I'm dreaming of a...

Here I am, rock you like a hurricane. I've freshly returned from Dark Xmas, the little horror con in Warren, OH, and oh, the sights I have seen.

Firstly, let me just state upfront that I have got to be the biggest tool on the entire planet. Shocking, yes, but true. "But Stacie, " you say, "This is not possible. You DEFINE cool and cutting edge, what with your 'Charles Nelson Reilly' this and your 'I love Halloween III' that. What is this "tool" of which you speak? You must mean 'tool of wicked awesome'!" Alas, I just mean "tool". You see, the reason I left Final Girl waiting out in the cold all last week is because I was working on a mini-comic to sell at the con. I finished it Friday night- all the stapling and whatnot, and I felt so...so... indy! I was ready to rock the socks off the people of Warren, Ohio...I was imagining myself standing atop the table, books in hand, people at my feet, their dollar bills thrust high in the air- like I was a stripper on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange or something. Pure. Mini-comic. Magic.

I left my house early on Saturday, so psyched and ready, man- ready! The three-hour drive went by like it was three minutes. I pulled into the parking lot of the host hotel, and thought to myself- "OK, iPod goes in suitcase in trunk. Here's my wallet...now where'd I put the boooooooo----------------".

Instant panic. My cheeks caught fire as I remembered that I hadn't put the books anywhere. They were still sitting in a bag on my living room floor.

So this meant that all my hard work would go unworshipped by the people of Warren...and also that I was going to be sitting at a table with my pal Dirk Manning with nothing to do for two days. See? TOOL! Like Dirk pointed out, I'll just have plenty of copies of They Won't Stay Dead! for the upcoming Mid-Ohio-Con. Small consolation, but consolation nonetheless. I guess.

But enough of this sad, sad story! Onto Dark Xmas! What wonders did the Comfort Inn hold this weekend? Well...umm...hmm. These shows never really turn out the way you expect them to, now do they? It was a nice little show and all, don't get me wrong, but it was not a buyer's convention. I was actually pretty pissed when I realized how little there was to buy. I fully expected to come home with some new flicks to review, but it was not to be. I did, however, pick up a most righteous autographed picture of Christopher Lee as Dracula. I don't normally buy autographed photos, or even care about them, but it's Christopher Lee. As Dracula. And it was cheap.

The tables at the con were manned mostly by basement horror movie directors selling their wares. No offense to anyone, as I'm a basement director myself, but come on. The fact that I have iMovie and a video camera doesn't make me a fucking auteur who should be selling my videos for $20. If you're at my house, I'm gonna make you watch 'em, but I wouldn't try to make you buy them. Unless you were drunk.

Tom Savini was in attendance, but he seemed really cranky every time I walked by and I totally wimped out. He was the only person I wanted to meet, but I knew I'd just get up to his table and say something stupid and make him even more cranky. He may just have been bored- like I said, the show was a little...quiet. By "quiet", I mean "a little better than completely dead".

Now, onto the highlight reel:

*There was Sid Haig of House of 1000 Corpses wearing a bib that read "Born to Suck Titty".

*The promo model dancing atop her table, with or without spectators, to Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" at various times over the weekend. Whenever she started the music, this guy in a wheelchair made a beeline for the front row, right up against her table. Like the sign behind the table said- Promo Models Rule!!

*The female stormtrooper slyly attempting to adjust her codpiece.

*Harvey Pekar's nerd friend Toby was there on Saturday, and he really, really is a nerd. Really.

*The dude walking around who had a bottle of beer and a cigarette...he had nowhere to put the cigarette out, so he held his bottle between his teeth and rubbed the cigarette out on his palm. I hope to be that tough and badass someday.

*Can you see what kind of a weekend I had?

Saturday night Dirk decided to go hobnob with the drunken masses after the con, whereas I was happy simply to go back to the hotel- drunken masses just aren't really my thing (nor Dirk's, to be fair, but he wanted to pimp Nightmare World. Of course, he ended up falling asleep in his car, but that's another story.). Imagine my glee when I tuned in to the very beginning of the roaches-gone-crazy flick They Crawl and these words appeared on the screen:

with

Tone Loc

and

Mickey Rourke

Clearly, I made the right choice by staying behind. But oh, 'lil Stacie sure was tired, the bed sure was comfy, and the movie sure was awful. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was a shot of computer-animated cockroaches crawling out of a big pile of white rice or something. I remember thinking "Shouldn't the rice move?" because the roaches were just kind of...appearing on top of the pile. Then it was off to Slumberland. I never even got to see Tone Loc.

Warren has its fair share of "Oriental Sauna Health Spa"s, bars, and churches. What I liked about the churches was that they each put a snappy little saying on their signs outside...like "Every day is a gift from God...that's why it's the present" and "Poverty of purpose is worse than poverty of purse". What I liked about the Oriental Sauna Health Spas was the term "health spa".

There you have it. I don't mean to really paint the show in a bad light- it was certainly amusing. We met some really cool people, and I had a blast hanging out with Dirk. I was definitely let down by the lack of crap to buy, but maybe that's just me. Apparently next year's Dark Xmas will feature Elvira and Linda Blair as guests- that oughta liven things up a bit. And I really, really hope to remember my fucking books next time. Tool.

Promo models rule!!

Fast and Cheap

Well, all my little babies...I've got a deadline this week so my bloggin' be light.

Perhaps you'll forgive me if I tell you that I need to get stuff done for my upcoming appearance here. That's right, folks, I'll be frontin' and maxin' at Dark Xmas in Warren, OH this weekend, bustin' some moves with my pal Aaron Weisbrod (he of the critically acclaimed Nightmare World comics)...there's gonna be lots of other great guests, too, so if you're in the area, stop by and see us. I promise not to drop any lame-ass hip-hop lingo. I've never done a horror con before, so it's all terribly exciting and I'm simply all a-twitter. Squeee!

In other news, gettin' the remake treatment is one of my favorite horror movies, George Romero's Day of the Dead. My head almost caught on fire upon hearing the news, but perhaps all is not lost. It's going to be directed by Steve Miner, the man at the helm of Friday the 13th Part 2 and Halloween H2O. His words in this article at fangoria.com gave me some hope:

"I’m sworn to secrecy on specifics, but this won’t just be a rehash of an old film,” he continues. “I’m a huge fan of George Romero and I wouldn’t insult his work by just copying his movie with a WB-friendly cast. But I can tell you this: There will be a military facility with soldiers, scientists and civilians, there will be a Bub and yes, there will be blood—lots of it. Like the original, this DAY will be rated R.".

Ahhhh. This old cynic's heart fills with joy at the prospect. This old cynic's mind thinks perhaps Mr. Miner will bring something fresh to the remake, to make it worthwhile. This old cynic's fervent wish is for Mr. Miner to coax Amy Steel into appearing in another one of his films. Like this old cynic's old cynical grandmother says, however, you can "wish in one hand and shit in the other".

Tune in tomorrow for more exciting adventures of This Old Cynic.

It's Her Party, and She'll Kill You If She Wants To

Oh, Night of the Demons. You sure are a pretty terrible movie, and I tried so very hard to hate you, but I just couldn't. I don't know what kind of spell you cast over me, and I'll be embarrassed when people find out about us...but I can no longer hide our love.

Wha? Oh, uh...yeah...hi there! So...Night of the Demons, the 1988 flick directed by Kevin Tenney, starring everyone's favorite B-movie scream-n-show-yer- boobs queen, Linnea Quigley. Uh huh. You caught me, reader...I saw it for the first time last night, and I liked it. Lawd help me, I liked it!

10 obnoxious teens- well, 9 teens and Ms. Quigley, who's actually quite a bit older than the rest-gather together in Hull House, a disused mortuary, for a Halloween party. During the party, Angela (Mimi Kinkade) decides they should all try to do a "past lives seance". Angela's the school weirdo, you see, and is thus tapped in to all things supernatural. Is she a witch? Maybe, but you should just think of her as a pre-goth Goth. Anyway, during the seance, everyone in the room must sit facing a mirror and stare at Angela's reflection, concentrating very hard. The mirror will turn black, and then everyone will see a vision of what Angela was in a past life. Well, everyone stares...the mirror turns black...there's a vision of a monster that looks like the offspring of a giant praying mantis and Fin Fang Foom...and the mirror breaks. That's never a good sign...but I am so trying this at my next slumber party! When the mirror breaks, a green cloud starts floating around, noises abound, and it gets really cold in the room. Is Hull House haunted? Not quite, explains Angela. The noise, the stink, and the chill can only mean one thing...Hull House is possessed. What's the difference, you ask? Did you even know a house could be possessed? Me either. But you see, in a haunted house, the spirits are simply those of dead people, wandering around. In a possessed house, the spirits have never been alive- they are demons! Still doesn't make much sense, right? No matter, because that's all the explanation you will get for anything in this movie.

Suzanne (Linnea Quigley), the all-pink clad boy crazy bimbo in the group, inadvertently sucks in some of the green smoke and gets all grody-looking and possessed. She's now a crazed demon, hell-bent on killing her friends. What's that? Was that Evil Dead I heard rolling in its grave? You betcha!Well, just about everyone ends up possessed, either by getting attacked or...kissed. Some live, some die, and there's a whole lotta chasin' going on.

So just what is it I liked about this movie? It's alot of fun, for starters. Tons of 80s cheesiness, and not a lick of sense. The characters are total stereotypes, we don't care about any of them, and the acting was so bad throughout that I often wondered if it was terrible on purpose. In fact, right from the animated title sequence- which I really dug- I wasn't sure just how firmly in cheek this movie had its tongue planted. The makeup effects are pretty stellar throughout, though, I have to admit. The demons are appropriately nasty looking, and once Linnea Quigley gets topless (shocking, I know), she does something with a tube of lipstick that really just needs to be seen to be believed. And you know, sometimes even the worst movie can sneak up and surprise you with an effective scene. There's a really creepy sequence with a possessed Angela, dressed in her black bridal gown, floating down a hallway toward the viewer that just knocked me out. Maybe I'm easy, but it was a great shot in a bad movie.I guess I'm not the only person who had a good time watching it- Night of the Demons has spawned 2 sequels. If you're looking for some completely brainless 80s fun (and I do mean brainless), look no further. And if you like it, I won't tell on you, I swear. I give it 6 and a half out of 10 prostehetic Linnea Quigley boobs.

Saturday Night's Alright For Pimpin'

For those of you out there who like a lil' scary comic book action, lemme guide you over to Silver Bullet Comic Books website, which has got a sweet preview of the upcoming Digital Webbing Presents #27.

The issue is chock full of all kinds of good stuff, including Zombie Highway, which has got some inks by yours truly. Writer/creator Jason Pell talks a bit about the story:

“’Zombie Highway, despite the name, has never been about zombies for me,” explains Pell. I'm much more interested in the people that live in that nutty world.”

“This installment features Mr. Maple, an undertaker before the zombies occupied the world. Little has changed in his mind, except perhaps the dead need a little more aggressive persuasion to stay in the ground. And if lives are lost, then that's just more business. Maple is not evil, but lives completely, uncompromisingly in the gray.”

Also included in the issue is Sack-'em-up Gentlemen, written by Kevin Melrose of Dark, But Shining fame. Sayeth Mr. Melrose:

In Great Britain of the early 19th century, medical schools had to compete for a limited number of executed criminals to dissect. As the number of medical students climbed, so did the demand for cadavers -- to the point that schools and individuals sometimes paid body snatchers to procure corpses. Occasionally, desperate students would even find their own cadavers.

“In the story, two students stake out a village cemetery, waiting for the right corpse, to further their education, of course. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones with a keen interest in the recently departed,” explains Melrose. “’Sack-'em-Up Gentleman’ combines 19th century history and elements of Cornish and Breton folklore, two of my geekish hobbies.”

The issue's also got zombie hunters and aliens...oh my! So check it out- and I'll be back tomorrow to talk about movies, I swear.

from Zombie Highway, pencils by Derek Laufman, inks by me, colors by Kieran Oats

Location, Location, Location

In keeping with the topic I re-introduced yesterday, I give you the next element of the slasher film: the setting.

Because the characters in these films are most often teenagers (so is the audience, predominately), the location is usually in accordance: the mall (The Initiation), college (The House on Sorority Row, Black Christmas), high school (Graduation Day) and of course...summer camp (Friday the 13th, The Burning, Sleepaway Camp). In fact, a majority of the Friday the 13th films feature one of the most well-known horror movie locations: Camp Crystal Lake.

While slashers can obviously take place anywhere, they are most often set somewhere remote or isolated. The less isolated the spot, the easier it is for people to get away- and that would ruin all the fun. Still, it's a take-it-on-faith situation for the audience, because in a majority of these films, the characters could get away if they really tried. In Halloween, when Laurie Strode's knocks go unanswered at one house, why didn't she keep trying? On occasion, the location itself does prevent escape: in Terror Train, for example, the teen revellers are on...a train. In April Fool's Day, everyone's trapped on an island. Despite the title, Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is set largely on a boat. It's only in the final act that finds Jason loose on the streets of New York City.

And what of this? What about slashers that take place largely in urban settings? Given the need for isolation as a plot device, the big city setting seems to go against logic. Films like F13 VIII, Night School, and Maniac work largely because they rely on the perceived indifference and anonymity afforded one in the city. The victim may be surrounded by thousands of people, but none of them will go out of their way to help. It's not that far-fetched...I remember the "Death Rides the 6!" headline on the front page of the New York Post. A man died in his seat on the subway, but everyone around assumed he was just sleeping so he rode the rails all day.

Just because a location may be familiar to the film characters, don't expect the intimate knowledge to always give them a leg up on the killer. Sometimes characters can use the setting to their advantage- think of Nancy's booby-trapped house in A Nightmare on Elm Street. But more often the killer will know all the shortcuts and ins-and-outs that the victims know, and he'll still get 'em! That's movie magic for ya!

These silly movies can even have an effect on perceptions of locations in the real world. Sure, Jaws had audiences freaked out about hitting the beach...Psycho changed the way people felt about the shower...but who hasn't almost immediately thought of "ki ki ki ma ma ma" when in the woods after seeing Friday the 13th?

Dust Off Your Notebooks, Part 1

Way back in July, when I was but a wee lass, I began a series of posts you could call Slashers 101, intended to be a little primer on what it takes to make a slasher a "slasher" and not...umm...something else.

Part One deals mainly with the killer. What makes Jason Voorhees a slasher maniac while the dude from Cobra- the guy who uses a knife, the guy who Cobra takes down!- is just a run-of-the-mill crazy guy? PS- I loves me some Cobra.

Part Two is about the weapons employed by said killers.

I got that far, and then I got crazy busy with other stuff and I disappeared into the ether for a while.But now seems like as good a time as any to pick it up again, eh? All right then...

Next up is the slasher hallmark that can either turn you on or turn your stomach: gore, or to use a more general term, special effects. Most folks tend to cite Herschell Gordon Lewis's Blood Feast(1963) as the flick that started the trend towards the disgusting in on-screen horror. The art of makeup and effects had advanced from the days of neck bolts on the monster in Frankenstein (1931) to the realistic portrayal of dismemberment in Lewis's extravagoreza (I just made that word up). The boundaries were beginning to be expanded to discover just how far one could go with movie violence- why stop at a simple spot of blood on the shirt when you can actually see the blade entering the chest?

For bringing explicit gore to the slasher film, the world has one man to thank- Tom Savini. While his effects work was already garnering attention (such as Dawn of the Dead in 1978), it was Savini's work in 1980's Friday the 13th that changed the face of the slasher. Just two years earlier, in Halloween, John Carpenter gave the industry one of the earliest slashers, and there's barely a drop of blood to be seen. But from the moment hitchhiker Annie's throat is cut to the decapitation of Mrs. Voorhees (and those clutching hands!), there's not much you don't see in Friday the 13th as the counselors of Camp Crystal Lake are slaughtered one by one. Again, it's the intimacy of the killing that's remarkable. At times, it's still difficult to figure out just how Savini works his magic- I'm thinking particularly of the scene that finds Kevin Bacon smoking a post-coital joint in bed. As he lies there, an arrow head comes up from under the bed through his throat- and damn if it doesn't still look 100% real to this day. There's no cutaway. There's no computer graphics. There's just amazing- if bloody- makeup effects.

Sure, there are other names in the special effects canon: Rick Baker (whose efforts in 1981's An American Werewolf in London garnered him the first Oscar awarded for Best Makeup), Stan Winston (Terminator, Wrong Turn), Rob Bottin (John Carpenter's The Thing)...all geniuses in their own right. The realm of the slasher, however, is ruled by Savini. There's too many memorable moments to list comprehensively, but when I think back to scenes like Jason's unmasked face sliding down the machete at the end of Friday the 13th Part 4, well, I can't help but wonder where Savini's Oscar is. Love the gore or hate it, you can't help but shake your head in wonder...or nausea.

There are certainly slasher films that are virtually, if not completely, gore-free, as I noted earlier with the mention of Halloween. For MY dollar, these can be the scariest, most effective examples of the genre. Subtlety can go a long, long way. Without a doubt, however, on-screen blood-n-guts are a staple for the slasher. Just ask Jason Voorhees.

The Post-Game Show

You take the good, you take the bad...you take 'em both and there you have- SHOCKTOBER! Poof- just like that, it's over. Wow, I didn't have to watch a movie today! How odd. Something arrived via Netflix this afternoon and I didn't even open it. Strangely, I felt restrained by my new freedom...I didn't know what to do with myself, so I played Star Wars: Battlefront 2 all day because I am a big nerd.

What can I say about this month, this experiment in insanity? All in all it was a lot of fun- I saw some movies that will be added to my list of favorites. I saw some movies that should be jettisoned directly into the sun. I've listed the movies I watched, in order from the best to the worst, with links to the reviews...'cause that's just how I am. Let's see how they stack up.
The Brood- 9.5/10
American Gothic- 8.5/10
Phone- 8.5/10
Once Upon a Frightmare- 8.5/10
Alice, Sweet Alice- 8/10
The House on Sorority Row- 8/10
The Sentinel- 8/10
Night School- 8/10
Pumpkinhead- 8/10
Dead & Buried- 7.5/10
Hide & Go Shriek- 7.5/10
He Knows You're Alone- 7/10
Night of the Living Dead '90- 7/10
Stepfather 2- 7/10
Ring 2- 7/10
Body Bags- 6.5/10
The Prowler- 6.5/10
Of Unknown Origin- 6.5/10
Demons- 6/10
Fade to Black- 5.5/10
Raw Meat- 5.5/10
The Final Terror- 5/10
Alone in the Dark- 5/10
Toolbox Murders- 5/10
The Boogeyman- 4/10
Graduation Day- 2.75/10
Miner's Massacre- 2/10
Girls Nite Out- 1.5/10

And of course, the marathons o' madness:
Friday the 13th
F13-1
F13-2
F13-3
F13-4
F13-5
F13-6
F13-7
F13-8
Jason Goes to Hell
Jason X
Freddy vs Jason

Halloween
H-1
H-2
H-3
H-4
H-5
H-6
H2O
Halloween: Resurrection

Looking back, I think I'd probably rate most of them about the same. Some have aged well in the passing weeks...was Graduation Day really that bad? Some, however, have not: fuck Fade to Black. Surprisingly few bombs in the bunch! Good for me. Now, onto the awards ceremony! Please hold all applause until the end.

Movie that kicked my ass the hardest: The Brood! Man, if there's one thing I take away from this month, it will be a love for this movie. I can't say enough good things about it, and I hope to add it to my permanent collection soon. "Permanent collection"...see? Nerd.

Person I saw the most onscreen during the month: Donald Pleasence. He's in 5 out of 8 Halloween movies, as well as Raw Meat and Alone in the Dark. It was like he aged right before my very eyes!

Person I saw the most OF onscreen during this month: Too many young women to name. Many, many a boob was spotted, and sometimes even more. Tee hee hee! Nakedness makes me giggle!

Best moments: Need I mention my beloved football-with-a-sword- attached from Graduation Day? There's the exploding titles and hockey masks from various Friday the 13th movies. From Part 8, Jason Takes Manhattan, of course, there's the killing someone by punching their head clean off. The laser shooting the woman in the face in Halloween III. Lugosi Zombie from Night of the Living Dead.

Reaffirmed Infinite Love: I still really, really love Friday the 13th and F13 Part 2. My only wish for this month is that there had been more Amy Steel horror movies to discover. Halloween...oh yeah. Although that "My Paul...I can no longer stall..." song that Annie sings always gets stuck in my head. Just like right now.

Movie I loved way more than I remembered: Halloween III: Season of the Witch. As good/bad as it gets.

Most disturbing visual: It's a toss-up...the evil snowsuit-clad dwarves in The Brood...the legs-behind-the-head trick by Carol Levy from Alone in the Dark...or Beverly D'Angelo's self-lovin' through the leotard in The Sentinel.

Best comment: Courtesy of Brennon Slattery: "Linda Hamilton can chomp on my sac.".

Most infuriating: Yes, the great majority of the Friday the 13th sequels are absolute poo. But it took them until the 9th sequel (Jason Goes to Hell) to fuck themselves over as badly as Halloween managed in the 4th (The Return of Michael Myers). But I kinda liked that movie. It was Part 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers that pushed me dangerously close to the edge of insanity. I can't remember the scene exactly, as I've begun to purge the movie from my brain, but it may have been while Michael Myers was chasing his niece in a car that caused me (as Rachael reminded me today) to pause the tape...and blink back tears of rage. It was late, my ass was getting numb, I still had so many more movies to watch...I wasn't crying, but I was so pissed off at the movie that my eyes welled up. Had they actually spilled out, they would've turned to steam at the first touch of my flaming-hot cheeks. After the tears were gone, I think I had some ice cream. Yes, the movie practically turned me into a fucking Golden Girl- I needed sweets to cope. Oh and the death of Laurie Strode from Halloween: Resurrection? Don't get me started- don't even get me started!

Everything is blending together...needles-to-the-eye, heads in toilets, body parts chopped, drills in heads, bad acting, bare behinds, blood coming out the mouth...it's like a celluloid Chunky Soup in my brain. Well, not at all like that, because that doesn't make any sense. It's like an amazing technicolor dreamboat or coat or...gah.

As much as I've enjoyed myself this month, it's nice to have the gotta watch a movie pressure off. The problem is, now I have to think of new stuff to write about! My crutch is gone! But don't worry, my little babies, even though Shocktober is over, a new day dawns...let's all link pinks, make a caring circle, and shout out a huzzah!

Incidentally, thanks to everyone who's been reading and who's stuck around. You truly have rocked my face off.

364 more days til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...Silver Shamrock!

Day 31- Somewhere, A Fat Lady Sings...

So here we are, the last day, the last movie of Shocktober! I had hoped to go out with a bang, but it's more like going out with a "OK, I saw that.".

As you can see from the box art here, the last movie in my month-long frenzy is Alone in the Dark (1982), and no, it has absolutely nothing to do with the film of the same name starring America's favorite slattern, Tara Reid.

"The Haven", a new-agey, feel-good kinda mental hospital gets a new doctor, Dan Potter (Dwight Schultz) to replace Dr. Barkin, who took a job elsewhere. Along with Dr. Potter we meet the head of the facility, Dr. Leo Bain (Donald Pleasence), who's the pot-smoking touchy-feely type, who prefers to call his patients "voyagers"- they're just on a trip, man, dig? Everyone's got their own trip. Some of the "voyagers" Potter will be overseeing are the Men of the 3rd Floor- the most dangerous men in the hospital. We've got Frank (Jack Palance)- who really, really hates it when people call him "asshole", the Preacher (Martin Landau)- who likes to quote scripture about vengeance and set churches on fire, Fatty (Erland van Lidth)- a child rapist who's...umm...really fat, and Skaggs (Phillip Clark)-AKA "The Bleeder", who gets nosebleeds when he strangles people to death.

The only things separating these cuckoo wackos from the outside world is a door, held shut by the powers of...electricity! Dr. Bain feels locks are so cruel, man! These dudes aren't prisoners, man, they're voyagers! I'm OK, you're homicidal and insane, but still OK. So what happens when the town experiences a blackout and the doors to The Haven open? Hint: the Fab Four doesn't sit around playing Uno by candlelight.

Frank's schizophrenic delusions cause him to believe that Dr. Potter actually killed the beloved Dr. Barkin, and that's why he's taken Barkin's place. Thus, The Men of the 3rd Floor set out for some good old-timey revenge on Potter and family.

From here it becomes a house-under-siege flick, with Dr. Potter, his wife, daughter, sister, and some guy she met holed up inside, fending off the maniacs one by one. Who will live? Who will die? Who will save the day?

This isn't a bad movie, but it's not terribly effective in the fright department, either. There's the whiff of camp in the air, as if the film isn't taking itself too seriously, and that dooms it to Grade B status- not that that's a bad thing necessarily. Believe it or not, Landau chews up the scenery more than Palance does. I thought for sure this film was made in the 70s, what with the pot-smoking, the Valium, the nuclear power protests, the touchy-feely doctor and all. Pleasence is great as Dr. Bain- he insists his "voyagers" are just misunderstood right up to the end. He tries to talk the Preacher out of doing any more damage with lines like "Let's explore some feelings! Try and see what I'm about!", and my favorite: "Get back into your space!", at which point the Preacher slices off Bain's ear.

The most horrifying thing about Alone in the Dark is without a doubt one of the bonus features on the DVD: an interview with actress Carol Levy, who played "Bunky" the babysitter. That's Bunky up there on the bed with the knife sticking up in a sinister fashion. It's a good scene, I'll admit,- the killer hiding under the bed, pokin' at ya, pokin' at ya. But it's maybe ten minutes long- the interview with Levy is much longer and far more apt to give you nightmares. She talks extensively about all the work she'd done in commercials before she got the part in this movie- commercials for toothpaste and feminine hygiene products. We get to hear all about the shooting of a Playtex Tampons commercial, then a little about Alone in the Dark- I mean there's not much for her to say on the subject, since she was only in 2 scenes. Then we listen to tales about her post-acting career in real estate. Which she LOVES! She just loves it. But she'll return to the screen if it's a good enough offer. Apparently she did a soda commercial recently- she got the call because she was just right for the part, and she'd love to show us all what that means. So she does this:

And then she reiterates how much she loves being a real estate agent.

If you're looking for some Grade B fun, this could scratch your itch. And who ISN'T looking for a film with Martin Landau and Jack Palance as homicidal mental patients? I give it 5 out of 10 tragic, contorting real estate agents.

And that's it for Shocktober! Time flies when you're watching horror movies. I'll have my big post-game show tomorrow. Until then...Happy Halloween!

Day 30- Ewwwwww

Tonight's movie was Demons (1985), a collaboration from Italian horrormeisters Dario Argento (co-writer) and Lamberto Bava (co-writer, director). Like most Italian horror, the plot is secondary to the gore and needn't make much sense. Here we've got a movie that delivers the gross by the bucketful, along with a fine, driving mid-80s soundtrack and some genuine scares.

A man wearing a strange half-mask hands out invitations to the opening of a new movie theatre. The crowd consists of the usual types you'd see at a theatre: college students, young couples, old couples, and umm...a blind guy. There's some props set up in the theatre lobby- a dirtbike, a sword, and an evil-looking mask. Rick James looky-likey Rosemary (Geretta Giancarlo) puts on the mask for a laugh and when she takes it off, the inside of the mask cuts her cheek- and it won't stop bleeding. That's what she gets for horsing around.

When the lights go down, the audience is treated to a horror movie. On the screen, we watch as two young couples explore the grounds of an old, spooky cemetery. They discover the tomb of Nostradamus and some of his writings, foretelling demons who will walk the earth as instruments of evil: "They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tombs". They also find a mask that looks just like the one Rosemary tried on in the lobby. Eyaahhhh! A character puts it on, gets a cut on his cheek, and is soon transformed into a bloodthirsty demon- guess what's gonna happen to Rosemary? Yup- events in the theatre mirror events on the screen! In the ladies room, Rosemary undergoes a hideous transformation which includes popping boils and alot of liquids coming out of various places on her face. Get scratched or bitten by a demon, and you become one, and soon enough the theatre is overrun. The gore throughout is unbelievable and stomach turning, whether it's torn flesh, popping sores, oozing liquids, a demon bursting through someone's back, teeth falling out as they're repaced by fangs...you name it, it's here and it's really, really gross.The audience members that remain human can't get out of the theatre- the doors they came in earlier are now, somehow, just fakes, and the entrances are all bricked up. But fear not! For a group of punks, all coked up and on the run from the cops, find a way INTO the theatre- and thus the demons find a way out. Our two survivors George and Cheryl (Urbano Barberini and Natasha Hovey) don't need to search for a way out, however. They're saved by a deus ex machina in the form of a helicopter that suddenly crashes through the roof, landing in the theatre. Conveniently, it also has a grappling gun and winch, which George and Cheryl use to hoist themselves onto the roof to safety.

The entire city has already been overrun by the demons, though, so their only hope is to get out of town...

The film was Dario Argento's attempt at finding success on American shores, as is evidenced by the soundtrack featuring Billy Idol, Motley Crue, Accept, and err...Go West. If you can deal with the gore (and MAN there's alot of it), Demons is a fun, sometimes scary movie. The demons themselves can be frightening, along the lines of Cheryl in Evil Dead- but alot more wet. The shots of them (and their eerie glowing eyes) emerging from the darkness are fantastic- these monsters are like Romero zombies on crack. There's even a few quieter sequences that are quite effective- like the scene with the two teens trying to escape through an air vent, only to hear the scratching of a demon's nails as it comes up behind them. If you prefer over-the-top effects and action to a coherent plot, give it a try...on an empty stomach. I give it 6 out of 10 strings of mint green demon drool.

OK, this is the last post in my big Halloween marathon, so if you're just tuning in, scroll all the way down to the beginning and start reading from there!

Halloween: Resurrection...or, Stacie Gets To Go To Sleep

No.

No no no no no no no no no. No no no nonononononononoNO! NO!

I flat-out 100% refuse to acknowledge this. I refuse to accept that what happens in the first 15 minute of this movie is the way the story of my beloved Laurie Strode ends. Nope. Not gonna believe it. Hey, if Hollywood can literally pretend that Parts 4, 5, and 6 never happened (And boy, are they. I guess they can be considered like 3 issues of "What If?" comics from Marvel. What if...Michael had a niece?) then I can pretend that Laurie really did chop off Michael's head at the end of H2O. She lived to a ripe old age, and spent the rest of her life in a well-adjusted, care-free fashion, just like she deserved. And that's that.

It's too bad, too, because if I were to acknowledge Resurrection's existence, I might comment that it was silly and occasionally over-the-top, like maybe there was a cussin', karate-choppin Busta Rhymes in it. I might even say that despite the silliness I enjoyed it. But nope. After the first few scenes, I decided that I had in fact fallen asleep after H2O and was simply having a strange computer monitor-laden dream brought on by all the movies I'd watched earlier.

Halloween: Resurrection, I stick my middle finger up at thee! How dare you kill Laurie! I'll never forgive you, Busta Rhymes or no Busta Rhymes. In fact, I stick both my middle fingers up at thee...and now I go to bed.

See? Even Michael Myers is all tuckered out after his long long day of killing...and driving...and killing...and...It's 2am, but it's really kinda 3am- but then we set the clocks back a hour for Daylight Savings. Wow- 8 Halloween movies in about 16 hours. It's kinda like Groundhog Day, but...it's Halloween. Or something. I'm tired and my ass won't go anywhere near my couch anymore. Nighty night!

Halloween H2O...or, Laurie Goes Nuts

OK, we get the franchise back into the hands of a director who knows how to make a horror movie (Steve Miner, who helmed Friday the 13th Part 2 and Part 3), and things get a little better. In fact, this movie just flat-out pretends that Halloween 4, 5, and 6 never existed- which is what I intend to do from now on.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) faked her own death years ago in order to go into hiding from her psychotic brother, Michael Myers. She's changed her name to "Keri Tate" and is the headmistress at a posh private school, where she lives with her 17-year-old son John (Josh Hartnett)who's a student at the school. Laurie...err, Keri...spends her days in a prescription drug-addled, boozed up state to cope with her demons, and folks, it ain't pretty. Michael, meanwhile, has tracked her down by searching through files kept at home by Nurse Meanie Smoker from Parts 1 and 2- the nurse who was driving the station wagon the night Michael escaped the asylum the first time. Nurse M. S. ends up dead, and Michael drives from Illinois to California to find his sister. He sure does like to drive.

Once he arrives at the school, he ends up killing only 2 students and a guidance counselor before he and Laurie have a showdown. Laurie really, really puts and end to things by beheading her brother- this makes me wonder why I still have a movie left to watch.

This entry isn't too bad, really, and it would be a good way to end the series (I'm talkin' to YOU, Hollywood!). I like the fact that Laurie is still coping with the events of Halloween night 20 years earlier- her reliance on meds and alcohol are very real. There's a few nice sequences that harken back to moments from the first two movies- the moments where Laurie sees Michael walking towards her and thinks it's a vision, so she keeps closing her eyes to make him go away...but he keeps coming...

The moment where the Myers siblings are face to face again after 20 years, looking at each other through the round window in the door is intense. And yet, the movie still can't recapture the magic of the original. Why is that? It's a really loud movie, very much of its era, the late 90s. The characters scream, they swear alot...and the music is driving and tends to dominate whenever it's playing. I missed the eerie, spare notes of John Carpenter's score. The biggest single factor, however, is that while ignoring all that psychic "Thorn" bullshit of 4, 5, and 6, a fatal mistake was made in Part 2 when it was revealed that Michael Myers was Laurie Strode's brother. Gone completely from the story was the idea of The Shape, of The Boogeyman, of the killer as pure, nameless evil. He's just someone's psychotic brother now, which makes him much more real and much less terrifying. He's not the thing of childhood legend who could be hiding in anyone's closet- he's Jeffrey Dahmer, another hour-long special on 20/20. Give me myth, not reality.

It's too bad Donald Pleasence wasn't still alive to bring back Dr. Loomis for some real closure- he just disappeared somehow at the end of Part 6. His character deserved a far better finish than that (and so did the audience). It was great to have Laurie Strode back, though, even if she was hepped up on goofballs the whole time.

One more to go...man, this marathon ain't nuthin' compared to the last one I did (back in the middle of this month...you can hunt around in the archives, if you want. I'm far too lazy right now to post links). Only 8 movies? Pfft. Oh, and despite wht it says below, it's really 12:52am.

Part 6- The Curse of Michael Myers...or, The Curse of Filmmakers Who Try To Explain Everything That Should Remain Unexplained

So Jamie Lloyd is all grown up now. The movie starts with her giving birth in a dungeon and then...and then...and...sorry, it's...hard to type...through...my tears...

...Tommy Doyle from Part 1 is back and is really weird...
...there are more Strodes in the world...
...Thorn? Runes...
...no..please...don't try to explain Michael Myers...please...
...shock jock....
...exploding head...
...druids...people in black robes...what the...
...diving out a window...
...Michael Myers is so short and unimposing...and he has a gut...
...what the hell happened at the end?...
...better than part 5 but still...so...terrible...
...Thorn?...

...help me, Jamie Lee Curtis...you're my only hope....

Part 5- The Revenge of Michael Myers...or, Stacie Goes Insane

OK, let me say right off that I may not be able to control my language in this post, so if you think you may potentially be offended, please look away. I went through about 16 stages of fury to reach a place of cold, cold loneliness while watching this film. When it ended, I was curled up in a fetal position, asking for it to just please...please...stop.

The short of it: Michael Myers did NOT die at the end of Part 4, and is continuing his search for his niece Jamie so he can kill her.

Now. A few questions and comments for you.

So when he fell in the big hole at the end of Part 4, he ended up floating down a river...floating down a fucking river? Hint: psychos floating downriver are NOT scary. It would've been better if they sent him on a fucking tubin' trip.

What's up with the mask? It's not remotely similar to any other mask he's worn, and it's got so much hair he looks like a fucking pasty-faced troll doll half the time.

Since we were treated to the fine Sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) in the original movie, the Haddonfield police force is so awful that they now employ some bumbling, jokey Keystone Kop idiots who are accompanied by a soundtrack of bells, whistles, boings, and other clown music? You've gotta be fucking kidding me. They would've been bad enough alone, but there just HAD to be that ridiculous music playing that made me so mad I punched myself in the face twice. Well, I wanted to, anyway.

Jamie is now psychically linked to Michael? That's why she attacked her stepmom at the end of Part 4? Because she was possessed? What a cowardly cop-out for what they could've done with the character of Jamie.

Please...PLEASE...I beg all of you aspiring filmmakers out there...or anyone currently making films...do not- I repeat, DO NOT create a character that is "wacky". And certainly do not make him or her the longest-lasting character in the movie. I will put a pox on your house so fucking fast...here we had Tina (Wendy Kaplan), who we know is zany and wacky because she not only tells us repeatedly, but she wears clothes with zebra stripes. I spent so much time begging Michael Myers to put an end to her, I could feel my blood pressure rising by the second.

So what's with Michael's friggin' jailhouse tattoo and the fucking Midnight Cowboy dude with a matching tattoo who follows him around all movie and then blows up the jail at the end so Michael can escape?

Michael Myers chases Jamie in a car. HE CHASES JAMIE IN A CAR. THROUGH A CHRISTMAS TREE FARM.

Dr. Loomis (who is practically as indestructible as Michael Myers) keeps luring Michael back "home"...but is it me, or was it NOT THE FUCKING MYERS HOUSE? It had a fucking turret.
So Jamie stops Michael fom killing her by calling him Uncle Boogeyman? At which point a tear rolls down Michael's cheek? My eyes were filled with tears of hatred and anger, and they burned...they burrrrrrned....

I spent the 90 or so minutes of this movie filled with pizza and rage. The world better pray...pray, I tells ya...that Part 6 is better.

Part 4- The Return of Michael Myers

Alright, well, if they really felt they HAD to bring poor Michael back one more time, I guess this isn't the worst they could've done.

The whole "didn't Myers and Loomis explode at the end of Part 2?!" thing is solved pretty easily- "They both nearly burned to death!". Ahh, good enough for me. Now it's 10 years after the tragic events in Haddonfield, and Michael Myers is being transferred from one asylum to another. In the back of the ambulance, one of the paramedics oh so foolishly lets it slip that Myers has a niece living in Haddonfield. This makes Michael so pissed off that not only does he clutch the gurney sheets in a fury, he kills everyone inside the ambulance and heads off in search of his niece! And he doesn't just kill the paramedics, either- he umm..inserts his fingers into the head of one of them like it was a bowling ball. Not the easy way, through the eyes and mouth, either- I'm talking directly through the skull. I guess he spent some time with a Fingers of Steel videotape.

Where did this niece come from, you ask? Well, apparently Laurie Strode got married and had a daughter, Jamie (played by Danielle Harris, who is just so cute I want to put her on a keychain or something). Laurie and hubby are now dead, so Jamie is living with a foster family. Dr. Loomis is back, too, hot on Michael's trail, knowing he'll find Jamie soon enough. Michael does find her, and chaos and dead bodies ensue. At the end, Michael is shot up real good and falls into...some kind of...big hole or something. Loomis and everyone assumes he's dead. Then in a lovely twist, it seems young Jamie will be picking up where Uncle Michael left off...

I've actually never seen parts 4-6, nor Resurrection, so at least I've got some surprises tonight. The first being, this movie wasn't so bad! I really liked the end scene, with Jamie in the clown costume holding the bloody scissors. The rest certainly can't hold a candle to the original (and Michael's mask just doesn't look right), but it certainly could've been worse. It coulda been scarier, too, but we can't have it all, now, can we? What I WILL have right now, however, is some pizza and Part 5!

Halloween III- Season of the Witch- one of these things is not like the others...

This 1983 movie doesn't feature maniac Michael Myers at all...unless you count the fact that Halloween is playing on some background televisions. Outrageous! But...

Don't be hatin'. This movie rocks, and you know it does. You know it. Oh sure, everyone hates it, right? Well, it's like Marty McKee said in the comments from a few posts ago...this is one glorious bad movie. I give you Exhibit A:
Tom Atkins. Do you need more than that? Well? Do ya, punk? OK, fine. This movie about an evil toymaker who plans to kill children on Halloween night via rigged masks and television signals ALSO contains:

-Nancy Loomis. She's listed as Nancy Kyes, and yeah, it's a very small part, but...Nancy Loomis.

-Super-strong robot dudes in grey suits that kill people by crushing their skulls- or ripping their heads off- and then set themselves on fire.

-Exploding Stonehenge parts.

-An exploding factory, on some of the worst blue screen effects I've ever seen.

-A woman who gets shot in the face with a laser...and the grossness that follows.

-The kid whose face...umm, melts inside the mask after the commercial- and all those snakes and bugs inexplicably come pouring out.

-This movie is gross gross gross!

-It has a downer ending where the hero doesn't save the day.

-It's got Tom Atkins, man! Come on now.

Trivia for you, because I care: Santa Mira, the home of Silver Shamrock Novelties in the movie, is also the setting for the original 1956 classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Yeah, Halloween III borrows heavily from that flick, as well as Alien and maybe even movies like The Stepford Wives. Yeah, it makes little sense. Sure, it doesn't belong in the same series with the rest of the Michael Myers saga. Yup, it's a bad movie- and I love it! And you know you do, too. It's OK- I won't tell.

Sing along now... "Happy happy Halloween...Silver Shamrock!"

Part 2- The One in the Hospital

If you're going to do a sequel, I think it's a nifty idea to set it directly after the events of the previous movie. Halloween 2 (1981) picks up exactly where the first film ended, with Michael Myers getting up after not only being shot 6 times by Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), but also falling from a 2nd story balcony. The Shape disappears in the night, and will almost immediately continue his bloody spree.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is taken to the hospital, where a majority of the film takes place. The problem with this setting is that it requires quite a bit of forgiveness on the part of the audience. A quiet neighborhood, we can accept easily. But a hospital with 1 patient, 1 doctor and 4 nurses? Hmm. Spending time wondering where everyone is means less time involved in the story.

While written once again by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, Halloween 2 was the directorial debut of Rick Rosenthal. It's not a terrible movie, and I've seen far worse movie sequels (in fact, I think I'll be seeing some later today...), but there's some shots lifted straight from the original flick to lesser effect here. Michael is much more a simple psycho killer here, despite Dr. Loomis laying it on pretty damn thick this time about what an inhuman monster he is. We know all about the killer at this point- there's not much mystery left to him. He doesn't stalk anymore, he's not "everywhere and nowhere"...he's just another killer on a rampage. The murders are beginning to get a little extravagant, as well...the nurse drowned in the boiling waters of the hot tub (which didn't burn Michael's hand because why...?) and the nurse who's had all of her blood drained come to mind.

This movie also introduces the concept of Laurie Strode as Michael's sister- apparently she was adopted by the Strode family after Michael was committed to the asylum. Yawwwwwn... To my mind, this completely diminishes the power of the Michael Myers character established in the first film. I thought he was "pure evil", without reason or any concept of meaning of life and death? Nope, he's just a guy who wants to kill his sister. The bloody writing of "SAMHAIN" on the blackboard at an elementary school is meant to give Michael some sort of official affiliation with the Devil, I guess, but it feel very tacked-on and pointless.

I remember liking this movie way back when I was a kid. It certainly scared me then, though now it more or less just invokes warm fuzzy memories. It's possible, too, that Halloween 2 was my first exposure to Night of the Living Dead, which is seen on a few televisions during the course of the film. There's still some parts of this that I really like- Michael walking right through the glass door of the hospital...the blood dripping from the eyes of his mask after Laurie shoots him, then Michael blindly slashing the air with the scalpel...and of course, of course, the cowboy walking the streets of Haddonfield, listening to the news on the giant boombox atop his shoulder. I wonder how this movie would've turned out had Carpenter directed it himself.

When Dr. Loomis blows himself and Michael up at the end, surely they're both undeniably dead, right? Hmm...how can I still have 6 movies left to watch? Snack time!

The Original 1978

Well, what can I say about this movie that hasn't been said a million times before? While it's not the first slasher, it's the one that brought the genre to the forefront. John Carpenter's $300,000 effort went on to become the most successful independent film of all time- until another horror movie, The Blair Witch Project, claimed the mantle 20 years later.

There's been talk of this film getting remade. The latest I've heard, however, is that Carpenter put a halt to that- which is good, because if he didn't, I might have had to. Had a remake made it to the screen, there's no telling what I would've done. There's a good chance I would've climbed the Empire State Building, King Kong style, and shot fireworks out of my balled-up fists. I would've pulled my hair out and thrown it at people...I'm tellin' ya, I would've gone on a rampage of explosive hate and pain like the world has never seen! You hear me, Hollywood? YOU HEAR ME? I'm talkin' to YOU!

Ahem. But really, what could a remake bring to the table? What would've been changed? Halloween has such style and atmosphere and firmly establishes its own mythology, I can't imagine what a new version would be like. The first half, if not the first two thirds, of this movie are build, and they just don't make 'em that way anymore. From the start, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) lets us know that Michael Myers is not human, and that he WILL be coming home to continue what he started the night he killed his sister 15 years earlier. Michael, even as a child, we're told has "the blackest eyes...the Devil's eyes. [He is] purely and simply evil.". He's the boogeyman of everyone's nightmares.

We're introduced to Michael very early on, and we know Loomis is right- Myers has returned to Haddonfield. He drives around, he stands behind bushes, appears and disappears in the blink of an eye...you get a heavy feeling of dread that lasts all the way until the credits roll. Michael's face isn't shown fully, isn't revealed, until he kills Annie (Nancy Loomis- where the hell has she gone?)- and then we see it through the fogged windows of the car. Carpenter is so adept at creating a spectre of a killer- it's what makes Michael Myers, to my mind, the most frightening of all movie maniacs.

John Carpenter and co-producer/co-writer, the late Debra Hill, made a "list of scares" before they set about writing the script, then they simply worked them into the story. There's so many fantastic, scary moments throughout that I could go on forever: hearing Michael breathing somewhere in the darkened kitchen while Bob gets his post-coital beer...the image of Annie, sprawled dead on the bed, with Judith Myers's headstone behind her and a lit jack-o-lantern beside her...Michael sitting up to turn and look at Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) after she thinks she's killed him...Michael slowly emerging from the darkness behind Laurie after she finds Annie's body...the movie just plain works. And it's all so simple- Carpenter uses an economy of shots and that soundtrack rather than excessive violence or gore to scare the audience. It lacks the obviousness and crassness of later slashers. What's more terrifying than the long distance shot of Michael simply carrying Annie's body into the house?

Like I said, I could blah blah blah all day about Halloween. It's one of my favorite movies, and no matter how many times I've seen it, it still gets to me. I felt my stomach tighten even this morning when Laurie was trying to get in the house ("The keys...the keeeeeysss!") and Michael was coming across the street toward her...but I've got 7 more of these damn things to get through, so I'll shut up now and start Part 2.

"It was the boogeyman, wasn't it?"

"As a matter of fact, it was."

Day 29- The Night He Came Home...Then Went Somewhere Else...

...then came home again...

OR, Here I Go Again, on my own.
As you can see from the photo, I'm ready to begin this Halloween marathon. I've got my coffee, my breakfast goulash...and I'm about to watch one of my favorite movies. Onward!

Day 28- Yarrr, Me Gold!

Umm. All right then.

In the last day, the traffic to my little blog has increased by approximately Alot%. I don't know how that happened, or why...does it have something to do with the trip I took through Mississippi last fall? The trip where I...uh..stopped here

and sold my soul to the Devil in return for more blog readers? 10 points to everyone who knows who else stopped at those very same crossroads and sold his soul...yup, I was right there where Robert Johnson met the Devil wayyy back in return for some mad guitar skillz, as these kids today might say. And there ain't even a dang plaque on the site.

Anyway, I'm glad so many people are stopping by here, and a big thanks to anyone who's linked to me or some such. Wicked awes (which is short for "awesome" and shows you how cool I am...I am, really, I swear...). Anyone who wants to talk horror movies, or has any recommendations or whatevs (see? cool.) is fine by me. However, I must give some pointers regarding how to make your stay at Final Girl a pleasant one:

1. If you email me, please don't use any Prince-speak. "U R a cool girl" is a nice sentiment, but R U Prince? See, I assume that if you type like him, then you must dress like him, and this forces me to think about crushed velvet, purple, assless pants and puffy shirts, which does not make me happy.

2. Emails asking if I've ever been naked, if I'm naked right now, or if I have any intention of possibly being naked at some point in the future are most UNwelcome. Please don't make me Hulk-out about this, because I may crush my mouse as I click the "delete" button. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry, and I'm not in the mood to spend money on a new mouse. And besides, I could look like Bea Arthur for all you know. I could be Bea Arthur, even. Except that I'm not.

3. If you like my blog, I urge you to check out the other horror-related blogs in the links to the right. They kick my ass all the time.

That's all. Now, onward...

Typing out all that stuff has allowed me to put off the inevitable...talking about today's movie, the 2003 blecchfest Miner's Massacre.

Sweet merciful crap, what a bad movie. Damn that Karen Black for being in it! I really have to stop assuming a movie will be OK because someone I like is listed on the box.

I had a sinking feeling about this one when the title came on the screen:

A computer animated pickaxe busts through a computer animated wall...what am I, Lara Croft? Should I pick up my controller? Cheese-o-rama. Cheesy can be good, as we all know, so there was a part of me that was hoping this would be added to the bad-but-I-love-it pantheon. But alas, it was just...bad.

The movie begins with a skeleton lying on a dirt floor somewhere...behind the skeleton is a table with 6 lit candles atop 6 skulls. Yikes! There's a pentagram on the wall! What will happen? I'll tell you what happens: suddenly some stuff flies through the air and lands on the skeleton. I couldn't tell if it was glitter, sparks, gold dust, or Rice Krispies, but whatever. The skeleton then fleshed out, was re-animated, and voila...here comes the evil 49er! He seemed very angry about something.

Cue the young folks that will get killed in the movie. I ask you, is there a problem these days with having characters that are interesting and likable in horror movies? To make it so we care when people get killed? Wouldn't that make for a more satisfying horror experience? I understand the "need" for that one jerky character whose death makes the audience happy- he sure gets what's coming to him! But why must ALL characters be jerks? It's always a group of "friends" who can't seem to stand each other, fighting and yelling, and I wonder why they hang out together at all. Here we've got the greedy yuppie, the bitch who hates the country, her stupid boyfriend, the couple with matching his-n-her frosted blonde tips...just the usual horror movie fodder.

The kids all set out for a long-abandoned mine in a ghost town because someone's brother found gold in them thar hills, so they're all going to cash in and be rich. "Ooh", you're thinking. "Abandoned mine...ghost town...how scary!". Guess again. There's no atmosphere whatsoever. The scariest thing in this movie is...umm...well, there's nothing scary in it. Everyone heads into the mine, where they find boxes full of gold. Gold nuggets...as well as gold chains and soup tureens. What, no crowns bedazzled with rubies? Gold chains? What, did they find Mr. T's secret stash or something? No, it's not his stuff- it belongs to the eeeeevil miner, who will come back from the dead and kill anyone who messes with it. Of course, the kids don't find this out until they start dying off. The curse is explained to us by Karen Black who seems to be channeling a coked-up version of Piper Laurie in Carrie. I loves me some Karen Black. Then there's a flashback featuring Jeff Conaway of Taxi.

I repeat: there's a flashback featuring Jeff Conaway of Taxi.

It seems the miner was a real bad dude when he was alive, a-rapin' and a-pillagin' and a-murderin' and a-claim jumpin'. After being shot up by an angry posse, the miner curses his gold and jumps into the mine, followed by some CGI black wispy things.

The only way to kill the miner, it seems, is to set him on fire. Because...umm...Hell is made of fire and that's where he's from or is supposed to go or something. Anyway, Lord and Lady Clairol blow up the mine and the miner and that's that. Or is it...?

This flick was pretty lame. It lacks that Special Something that would've made it fun, and it certainly doesn't even reside in the same county as "scary". I give it 2 out of 10 brass knuckles. If you want to watch a movie about someone with a gross face who'll kill to get is gold back, watch Leprechaun. If you want to see a Miner 49er in action, watch this because it's scarier than Miner's Massacre:

Shocktober is winding down now, and while I'll post a movie-a-day until the 31st, tomorrow is really my big finale. I'll be having another Marathon of Madness, this time watching all the Halloween movies in a day. Check back throughout the day for updates!

Day 27- Something something...Charlie Brown joke

I think I should give up the whole idea of this horror blog thing. I bet you'll all force me out of the business as unworthy when you hear that the movie I watched today- for the first time, obviously- was Pumpkinhead (1989). How can I call myself a horror fan if I'd never seen this movie before? Screw the angry mob- I'm going to shake a flaming pitchfork at my reflection in a mirror, then douse myself with boiling oil. And then I will wear a scarlet letter of some variety as I burn myself in effigy.

Anyway, yes, on to Pumpkinhead. The movie is based on a poem by Ed Justin, and it's a spooky little rhymer:

Keep away from Pumpkinhead,
Unless you're tired of living,
His enemies are mostly dead,
He's mean and unforgiving,
Bolted doors and windows barred,
Guard dogs prowling in the yard,
Won't protect you in your bed,
Nothing will, from Pumpkinhead.

When I was growing up, I never heard any poems about local terrors. No "1, 2, Freddy's coming for you...", no "Tommyknockers knocking at my door..."- and frankly, I feel a little deprived. Sure there was "Bloody Mary" and that sort of thing, but nothing so grand as to have a real story- a rhyming story, dammit- attached. I can't seem to locate much info on "Ed Justin", either, so I have no idea what the context for this poem is. Is it just a silly rhyme? Was there a real legend somewhere? Does Ed Justin actually exist? I need to get all Nancy Drew on that poem's ass. Ooh, I hope I can nerd out with a microfiche at some point while solving the mystery! Turn the dial- whizzzzz!- stop- headline: Murder in the Heartland!- read read read- turn the dial- whizzzzz!- stop- picture of scary dead old lady- read read read--et cetera. Wouldn't it just all be so exciting? Sigh, dare to dream.

OK, I'm not sure what just happened there.

Pumpkinhead is the directorial debut of Stan Winston, the special effects/makeup guru behind such scarefests as John Carpenter's The Thing and the 1977 television special An Evening with Diana Ross. After spending years on horror movie sets, it seems Winston has picked up a trick or two. It's a very strong debut, which leaves me wondering why his other efforts have been such duds.

Lance Henriksen (wicked sweet, as always) stars as Ed Harley, a single dad trying to raise his son Billy (Matthew Hurley) the best he can, getting money from his little general store to support them on their dirt farm. They (and the other locals we meet) are a little like a celluloid version of the James Agee/Walker Evans collaboration Let Us Now Praise Famous Men . They're dirty and poor, but honest, hardworking people who...ah, you get it. Anyway, enter the city kids- the spoiled teenagers on their way to a cabin for a weekend that will include dirt bikes, beer, and probably fornicating. Damn horny teens. Actually, with the exception of the uber a-hole Joel (John D'Aquino), these are good kids- I was shocked that they were all decent and likable. Well, one dirt bike accident later, and young Billy is dead- and Joel is responsible. The teens flee to their cabin, and Ed goes to see the crusty wrinkly old lady in the woods- Haggis- to see about settin' to some revenge. And of course the scary old lady's name is "Haggis"- it couldn't be "Debbie" or something, now, could it? Haggis does some hoodoo and brings about a demon of revenge- Pumpkinhead- who will take care of those teens and anyone who gets in his way.

So we've got your standard revenge story here, right? Ha! WRONG! You are so busted. I smell smoke! Someone got burnt! (What the hell is wrong with me tonight?) Once the killing begins (and Pumpkinhead doesn't fuck around- he busts a move right to the cabin and gets down to bizness), Ed sees the gruesome acts through the monster's eyes, and yes, it bugs him. See the message, there? Who is the monster here? WHO, I ask you? I am the monster, the monster is me! What hath Ed wrought? Revenge is bad! Ed learns his lesson and decides to end what he's started- the Pumpkinhead Rampage- and it may just mean the end of himself as well.

I really enjoyed the early scenes between Ed and Billy. Even this cold-hearted snake (look into my eyes) found it sweet, and I even got a half-tear in one eye when Billy died. The relationship seemed very natural, and while Matthew Hurley was pretty damn cute, he never went for that "Daddy, I wuv you, pwease lowah your cowestewol" shit that makes me want to drown most kid actors in their fucking Cheerios. The acting was decent across the board, and of course the monster effects were stellar. Winston keeps a nice creepy atmosphere throughout, with lots of fog and some very dark, very foreboding woods. I don't really find "monster" movies scary, but this is about as close as one has ever come for me. I liked it quite a bit, and I'll give it 8 out of 10 noble dirt farmers.

There is a Pumpkinhead 2 (Blood Wings) which is most likely awful. But the cast...the cast, man- look at the caaaast! Soleil Moon Frye (that's Miss Punky Brewster if you're nasty), Kane "Jason Voorhees" Hodder, Linnea Quigley (and her bare boobs, I'm sure), Roger Clinton as...THE MAYOR, Steve Kanaly- who played Ray Krebbs on Dallas...oh man, you know I'm all over this one.

Is there a Visine for THAT? Nyuk, nyuk.