The Funniest, Scary Movies.

Dear Colleagues:

In our globalized world, this time of the year interpreters everywhere encounter references to the American celebration of Halloween, not an official holiday in the United States, but the second-most broadly observed event in the country after Thanksgiving. Unlike other cultures elsewhere in the world, the American Halloween has no religious context and sometimes it is difficult to understand to those who live in other countries.

Because interpreters must be ready to tackle any topic, any issue a speaker brings up, every year I try to show a different piece of Halloween with the hope it is useful to a colleague in a booth somewhere in the planet. In the past, we have focused on the meaning and history of the festivity, its traditions, and its food, as well as its music, movies, monsters, music, and favorite TV hosts.

This time we will focus on Halloween’s dark humor: The movies about monsters and the occult made not to scare us, but to make us laugh. There are many and they come from all over the world, but this is my list of the funniest scary movies:

Ghostbusters.

A supernatural comedy written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, starring both and Bill Murray as three eccentric parapsychologists who open a ghost fighting agency and are hired to get a gluttonous ghost, and among other hilarious situations, go through a gate between dimensions to rescue some hostages from some evil ghosts. The movie, its characters and its music became a 1980s classic.

Hocus Pocus.

A mid-1990s comedy that follows a villainous comedic trio of witches who are resurrected by a teenager is Salem, Massachusetts on Halloween. The witches: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy who get into all kinds of trouble as they interact with their terrible past and a curse that is finally broken with the witches’ death… or is it? As the movie ends leaving the possibility of the witches return.

Clavillazo en el Castillo de los Monstruos.

This is a 1950s comedy from Mexico, starring Antonio Espino “Clavillazo” as a poor man in love with a seamstress who is kidnapped by evil blind scientist “Don Melchorcito” and taken to a castle fool of monsters. The hero battles the vampire, a mummy, Frankenstein’s monster, and even the creature from the Black Lagoon (called the “huachinango”) in a hilarious slapstick comedy reminiscing of others with similar stories produced in the United States.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

This 1988 movie is a classic parody of the horror sci-fi movies of the 1950s. A comet inhabited by murderous aliens who look like clowns, crashes outside a small town. Two teenagers witness this incident but nobody believes them. The clowns capture their victims, take them back to their spacecraft and keep them wrapped in cotton candy. The story, the clowns, and the absurdity of this movie makes it a cult favorite that could not be left out of this list.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

It is a 1975 British horror musical based on the stage version. The story centers on a young couple whose car breaks down in the rain near a castle, where they seek help. The castle is occupied by strangers in elaborate costumes celebrating an annual convention, with a mad scientist as head of the house, an alien transvestite from planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania, who creates a creature named Rocky. From here, a series of situations take place, making the plot unique and entertaining.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

This is a horror comedy from 1948 where the comedic couple ends up entangled in a story involving Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Werewolf. After a series of funny situations, Abbott and Costello end up in a masquerade in a castle in an island where they unwillingly fight the monsters as Dracula has plans for Costello. The movie has many funny chases and sudden encounters, and it features the real actors from Universal’s monster movies: Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Glenn Strange as the monster, and Lon Chaney Jr. as the wolfman. At the end of the movie, after they seemingly defeated all forces of evil, we leave the heroes in a boat with the Invisible Man.

Beetlejuice.

A late 1980s Tim Burton movie starring Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Winona Ryder, and Michael Keaton as the main character. The plot revolves around a recently deceased couple who as ghosts now hunt their former home, and contact Beetlejuice, a “bio-exorcist” to scare away the home’s new owners. Because of his obnoxiousness, Beetlejuice is fired, and later rehired when his help is needed; unfortunately, his ways create chaos and eventually he is vanished and the new and old house residents agree to live in peace.

Scary Movie.

It is a 2000 American slasher parody film by Keenan Ivory Wayans, written by Marion and Shawn Wayans. The film makes fun of various genres, including horror, slasher, and mystery. The script primary follows the plot of the slasher films Scream and I know what you did last summer, Halloween, The Shining, Friday the 13^th., the Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project, The Matrix, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, keeping you with a belly ache from laughing so much.

Little Shop of Horrors.

Another 1980s American horror musical filmed in the United Kingdom and based on a musical, about a couple who considers closing their business, but instead, decide tone of its human owners display a strange plant that turns out to eat blood. The plant brings its owners success and fame, but eventually causes more trouble than good, even attempting to eat one of its human owners. At the end, even though the owner is rescued from the plant’s jaws, dead seems unavoidable, so she asks to be fed to the plant and that way continue to live as a bud. Eventually the plant learns of a plot that will not benefit it, so it eats the other owner and turns more evil and eventually the plant defeats the armed forces and wins.

Young Frankenstein.

In my opinion the funniest parody of a horror movie genre. It was directed by Mel Brooks in 1974, and the screenplay was co-written by him and Gene Wilder, who also starred as a descendant of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Peter Boyle played the monster, and the rest of the cast was a Mel Brooks usual group of actors: Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Richard Haydn, and Gene Hackman as the blind hermit. The film is a parody of the various film adaptations of Mart Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, and it was filed in the same sets as the original Universal movies of the 1930s. This is a “must see” for all classic monster films.

I hope you find this post useful, both as a quick reference when the information is needed in the booth, and as a guide to continue to increase your knowledge of Americana.

The Best Horror Movie Musical Themes.

Dear Colleagues,

During Halloween season we may interpret in events, usually in the private sector, where well-known horror movie themes are played during the breaks, and even to introduce some speakers. One of such events motivated me to dedicate my annual Halloween post to the music that makes the hair stand up on the back of one’s neck. I know there are many great scores and theme songs, but these are the ones I immediately associate with horror films:

The Thing (1982). John Carpenter reached out to Ennio Morricone to score this tale of frozen fear with pulsing and terrifying sounds.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1953). This 3-D Universal movie announces the arrival of the creature with the chilling Bah, bah, bahhhh, three-note-motif by Henry Stein, part of the score by Henri Mancini, making this cult-classic beauty and the beast tale directed by Jack Arnold unforgettable.  

The Shining (1980). The synthetic sounds created by electronic music innovators Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind’s makes this Stanley Kubrick’s movie a true horror classic, enhanced by all these avante garde sounds.

Jaws (1975). This John Williams’ master piece is one of the most recognizable movie themes of all times. People immediately associate it with sharks, and danger in general. Even today, after almost 50 years, you can still hear somebody humming the theme at the beach. It is also one of the most popular cellular phone rings of all time.

The Omen (1976). Jerry Goldsmith turns Gregorian chants into some of the scariest music ever heard. The opening song, “Ave Satani” will keep you awake in a lonely night.

Dracula (1931). The grandfather of all horror films and pioneer of sound films, produced by Tod Browning, starring Bela Lugosi, has no movie score, and there are silent moments throughout the movie as a reminder that this was not a silent film and for that reason it did not need music throughout; However, this Universal classic, starts with a rendition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and elevates the tension and anxiety in an audience waiting for Bram Stoker’s creature.

The Exorcist (1973). Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells contributed to the hysteria and popularity that surrounded the opening of this scary movie that ushered the era of demonic possession and rogue priests’ stories.   

Ringu (1998). “The Ring”. Original Japanese version. This classic Japanese horror movie, copied and remade in the west more than once, became a sensation worldwide because of the story, the main character, and Kenji Kawai’s mysterious music.

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). The music of this horror favorite was composed by Franz Waxman. It includes dramatic music, followed by sweet music, as this is a love story in a horror movie that evokes the loneliness of Mary Shelley’s creature, the fears of Dr. Frankenstein, and the evilness of Dr. Pretorius.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Perhaps the most unsettling opening theme in history. Krzysztof Komeda’s score is not really creepy, but it scares the listener, creating the perfect background for this Roman Polanski’s film.

El Vampiro (1957). “The Vampire” a horror black and white Mexican movie with a great music score by Gustavo César Carrion transports us to the horrors of the hacienda where the vampire lives.   

Halloween (1978). John Carpenter directed, produced, and co-wrote Halloween, but he also wrote the world-famous score that immortalized those piano and synthesizer notes that scare the willies out of millions. Because of its simplicity, this score is memorable, easy to reproduce with any piano anywhere, and it stays in your head forever.

Psycho (1960). Arguably, Alfred Hitchcock’s master piece, with the most famous scene of all time, needed a score that projected all the fear and suspense of the story. It got it in the screeching, high-pitch notes composed by Bernard Herrmann. The score starts somewhat unassuming, but it all changes with the stabbing during the shower scene. The strings stab right along with the knife, and sends this movie score to the top of the list, creating a style and genre that others have tried to imitate ever since. I know there are many other great horror movie scores, but these always come to mind when I am in the booth during Halloween season, and the lights are dimmed while one them plays in the room. I now invite you to share with the rest of us some of your favorite scare movie theme songs.

Finally a movie that shows interpreters doing what they really do.

Dear colleagues:

Several weeks ago I watched Kathryn Bigelow’s movie: “Zero Dark Thirty.” Like many others, I was focused on the screen fascinated by such a successful mission of our intelligence and military forces, but I had an additional reason to be happy with the movie. Bigelow and Mark Boal, the screenplay author, stuck to authenticity and historical accuracy by including and showing the role of the military interpreter.  I figured that on this Academy Award week when everybody will be talking about movies, I should bring to all of my colleagues’ attention the very positive depiction of our profession in this film.  It feels so good to see how the profession is acknowledged as an integral and essential part of the mission, and how the interpreters are shown performing their services instead of acting like a United Nations James Bond of the booth as we were portrayed on another movie that had nothing to do with interpreting but the title.

“Zero Dark Thirty” is a movie, not a documentary. Its main goal is to sell tickets and entertain, therefore, it shows interpreters in action at different parts of the movie, not all the time. Already a long movie, it would have been longer (and boring) with interpreters in every situation they were required; however, it gives the viewer a good idea of how important the military interpreter was to the operation. There is one scene where an interrogation is being conducted through an interpreter performing (as it happens in the real world) a consecutive rendition. And of course, there is the sequence at the end of the movie when during the raid a navy seal turns to the interpreter and tells him to ask a young woman if the man they just shot was Bin Laden. You see the interpreter (previously seen getting off the chopper in full gear alongside the seals) pulling the woman aside, asking her, and reporting back to his superior.

I also believe that this movie helps other interpreters not in the military field to understand what a military interpreter does. Despite previous posts where I have (and many of you have) explained how military interpreters are not neutral because one of the parties they interpret for is the enemy whose defeat is essential, this blog has seen many opinions by colleagues stating that military interpreters should be impartial, that they should convey the idea to all parties that they are neutral, and that military interpreters should interpret everything because that is the only way for both parties to communicate.   This movie illustrates what a military interpreter does, how they work in full gear with a weapon, how they interpret for one party (their commander) and only inform the other party what he has been instructed to let him know. It also shows the difference between a military interpreter who works in a conflict zone, and those military interpreters who provide community (not military) interpreter services in the event of an evacuation due to a natural disaster, or any other type of relief, including helping civilians in countries at war with the military forces they work for.  I would love to see your comments about the portrayal of these military interpreters in the film, or if you prefer, your comments about any other movie where interpreters were showcased.