A Chicken Is Not Pillage

6 Trends In Horror That Really Annoy Me

Happy Halloween, folks.  Time is still limited so I probably won't flesh this out as much as I should.

6)  CGI and bad costuming.  Just because you can show something in supposedly alarming detail doesn't mean you should.  Think back to everything (horror wise) that's visually frightened you in your life.  I'll bet any amount of money it's been based on glimpse and half seen peripheral vision.  Someone walks into a room when you're not expecting it.  Cat's jumping out of unseen hiding.  The half seen figure in the background.  Those are frightening.  Mansquito?  Really?  Alien was probably one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen.  Ditto with The Exorcist.  SyFy movies, just not so much.

5)  Monster Hunting Super Heroes.   I think that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was one of the best TV shows ever.  It remains that because Buffy was so thoroughly humanized through the whole series.  Joss Whedon understands that Super Hero Monster hunters are a matter of fantasy, not of horror.  What scares us real folk are being put in the situation of facing horror on our own, as humans.  It can be a nice idea that we be gifted by God with super monster fighting powers, but how scared can you be if the monsters stand no chance?  Too many books, too many movies, are giving the normal folk Green Beret training and angelic super humanness.   That's nice for them.  But the rest of us still deal with horror knowing we have bad joints and a limited ability to escape or fight.  Things I adore that do not violate my sensibilities, Cujo, Dracula, actually this list runs pretty long.  But the recent trend (Priest and many others) is to the super power monster killer. I like that in terms of fantasy, but not so much horror.

4)  Remakes.  I almost wrote that as $) Remakes.  Give me a fricking break.  Most of them suck; they suck rocks.  Halloween is possibly one of the greatest horror movies of all time.  Rob Zombie thought he could do it, and do it better.  Does anybody really think he did?   John Carpenter did The Fog.  It was atmospheric, slow building and really kind of frightening.  The remake was lame ass movie BS.  The Texas Chainsaw Massacres, a great horror movie.  The remake?  Are you joking?  It sucked.  Now there are rumors that Alfred Hitchcock movies will be remade.  ~facepalm~  The beloved and I just watched a movie which was a total remake/ripoff of Fright Night, except the neighbor was a Werewolf instead of a Vampire.  Good Holy God, that movie sucked so hard.  Seriously, writers and producers, find something original ... please.

3)  Vampires v. Werewolves.  The only tale ever where that actually made sense was Underworld.  Yet everybody seems to want to do it now.  Why?  It is not a new thing, but it is trending upwards.  I really don't like this at all.

2)  Romanticizing of monsters.  Do not get me wrong.  I know that many monsters lend themselves to sexuality and sexualization.    It's part of the genre.  Vampires have long been in the same unholy grouping with Succubi and Inccubi.  That isn't what I'm writing about.  In the mid-70s (1976?) there was a version of Dracula played by Frank Langella.  This vampire would walk on the beach with you, read you sweet poetry, play you a love song and then drain your blood.  What BS.  I hate that movie.  Now, we have vampires that sparkle in the sunlight, play baseball and run to defend their virginal love interest.  Give.Me.A.Goddamned.Break!   Vampires are monsters.  Werewolves, though cursed, are monsters.   These things are not Fabio.  They are destroyers of life and hope.  This trend I hate most of all, save ...

1)  Torture porn.  Don't get me wrong, again.  The Saw movies actually involve a huge creative element.  Saw one and two are actually good movies.  That's not really what I'm talking about. Wes Craven gained stature from his movie Last House on The Left.  I was disgusted by that movie, and even more by the remake.  This is not horror;  it's gratuitous violence.  Horrific?  Absolutely.  But it has spawned an entire genre of weak titillation and masturbatory fear.  If you don't what I'm talking about, watch the movie Wolf Creek.   It's not that this stuff isn't frightening.  It is and it should be.  But what exactly does that say about us as a culture that we would actually watch this stuff?  I hate this crap, really.  I haven't been able to make it through any of it.  If this is your thing, and I pity you, then there is The Hills Have Eyes 2, Wolf Creek, Hostel and it's endless sequels.  I haven't been able to make it through any of them.  Deliverance was probably enough for me.

 

Anyway, I hope that I haven't upset anyone.  And I wish you all a great All Hallows Eve.

RocketLauncher

In honor of the impending Halloween, in my very limited spare time I am playing my biannual game of Doom3.   So ...

 

In truth, this song is irony perfected written by a true genius.  But still, there are Mancubus ahead and I need the damned rocket launcher!

Congratulations!

In true Halloween spirit, my heartfelt congratulations go out to SIR Christopher Lee.

A Trio Of Treats

I'm posting this up a day early for Halloween, because I generally don't have the time to post *ON* Halloween.  Besides, who wants to spend Halloween skulking on the Intertubes.  I wanted to do a link post, but feel shamed by the epic past endeavors of certain Batgrl.  She would flood the 'tubes with more Halloween goodness in one place than any human could stand.  Perhaps that was her plan, to drive us mad with All-Hallows Eve joy.  Regardless, I am not her, and can only make a shallow attempt at doing justice to this holiday.

In my neighborhood, there are usually no trick-or-treaters at all.  So, when one does show up at the door, my beloved (and most everyone else in the hood) over indulges them with more candy than is sensible.  So here is my indulgence; the title says 3; expect more.

First, I don't comment at Metafilter anymore, but I still read it.  From there, I encountered one of the best analysis of monster might anywhere.  From Threat Quality Press, A Hierarchy of Monsters.  Please, do not stop there.  The comments to the Metafilter thread are priceless, especially those from  robocop is bleeding.

To really look at a hierarchy of threat, we need to start from the perspective of a potential victim and work our way up from there. As I can tell you from personal experience, there is little practical difference in being locked in a closet while the corpse of your dead wife, animated through dread magics, pounds on the door with cold, unyielding fists and being lost in a Bavarian forest, running from a chorus of howls and snarling, fanged mouths.

In the end, the victim's life will end. Whether it ends at the claws of a werewolf, fangs of a vampire, axe of a drowned kid, or nightmare of a dreamstalker doesn't matter.

This is quality stuff.

Second, the always clever Dave Merriman sends a link to the must-have insurance of the current century.  The other poseurs can move aside.  My Zombie Insurance is the product needed for the Zombpocalypse.

Third, enough with the imprecise verbiage!  WonderMark gives us the terms we need.  Presenting the Stoakes-Wibley Natural Index of Supernatural Collective Nouns.  It should be no surprise that my favorite is 'a vexation of zombies'.

Finally, I am not a video gamer.  I like games, and have played many.  However, a game must have a certain something to appeal to me.  Creepiness is high on my list of gaming joys.  Doom 3 had it's moments; F.E.A.R. was just shock value lame.  Undying remains one of my favorite games of all time.  But back in the old dark days of DOS, Phantasmagoria was all that and then some.  The video, filmed with live actors, was simply gravy to the creepy music and actual game exploration.  It is the videos that brought out the creepy flavor of all the weird stuff you had to do to prepare *not* to get killed in a horrific manner.  I know I'm probably johnny-come-lately to this, but the murderous cut-scenes have been posted online, and I-Mockery has compiled them in one handy spot for your horror viewing pleasure.  Yes, I know the demon looks stupid in the extreme, but this was revolutionary stuff as regards gaming.  And more to point, it was horrific.

Well, that's all I got.  Except this:

Fashion Freak
Uploaded by ptitepapaye. - Watch more music videos, in HD

Yes I know I've posted that before.  But that video is becoming something of holiday tradition with me ...

Happy Halloween, folks.

Conservative Horror Films?

Sadly No! is like the good friend who makes you laugh, but when you help them move, they leave the heavy lifting to you.  So it is here.  They present the visage of John Hawkins, hawking movies for Halloween that are, in his opinion, conservative approved!  Unfortunately, Tintin gets distracted by pizza, and really, don't we all?  In his haste to describe conservative pie, Tintin neglects the challenge presented.  I can do no such thing.

There isn't a person who knows me, or has read this website for long many years, who doesn't know that I love horror movies.  I can appreciate the nuance and accept the gore.  These film extravaganzas are not terribly deep, never have been.  It is easy to see social or political relevance in some them, but that's nothing more than a gaming overlay, amusement for discussion and contemplation.  The search for social relevance in the genre is a personal quest to understand the director or the story teller in terms of one's own mythology, and has fuck-all to do with what the horror movie is all about.  Horror movies are about chilling you, the viewer, getting your adrenaline up.  In the best case, social conflict enhances that; in the worst it assumes that social conflict as scary and exploits it  for no thrills whatsoever.  Angst is personal, and varies subject to subject.  Good horror film makers understand that.  Bad ones, and John Hawkins, do not.

With that in mind, I offer my critiques of Hawkins Top Ten Conservative horror movies, and elucidate the shallow alternative descriptions he meant to write.

Cloverfield:

It is one of the good 'Giant Monster' movies, but face it, it doesn't hold a candle to the original Godzilla.  Hawkins gives credit to the creepiness of the filming, stolen directly from the Blair Witch Project.  The characters are fundamentally decent, if you ignore the backstabbing love liaisons.  Hawkins relies on the common trope of "ordinary people" to project a glimmer of conservatism.  How ordinary is a person going to be if a giant monster attacks their town?  Just because conservatives think it would be so, therefore it is, in the mind of Hawkins.  Being ordinary does not make one conservative, and acting a the viewer expects most often gets you killed in horror movies.  Oh, wait, it does here too.  The conservative trope that really gives Hawkins a stiffy is the brave military response, futile as it is.  Every giant monster movie ever made has the same thing, and in most, the military is victorious.  Think Them or Tarantula.  

Realistic Hawkins review:  Oh shit, that lib haven New York sure got it's ass kicked, hehe hehe.

The Dead Zone

Seriously?  How is this conservative?  Christopher Walkin plays a deranged mentalist, gifted with a power he didn't want, and slowly slipping into madness due to his visions that a President would cause Armageddon.  He commits suicide by cop trying to stop the holocaust, and exposes the 'bad guy' for a coward.  Hawkins' view of this movie is of a patriot, a movie filmed when Ronald Reagan was joking about nuking Russia, written by a man who thought Reagan was a monster.  Do I really need to clarify more how screwed up Hawkins' evaluation is here?  Well sure I do.

The Dead Zone is not a horror movie.  It's a thriller, like a spy movie, with a supernatural element.

The only real reason that anyone would or could concede that this movie is a 'patriotic' celebration of conservatism is that we have a Darkie in the White House that conservatives don't like, and someone, anyone, must stop him at all cost.  Glenn Beck probably thinks of this movie as porn, because he doesn't understand it.

Realistic Hawkins review:  Would somebody please try and kill that Kenyon?

The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I can't even treat this film seriously.  It was God awful.  It was boring.  It was derivative of another film on this list, and it just sucked like a Hoover plugged to a 220 outlet.

Realistic Hawkins review:  They didn't declare war on Christmas so that's a plus ...

The Exorcist

I still find this to be one of the scariest movies I've ever seen.  It also has the best soundtrack of any horror film ever.  That's saying something coming from a huge fan of John Carpenter.  But let's be real.  This movie holds terror only for those steeped in Christian dogma, and nominally aware of Catholic faith.  I do find it contradictory that Hawkins celebrates this film as 'conservative' when it stands as an affront to evangelicals.  Also, self sacrifice is not a hallmark of conservatism, unless it's a priest, apparently.  Here's the dealio.  In this movie, the power of Jesus couldn't control the demonic entity.  Only human sacrifice could.  What would that message be, again?  And of course, Hollywood never treats the members of the clergy with respect, unless they do.  (Hawkins is amazing in that he contradicts himself in the same review.)

Realistic Hawkins review:  Dude, the underage chick does that thing with the cross.  Crap, where's my lotion?

The Fog

Don't get me wrong, I love this film.  But it is not 'conservative'.  The pirates kill anyone who gets in their way, regardless of party affiliation.  It doesn't matter if the town gets its comeuppance; they screwed with pirates, for Christ's sake.  In Hawkins' world, Pirates=Good, Descendants of Townfolk=Bad.  We all like Pirates, of course, but come the fuck right on.  Aren't conservatives the same bunch of assholes screaming, 'well I didn't kill Injuns or enslave people, so I'm not to blame'.  The point of the movie is:  YES, you really are.

Realistic Hawkins review:  Oh shit, that lib haven in California sure got it's ass kicked, hehe hehe

The Mist

Seriously, this is my favorite horror film of the last ten years.  Now, Hawkins describes it thusly:

A sinister story about a deadly government experiment and how quickly human beings can become primitive again when they're isolated, alone, and in danger.

Did he even watch the damned movie?  The primitive he's describing is Christian fundamentalism.  Anyone who's ever read a Chick Tract knows the danger of Christian Talibangelicals under stress.  The antagonist of the film is a female James Dobson on crack.  How is this even remotely conservative?  This movie is anti-out-of-control military, pro-humanist and extremely anti-fundamental religion.

Realistic Hawkins review:  They'd have been safe if they'd given up to God.  And Gubmint sucks; lack of Gubmint will turn you into a killer, so the Gubmint sucks.

Quarantine

I admit, I like this film.  The same film techniques as Blair Witch and Cloverfield were used here, to great effect.  Hawkins reads this as some kind of anti-Gubmint screed, and suggests that you don't get trapped in a building with the Gubmint outside and zombies you didn't even know about inside.  Socialist cops and firefighters try to do their jobs and the Gubmint betrays them.  They should have done their own conservative thing ... BY NOT RESPONDING TO THE CALL?  This review, more than any other, convinces me that Hawkins is a fucking moron.

Realistic Hawkins review:  At least the hot MSM journalist gets munched ... And the gubmint wants to protect you from rabies.  They should have just wizarded up a cure out of their socialist asses.  HOW DARE THEY PROTECT THE PUBLIC! (Quarantines are fascist, man.)

The Reanimator

This movie is conservative ... to the psychotic.  Yes, there is a message about playing God, and it's not a nice one.  That was Lovecraft's intent when he wrote the damned thing.  The message?  Don't experiment to save lives because it might save Grandma.  Let her die.

Realistic Hawkins review:  Dude, chick gets tongue raped by a corpse.  Where's my lotion ...

The Silence Of The Lambs

NOT A HORROR MOVIE!  It's a thriller, and a very good one.  But, contrary to Hawkins' earlier points, it shows quite clearly that the Gubmint is looking out for you and hiring the best and the brightest.  Notice, Hawkins doesn't say how this movie was 'conservative'.  He was just trying to fill his list, and ran home to momma as it were.  Ohhh, let's feed 'em a cop movie; they'll like that.   I call total bullshit on this.  What this movie really says is that horror is out there.  Sometimes Gubmint can helps, sometimes it can't.

Realistic Hawkins review:  That scene where the dude who plays Captain Stotlemayer puts his dick tween his legs?  Yeah, I've done that.

And,  The Tripper

I couldn't even make it half way through this suckfest.  Even by slasher movie standards, this is not a good film.  But I do notice that it's the only film that Hawkins even weakly linked to.  Perhaps he's terrified of IMDB.  Hawkins' review is remarkably telling, however:

In a couple of spots near the end of the movie, it does manage to grate conservative sensibilities. However, that mild annoyance does not to detract from the sweet, sweet joy of watching a guy in a Ronald Reagan mask taking an ax to dirty, drug addled hippies throughout the movie.

Hawkins only wants to see his Straw Man of liberals die horribly.  There's really nothing else to qualify this as a "conservative film".

Realistic Hawkins review:  Libruls DIE DIE DIE!  Someone else please, because I'm too chickenshit ... and I still can't find my lotion.  MOM....

Perhaps I will post the best liberal horror movies for Halloween.  I doubt it, though.  The spirit of the holiday is fear, and that knows no ideology.

When Hell Is Full, The Dead Shall Walk The Earth

Good Evening, and welcome to Fright Night.

Okay, that's just not right.  Here we find ourselves on another Halloween, only this year, it isn't about the Vampires.  It's about something more ... grody.

I'm really getting to the point where I don't like October much.  That's hard for me to write, because October, for so very long, was my very favorite month.  But that feeling has died, and what's risen in it's place seeks to chew my brains live from my blood-spurting skull.  October is the month of too-much-to-do, racing against deadlines, and the expectations of others to see it done.  Perhaps you find that an allegory for life as I strangely seem to.  I do so with good reason, however.  We all have a birthright, all that live.  Our birthright is death, and that is final. 

Yet, as we've approached this Halloween, I've been strangely focused on the beyond-death.  No, not heaven or any afterlife, but rather on undeath.  This year, it's all been about the zombies.  I blame that, in part, on the election year.  The undead, who feed on the living year in and year out seek our approval and attempt to act human, just so that they can remain fat and feasting on the flesh of the living.  They stink; there's no doubt about that.  But you and I are asked to hold our noses and vote them into our shelter of governance, such that they can feed some more.  How insane do we have to be to feel sympathy for these monsters?  We'll find out in a week.

Of course, as I've tried to struggle against these slavering ghouls, I've been forced to educate myself about them.  So, I've been reading World War Z.  I'm about 3/4 of the way through it, and I can't call it a bad book ... but it is slightly disappointing.  When Kit reported that her beloved John was reading the book, she wrote that he was also somewhat disappointed with it, and I think I know why.  The people of the mountains are not given nearly the credit we deserve.

Face it, we're heavily armed and somewhat isolated by shear geography.  If you were the military, following a plan of isolate-regroup-resupply-exterminate, don't you think you'd have picked the one spot in the country where isolation is a given and extermination was already well underway?  Of course you would.  That would be the mountain west.  I think we'd be right proper good at dealing with the zombies here.  We've got less population to be turned, more guns per capita then the rest of the nation at large,  and we're a whole lot better at making head shots when we have to. (Note to self, buy a Mossberg with a  pistol grip next Buy-A-Gun day.)  And I agree with John:  the book would have made a much better movie.  Hopefully for next Halloween, pretty please?

Really, it's not a bad book at all, but I want visuals.  So, as this day of horror approached, I began the yearly ritual of watching horror flicks.  I found myself gravitating towards the gory gooey zombie films for my viewing pleasure.  RetroCrush has already posted their list of the best zombie movies of all time, but bad taste is as subjective as any other kind, and I don't tend to agree with their picks or placement.  So kindly allow me to present my 13 fave zombie movies of all time.

13)  The Dead Hate The Living.  This is total low-budget cheese-ball schlock.  But it is atmospheric and creepy.  And they did the zombies very well.

12)  Dawn of the Dead.  The original bored me.  This one, on the other hand, had zombies as fast moving ravening horrors.  It was a desperate movie, and had one of the best soundtracks ever in a zombie film.

11)  Evil Dead II.  Very fun.  The fight with one's own hand?  The dancing headless corpse?  It was cute.  Not so horrific, but grossly cute.

10)  Frankenstein, The True Story.  What?  You don't think Frankenstein flicks are really zombie movies?  Think again.  Besides, James Mason gets hung and Jane Seymour gets her head ripped off.  What more do you want?

9)  Frankenstein.  One of the best horror movies ever done.  Period.  Kindly refer to what I wrote about it last year:

There have been a great number of really terrific Frankenstein movies made, but this is the benchmark.  Boris Karloff, a sweet and gentle man, playing a horrific thing to the horror of audiences everywhere. No other Frank-monster movie made carries the sympathy for the creature that this one does.  And the black-and-white is just perfect for the story told. Of the great horror stories made to film in the early 30's, this is the timeless wonder.

Not so necessarily a zombie movie, but rather good, nonetheless.

8)  Dead Alive.  This movie is almost too gross for me to make it through.  It's a gore fest, and clever in it's execution.  Face it, Peter Jackson is just brilliant.

7)  Beyond the Re-animator.  I just watched this last night, and found it to be exactly what the reaniumator series was all about.  It was gory and horrible, and all things Dr. West.  Loved that movie.

6)  Re-animator.  My wife will never get why I adore this movie.  It really has nothing to do with the necrophiliac cunnilingus and everything to do with the horror of zombies gone wild.  Its a terrific film, if you've got the zombie heeby-jeebies, that is.

5)  The Fog.  Yes, the original, you dolt.  The remake was well beyond pathetic.  Now, you can say that this was a ghost story, and not a zombie film, but watch it again.  Those pirates were very corporeal.  They had the urge ... so to speak.  Again, I remind you what I wrote last year:

I'm likely to laugh when I finally see the 2005 remake, because almost no one can emulate the brilliance of early John Carpenter.  He ties his stories into ever tighter knots, until all that is left is the atmosphere of eerie.  You'll notice soon that this is not the only film of his on this list.  Carpenter pulls his theme together without relying on expansive plot explanations or creepy monster effects.  He toys with surroundings, and creeps you out with the inevitability of the ending.

I did laugh.  The original was a worthy movie, and did credit to the undead.  The Fog is among Carpenter's best.

4)  Return of the Living Dead.  Do the dead ... the surfin dead!  This is a hip and gross movie, with niked zombie hot chicks and the whole ball of wax.  Its cynical and horrific, as well as being humorous.  One of the movies on this list I can quote the most:  "You'd best shut your mouth if you like this job!".

3)  The Evil Dead.  Again, I refer you to what I wrote last year:

Okay, fine, the sequels were more fun.  So what?  This movie, made on no budget, is a just a creep fest.  Few movies can actually make you feel isolated, alone, while watching them.  This one pulls that task off well.  Sam Raimi doesn't need a budget to scare people, or even creep them out.  He just needs the right camera angles, cuts ... and Bruce Campbell.  I may be getting way too pompous, here, but it can be well argued that this is the best directed film on this list.

A truly terrific film.

2)  Shaun of the Dead.  Show another zombie film that is more charming and human.  Come on, I dare you!  I double dare you!  This is a great movie, and still manages to creep you out.  Love the film.

1)  A Tie!!!  But I think you knew that, didn't you?  Of course, it's Night of the Living Dead, the zombie movies by which all others will be judged.  Again, I quote myself from last year:

Night Of The Living Dead.  Before you get ahead of yourself, and think that I'm talking about the 1968 classic, it's possible that I'm not.  I actually disagree with many of the horror critics out there; I think the remake is better.  The characters behave somewhat more cruel, and to that degree, sensible.  The special effects aren't as much better as they are creepier.  The pacing is better in the remake.  Either one is a terrific and outstanding horror movie, but the remake is simply a better Halloween movie.

So, there you have it.  My education is complete, having watched all of the best zombie movies.  I will know my defense and my strengths against the walking dead.  Of course, with such knowledge, I could go mercenary, a zombie hunting gun for hire.  Which leads me to my honorable mention for the best of zombie films.  Cash Only.  Its a short, but you gotta love it.
Happy Halloween, everybody.  And don't forget ... shoot for the head.

However, if you prefer your zombies a little more ... gyrated ... then check this out.  (I love the zombie doglette).

Halloween Movies ... A Baker's Dozen

Though I have many strong (and pompous) opinions, occasionally, I'm actually qualified to have them.  So it is with horror movies.  I have loved them since I was knee-high to spider's ass.  Though I am not quite as well versed as some people that I know, I'm fairly conversant in the good, the bad and the ugly.

Halloween movies, however, are a distinct sub set of horror movies that I find particularly attractive.  Let's be clear; just because a movie has monsters, knife wielding maniacs, ghosts, ghoulies, witches or goblins, that doesn't qualify it as a Halloween movie.  A Halloween movie must meet certain criteria.  A) it must appeal to one's sense of Autumn.  Halloween, without the harvest festival on which it relies, would be a joke.  Autumn is a mood, a feeling unto itself, and it must be appeased.  For Halloween movies, that means they must have an Autumn atmosphere.  B) they must be eerie.  It takes a whole lot to scare me anymore, so I don't require that any film do so.  But to qualify for this elite grouping, it must at least give up the willies once or twice.  C) it must be clever.  In the jokes, the acting, the writing; at some point a Halloween movie must let you know that you're receiving Samhain foreplay.

So, without further ado, allow me to offer my suggestions of the best 13 Halloween movies of all time:

13:  Francis Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.  Don't mistake me here; I hate this movie.  I hate the arrogance of a movie that bills itself as a true telling of the author's work when every character is re-written for the pure value of titillation. Coppola includes so much cynical modernist crap in this movie, I almost never want to see it again.  But this movie is a dead certain lock for taking home the "imagery" prize.  This is an impressive piece of work, at times erotic, and at times visually overwhelming.  It has true Halloween flavor, and is enjoyable while you're actually viewing it.  Gary Oldman does some terrific acting as the count, and that somewhat redeems this movie in my sight.   I simply pray that I never again have to hear Keanu Reeves fake a British accent.

12:  Hocus Pocus. The only comedic offering of the group.  I realize that Disney and horror are somewhat exclusive categories, but Hocus Pocus is just too much fun not to include.  It scores very high on the clever scale, and Bette Midler is nothing short of brilliant.  If your cynicism allows you to simply enjoy a good romp through eye-candy witchery, this is a terrific film for the season.

11:  Fright Night. This also scores very high on the clever meter. Chris Sarandon is at once both charming and brutally patronizing.  The transformation of Amanda Bierce from sweet little girl to fanged sex object is just eye-popping.  And if Roddy McDowall doesn't charm you right out of your socks, then there's something wrong with you as a human being.  This movie has the added plus of being completely consistent to it's own mythology, as do all of the films on this list.  Fright Night 2 is still very fun, especially for those of us who work in a campus environment, and much sexier than the first.  But it just doesn't carry the innocent struggle against evil off very well.

10:  The Howling.  This is the film that brought Werewolf movies into the 20th century.  The transformations are astounding ... none of that stop action stuff that left you annoyed.  An American Werewolf in London may be a "better" film, but not a better Halloween Film.  John Carradine and Slim Pickens have all the charm you need, as well as the wooded setting for atmosphere.  This is a terrific film for atmosphere, and actually offers the gore factor in measure equal to the story.  Very clever dialog seals the deal for me.

9:  Night Of The Living Dead.  Before you get ahead of yourself, and think that I'm talking about the 1968 classic, it's possible that I'm not.  I actually disagree with many of the horror critics out there; I think the remake is better.  The characters behave somewhat more cruel, and to that degree, sensible.  The special effects aren't as much better as they are creepier.  The pacing is better in the remake.  Either one is a terrific and outstanding horror movie, but the remake is simply a better Halloween movie.

8:  The Grudge.  One of only two movies on this list that flat out scared me.  It is dark.  It is creepy.  It is relentless.  The Ring comes close, but was way too touchy-feely to compare.  The Grudge  is moody evil that doesn't let up.

7:  The Evil Dead.  Okay, fine, the sequels were more fun.  So what?  This movie, made on no budget, is a just a creep fest.  Few movies can actually make you feel isolated, alone, while watching them.  This one pulls that task off well.  Sam Raimi doesn't need a budget to scare people, or even creep them out.  He just needs the right camera angles, cuts ... and Bruce Campbell.  I may be getting way too pompous, here, but it can be well argued that this is the best directed film on this list.

6:  The Fog.  I'm likely to laugh when I finally see the 2005 remake, because almost no one can emulate the brilliance of early John Carpenter.  He ties his stories into ever tighter knots, until all that is left is the atmosphere of eerie.  You'll notice soon that this is not the only film of his on this list.  Carpenter pulls his theme together without relying on expansive plot explanations or creepy monster effects.  He toys with surroundings, and creeps you out with the inevitability of the ending.

5:  Prince Of Darkness.  Cerebral horror, with an Autumn feel.  The second John Carpenter movie on this list.  Lets think about this for second; if God exists manipulating the unknowable sub-atomic, and every sub-atomic particle has an anti-particle, doesn't it stand to reason that there might be an anti-God?  Fun discussion at geek parties, wrapped in a creepy movie shell.  Plus it's got bodies devoured by bugs and the whole icky liquid vomit zombie thing.

4:  Frankenstein.  There have been a great number of really terrific Frankenstein movies made, but this is the benchmark.  Boris Karloff, a sweet and gentle man, playing a horrific thing to the horror of audiences everywhere.  No other Frank-monster movie made carries the sympathy for the creature that this one does.  And the black-and-white is just perfect for the story told. Of the great horror stories made to film in the early 30's, this is the timeless wonder.

3:  Sleepy Hollow.  Tim Burton gets Halloween.  He really truly does.  Not one film on this list can match Sleepy Hollow for pure atmosphere.  I'd love to spout more rhetoric about how terrific this movie is, but there really isn't much more to say.  It's practically perfect.  If you can watch this film, and not feel October to your very bones, then commit yourself, because you have deep mental problems.

2:  Halloween.  I hate slasher films.  Friday the 13th films are among the stupidest waste of resources I've ever encountered, and Freddy movies aren't much better.  Few things piss me off more than the fact that Halloween is lumped into such tripe.  Halloween is not a slasher film.  It is the Boogie man, straight up and simple.  This is easily one of the creepiest movies ever made, with a soundtrack that sets your nape up and dark visuals that leave you guessing and breathless.  I believe this to be John Carpenter's best film.  A true and absolute classic.

1:  The Exorcist.  Let's face it, it's the greatest horror movie of all time.  The bonus is that it fills all the criteria for being a good Halloween film as well.  This is the only other film on this list that actually scared me.  It is a psychologically altering viewing experience.  There's little that I can say that hasn't been said before.  It's perfection in film-making, it is horrifying and thoughtful, and it won't let you rest easy ... even after it's over.  This is the best Halloween movie of all time.

I hope you have enjoyed this list, or will in the future.  Please feel free to critique, include or berate.  But understand, you're wrong from the get-go.  I know these movies, and they are the best.

Happy Halloween, people.

Happy Halloween

I wanted to get that wish out there, though my heart isn't into it right now. Normally, I love Halloween. Right now things aren't exactly normal. Where I work, we ussually do an inventory on the Saturday closest to the end of October. This year, for the first year since I've worked here, inventory falls on Nov. 1st. So, while my wife and I are hosting a party tonight, I will be excusing myself at 9:00 pm, so that I can be to work by 5:00 am tomorrow morning. In addition, I have many duties for inventory that require long hours. Truth is, I'm too bushed from work to enjoy my favorite holiday.

The second thing sapping my enjoyment of All Hallow's Eve, is the weather. Dave may be having a great time with this ... I absolutely am not. Wednesday I wore a jacket to work, today I wore my parka. We seem to have skipped that creepy windswept milieu, with leaves blowing and horror lurking in every shadow, and gone straight to the tundra before Christmas. Even evil spirits are smart enough to stay underground tonight. Face it, if its too cold for my Husky to want to be outside, no Werewolf is going to prowl tonight. (For those who think I'm idly kvetching, which I am, I offer that Bozeman's high temp today is projected to be 10 degrees colder than that of Barrow, Alaska, above the Arctic Circle. Just sayin...)

Somehow, I seem to have missed performing all of my rituals. As the leaves fell, I failed to reread either "Dracula" or "Salem's Lot". I've watched only one b-horror movie in the last week, but I did fit in a viewing of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". I loaded Undying, but only just started a game last night before bed. (Most of my other scary games just fail to creep me out anymore.) So I've started to ask myself the "old man" question. What has happened to me?

I've come to the conclusion that I just don't have time to be scared anymore. Really, what is fun about Halloween if you can't be at least a little scared of what isn't rational, normal or sane? Its rational to be scared of the moron who thinks he can drive 70 MPH on ice. Its normal to be scared of a human monster who hurts others for profit. Its sane to be a little scared of getting a horrible desease. Halloween is none of that. We've tried to make it that with all manners of theory concerning the symbolism of our own mortal stand against impending death. Terrific and accepted and academic and ... lame. That isn't what Halloween has ever been about for me, just as it isn't what the holiday represents to kids. How many 11 year old trick-or-treaters are scared of their own mortality? They may be scared of dying, but only in horrible and evil ways, at the hand of some beast from beyond the grave. But that's a far cry from the sterile view that I, as an adult, have been left with.

A very good friend once clued me into the view that nature's job is to kill us, and nature always succeeds at its job. I agree and concur. But the one thing that has never failed to creep me out is that thought of things over which nature has no control, things that are beyond death, things that come back. This is the fear of the irrational, the fear of the fantastic, of the psychotic. This is the creepy chill along the back of your neck that doesn't comfort you against your own mortal resolution, it shreds that comfort and tickles your spine with the confetti. This is the fear that haunts you in the places where shapes aren't lit and your animal brain makes you brother to the schizophrenic who sees the unreal. This the fear that makes midnight grow from a point on the clock dial into an entity of itself, a form of time, a form that wants to devour ... you. The Witching Hour, Satan's Churchbell. Its just a point in time, until the fear grabs it and shapes it.

This is Halloween, dipping our reason into madness just enough to make us giggle and want a little more before we flee back to the safety of real life. I haven't been able to do that this year, because real life has proven a little stronger than my fear of "what comes back". That makes me feel a little sad, a little tired and a little old. So I'll sit here in my office, listen to some Darkwell and write this screed. I may not feel the way I want to, but I mean it sincerely when I wish you all a Happy and frighful Halloween.

Probably Confused

Maybe I'm a little confused by this whole blogging/web journal thing. There are several things I've wanted to post (especially about Halloween), but there are others online that I read regularly (and I would hope that many of you do as well) that are just plain timelier and better at it than I. I regularly read many people blogging the same things, but I just feel ... well ... kinda icky if I turn around and post redundantly.

For example, I was all prepared to post about my joy at having rewatched the classic animated movie "The Halloween Tree". Uhhhmm, Batgrl already said what I would have, and much better I might add. In fact, for all things Halloween, I strongly recommend her site to any and all. I adore Halloween, this woman revels in it. And that's what the season is all about, a big scary, weird revel.

As for me, I'll just take a knee in the presence of my betters, and say "you go, grl".

But I will say that my neice makes an awfully cute Harry Potter.

Going Weird

Some years ago, I had an employee who started a film production company with two of his friends. They called it Dead End Pictures. Since these guys dispersed all over the Northwest, the company died, having made only one film of note; a zombie hunter bloodfest named "Cash Only". The only reference I could find to it was on this Crypt Crawl search page. It's a 20 minute flick, with some of the worst acting you can imagine. But, the guy who worked for me, call him DK, was in charge of the special effects, which actually won the 2000 REwind Movie Award for best effects. Consider that DK pulled off some pretty amazing stuff, like a bullet blast that allowed you to see through a zombie's shattered head, and he did it on a total movie budget of less than $350. They used Dairy Queen Cherry Syrup for blood, a dorm room for an office and filmed most of the movie at a bar in Livingston, Montana, about 30 miles from Bozeman. DK played the role of the first zombie killed, and when they attempted to fill his mouth with the syrup for his death scene, he almost threw up. He then informed the camera man that if he did hurl, to keep on filming. He wanted that effect on tape.

DK gave me a copy of "Cash Only", and clued me into a ton of websites to feed my interest in bad/cheap/outre horror. He introduced me to YaHorror.com, a terrific portal for all things dark and horrible, which now calls itself Horrorfind.com. I joined and was active in several horror movie forums, and found all sorts of really wild stuff on the darker parts of the Internet.

DK moved on, and I got too busy to follow anything except whatever Autumn horror film of the year was being hyped on TV. Today, completely out of the blue, a guy I used to have conversations with on a Usenet horror movie forum, whom I haven't had any contact with for over 3 years, emailed me to tell me that a copy of Porno Holocaust was avaliable for download on one of the Usenet DVD groups. I admit to being pretty naive sometimes, and downright clueless at others, and I didn't remember ever even hearing of this movie. So I decided to do a little lookin'.

*Notice. If you are at work, or have a serious aversion to the weird, unseemly, the bizaare or the perverse, you shouldn't click on any links following this notice. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.*

It seems this movie is a Joe D'Amato flick, a director I first encountered as an oddity because he did a movie about animal sex (that's animals having sex with animals) called Primal Instinct. Other than that, it appears he just did a whole lot of Italian sex films. But I'd never heard of him doing horror/porno. That is such an odd juxtaposition. I won't say I've never considered the idea, but it seemed strange to me that such a film could have a cult following. Popdex gives it a popscore of 85.5 and it comes in at 69 (how appropriate) on the list of the top 100. Most of the info about this film is either in German or Italian, but you can find synopsis in English if you're brave enough to look. My little search took me back to website that I haven't visited in about 4 years, called Galaxy of Terror which references the scene in the movie of the same name where a woman is raped by a great big caterpiller. Here is their review of Porno Holocaust complete with screen caps.

So, I'm thinking this is a very strange realm I'm looking into here. When I was a student of religious studies/philosophy I was fascinated by the relationship of sexuality and horror, but this stuff is more of the Japanese tentacle sex variety type. I have no idea what the real appeal is, but, strangely enough, I now have the desire to find out. Maybe its a path best not trodden, learning best not learnt, but if a dude I haven't had any contact with for years felt strongly enough to email me about the avaliability of this movie, it must have some kind of strong appeal. There's a very darkly Halloween feeling about the timing of this, and I like the creepy aspects of the coincidence. It lends flavor to the season. I really wish DK were still around. All I'd have to do to figure this out is ask him.

And, I'm passing on the download.