Oscar Horrors: An Irish Ghost Story

HERE LIES... Hilton Edwards' short film Return to Glennascaul, mauled by Disney's Bear Country.

Andreas here with another spooky Oscar Horrors case file! This time, it's a ghost story. And who doesn't love a good ghost story? (Other than the Academy, I suppose.) Return to Glennascaul (1953) retells a traditional urban legend, that of the "vanishing hitchhiker," but with so much flair and atmosphere that its overfamiliarity doesn't matter. The set-up is classic: it's late at night, on a winding road outside Dublin, and the narrator stops to pick up a stranded motorist. But aha, a twist: the narrator is in fact Orson Welles, on a break from Othello! What better addition to a ghost story than Orson, that master raconteur, he of the perfect radio voice?

Aother small twist: his passenger isn't a ghost, but instead has his own eerie story of two mysterious women and the old abandoned house he drove them to, a house called Glennascaul. All these framing devices, coupled with Orson Welles playing a wry version of himself, make the short feel like a "friend-of-a-friend" anecdote. Like something built up too plausibly not to be true. And hey, who knows what can or can't happen in the misty Irish countryside? The women themselves (one old, one young) seem harmless enough, if a little kooky, until Orson's new friend contacts the realtor trying to sell Glennascaul... and, of course, learns that they've both been dead for years. (If that's a spoiler, then you should really bone up on your campfire stories.

This is some subtle horror, certainly, but it grows in power as the climax hits—as the gentleman makes the titular return, only to discover a dusty, desolate house with no residents to speak of. Truly haunting. In addition to Orson's baritone, the film's carpeted by a sparse piano and harp score, and it's shot in chiaroscuro black and white; exactly the minimalism that the material calls for. Sometimes, as Return to Glennascaul teaches us, all you need to tell a chilling story is 20 minutes, a little music, and an old house. Oh, and Orson Welles.

It may not have won the Oscar (thanks, Disney) but it will send shivers up your spine.

Recent Oscar Horrors 
Jaws - Best Editing
Aliens - Visual FX
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte - Supporting Actress

All Oscar Horrors

Oscar Horrors: For "The Hell of It"

HERE LIES... Paul Williams' rock opera score for Phantom of the Paradise, lain to rest by Nelson Riddle's nostalgia-drenched work on The Great Gatsby.

Andreas here with more spoooky Oscar Horrors, this time singing the praises of composer Paul Williams. His Oscar-nominated work on Brian De Palma's horror musical astonishes with its versatility, bouncing from one pop mode to another—surf rock to glam rock to piano ballad—all the while keeping tempo with De Palma's virtuosic visuals. The songs aren't hollow pastiches, either; Williams imbues them with surprising emotional depth, coloring the whole film with their underlying melancholy. In order to pull off such an operatic saga, De Palma needed big music, and Williams really delivers.

Phantom, after all, is a macabre tale of the music industry, filled with songwriters, divas, and wannabes (Williams himself even co-stars as the villainous Swan, a kind of Mephistopheles by way of Phil Spector.) The characters, like composer-turned-phantom Winslow Leach and his beloved Phoenix, speak the language of show-stopping musical numbers. The plot is driven by one such song, "Faust," written by Winslow and stolen by Swan, reprised over and over as the characters' relationships shift.

All my dreams are lost and I can't sleep

And sleep alone could ease my mind

All my tears have dried and I can't weep...

Like so much of the soundtrack, "Faust" is rich with longing and regret, paralleling the film's themes of love, fame, and sacrifice. Williams' music matches the rest of the film's mood so well: funereal and otherworldly, with a strain of twisted dark comedy. The jukebox-ready opening number "Goodbye, Eddie, Goodbye" demonstrates this latter trait especially well, as does "The Hell of It." Perhaps the film's best song, "The Hell of It" plays over the ending credits, with Williams gleefully singing its damnation-centric lyrics: "And though your music lingers on, all of us are glad you're gone!"

Williams himself is not gone—as we're reminded by the new documentary Paul Williams Still Alive—but his music for Phantom of the Paradise sure lingers on, and on, and on.

Oscar Horrors: "Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird"

In 'Oscar Horrors' we look at those rare Oscar nominated contributions in the horror genre. Daily all October long. Here's Andreas on an actress who is still very much with us and where is her Honorary Oscar, we ask?

HERE LIES... Angela Lansbury's chanteuse "Sibyl Vane," sent to an early grave by her love for Dorian Gray and trampled by National Velvet in March 1946

For The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Angela Lansbury received her second Best Supporting Actress nomination in as many years. (Her previous one was for Gaslight, another Victorian horror-melodrama. Talk about carving out a niche!) She plays a working-class British girl in both films, but Sibyl Vane is the polar opposite of her snippy maid in Gaslight: demure, wholesome, and tender.

These qualities captivate the still-redeemable Dorian, as does her signature song "Little Yellow Bird".

Good-bye, little yellow bird.
I'd rather brave the cold
On a leafless tree
Than a prisoner be
In a cage of gold...

Lansbury's delivery transforms the song into a leitmotif of innocence, a status it retains long after her character's death. For although the actress herself departs the film about 40 minutes in, she leaves a huge impression. This is a true supporting performance, affecting the whole rest of the film despite scant screen time. Dorian Gray is a chilly movie, preoccupied with the smooth surfaces of Dorian's mansion, and Lansbury supplies it with warmth. Her heartbroken face pierces Dorian's hardening soul, and her melancholy song haunts him all throughout his later debaucheries.

Even when he's corrupted through and through, Dorian Gray can't escape the "Little Yellow Bird." That's the lingering power of Angela Lansbury's onscreen vulnerability. With that gentle face, opening into a smile like a flower into bloom, she changes what could've been a throwaway ingenue role into something bigger—into the emotional core of the film. The Oscar may have ultimately gone to Anne Revere for National Velvet, but Sibyl remains unforgettable, a pure songbird devoured by Dorian's caprices.

More Oscar Horrors 
Monster's Inc - Animated Feature
Pan's Labyrinth - Art Direction
Them! - Visual Effects
American Werewolf in London -Makeup
Addams Family Values  -Art Direction

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Bernie" and "Frankenweenie"

Andreas here with a pair of trailers from beloved directors -- and both death-centric comedies, at that. First up, Richard Linklater's Bernie:

YES

• The most obvious reasons: Slacker, Dazed & Confused, Waking Life, etc., etc.
• Black and McConaughey both seem to be doing offbeat, atypical work here. I'm curious to see where their performances lead.
• And of course, the legendary Shirley MacLaine!

NO

• But judging from the trailer, her role looks awfully one-dimensional -- "shrill old lady who dies." Here's hoping it's more fun in the finished film.
• This isn't the movie's fault, but wow, that trailer goes for every musical and editing cliché in the book. I'm surprised they didn't use a record scratch instead of a gunshot.

More "Bernie" and Tim Burton's Frankenweenie trailer after the jump.

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LAFCA & NYFCO Part Ways Over The Artist

Could Fassbender be eyeing Oscar?Andreas here. Want to see end-of-year craziness in action? Look at today: first, the Boston Society of Film Critics announces their awards, then before they've finished, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the New York Film Critics Online start tag-teaming it! It all starts to blend together sometimes -- Emmanuel Plummer won for something called Drivemaids? -- but no worries, we've got it straightened out:

First, the LAFCA winners...

PICTURE The Descendants (runner-up: The Tree of Life)

DIRECTOR Terence Malick for The Tree of Life

 (Runner-up: Martin Scorsese for Hugo)

SCREENPLAY Asghar Farhadi for A Separation (For Your Consideration!)

ACTRESS Yun Jung-hee for Poetry

 (Runner-up: Kirsten Dunst for Melancholia)

ACTOR Michael Fassbender for A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, Shame, and X-Men: First Class

 (Runner-up: Michael Shannon for Take Shelter)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS Jessica Chastain for everything

(Runner-up: Janet McTeer for Albert Nobbs)

SUPPORTING ACTOR Christopher Plummer for Beginners

 (Runner-up: Patton Oswalt for Young Adult)

CINEMATOGRAPHY Emmanuel Lubezki for The Tree of Life

 (Runner-up: Cao Yu for City of Life and Death)

PRODUCTION DESIGN Dante Ferretti for Hugo

 (Runner-up: Maria Djurkovic for Tinker Tailor)

DOCUMENTARY/NONFICTION Cave of Forgotten Dreams

 (Runner-up: The Arbor)

ANIMATION Rango

 (Runner-up: The Adventures of Tintin)

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM City of Life and Death

 (Runner-up: A Separation)

NEW GENERATION The creative team behind Martha Marcy May Marlene

INDEPENDENT/EXPERIMENTAL Spark of Being

BEST MUSIC/SCORE The Chemical Brothers for Hanna

 (Runner-up: Cliff Martinez for Drive)

Commentary and NYFCO awards after the jump.

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