31 Days of Halloween Movie Mayhem
OCTOBER 4, part 2
Have to make up for the Amityville debacle of last night, so I’m going to try and tackle two movies tonight. Definitely going to start with Trick ‘R Treat, since we got it at work today…and from there, we’ll see.
Trick ‘R Treat is a lot of fun! It’s pretty much what I expected, in the sense that it has that kind of “Tales From the Crypt” sense of humour to it, except it’s a little less cornball and a little more macabre. There are some good twists in here, but I’m a little alarmed by some of the violence, more so because a lot of it is violence against kids. There are some good special effects (and some unexpected boobies, for a 14A movie), and the fact that Brian Cox plays a crazy old bastard in this is pretty great too. I also liked how the four storylines were intertwined, but in a little less obvious way than that is usually done. Good times all around.
Okay…so…I need to get that second one in to get back on track. I have opted for Plan 9 From Outer Space. Sure, it’s not scary in the least, but there are aliens AND zombies, so it definitely falls into the horror movie genre. This is, far and away, the most-loved crap-factory-of-a-movie there ever was. While it survives completely on irony (intended or not), it is possibly the worst-made movie ever. EVER. Tombstones swaying because they’ve been brushed by pant-legs. Obvious spaceship models. Worst acting ever (outside of a Dean Cain movie). It’s all here. And I revel in it.
OCTOBER 5
Tonight’s the first Monday that the flimgeeks.com home-base collective gets together to watch one of the movies from the Hammer Studios Dracula 4 pack that I got for $8. This time of year is pretty much the entire reason I bought it in the first place. Plus, the idea of a Dracula quadruple bill starring Christopher Lee seemed too awesome to pass up. I’ve never seen any of these, so I’m pretty psyched to give them a look. The rest of the flimgeeks crew seem pretty psyched, as well.
* * * * *
Hmmmm…well…the payoff wasn’t quite what I was hoping. Logically, we started with the first of the four in chronological order, The Horror of Dracula.
If there’s one thing this movie excels at it is cutting to another scene for at the height of a musical crescendo for the sake of an attempt at building suspense. While the ingredients for a really fun movie experience are all here (that is, Christopher Lee playing Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing), the horrible editing kills this movie and make it laughable in a negative way. Also contained within is one of the more gruelling blood-transfusion scenes every recorded…while not being intriguing in any way, shape, or form.
OCTOBER 6
Zombieland. Read my full review. I don’t understand why everybody is so jazzed about this movie. Maybe I brought too much of my brain to see it, but it’s so basic on so many levels, and that’s why it fails for me. It’s easy jokes in a lame script with ordinary special effects. On the way home however, Luke and I decide that we will start recording the 5-minute drive home and post it as a mini-podcast. So I guess something good came from it.
OCTOBER 7
Time to watch Psycho.
I’ve probably only seen a quarter of Hitchcock’s movies, but that doesn’t diminish how much of a fan I am. It’s this fandom that keeps me from watching the remake. Stupid remakes.
I love the misdirection of Psycho. The fact that the first 40 minutes or so has absolutely nothing to do with the last hour, but still doesn’t seem out of place, is testament to Hitchcock’s story-telling ability. It’s pretty funny (to me, anyway), how completely BAD Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is at being on the lam. She’s so completely obvious about, oh…EVERYTHING. Then you get Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) being just as bad at covering up what he’s done when he’s…actually…you know what? EVERYBODY is completely obvious. At any point in the movie, if anybody is being questioned, both people are obvious about their intentions, that they are covering something up, or that they are building to some huge revelation. That’s part of the joy of Hitchcock though: he lets everyone know that something is up, but he lets the scene play out anyway, and it leaves everyone squirming the entire time.
OCTOBER 8
Going again with something I haven’t yet seen, I opted to give Boogeyman a whirl. Big mistake. This should have been a lot better, since it’s produced by Sam Raimi…but it isn’t. Technically speaking, it’s mildly pleasing. There’s some classic Raimi camera-fun, but the special effects aren’t great. The cast and acting aren’t too bad, and there’s a DesChanel in it (Emily), so points there.
The story is something else altogether. It’s not even laughably bad. It’s just plain bad. Dude-from-7th-Heaven’s dad gets dragged into a closet and killed by “The Boogeyman,” and is afraid of closets for the rest of his life. The final fight scene with The Boogeyman takes a couple of minutes before I fully understand what’s going on, and then when I do it doesn’t matter anymore because I’ve already been overwhelmed by the amount of suck I’ve forced myself to endure.
…and yet I couldn’t finish Amityville.
OCTOBER 9
Sweet deal! I was able to find Twilight Zone: The Movie today for $8!! I’m a pretty big Twilight Zone geek, so this is a fair-sized victory for me. It starts out great with Dan Akroyd and Albert Brooks…and then I realize that I really should be watching this with at least one other person. I’ve got a couple of fellow TZ-junkies that would undoubtedly kick my ass if I watched this without them. Time for a substitution. CORMAN!! YOU’RE IN!!
A few months ago I found Roger Corman’s Dangerous Dames in the crap-bin at Canadian Tire as part of a 3 for $10 deal. It took about 10 seconds to make that decision.
Since I had already watched Plan 9… I was pretty prepared to watch something from here, and I opted to go with Wasp Woman. A woman looking for a way to regain her youthful visage starts getting injections of wasp enzymes because some crackpot scientist finds that they reverse the aging process.
I get pretty much what I want out of it: absurdity. The only problem I have is that the transfer to DVD is horrible, so everything is pretty dark and tough to see. However, you don’t really need to see much to notice how horrible the “special” effects are. That is to say, there really aren’t any other than one of the worst masks I’ve ever seen. I can’t wait to watch the other two movies on this disc.
OCTOBER 10
Wasn’t really in the mood for gore and horror today, so I let myself easy and watched the classic Disney take on The Adventures of Sleepy Hollow. I’m not a big Disney guy…well, more accurately, I’m not a big Disney-in-the-80’s guy, but I’m a pretty big fan of the old-timey stuff like this.
I enjoy this Disney take on many levels; more so now than when I was a little kid and it genuinely scared the crap out of me. One of the things that I enjoy the most about this one is the fact that Bing Crosby narrates, and does some classic crooning for the soundtrack. I don’t know why, but whenever I hear the Binger, I can’t help but laugh. I mean, I know that really is his singing voice…but really?!?! How can you take that seriously? I can’t, so I giggle through most of this. Once you get to the big chase scene at the end though, the Headless Horseman is quite alarming. That was always the weird thing with those old-timey Disney classics: everything was presented in such a playful manner, but when they wanted a villain to appear, you know, villainous, they didn’t hold back. To hell with the small children that might be watching.
Anyway, I’ll never get tired of this. I just need to find it on DVD before my VHS tape dies.
OCTOBER 11
Scored a sweet triple-bill today for $14: Monster House, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, and Creepshow. I wasn’t sure where I was going to start, but I wanted to save Monster House for a night when I wasn’t in the mood for paying full attention to something heavy. I decide to go with Creepshow, once I realized (again) that it has Ted Danson in it. And pre-Cheers Ted Danson, at that. Plus the fact that it’s five shorts helps my attention span on a night when I’m not able to focus too well.
This is kind of fun, and director George A. Romero gets top-notch special effects for it, but I’m not really blown away. I mean, it does the job…but I just didn’t really get into it. I probably should have gone with Drag Me to Hell instead, but I want to watch that with other people because it’s so much fun.
OCTOBER 12
Hammer Festival, Night 2. Tonight we go with Dracula Has Risen From the Grave. After some quick research, Reznik finds out that this is actually the third in the series, and that the second wasn’t included in the set. He also finds one of the better movie posters ever, for this movie. It’s just me and him tonight for this one though, since Amanda is sick and Luke’s dedication to the Jets doesn’t allow him to stray from watching the game (which the Jets lost 31-27 to the Miami Dolphins). In spite of the lack of flimgeeks.com geeks present, we opt to go for a two-fer, and make the second half of the bill High Tension, since I haven’t seen it before.
This one goes a lot better than the first one. The editing is a lot better and the story is much more…well…the editing is a lot better. There are some pretty ridiculous things in it, and Christopher Lee always looks like he just smoked an epic hoolie right before all of his close-ups, but the story is decent enough and it’s still fun. The coat budget is far less in this movie, but someone does get slapped a lot sooner…so it all evens out.
High Tension, on the other hand…wow. What a great gore-fest! The only unfortunate thing for me is that the twist has already been ruined for me. But it’s still great to watch. It’s short, sweet, and there’s hardly any dialogue in it, which is very agreeable since we watch it in the original French language. It was nice to see an original death as well, as it is the first time I’ve ever seen anybody get beheaded with furniture. Nice. And the reveal at the end, while predictable, is still creepy as hell. High marks all around on this one, and definitely something that could become a Shlocktober staple. Although watching it that late at night may not have been the best idea as I had weird dreams…again. These late-night spooky shows are messin’ with my subconscious.
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