Recess

I'd been hoping to continue my "What makes a slasher?" series, but I've been so so so mired in comic book deadlines that it's been difficult for me to do much else besides sling ink. I did take time out to watch a movie, though- 1981's Happy Birthday to Me , starring Melissa Sue Anderson and her extremely dry, damaged hair.

Anderson is Ginny, a member of the "Top Ten" students at prep school- they're the rich kids, the popular ones- and they all wear matching stripey scarves and black leather gloves. This serves to unite them in their coolness, because stripey scarves are cool.

The movie wastes no time getting to the goods as Top Tenner Bernadette is offed on her way to hang out with the gang at the pub. While starting her car, she's strangled by a black gloved hand that pops up from the back seat. In a move I've never before seen in one of these flicks, Bernadette plays dead. The killer loosens his grip for a moment and Bernadette runs out of the car. I am so adding that to my repertoire of moves! Now, my repertoire totals 1. Lest we think Bernadette is too smart, however, she doesn't exactly run away when she escapes the car. Instead, she runs about 50 feet away and stands there. The killer comes again...and she runs a bit further away. "Get the fuck outta there" is clearly not in her vocabulary. Then, a figure approaches that Bernadette takes to be a friend- "Oh, it's you- you have to help me!". But alas, out comes a straight razor and it's bye bye Bernie. So...now we know that the killer is a friend- and one of the Top Ten! Those gloves...those gloves! Any one of them could be the killer!

But...which one? At the pub, we meet the rest of the gang: there's Etienne- the exchange student, Rudi- the obnoxious one, the bland girlfriends, and Alfred- the nerdy taxidermy student. How he fits into the clique, I'm not really sure, but his course of study provides ample opportunity for the gang to make side-splitting puns along the lines of "Aw, stuff it, Arnold!" The Top Tenners are forced to leave the pub after they antagonize a bunch of Shriners so much that fisticuffs are threatened. When they all split, we get to see how cool they really are...the drawbridge down the road is going up, and they all jump the gap in their expensive cars. When the car Ginny's in goes over the gap, Ginny totally and completely flips out. We're talking hysterics, screaming, thrashing about...and when the car stops, she flees toward home- and a quick stop at her mother's graveside. Well, it was on the way, after all. While trimming the grass around the headstone, Ginny tells her mother not to worry- "They all like me now, mother...". Hmm. Whatever could she mean?

The next day in school, The Top Ten...well, Nine, now that Bernadette's gone...are all crammed next to each other at a lab table for science class. The professor gives a little electrical jolt to some severed frog legs. This not only causes the muscles in the legs to contract, but it also causes an extreme closeup on Ginny, as the screen turns red and the camera spins- flashback! Something something Virginia-as-guinea-pig something brain surgery something scientific mumbo jumbo something something salamanders have regenerative qualities so we'll use them on your brain tissue to help after the accident something WHAT?! OK, so Ginny's got some past issues that will be coming to light eventually. Pretty soon, everything is triggering a flashback for Ginny, from a scolding by the headmistress to someone telling Alfred that the prosthetic Bernadette head he made (yeah, you read that right) is sick...sick...sick...sick...sick...echo into grisly brain surgery scene!

Meanwhile, someone's still offing the cool kids. The exchange student gets his stripey scarf tossed into a spinning motorcycle wheel- while it's still around his neck. Face grinding yuckiness. Greg, the jock of the bunch, is doing the benchpress when a familiar figure comes in. Greg asks the figure to put more weight on the crossbar. As Greg struggles with the enormously heavy bar, the black gloved hands (gasp!) reach for a 25-pounder and drop it squarely on Greg's...err...Greg Jr. Greg drops the bar onto his neck, killing himself in splatty fashion. Bleargh.

It's not just the the matching outfits that lead us down many a red herring path; there's also the fact that all of these kids are just plain weird. They stare at each other vacantly, slightly menacingly, and say things like "I have a knife..." in a calm, creepy serial killer type voice. They make stuffed heads of each other and steal each other's undergarments. Pfft. Rich kids. The trickery is finally over and the killer is revealed when Ginny once again visits her mother's grave after dark. Uh oh, here comes Alfred sneaking up behind Ginny. As he reaches into his pocket to grab something, Ginny turns around and stabs him in the gut with her trimmers! What the...? Ginny? But Alfred...he was reaching for something...and when he falls dying, his hand slowly opens to reveal what he was reaching for. A single...white...rose. It is such a tragic and tender scene, I'm not lying when I tell you that I cried. OK, yes I am. But Ginny's the killer! Now...to the dance!

That's right- the dance. Ginny's dancing with Steve, the druggy Top Tenner, and she's acting awfully aggressively. She invites him back to her place- her dad's away on business, you see. He'll be back for her birthday on Sunday, but for now they have the house to themselves, and killin' just makes a gal so dang horny! They have a little wine in front of the fire and Ginny goes to fetch the snack: shish-ka-bobs. She starts feeding Steve chunks of meat- how romantic. The next thing you know, she's jammed the skewer right into the back of his mouth! Dead!

With the help of her shrink, Ginny finally pieces together her fractured memories to help the viewer understand what the hell is going on. Years ago, Ginny's mom planned a birthday party for her, to which all the rich kids were invited. No one showed- they all went to another party instead. This sends Ginny's mom into a drunken tizzy and she drags Ginny to the other party, only to be denied entry. It seems Ginny's mom had a bit of a reputation- she was the "Town Pump" as my grandmother would call her. No way would such trash be allowed to mingle with the Top Ten! Well, that tears it- Ginny and her mom get into the car, mom's driving drunk, the
drawbridge is going up...and into the drink goes the car. Ginny manages to escape, but mom doesn't.

Phew! To thank her doctor for helping her recover her memory, Ginny bludgeons him to death. What a freakin' nutter! Dad makes good on his promise to be home for Ginny's birthday and finds blood all over the house. He runs out to the cottage behind the house to find his dead wife's exhumed coffin...and his daughter Ginny throwing a corpse birthday party. Yup, all the rich kids who missed her party years ago are here now! They're dead, but they're there and that's what counts. Ginny thanks her father for coming and then kills him. She walks over to a party guest who's slumped over on the table and lifts the head to reveal...GINNY! Again, I say- what the?! In an attempt to have as many twists endings as possible (this movie is like porn for M. Night Shyamalan, I tell ya), Ginny the killer pulls off her face to reveal that she's really Ann, Ginny's friend and fellow Top Tenner. Where the fuck are Velma and Daphne at this point? Anyway, yes, it turns out that Ginny's slutty mom had slept with Ann's slutty dad, and hence Ginny was brought unto the world, which ruined Ann's family. Ann's been so pissed about it all this time that she murdered all these people to pin the blame on Ginny and ruin her life. Nyah! Well, they struggle, and Ginny stabs Ann dead. As her bad luck would have it, though, a cop walk in as Ginny stands amongst the bodies, holding a knife...zing! No one wins!

Happy Birthday to Me is a fair-to-middling slasher. It certainly made an attempt at originality with all those twists and turns, and it's got some very creative death scenes. I remember the death-by-shish-ka-bob from the pages of Fangoria way back when. It's certainly not scary, however, and there's something about it that's lackluster for all its originality. Overall, I'd give it 5 out of 10 matching stripey scarves.

Take Out Your Notebooks, Part II

What other benchmarks are there to help distinguish the slasher from other types of movies? Yesterday I touched on the folks donig all the slashin'- the killers. It seems logical to follow that up with a discussion about their tools of the trade- THE WEAPONS.

Take a guess how the genre got its name...go on, take a stab at it (nyuk nyuk). You got it, kids- the weapon of choice in these movies tends to be along the lines of a knife. Anything that can be used to stab or cut is fair game: razors, pitchforks, swords, corkscrews, drills, spears, hedgeclippers, you name it. Sure there's wild departures: in the Sleepaway Camp movies, for example, Angela uses everything from a lawnmower to an outhouse to dispatch the "deserving". Sometimes a killer has his or her "signature" weapon- where would Freddy Krueger be without his razor glove? And you can't separate Leatherface from his beloved, can you? Ah, a weirdo and his chainsaw. Even when something as random as a lawnmower is used, however, there's still somehow an intimacy to the killings. The killer and victim get right up close- chances are you won't see a gun or a stick of dynamite used to get the job done.

Despite the murder throughout the films, though, as Adam Rockoff points out in Going to Pieces (mentioned yesterday), slashers tend to be far less brutal than the average action film. Whereas Sylvester Stallone can gun down, slice up, and gut countless Vietcong baddies (Rambo) to audience cheers, the relative low body count of the average slasher is met with cries of "Depravity!". So what's the difference? Well, it's pretty much the "intimacy" I was talking about. The characters who get killed aren't merely faceless thugs, but rather they're men and women we've gotten to know throughout the movie. Whether we actually like them or not is another story entirely- I mean, who wasn't glad when whiny ol' Franklin got it in Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Sometimes we identify with these characters, sometimes we care about them- and that makes it seem juuuust a little more brutal and a little more shocking when they get the axe.

Out, out, damn Franklin!

Rockoff also notes the perceived phallic nature of stabbing a victim- of entering their body in a brutal and violent fashion without their permission. This metaphor is used to bolster the argument that slasher movies are not only hyperviolent, but also they're inherently sexist and demeaning to women. To paraphrase Freud, however...sometimes a knife is just a knife. The argument is also weakened when one tallies up the number of men dispatched in these movies. Even Michael Myers, who spends his time killing his "sister" over and over again, does away with a fella or a dog every now and then.

One movie that seems to want us to believe that a drill can be much
more than just a drill is Slumber Party Massacre. In this trashy flick written and directed by women (feminist-lesbian writer Rita Mae Brown and Roger Corman editor Amy Jones, respectively), the freshly-escaped-from-the-nuthouse killer uses a 2-odd-foot drill to kill off high school girls (as well as a few unfortunate males). Slumber Party Massacre walks a very strange line, zigzagging between parody, exploitation, and social commentary. The box art/one-sheet is a photo shot from behind the killer, waist-down, with said drill dangling between his legs. As he taunts our Final Girl with his drill in the climactic showdown, he creepily mutters some date-rape speak: "C'mon...you know you want it". She responds by "castrating" an inch or two from his drill's tip. Lest you think it's all an empowering, sly parable about rape, however, the movie also smacks of the stereotypical: there's just about more boob shots in SPM than found in most slashers. Rather than strictly pandering to the male audience, maybe it's all just a big fantasy for Rita Mae Brown herself. Watch the movie and ask yourself, just how many female handymen (handywomen?) can one town have?

Take Out Your Notebooks, Part I

Hey, what's this blog all about, anyway? What separates the "slasher" from any other horror movie? I was asked by a friend to define the genre...a movie about Jeffrey Dahmer would be about a psycho- would that be a slasher? No. In Midwest Obsession, Courtney Thorne-Smith goes after Tracey Gold with a knife, is that a slasher? As much as I love that movie, no, it's not. Yeah, you read that right- Midwest Obsession falls on the "good-bad" side of the "good-bad/bad-bad" line for me, as a majority of Lifetime movies do. How can you not love a movie where Ms. Thorne-Smith not only dresses like a member of Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation while attempting to dispatch Ms. Gold, but also utters classic lines such as "You may recognize me. I'm the Dairy Princess!"?!? Oops, sorry. Off on a tangent there. So...what makes a slasher a slasher?

A good place to start to learn about the genre is Adam Rockoff's excellent book, Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978-1986. Rockoff gives an overview of the slasher's heyday, and also provides plot synopses, stills, and background info on most of the films of the period. I'll use his book as a jumping-off point.

While inevitably there will be movies that straddle genres- heck, there's even rare movies that define a new genre- films defined as "slashers" tend to play by a certain set of rules and contain specific elements. Let's start with the most obvious: THE KILLER. As Rockoff puts it, the killer is

usually an ordinary person who has suffered some terrible-and sometimes not so terrible- trauma.

The trauma can be inflicted upon the killer or a family member, it matters not. Conveniently, these events tend to occur on a date easily remembered: see April Fool's Day, My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday to Me, Prom Night, Mother's Day...the list goes on. On the anniversary of this special day, the killer sets out to avenge him/herself or the family member done wrong by killing those responsible (as poor Kenny did to the ones who made him twirl around in Terror Train), symbolic representations of the guilty (Friday the 13th), or relatives of the perpetrators (A Nightmare on Elm Street). So you see, the killer isn't usually just some random psycho- he's a psycho with a vendetta. The biggest exception to this rule is of course Halloween, which strived very hard (and succeeded) in emphasizing that Michael Myers is ephemeral, almost supernatural. There's no explaining him- he's the boogeyman. The events that cause someone to become a killer are often shown in a prologue so we know the killer's motivations. To my mind, vengeance killing is alot less frightening than the "pure evil" of a boogeyman, but that's another essay entirely. Jason Voorhees has taken on some supernatural elements since his beginnings- indestructibility and re-generation, for example- but this stems from the success of his first film and thoughts of "franchise" more than anything else.

But what about gender? Aren't the killers always men who want to cut up pretty young women? Nope- not always. There are plenty of slashers with a female killer, such as Night School, Friday the 13th, Happy Birthday to Me, and Sleepaway Camp 2 & 3. Most often, the killer's gender is kept ambiguous- at times, such as in Friday the 13th, tricks are employed to point to a male killer: Mrs. Voorhees drove a truck, wore boots and flannel. Had she driven that truck to Lilith Fair, we might not have been so surprised when she turned out to be a she. But as it was, even when we finally saw her, we thought she was there to help! Shock, surprise! Sleepaway Camp Part 1 is another story altogether, however, when the she turns out to be a he...ah, good old Angela.

Now that we have a decent idea of just who's stalking in these movies and why, we can dig into other elements that make a slasher a slasher and not a Lifetime Movie. I'll continue on with the lesson in the next post. In the meantime, keep your eyes on your own paper, or else!

I can't see a damn thing!

Yet another flick on the remake chopping block is John Carpenter's 1980 ghost story, The Fog. Yep, it's slated for an October release and comes complete with the now-essential WB Fresh-Faced All-Star cast (Tom Welling of Smallville, Selma Blair of Hellboy). Now, I know I shouldn't knock it before it's out, and I won't...although I CANNOT HELP but point out that the man at the helm of this movie, director Rupert Wainwright, also brought us Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em: The Movie. I feel that was my duty. Other than that note, however, I will remain cautiously optimistic, even given my love for Carpenter's version. I swear. But...no Tom Atkins or Adrienne Barbeau...OK. That's it, I mean it this time. Would've been cool if they had cast Jamie Lee Curtis in the role her mother played in the original, just as a nod to geeks like me.

I'm actually more excited about Dark Horse Comics putting out a prequel comic, with input from Carpenter himself. Written by Dark Horse's editor-horror guru Scott Allie, it'll show the backstory to the curse over Antonio Bay, and how the fog got to be so durned nasty. With a cover by Hellboy maestro Mike Mignola, I'm all a-twitter. You can read more about the comic here, courtesy of Jen Contino and comicon.com's The Pulse.

While the original The Fog didn't thrill alot of people, I always found it to be an atmospheric, spooky ghost story with a strong EC comics-vibe...which is exactly what John Carpenter and the late Debra Hill intended. It'll be interesting to see how the story is told for today's audience. Will Mr. Wainwright keep with the quiet, dark atmosphere for the chills, or will be it more in line with what qualifies as horror today: jokes, nonchalance, and a heavy metal soundtrack? Moreover, will the audience get the shivers when, at the film's end, Stevie Wayne coos:

I don't know what happened to Antonio Bay tonight. Something came out of the fog and tried to destroy us. In one moment, it vanished. But if this has been anything but a nightmare, and if we don't wake up to find ourselves safe in our beds, it could come again. To the ships at sea who can hear my voice, look across the water, into the darkness. Look for the fog.

I'm back, I swear!

I hope you don't think I'm running out of steam for this blog already...because I'm not! I'm just a travelin' fool!

I spent the last 5 days on a big road trip down to Charlotte, NC for Heroes Con, a super-sweet comic book convention. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a huge comics fan, and I'm also trying to break into the comics business as an inker (I've got lots of upcoming projects I could blah blah blah about).

To keep this somewhat on topic, above is a sketch I got from the uber-amazing artist (and one of my favorites) Mike Ploog, whose work can be found in the 1970's classic Marvel horror comic Werewolf By Night, as well as Ghost Rider and Man-Thing. And while I haven't seen the Man-Thing movie yet (my kingdom for cable TV!), I've heard about it's wretchedness, and when asked, Mr. Ploog gave it a huge thumbs-down.

I had a great time at the con, met lots of people, bought lots of comics and art...and if the Man-Thing sketch isn't enough to tide you over until my next real post, here's a picture of my favorite movie psycho lurking behind a tree. Some camper is probably fornicating...Angela does not approve!

Terror wears many disguises...

...all of them deadly!

TERROR TRAIN! That's right, folks...today's viewing was 1980's Terror Train, starring Jamie Lee Curtis in what would be her last original slasher flick. 1980 was a big year for Curtis in the genre, as she also appeared in The Fog and Prom Night. Sigh...those were the days.

The movie opens during a New Year's Eve bonfire party, thrown by a bunch of wacky pre-med students. The nerdy, quiet Kenny is persuaded by some frat brothers to follow the super foxy popular girl Alana (Curtis) up to a private room for a little nookie. Oh, Kenny! Wake up! Think for a moment! Why would the foxy...aah, never mind. He's already up there, stripping down to his tightie whities. Alana's in the bed, it seems, beckoning him..."Come on, Kenny, don't be shy...it's my first time, too. Kiss me, Kenny!" We all know, however, that it's just a cruel joke- Alana's hiding behind a curtain (and we know she doesn't really want any part of this because she frowns alot whilst luring the nerd)...so who does Kenny climb into bed with? It's a limbless cadaver! EWWW! Ha ha on you, Kenny! All the frat boys enter the room and laugh and laugh...Alana looks concerned...and Kenny totally flips out. He stands on the bed, sort of shrieking, sort of going "uunnnnnhhhhh" while spinning around and getting all caught up in some gauzy material. They fried his brain! This can't be good. Don't they know that traumatic events like this make psycho revenge killers out of people? Didn't they see The Burning, or Prom Night? Guess not. Dumb med students.

Now it's three years later and all the people we met a moment ago are ready to climb aboard a train for a costumed New Year's/graduation (don't ask) party on board a steam locomotive. Yay! Party! In fact, the only person we don't see three years older is Kenny. Hmm...that's strange.

Over the next hour or so, the practical jokers get killed by someone wearing various masks. Who could it be? Could it be...David Copperfield? That's right, David Copperfield is on board the train as well, to provide some magic tricks for the kids- including a marvelous bit where he endlessly makes playing cards fall out of his sleeve while disco music blares. Personally, I would've preferred Doug Henning as "The Magician", but what're ya gonna do. Oh, and yes- he's called "The Magician". Not "Fantasmo the Amazing" or something cool...just "The Magician".

Anyway, Copperfield also wows the crowd by performing some weird synchronized tai chi with his "beautiful" assistant, then making her levitate and finally disappear. He also makes eyes at Alana, who seems to find him charming. How does he get all the girls? How did David Copperfield wind up with Claudia Schiffer, you wonder? Probably by using his old trick from this movie: asking "Do you believe in magic?", then making a red rose float in the air. Le sigh, le swoon.

When the bad pre-med students (hmm...the killer only seems to be killing the students involved with that practical joke three years ago...I wonder...) are just about all dispatched, Alana and Doc (such a clever name for a pre-med student!) get their Scooby on and figure it out...it's Kenny! You know how they figure it out? Doc has a copy of an old yearbook, and here's a full-page picture of Kenny performing magic tricks! He must be...The Magician! Nooooo! Oh, and by the way, Alana mentions that she went to visit Kenny in the loony bin after the whole bed-twirling incident, and man, was he damaged. She couldn't even see him, the doctors told her, because Kenny had killed someone way before the bed-twirling incident, so no visitors. That killing was probably just an accident...but dang, imagine how crazy he is NOW!

David Copperfield ends up quarantined and everyone feels much safer. I know I'd feel better if that maniac magician were locked away somewhere.

Alana tries to get some rest, but she feels uneasy...because the killer is now chasing her! Gasp, it's not David Copperfield! It's...the "beautiful" assistant. That's right, Kenny's revenge plan apparently included spending quite some time in drag as an apprentice to The Magician. Man, he really hated those pre-med jerks...or he liked the spangly dresses of a magician's assistant. Who can say.

Kenny and Alana battle it out a few times, Kenny pulls off his wig, and tells Alana to kiss him. Poor Kenny. He's so screwed up. Not knowing what else to do, Alana leans in and finally gives him a smooch. Kenny starts his spinning routine again, presumably not as a "Sound of Music" happy moment, but rather another freak-out moment. As he gets caught up in some fabric again (he really oughta watch where he's twirling), a train conductor bonks him on the back of the head with a shovel, and out the door he goes...

Kenny ends his days with a big splat on the snow covered ground, then gets washed away down an icy river. What a crazy kook.

Despite the unusual locale and the Jamie Lee Curtisness, Terror Train is just a bit above average for the genre. I'd say it warrants...mmm...6 and a half out of 10 floating red roses.

Choo choo!

Hey! That's that guy from that thing!

Well, first off, let me apologize for my few days's's's's absence. While an extended weekend getaway to New York may do wonders for the soul, it does none for the blogging, for I'm not technologically mobile. You'll be happy to know that I was thinking of Final Girl often, however, and scoured everywhere I could for movies...I came home with a bagful, and I'll be warming up the DVD and VCR right shortly. In the meantime, as I readjust to the midwestern pace o' life...

In the letter column of the new issue of Rue Morgue (read in the car during the loooong trip across Pennsylvania), a reader has an idea for a feature about actors who appeared in horror flicks before going on to become famous in the mainstream. Hmm. Not a bad idea. And so, without further ado, here are some faces you'll recognize in roles you may not have known they had:

This one most everybody knows about: Kevin Bacon as "Jack" in Friday the 13th. After makin' bacon (nyuk, nyuk!) with girlfriend Marcie, Jack lies back for a little relaxation and, in one of Tom Savini's best effects, gets a spear through his throat from someone hiding under the bed. Mr. Bacon has gone on to be separated by everyone in the entire world by a mere six degrees.

The Burning is an early slasher, long out of print in the US, that was the first movie for Oscar winner Holly Hunter ("Sophie"), Seinfeld alum Jason Alexander ("Dave"), and the man who almost became Mr. Michelle Pfeiffer, Fisher Stevens ("Woodstock"). This little movie also started the careers of uber-producers/Miramax dudes Harvey and Bob Weinstein (story/producer and editorial consultant, respectively). AND The Burning was also the one and only movie ever to feature James Van Verth, which has nothing to do with anything.

See George Clooney, before becoming one of People Magazine's 100 Most Awesome Wonderful Good Looking People You Really Ought to Care About, get offed (as "Oliver") in the first 15 or so minutes of Return to Horror High, aka The Poor Man's Scream.

Who's that "WWAR Assistant" in Halloween 2? Why yes, it's none other than a way-pre-Church Lady Dana Carvey.

Poor Jennifer Aniston. Seeing the last days of your dying marriage played out in the gossip rags can't be fun. Neither can thinking back to your first starring role ("Tory Reding"), when the film is Leprechaun. She does, however, get to spout such memorable lines as "That thing is a leprechaun and we've GOTTA figure out how to stop it!". Now if only 10 years ago she had cried "That thing is a mediocre sitcom and we've GOTTA figure out how to stop it!"...

By far my favorite early-in-the-career role goes to Cheers alum John Ratzenberger, in Motel Hell. As the "Drummer" in the band Ivan and the Terribles, Good ol' Cliffie ends up planted in the garden of the maniacal Farmer Vincent- soon to be ground up into some of Farmer Vincent's fritters and meat pies. There's nothing quite like seeing Ratzenberger (and the rest of the Terribles, for that matter) buried up to the neck, tongue protruding while he gets hypnotized by Vincent's trippy...uh, hypnosis machine thingy.

Do I need to mention Jamie Lee Curtis (Laurie Strode) in Halloween? I should hope not.

I loves me some Naomi Watts. She's a damn fine actress, in my opinion, and she's certainly paid her dues on the way to Mulholland Drive, having appeared not only in Children of the Corn IV ("Grace Rhodes"), but in Tank Girl. Shudder.

So for all of you wannabes out there who are trying to decide whether or not to sign on as "Girl Impaled on Dinner Fork" in Freddy vs Jason vs Dame Edna, just think...you could be the next Jennifer Aniston! Or the next James Van Verth! Well, scratch that last one. Hitch your wagon to a star!

Smarty Pants

Courtesy of Serena Whitney at joblo.com, we get a list of the Top 10 Dumbest Chick Victims, highlighting her choices for the most "brainless and helpless girls that inhabit" slasher movies. Ho hum.

Stupid victims are a given in these flicks, whether male or female. They're the ones who go off to "investigate" by themselves...who trip and fall down...who act so idiotically that the audience winds up yelling at the screen in protest. It's just one of many conventions and cliches in the genre. If everyone in these films acted rationally, if they calmly called the police or got in the car and drove away, well, who would be left for the killer to chase? I'm certainly not saying we shouldn't think outside the cliches every once in a while, but it seems pointless to be angry when they are put to use.

I will agree that there's stupid...and then there's stupid. There's hiding from the killer, and then there's hiding in the refrigerator. And so I have to agree with Ms. Whitney's number one choice, Patsy Pease in He Knows You're Alone. Yeah, hiding under the sheets is inexcusable, unless maybe you're not only alone, but also 3 years old. And then you could just close your eyes and the killer couldn't see you anyway.

But Linnea Quigley (#3- Silent Night, Deadly Night)? Who ever expected her to play the smart one? She's just there to provide some...err...titillation. By "titillation", I mean "boobs".

Judith O'Dea's "Barbara" in Night of the Living Dead (#2) is a strange character as she spends most of the movie in a stupor, never recovering from the shock of seeing her brother Johnny get killed by a zombie early on. It's not a completely unnatural way for a person to react to the situation, really. Not everyone snaps into action in the face of peril. I myself tend to either march in place, or simply sit down. Rather than being angry at the character, however, I grew attached to Barbara, and found her death at the hands of Zombie Johnny the most tragic death in the film. But come on, Ms. Whitney:

"Running away from someone trying to kill you in ridiculously high heels? Check."

Barbara kicks off those heels when they get in her way. That's why Ben gets her a pair of shoes from upstairs at the farmhouse! **end geek soapbox**

Since the "dumb victim" is such a staple of the genre, wouldn't it be more interesting to compile a list of the women in these films who buck the trend? What about the ones who use their brains and get away- sometimes even taking out the killer in the process? If the typical slasher girl makes Ms. Whitney "appalled and ashamed of (her) gender", then why not focus on the slasher girls who get it right? Here's a few, just off the top of my head:

Adrienne King - Friday the 13th
Adrienne keeps it together throughout the nightmare, and doesn't hesitate to cut off Betsy Palmer's matronly head in order to save herself.

Gaylen Ross - Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Lori Cardille - Day of the Dead
Director George Romero has said that he felt so guilty about making Barbara in NotLD so helpless that he wanted to make up for it in future films. These two characters do just that. Ross's Francine is calm, cool, and collected during the zombie invasion. She's pregnant, but tells her male counterparts she doesn't want any deferential treatment. She also demands they give her a gun so she can defend herself while they're gone. Cardille's Sarah is a sight to behold as she stands up to insane military men ("Yes sir! Fuck you, sir!") AND fights off encroaching zombie hordes. Mr. Romero, your sentence is commuted.

Marilyn Burns - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
She runs for help. She doesn't look for survivors. She jumps out of two windows to get away. In fact, she gets away from an entire family of psychos. Sure, it's evident at the film's end that she'll spend the rest of her life wandering the streets, pushing a shopping cart and wearing a winter coat in the summertime while giggling to herself, but hey. She jumped out two windows to get away!

Jamie Lee Curtis - Halloween
Amy Steel - Friday the 13th, Part 2
For my money, these two ladies are the ones I'd want to be with when the machete hits the fan. Curtis's Laurie Strode is resourceful under pressure- witness the coat hanger to Michael Myers's eye! The knitting needle to the neck! She's got good instincts- bang on the neighbor's windows and door! Send the kids off to get help! She even thinks of the little things, like turning off all the lights. I never woulda thought of that. Steele's Ginny is even more proactive. She hides from Jason, then pops out at him to kick him in the goodies. She fights him off with whatever she can find: a chair, a chainsaw, her fists and feet. And talk about resourceful: she dons Jason's mom's crusty old sweater and sweet talks the maniac into calming down long enough to hack him with a machete.

While these characters are examples of strong, smart women who can take care of themselves, I still want the Linnea Quigleys and the Patsy Peaseseseses. I myself am pretty useless in a panic situation, so I like a character I can feel superior to. That Laurie Strode- she thinks she's so big.

They thought they were alone...

MADMAN!!

This is a movie I missed during its original run, and saw for the first time a few months ago. With Joe Bob Briggs himself hailing it "One of the all-time drive-in movie classics", how could I go wrong?

Released in 1981 to cash in on the success of the previous year's hit Friday the 13th, Madman centers around the campgrounds at North Sea Cottages, a camp for "gifted children" (all 6 of them) and the horny counselors in their charge. It's the night before camp closes for the season, and everyone has trudged out into the woods for one last session around the fire.

The movie opens as counselor "TP" is singing a vague song about someone scaring somebody or something...I don't know. The sound quality was pretty bad, and I was still recovering from the shock of the movie opening with a song to understand all the words. Doesn't matter, though, because after TP has gotten his applause and taken a seat, we get the spoken-word version from the camp's head honcho, Max. He tells the spooky tale of a crazed farmer who enjoyed drinking, getting into bar fights (said farmer had his nose bitten off in one of those fights...now that's hardcore), and chopping his family up with an axe, though not necessarily in that order. When the townsfolk discovered the farmer's grisly handiwork, they strung him up a tree and hacked his face with an axe for some good ol' country justice. Upon returning the next day to cut the body down, however, the Justice Mob found the farmer gone. Now he stalks the woods, looking for heads to chop off and bodies to hang. Oh, and by the way, he lived in that farmhouse right over there! Don't say his name above a whisper, or he'll hear and come after you. His name? MADMAN MARZ! Upon hearing this, the obligatory annoying kid in the group- Richie- stands up and, in his best Arnold Horshack voice, yells "Marz! Hey Marz! We're over here! Come and get us!". Uh oh. I smell trouble...or is that Madman Marz? You see, you can smell the ripe old farmer coming when he's got you in his sights. It's the "smell of death", which I understand is remarkably similar to Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds.

I think we all know where this is going, yes? But the fun, dear reader, is in the getting there.

Our group very responsibly puts out the fire and heads back to the cabins. Richie, the last in line, looks up to see the silhouette of a very large man in a tree above, peering down- very creepy. But does Richie scream out? Does he point? Does he slap his own face Curly-style and say "Woob woob woob"? Nope. He remains behind while the others march off...he watches the figure climb down from the tree, and he follows it back to the dilapidated Marz farmhouse. Oh, Richie. You are a moron.

Back at camp no one notices that Richie's gone. Oh well. At least TP and Max are setting up a nice plot device for us- there's an axe deeply embedded in a tree stump that no one has ever been able to pull it out. In fact, there's a reward offered to the he-man who can extract this modern-day Excalibur! Our boys pull on the axe together to no avail. Max is willing to give up, but not TP- he can't stand losing. As TP still pulls on the axe and turns red from the effort, Max offers these words which should be printed on a daily inspirational calendar:

"Losing, winning, what's the difference? Play the game with a fair heart, and you'll always be able to look at yourself in a mirror. Play too hard to win, and you might not like what you become."

To this, TP replies heatedly, "You become a winner! That's what you become!" He smacks the stubborn axe handle and storms off. Future Little League Parents of the World, UNITE!

Out of a cabin door stumbles who I assume to be the camp's chef. He's got on a filthy apron, and he slides down the wall to pass out with an empty bottle of Southern Comfort resting on his belly. A counselor wakes him up and tells him to go do somthing or other somewhere dark...ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Victim Number One! It's a good thing, too, because from the looks of him, this guy would've done more harm to the kids with Ptomaine than Marz ever could with an axe. Are there no cleanliness standards at summer camps? Hmm, perhaps I've stumbled onto Madman's deeper message: a call for health inspection reform. Anyway, throat slice, squirting blood, blinking after death.

Back at the farmhouse, Richie is...well, what is Richie doing? He's just sort of hanging out. Marz enters, lights some candles, puts them out, and leaves again. Oookay. As he runs from the house though, we do finally get a decent look at him from the back. He's a big fat barefoot dude with damaged hair, wearing overalls. I'd steer clear of this guy, but our Richie decides to follow.

Now comes the moment we've all been waiting for- a little of that sweet sweet lovemaking. We've got body parts being de-clothed...and we know one of them is TP when the oversized "TP" beltbuckle gets unfastened. The chicky-poo is Betsy, who at this point we assume will be our "final girl". Through the whole movie, I kept thinking, "Well dang if'n that Betsy don't look like Gaylen Ross from Dawn of the Dead," but no matter how many times I checked the DVD box (and yes, I was stupid enough to check it multiple times), she was listed as Alexis Dubin. So, I eventually checked http://www.imdb.com and Gaylen and Alexis are, in fact, one and the same. Forgive me if I was the last to know. OK, now, back to the nookie. We've got our nude lovers in the hot tub now, and they're....on opposite sides, twirling around and around the tub, while we listen to an entire song that sounds like a reject from Time Life's Singers and Songwriters series.

"Please, let your feelings throoooough...tell me what you knoooooow!"

Finally, after the second verse, TP n' Betsy lock eyes, smile, approach each other, and get on with it. By "it", I mean "the sex". As they fog up the windows, we get a glimpse of them through Marz-O-Vision as he stands outside watching, breathing like Darth Vader. Marzie like da nekkid!

Now we get a few random scenes: Richie is still lost in the fucking woods, a female counselor is sitting in a rowboat playing the recorder, Marz pulls the axe out of the stump with one hand and a grunt- the man deserves that reward money! At long last, despite the haze of post-connubial bliss, TP notices that Richie never came back from the fireside chat- so off he goes, alone, to find him. TP makes his way back to the fire site and scans the bushes with his flashlight. Here we get a nice little scare from Marz, peeking out from the shrubbery. Finally we get to see what his face looks like- he's badly in need of a nose, an eye, and an Alberto VO5 Hot Oil Treatment, though not necessarily in that order. TP, however, thinks it's Richie behind the bushes, and goes to get him. When he discovers no one behind the bush, our brave counselor stands looking around...then his face changes expression from "Where's that Richie? I'm worried!" to "Who cut one?" TP, the stench of Marz is upon thee! He gets a noose around the neck and he's dragged and strung up a tree. Marz, surveying his own handiwork, says "Brammllrrr" and splits.

Yo, Marz- we've still got 4 more counselors to dispatch, plus our Final Girl to deal with! Get on with it, man! Here are the untimely ends of the remaining counselors, in order. These are, however, names I assigned them during the movie, not the actual character names.

• WEIRDO: head chopped off by axe while looking for TP.
• CURLY SUE: head chopped off by hood of truck while looking for Weirdo.
• Yes, I said head chopped off by hood of truck.
• JOHN OATES: umm, I'm not exactly sure how he died. Marz held him aloft, and then...broken back, maybe? At any rate. he died while looking for Weirdo and Curly Sue.
• FRIZZ POP: Let's talk about Frizz Pop...

She accompanies John Oates on his search. She sees him die. She takes off running back to camp. She is screaming and yelling. Marz is in hot pursuit...oh no, wait. He's going back to the farm house. Then suddenly we see Richie stand up, covered with dirt. Apparently he had been napping in the bushes. He...decides to follow Marz to the farmhouse again. By "Camp for Gifted Children", did they really mean "Camp for Stupid Fucking Idiot Children"? As Richie waits by a tree, Marz goes by again, back towards camp. You know, that crazy ol' farmer'd save himself a whole messa time if he'd simply do all his errands at once. Anyway, Richie goes into the house, down to the basement, where he sees Marz's special Dead Body Party. Richie is shocked and appalled, and he opens his mouth to prove it.

OK. Frizz Pop is now back at camp, whimpering and whining like a petulant 3-year-old. Marz, I beg you- please get rid of this one quickly. Oh good, here he comes. Frizz Pop hides...in the refrigerator. Hold on, I need to type that again.

Frizz Pop hides in the refrigerator.

She finally shuts up, and it's all quiet everywhere...so she leaves her hiding spot right away. HACK! Axe to the chest. So long, Frizzie.

Meanwhile, Betsy is finally growing concerned that she's the only adult left. She heads outside to take a look around, and sees Frizz Pop's dead body through a window. Betsy runs to a phone- the phone here actually still works- and calls...not the police, but Max, who's off at a card game somewhere. Dear lord. Betsy, think, woman! Despite the fact that Max is now on the way, she decides to round up the kids and leave. She grabs a shotgun off the wall and sets out to kiddie wrangle. There's a strange moment when Betsy walks by a cabin window and suddenly Frizz Pop jumps up- is she still alive? Was she thrown against the window? No matter, because Betsy blows her head off.

To sum up the next sequence: Kids on bus. Bus actually runs. Marz attacks bus (heh, "Marz attacks"). Betsy no shoot Marz- hit him fingers with stick. Marz run away like big baby.

At this point, would you leave the campground? Yes. Yes, you would. But Betsy sees Marz carrying Frizz Pop's body off, and decides to look for survivors. Sigh. The kids drive off to safety. Betsy makes her way to the farmhouse. After a struggle with Marz, she ends up on a meathook. Yes, the movie's one true surprise: they've killed the final girl. But not before she utters "Son of a-" and stabs Marz in the back with a knife we didn't know she had. The oafish farmer knocks over a candle, the hay ignites (I know it's a farmhouse, but keep your hay in the barn, idiot)...

...and we cut to Richie stumbling out onto the road, into Max's headlight beams. He's flipped his wig, and can only utter, "Madman Marz...he's real." Well, no shit, Richie. You followed him around all night! Max should've just run you over. Cue music, the end.

Because we never saw whether Marz died in the fire or escaped, we can assume the filmmakers were hoping for a sequel. According to the DVD liner notes, Madman is based on an urban Legend called The Kropsy Maniac. Info on this is very scarce, though, so if anyone out there has heard the tale, then...

Please, let your feelings throoooough...tell me what you knoooooow!

This movie was a little slow, but enjoyable with a few eerie shots as well as some laughable moments. Lots of blood, decent effects. According to the credits, there was a song in there somewhere called "Destructofunk". I wonder if it's the theme song, which has been stuck in my head for two days now. But was it a classic? Oh, Joe Bob. Let's just say I'd give it 6 out of 10 oversized monogrammed beltbuckles.

That WAS the boogeyman, wasn't it?

Do you like to see people cut into bits? Are you crazy? Why do you want to watch such reprehensible garbage?

These are some typical responses I get when I tell people I like horror movies. They're so low-brow, that to enjoy them surely I must be a simple idjit or a raving psychopath myself. Add to that, slashers are certainly the lowest rung on the genre's ladder. Even horrormeister John Carpenter admits,

"If you direct my kind of pictures, you are kind of a ghettoized guy anyway. Horror directors are a little above pornographers. Just a hair." (Fangoria, June 2000)

I'll admit that sometimes these movies can be a little hard to defend. So what, if anything, is admirable about these movies? What do I get out of them?

Like I said in yesterday's post, I like scary stuff. When I was a kid, lying in bed I wondered if Jason Voorhees could climb up the outside of our house and get in my second storey window. This speculation would keep me awake for hours, and would give me quite a little adrenaline rush- I hated the butterflies in my stomach and also looked forward to getting them. For me, that feeling is still the big draw to these movies. While I can ferociously admire the work of Tom Savini and company, I'm not a gorehound. While people obviously will die during the course of a slasher, I personally don't get off on watching people be slaughtered or tortured. In fact, that's a major misconception about the genre- prolonged agony of the victims is usually scarce in these movies. Death generally comes quickly, if bloody.

These are the movies that got furthest under my skin and terrified me- more than Christopher Lee did as Dracula, more than any of Boris Karloff's thousand faces ever could. On a side note, however, a whole "new" genre is doing a decent job of getting under my skin: these new-fangled "J-Horror" flicks (that's Japanese horror to the uninformed among us). These movies have shown me that ghosts can be scary. Really, really scary. I've always thought seeing a ghost would be sweet, and I used to be disappointed when I'd go somewhere supposedly haunted and come out seeing squat (note, I said used to be). If a ghost is badly behaved, after all, it's just because it's become lost on its journey to the other side, right? Isn't that what the little lady in Poltergeist told Craig T Nelson? Help a brotha ghost out, he'll be gone quicker than Bette Midler's sitcom. That image of ghosts- that just as every hooker has a heart of gold, every ghost has a heart like Casper- was shattered when the weird kid in The Ring turned to Naomi Watts and said, "You didn't help her, did you?". What the fuck?! Samara was pure evil? Oh. Oh no. That's not playing by the rules. That's not cool at all.

So where was I? Oh yeah, professing my love. You see, as much as I enjoy the well-made slashers (yes, there is such a thing), the ones that might even provide a fright or two, I also enjoy the so-bad-they're-funny ones. Like any other genre, horror has its classics and its crap. As Halloween is to Halloween 5, Citizen Kane is to Glitter.

So let's shut up and talk about 'em now, shall we?

...and introducing Stacie as your ship's blogger

Here it is, just what the internet needed...

One. More. Blog.

I've found my niche and I'm running with it, though, dammit.

Why "Final Girl"? Well, it's the term used to describe the last survivor of the killer's deadly rampage: the good girl, the heroine, the one who gets away. Think Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, Adrienne King in Friday the 13th, or Heather Langenkamp in A Nightmare on Elm Street...almost.

You see, I grew up with horror movies. My parents loved 'em. For some reason they never saw fit to get a babysitter, and so I tagged along to the drive-in no matter what was playing. I found that Friday the 13th Part 2 didn't give me nightmares, but rather gave me a thrill- I soon discovered a love for being just plain scared. After lights out, I'd get out of bed and approach my window, thinking "Wouldn't it be scary if the backyard was full of zombies?"- and then I'd dare to peek outside. I'd pour over issues of Fangoria magazine and Famous Monsters of Filmland (I wanted to see Motel Hell soooo bad after reading the Fangoria feature on it...). I was riveted every Saturday to WLVI Channel 56's Creature Double Feature.

Yup, I was big into horror and being scared. And to quote one Ronnie McDonnie, I've never stopped...err...lovin' it.

And so I'm dipping my toe into the horror blogosphere, to talk about the movies I loved most growing up: slashers. I have no idea where this blog will go, but I look forward to sharing those movies and whatever else I discover with you, dear reader.

I mean, wouldn't it be scary to have a backyard full of zombies?

AfterEllen Archive

Take Back the Knife is my monthly column on women and horror at AfterEllen.com.

1. The making of In Satan's Closet
2. Revisiting High Tension
3. Horror Movies for the Holidays
4. Women You Love in Movies You Don't
5. Drive Angry review/Amber Heard retrospective
   

meet...THE BLOGGENAIRES!

If you own a horror blog and you'd like to become a Bloggenaire, click here to behold the secrets therein.

1. Tim Lucas, Video WatchBlog
2. Arbogast on Film
3. Zach Shildwachter, Z for Zombies
4. Sarah James, Scare Sarah
5. Corey, Evil on Two Legs
6. Joel Harley, Porkhead's Horror Review Hole
7. Andre Dumas, The Horror Digest
8. Nate Yapp, Classic Horror
9. Cortez the Killer, Planet of Terror
10. Casey Criswell, Cinema Fromage
11. The Mike, From Midnight, With Love
12. Emily Intravia, The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense
13. Max Cheney Considine, The Drunken Severed Head
14. Iloz Zoc, Zombo's Closet of Horror
15. Tim Grant, Post-Mortem Depression
16. Amanda by Night, Made for TV Mayhem
17. Craig Moorhead, Your Guignol is Grand
    

Friday the 13th Victims of the Week!

1. Fox, Part 3
2. Maddy, Part 7
3. Annie, Part One (1980)
4. Banana Girl, Part 4
5. Ethel Hubbard, Part V
   

so i made a movie

Shannon Lark and I like making movies together. If you'd like to read about our moviemaking adventures, then get your click on!

LUDLOW

part one
part two
part three
part four
part five
part six
part seven

VOYEUR

part one
part two
part three
part four
part five

LIP STICK

part one
part two

would you like to know more?

Oh, come on now Charles Nelson Reilly. Someone out there may be interested in learning more about me, even if it's only my mom. I'm simply providing a place where these people can click their way to knowledge!

Email: stacieponder at gmail dot com.

Other stuff (art, mostly): my personal website.

See #2 below for more about "electronic mail".

A few things:

1. If you have no idea who I am (and I don't expect that you do, should, or would–I mean that in a "this is your first time on the site" kind of way), I am a writer and artist best known, perhaps, for my love of pizza. I've written for Rue Morgue Magazine, AMC TV, AfterEllen.com, Bloody-Disgusting, Real Simple, Pretty-Scary, Sirens of Cinema, and more. 
2. I got your email, and I definitely appreciated it. That's not even a lie, I did. I thought it was really nice. Unless it was hate mail, in which case I thought it was NOT really nice and I'm not sure why you felt the need to send it, but still. I got it. I get quite a few emails, though, and I'm generally super bad at writing people back, even people I for sure know in real life- so this is a blanket apology if you don't hear back from me. This might help you understand, or at least it's an excuse.
3. On link trading: that's nice and again, it's appreciated, but I just don't do "link swaps". If you want to draw attention to your site, sure, send me an email. If I like it and end up visiting it a lot, I'll link to you, should ever I remember to update my link list. But otherwise? I just don't do "link swaps". Sorry.
4. Video games are great.

Here are a few select interviews I've done throughout the ages, with a little hint as to the general subject matter. Some are pretty old, but I've included them as Historical Curiosities. Hooray!

• TCM 's Movie Morlocks (2012) - slasher movies and more. PART ONE / PART TWO
• Peaches Christ (2011) - Ludlow and...everything
• Friday Screen Test (2007) - movies, movies, movies. RIP, DVD Panache
• Strange Kids Club (2010) - me me me

LUDLOW

In April 2009 I wrote, shot, and edited a film titled Ludlow, starring Shannon Lark and Elissa Dowling.

Krista (Shannon Lark) leaves her boyfriend behind and drives to a rundown desert motel to await the arrival of her sister Maddy (Elissa Dowling). Broken and abused, Krista downs prescription pills and cheap vodka to forget her troubled past. As she sits alone in the motel room, her grip on reality lessens until neither Krista nor the viewer can tell what's real and what's not.

Click to visit Ludlow's IMDb page.

**Ludlow is currently out of print. But it is available for download on Gumroad! CLICK THIS LINK!

TEASER TRAILER:





THE MAKING OF LUDLOW:

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five
• Part Six
• Part Seven
• Part Eight

REVIEWS:

• Slammed & Damned
• The Horror Digest
• Planet of Terror
• All Things Horror
• Senceless Pie
• Invasion of the B Movies
• The Montana Mancave Massacre
• Maynard's Horror Movie Diary

Ridiculous Faces of Death!

I'm sure as fine connoisseurs of horror you've all experienced this phenomena at one time or another: the Ridiculous Death Face. It occurs when the actor or actress portraying the hapless victim pulls...well, a mighty ridiculous face when they're being shown what for by the film's psycho.

Having never killed nor been killed in real life, I have no idea if people actually make faces like this when they're dying. Frankly, I don't want to know because that's a little morbid. Having never acted in a horror film, I don't know if the director tells these actors to...uh, emote this way or not. But when watching a movie, whether a good or bad one, whether I'm sucked into the action or not, these silly faces bring everything to a screeching halt, if only for a minute.

• Friday the 13th Part VII
• Halloween
• Devil Times Five: 1 / 2
• Frankenhooker
• Scanners
• The Hand
• Blood of Dracula
  

OMG! Name dropping!!

People I've talked to for one reason or another at one place or another. In a word:

INTERVIEWS

- 2007 Scream Awards

- Aaron Paul (Last House on the Left)

- Alex Reid (The Descent)

- Derek Mears, Marcus Nispel, Damian Shannon, Mark Swift (Friday the 13th 2009)

- Elvira (needs no effing introduction)

- Guinevere Turner (American Psycho)

- Kristen Kerr (Flight of the Living Dead): part 1 / part 2

- Lena Headey (300, The Cave): part 1 / part 2

- Marilyn Burns (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre)

- Michelle Lee (Trailer Park of Terror)

- My Mom (me)

- Natassia Malthe (Skinwalkers, BloodRayne 2)

- Rob Zombie (Halloween, The Devil's Rejects): part 1 / part 2

- Scott Thomas (director, Flight of the Living Dead)

- Shauna MacDonald (The Descent, The Descent 2)

- Shawnee Smith (Saw I-MCMXVII)

- The cast of Bitch Slap: Erin Cummings, Julia Voth, America Olivo, and Zoe Bell

- Zane Grant (We Will Bury You)

I Heart...

Whether they're good, bad, or somewhere in between, I heart these movies. I heart them and I feel no guilt about it!

• April Fool's Day
• House on Haunted Hill
• My Bloody Valentine
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
• The Fog
• The Convent
• Wrong Turn
• Black Christmas
• The Amityville Horror
• Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II