WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
Listen to the children of the night, what beautiful music they make…or whatever Dracula once said. I don’t know if anyone would consider this as sub-genre of horror but you know what, I’m going to and it’s one that is strangely pleasing to know exists. That sub-genre, my friends, is horror musicals and it is a treat you will not want to miss! The funny thing is, now I’ve mentioned this – those of you reading have now thought of both Phantom of the Opera and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, so I’ve left them out on purpose…
Repo! The Genetic Opera
I could not tell you how long I’ve been waiting to see this film! You would think from it’s opening that it was a musical spawned from a graphic novel however, like many other films on this list, it is an adaptation of a stage musical of the same name from 2002. They also use the same comic style, reminiscent of Sin City, to explain past situation that have an influence on the current story and it somehow makes it more digestible. It’s one of those stories that’s difficult to describe other than it’s a dystopian future I really don’t think any of us would want to come true. Describing this as an opera is pretty apt as rarely is any dialogue actually spoken, almost all of it is sung. I had stumbled across the song Zydrate Anatomy a while ago and loved it but the rest of the soundtrack for this film is just as good, but it’s still my favourite song of the lot without a doubt! It’s helped by some of the unbelievable voices provided by people like Anthony Head and Terrence Zdunich. I did feel that could have got someone better than Paris Hilton to play Amber Sweet but then realised, maybe Amber’s isn’t supposed to be very good…
The Lure
It’s honestly so rare that I get to cover a foreign film as part of these articles but I’m glad that I didn’t use this as my Polish film for the Western European Horror article. This probably sounds really odd but I don’t think the sirens singing would sound as beautiful if it was English. Truthfully, that’s the case for most of the songs – reading the subtitles just isn’t the same. It’s actually rare, if you know your mythology, for sirens to sing in order to come ashore, it’s usually just to kill the men they lured to them. I started to think that this film was only being considered as a musical because Silver and Golden were joining a band and that is where the songs come in – then they break into song when they’re taken shopping for new clothes and it felt like a typical musical. It is rather difficult to describe this film as a horror though because nothing really “horrific” happens. Yes, Golden kills a man around half an hour into the film and then kills Mietek at the end but outside of that, there’s nothing scary about this – and I’ve seen a mermaid horror film before. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a little weird at times though.
Suck
At first I was a little bit worried about using this film because it’s based around a rock band, it might be considered as somewhat questionable but once Flesh and Bone is sung – I realised it was more of a musical than I remembered. A lot of those songs that aren’t performed by The Winners, the band the film follows, are done by well-known performers such as Alice Cooper, David Bowie and Burning Brides (the lead singer of which plays the vampire that turns Jennifer). This film is basically a rock and roll version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula just this time our lead vampire is a female and the band are surprisingly accepting of Jennifer’s new found power instead of everyone wanting to hunt her down and kill her. It’s almost as if Lucy Westenra became the lead character, which I realise is a reference that only makes sense if you’ve read the book or seen the 1992 film. The only annoying thing is there’s no access to an actual soundtrack to this film as the songs sung by The Winners are nowhere to be found. I guess you can consider this as half jukebox musical half original as songs like Flesh and Bone and If One of Us Goes Further feature on Burning Brides album Anhedonia meaning none of the songs by real performing artists were written specifically for this film.
Rocky Horror Picture Show
You know when people talk about comfort films or films they can just watch whenever, well for me this is one of those. Now, having said that it means I’ve seen this film several times but this was the first time that I noticed a number of the wedding guests at the beginning are also guests at Dr Frank-N-Furter’s castle – like a perfect stage show ensemble it seems. Maybe I’m distracted by Christopher Biggins every time watch it, making everyone else pass me by. I know you’re naturally supposed to side with Brad and Janet throughout the film but I honestly find Janet a little bit irritating (also not a fan of later behaviour!) but more importantly Dr Frank-N-Furter and his crew of Transylvanian Transvestites (yes, that is really what they’re called) have the better songs! For example, this film is home to what became a family party favourite in The Time Warp. I’ll be honest, the reason I keep coming back to this film is quite how amazing Tim Curry is – both as an actor and a singer. Now, I won’t pretend there aren’t little weird moments but some do make sense at the end however the one thing I’ve been able to work out is the relationship between Magenta and Riff Raff. I know they are referred to as brother and sister but is this really the case?
The Devil’s Carnival
Here’s a rarity – this musical is from exactly the same director as that of Repo! The Genetic Opera which in the beginning I was concerned that it was actually a sequel. You’ll be happy to know however, that it is not. I remember hearing about this for the first time back when I was an avid listener of Emilie Autumn’s music, the singer who plays The Painted Doll in this film. Strangely she only sings once, close to the end of the film, and we never hear her speak! There are also a lot of cross over actors in this film, including Terrence Rzudnick, Alex Vega (it’s crazy how much she’s grown up in 4 years) and Paul Servino. It might be because this film is only about an hour long, it feels a little bit rushed in comparison to the others in this article. This also means that it doesn’t feel much like a musical as even the songs are quite short, almost like a bunch of skits thrown together. Which would make more sense to me if this was had been made first but Repo! Actually came earlier.
Little Shop of Horrors
This may be either a well-known or little known fact but even though this is a film adaptation of an off-Broadway musical, it is also a remake of the 1960 film of the same name, directed by Roger Corman. The funny thing is, I knew the soundtrack to this film long before I was old enough to watch it for the first time and I don’t think there’ s a song that I don’t enjoy! Not only does this film have big actors in Rick Moranis and Steve Martin in main roles but there are also cameos made by several other stars including John Candy and Billy Murray – I would be here for a while if I mentioned them all by name! Once again, and I think this is saying more about me than the films maybe, the bad guy is actually my favourite character in the whole film but again, Audrey II does have the best songs! I’ve also recently seen the stage show and I don’t remember them noticeably having characters like Ronette, Crystal and Chiffon – who may remind people a little of the Muses in Disney’s Hercules. In a weird kind of way, considering they sing the opening and titular song, the girls work as harbingers for what is to come.
