Companion Viewing
"The Uninvited" (1944)
"The Beyond" (1981)
"Re-Animator" (1985)
In an era of fast food entertainment, “We Are Still Here” (opening June 25 at the Digital Gym Cinema) serves up a slow meal of haunted house horrors.
When a horror film calls itself “We Are Still Here” and is set in the dead of winter in an old house with a history — well, the tension begins before you even enter the house or the theater.
That’s just one of the smart things this film does. It understands that with the right set up a film can delay the scares but not lose the audience.
Writer-director Ted Geoghegan opens his film by introducing us to Anne (Barbara Crampton) and Paul Sacchetti (Andrew Sensenig) as they move into a new home and try to recover from the recent death of their son. The camera lingers down a hallway and just as a picture frame falls, the title “We Are Still Here” comes up. And with that, Geoghegan makes a promise and then delights in keeping it.
“We Are Still Here” is slow to reveal who’s still lurking in the house. We get a sly hint when Dave McCabe (Monte Markham) provides a creepy sort of welcoming committee and tells the couple it’s been 30 years since the house has had “fresh souls.” Fresh souls?!
As a horror fan your immediate reaction to that is RUN! Fresh souls means only one thing, there’s something hungry in that house. McCabe comes back later to intensify the sense of dread by recounting the history of the house, referred to it as the Dagmar House. He explains they ran a mortuary and were accused of selling the bodies and burying empty coffins. Perhaps even selling the bodies to “the Orientals in Boston for chop suey.” Then the locals ran them out of town. At least that’s what he says.
Later, McCabe reveals a little more to the audience when he says, “The Darkness under that house wakes up every 30 years like clockwork and it’s hungry. If it doesn’t get a new family this time. It’s going to swallow this town.”
OK, now we are really starting to slide to the edge of our seats.
Geoghegan then ratchets up the tension with an unnerving séance. Jacob (Larry Fessenden) tries to contact the spirit in the house, which he expects it to be Anne and Paul’s son. He speaks calmly, trying to welcome the spirit with love but without changing the calm sound of his voice he suddenly starts to talk about peeling off the skin from your bones. Wait a minute. What did he say?
That’s how Paul and the audience reacts. We do a double take because the shift in tone is so subtle that we almost don’t catch it. It is also devilishly effective.
That’s what makes “We Are Still Here” so good. It mixes stylish, subtle filmmaking with sudden gore effects to deliver a twisted take on the stale and anemic haunted house formula.
It has fun with horror conventions but without disrespecting the genre itself. It’s taking the horror seriously and it delivers a finely tuned tale of dread and terror.
It is also great to see the fabulous Barbara Crampton (of “Re-Animator” fame) in a good role. She makes Anne’s grief very real and moving, and that makes the story’s ultimate conclusion all the more effective.
It was also surprising to see Monte Markham (I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even know he was still making films), an actor who rose to fame on TV shows like “Mr. Deeds Goes To Town” and “The New Perry Mason” in the 1970s in the role of McCabe. He puts his nice guys demeanor to good use to cover his evil intentions.
Few things make me as happy as good horror, and I screamed with delight at every scare and turn this wicked ghost tale took.
It's a slow build but worth the wait.
“We Are Still Here” is unrated but for mature audiences. And for trivia fans, check out the cast and credits of Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond" for some connections.