing I cherish most of all about Prisoner of Azkaban is that its world is so rich with detail. I always seem to notice something new with each viewing, whether it’s an extraneous story detail, some world-furnishing embellishment, or a bit of dialogue I didn’t catch the full significance of the first time around. For example: toward the beginning of the movie when Harry reunites with Ron and Hermione at the Leaky Cauldron, there are all sorts of things taking place in the background: chairs set themselves up on the table; each newspaper image is animated with a life of its own; a floating teapot pours tea into someone’s cup when prompted; and a waiter carries an impossible six-foot stack of plates—and all of this is executed in one gigantic long shot as Harry and Ron’s father converse in the foreground. The amount of effort and coordination required to pull off a scene like that seems impossible, yet this is only a glimpse of the kinds of secret marvels Azkaban contains.

There is also a clever touch during the Boggart lesson scene in which the camera, approaching a mirrored Boggart wardrobe, passes through the mirror, and everything we see from then on is an inverted image until the camera pulls back from the mirror at the scene’s end. It’s a fitting stylistic device, given that we learn that it’s in a Boggart’s nature to mirror the appearance of its subject—what does a mirror/Boggart look like when it has nothing to mimic, anyway? Or, consider a brief detail in which, when Hogwarts goes on lockdown, we see a shot of the castle gates descending, backdropped by a full moon with the sound of howling just audible in the background. The next day, it’s no coincidence that we find Snape substituting for Professor Lupin during Defense Against the Dark Arts class—mentioning that Lupin is “incapable of teaching at the present time” as the day’s subject revolves around werewolves.

We also hear the chiming of the Hogwarts clock tower whenever the workings of the time turner device are hinted at; and during the scene that takes place inside the Shrieking Shack—make sure to look closely at the walls in the background. It’s true, sure, that these little details bear nothing crucial on the plot; they’re not ‘required’ in order for us to follow the story. Yet the filmmakers behind Azkaban put in the extra effort and ingenuity to weave them seamlessly into the film’s world and storyline anyway. These are the kinds of things that capture what great moviemaking is all about.

I should also mention that John William’s score for this film is perhaps my favorite of his. The way his orchestral score combines with the dynamic images of the film sends shivers down my spine. Unlike other films, it doesn’t feel at all like a soundtrack that’s been slapped on top of images in an attempt to elevate the material as a whole; rather the music feels as inspired by the images as much as the images feel inspired by the music, and the end result is that it all turns into music—everything ends up being in perfect harmony. The melodies are also more haunting and mysterious than the grandiose, triumphant scores of say, Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones, or even the first two Harry Potter films, which of course suits the drearier, more lyrical tone of Azkaban perfectly.

I also love this film for its ingenious use of special effects. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban came out at an exciting time regarding the development of visual effects technology, something that I think goes unappreciated as we become increasingly desensitized to new images. Hogwarts set extensions and flyovers—as well as Hogsmeade Village—were realized using the age-old craft of miniatures and practical models (it wasn’t until Goblet of Fire, a year later, that a computer-generated version of Hogwarts was actually created at all). Plenty of awesome prosthetic and makeup effects were used in many scenes: notably, during Aunt Marge’s unfortunate (but well-earned) inflation, which was accomplished largely (no pun intended) by practical means involving an inflatable body suit, with digital aid used only to remove rigs and wires on set.

Of course, Azkaban was no stranger to a wide array of dazzling computer-generated effects as well, used for creatures such as the Grim, the dementors, a hippogriff, a werewolf, and the Whomping Willow; and for environments such as the Quidditch field, dramatic skyscapes, and background terrain. Azkaban was born at a time when CGI was still somewhat novel and technologically limited *just* enough to retain a certain quality of excitement and magic whenever it was used—but even looking back on Azkaban from today’s lens, its effects are so well integrated into the cinematography to an extent that is rare, and therefore special to see, today. Perhaps the carefulness and moderation with which CGI was approached back in those days prevented its haphazard overuse; in other words, people may have been more thoughtful about what it should be used for, and how.

And because I can’t curb my fondness for the technical aspects of filmmaking, I have to point out that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban also marked the first time that a Potter film underwent a digital intermediate (DI), in which the entirety of its final cut negative was scanned into the computer, color timed completely in the digital realm, and output back onto celluloid for theatrical distribution. This certainly facilitated the more contemporary and stylized look of Azkaban, and I believe also allowed for a more seamless integration of visual effects than what was possible in the prior films, which underwent a more traditional, film-finished post. All this to say, Azkaban marks an interesting turning point in film history in terms of bridging the older, undeniably charming techniques of models, practical effects, and actual celluloid film used as the source medium, with some of the exciting new developments being made in digital post-production and VFX at the time. I imagine the production artists, designers, and craftspeople had a wicked amount of fun making this film, and watching this I seem to vicariously experience a good amount of this passion.

That’s really all I have to say about my favorite movie for now. I don’t really know what this accomplishes, other than expressing my deep admiration for this film’s existence, which apparently I felt the need to do. I guess I’ll add that, whenever I revisit this film, I’m a little—maybe extremely—dejected when I compare it to the state of our current ‘tentpole’ films, akin to the status Azkaban had when it came out. While I’ve surely enjoyed a fair few of them, I also can’t deny that most of them feel so uninspired and homogenized—like dementors sucking the oxygen out of the film industry itself—whereas Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’s infinitely more artistic, personable, and quirkier qualities render it a breath of fresh air by comparison. Prisoner of Azkaban proves that, when the faculties of big budget moviemaking—grand special effects, elaborate set pieces, an all-star cast, etc.—are entrusted to pure artistic vision, a captivating story, and compelling characters, great things can be accomplished…great things!

Mischief managed ✨