Here is last night's blog, which I didn't publish because I was super tired when I was writing it and thought it might read like a bunch of gibberish. Instead, I saved the draft to edit it this afternoon, and it turned out not to be as bad as I thought; just needed some tightening of the sentences. So here ya go, and I will be back tonight also at my usual late night time :
(April 3, 2019) No movie tonight, but I did watch a super scary episode of "Ghost Story" that starred Melvyn Douglas as a creepy Grandpa who comes to visit his son-in law and the son-in-law's new family, which includes his second wife and her child, a small boy. The son-in-law's first wife was Melvyn Douglas' daughter, who died while giving birth to a deaf-mute baby girl. So already the story is weird and confusing!
The baby girl is now about ten years old, and she is played by Jodie Foster in what I had assumed was one of her very first roles, but now I see on IMDB that she had at least a dozen tv shows under her belt before that. Most fans, including myself, discovered her as an adolescent in "Taxi Driver" (1976), but here in this episode of William Castle's incredibly effective horror anthology, you can tell that she has an understanding of her own talent, even as a kid. You can see that casting directors thought she was one to watch.
I'm telling you, this show "Ghost Story"........man, it's unusually weird and very well done.
So Melvyn Douglas, who was a handsome star in Hollywood's Golden Age but became known for playing grim faced old geezers later in life (particularly in a 1980 hit film also called "Ghost Story"), is playing Jodie Foster's grandpa. He has no biological relation to anyone else in the family. His son-in-law is the closest thing to a family member, but he secretly hates the man because he feels he is responsible for the death of his daughter in childbirth. There is a reason why, but I shant reveal it.
Meanwhile, old Gramps is telepathic. Yep, and he uses his powers on his silent granddaughter Jodie, who is deaf and cannot speak, but she can hear his words inside her head. He gives her instructions, telling her what she must do for him. Though he presents his directions innocently enough, we know he has a sinister intent.
He has bought for little Jodie a present, a custom made doll house that resembles exactly the house she lives in with her family. Grandpa then helps her to create a full set of dolls to live in the house. The dolls are made from home baked cookies with toothpicks for arms and legs, and each one is supposed to represent a family member. There is one for Dad (the son-in-law), and Mom (the second wife) and for little brother (a step-brother and therefore unrelated biologically), and there is one for the housekeeper, an old lady who is suspicious of Melvyn Douglas because she has known him since the son-in laws' first marriage, and thought he was not only weird and creepy but downright evil.
There is something about this show, and it's use of solid primary colors, like the yellow patterned wallpaper in a kitchen, which would ordinarily signify sunniness, but then the kitchen is lit in such a way as to create an unsettling contrast that is not at all sunny. Castle and his team are masters at this effect, of creating an atmosphere of suspense and foreboding through art direction and camera technique, but what I have noticed is that their use of color is especially effective. It makes things seem ordinary, the colored background is telling you "here's the ordinary kitchen of a nice family" but the lighting and the dramatic action taking place in that kitchen are relating something very different.
This is the way in which knowledge of cinematic technique allows a skilled director or producer like William Castle (who directed no episodes of "Ghost Story" but who retained total control of the series) to produce scares at a subconscious level that the viewer can sense but cannot immediately process.
Castle is doing all kinds of things to you in the visual sense that are gonna overload the tension you are feeling - independent of the story line, which in this case has been written by the legendary Robert Bloch, who just so happened to write Hitchcock's "Psycho".
To sum up : Spooky Grandpa Melvyn is using his psychic power to communicate telepathically with his deaf-mute granddaughter Jodie Foster, who can hear him in her head. He has built her a doll house and helped her to fill it with hand-made dolls of her family, who he hates.
They are Voodoo Dolls, made of raisin cookies, and he manipulates Jodie into placing the dolls into positions of peril, like telling her to put the Housekeeper doll near the top of the staircase. You can imagine what will result.
There is another telepathic influence in this story, who speaks to both Grandpa and Jodie. This one is benign, and wants to stop Grandpa's vendetta. I can't tell you who this third party is, but you may be able to guess. Better yet, do yourself a favor and buy the complete series of "Ghost Story" over at Amazon. It's not cheap, about 45 bucks for 22 episodes, but each 60 minute ep feels like a high-quality mini horror movie, and all of the shows I've seen so far have had famous guest stars. So you get the whole package : great writing and directing, spooky atmosphere and art direction, and excellent acting and casting. "Ghost Story" is one of the best horror shows I've ever seen, plain and simple. ////
See you again later tonight. Have an awesome afternoon. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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