October 6th Halloween color, 2007 Rob Zombie keeps getting better and better as a director, this time remaking the horror classic ‘Halloween’, adding in backstory and showing some sympathy for the devil, which serves to make the whole movie much scarier. I’m not surprised that diehard fans of the original hate the remake, but they can take a flying leap as far as I’m concerned, as it is their fault the series became stagnant to begin with. Originally, the Halloween movies were supposed to explore different scary stories under a common name, which explains the divergence from Michael Myers in Halloween III: Season of the Witch. But people who couldn’t get enough of seeing the same unstoppable, unspeaking, boring monster in movie after movie after movie screamed bloody murder, and Halloween became the Michael Myers chronicles. I would love to see Rob Zombie move forward with Carpenter’s original plan to make Halloween about more than just one monster.
October 7th The Worst Witch color, 1986 Holy shit. Hooooly shit. I can’t review it better than this. Consider yourself warned. I very nearly choked to death while laughing at Tim Curry’s music video.
God bless you, youtube.
October 8th Cartoon Network: 9 creepy capers color, 2004 You’d think something titled ‘creepy capers’ would have some overarching creepy theme. You’d be wrong. Apparently school picture day and wondering whether or not glasses actually make you smarter count as creepy episodes. Up yours, Cartoon Network.
October 9th Hellraiser color, 1987 This movie is simultaneously classic and soooooo 80’s. In the special features, they explained all of the character concepts, and that they actually intended for Pinhead to be sexy-scary. This makes my attraction to him feel much less abnormal, so thank you, bonus features!
October 10th Creepshow color, 1982 I hope to someday rise from the dead screaming “I WANT MY CAKE”.
October 11th Lady Death color, 2004 WHAT A PIECE OF CRAP. I remember enjoying the Lady Death comics and being stoked at San Diego Comic-Con to find out they were making a Lady Death movie. WOW. If someone sat me down to watch this movie and had me guess what year it came out in, I certainly wouldn’t have said 2004–the animation is WAY dated.
October 12th Killer Klowns from Outer Space color, 1988 I, for one, am glad that this movie isn’t afraid to tell the truth about clowns: They kill people.
October 13th Bride of the Monster b/w, 1956 This is a howlingly bad movie, and in no way do I mean that in a negative sense. If I could raise one director from the grave, it would be Edward D. Wood.
October 14th Elvira color, 1988 This remains one of my all-time favorites. A horror hostess who talks like a valley girl? Sign me up, please!
October 15th Man with the Screaming Brain color, 2005 Bruce Campbell, I love you, and I love B movies, but this movie sucks. At several points while watching this movie, I prayed for death. Struck by lightning, spontaneous combustion, SOMETHING other than having to finish this movie.
October 16th Black Sheep color, 2006 This is not the movie you think it is. No Chris Farley, no down home American countryside–this movie is set in New Zealand, with genetically altered sheep on a killing rampage, and just a teeny-tiny bit of sheep fucking. At one point, it apes The Two Towers, with hundreds of sheep cascading over a hill. I thought it was brilliant and immensely entertaining.
October 17th The Terminator color,1984 Murderous robots from the future, I love you.
October 18th Alien Vs Predator 2: Requiem color (black is a color, yes?),2007 I can’t say that you didn’t warn me this movie was garbage. Nicki’s fiance told me he liked it better than the first one, so I gave it a chance. PHEW. For a movie with a huge budget, you’d think they could afford a light or three. It’s SO DARK, first set in the woods at night, then in a sewer, then in a town at night with the power knocked out, that 90% of the time, I couldn’t see what was going on. Fight scenes would happen and I’d have no idea who was killing who. The humans in this movie are even more irritating than in the last version and I only wish they’d nuked the town a little sooner to save me from watching it.
October 19th Fido color, 2006 I never would have thought that a movie about a zombie could be so endearingly sweet and charming!
October 20th Simpsons Halloween specials, seasons 13-19 color, various Their Halloween specials are always enjoyable, even when they’re rehashing old ground.
October 21st Alien color, 1979 I know I have been excessively heavy on Alien movies this month, but when I was on vacation, I watched what Matt & Nicki had, and they aren’t big horror fans, I guess. STILL GREAT.
October 22nd The Curious Dr. Humpp b/w, 1967 Sci-fi and horror meets Skinemax: This movie is genius. You get hippies, lesbians, strippers, cheesy monsters, a telepathic sex machine, and a talking/ spontaneously combusting brain, along with a short of a woman making love to a paper skeleton. Oh sweet Cthulhu, I love this movie.
October 23rd Teenagers from Outer Space b/w, 1959 I love that the teenagers are being played by middle-aged men, but I do sympathize with the aliens–I’d like to feed people to giant lobsters on occasion, too. It reminds me of Mondo Trasho, and I really wouldn’t be surprised if John Waters loved this one, too.
October 24th Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla b/w, 1952 Bela Lugosi during his Ed Wood/Sterno-huffing years, on the island of ‘Coca-Cola’, looking for guinea pigs for his latest experiment. Awful and wonderful!
October 25th South Park Halloween Special, ‘Spooky Fish’ Hilarity!
October 26th Night of the Living Dead in 3D color, What’s better than Sid Haig? Sid Haig in 3-D!
October 27th MST3K: Manos: Hands of Fatecolor, 1993 The people who made this movie should be dragged out into a street and shot. From a cannon. The scary thing about the innkeeper Torgo? His stutter and giant knees. GIANT KNEES, OH GOD RUN.
October 28th Criss Angel Mindfreak: Halloween Special color, 2005 Going into this special, I was unfamiliar with Criss Angel, I’d just done a Netflix search for “Halloween” to fill up this year’s list. (Had I known they were going to throttle the hell out of me this month, I’d have been more selective.) Amy had said something or another about him being attractive, but neglected to mention that he is a total tool. He’s trying SO HARD to be ‘edgy’, he comes off like one of those guys who comes up to girls in goth clubs swearing he’s a honest-to-god vampire, no really, ‘I vant to drink your blood, bwah!’ only with a rotten accent. It’d be campy if he wasn’t trying so very hard to be cool, instead it comes off as pathetic and sad. He reiterates over and over that he’d like to be the Houdini of our generation. I’m throwing it out there that it’s never going to happen. There are other magicians who are better known for their escapes than Criss Angel, and on the other side of things, Penn & Teller are carrying Houdini’s torch with the brilliantly-executed ‘Bullshit’. I was so busy rolling my eyes during this that I accidentally stabbed myself with a needle something like seven times. WHAT A TOOL.
Tonight: The premiere of Junkbucket!
Post-Halloween movie mop-up.
I totally recommend for your viewing pleasure, Ice Spiders. Everything about it is wonderfully awful right down to the way the name does not roll off the tongue.
Re: Post-Halloween movie mop-up.
This review line sold it: “I know plenty of genetic scientists who are also ski bunnies with their “DD” boobs hanging out”
Hee hee!
Re: Post-Halloween movie mop-up.
The boy and I got about 10 minutes in before we announced that the end of the movie would be a dramatic ski-off.
And you know what, IT WAS A DRAMATIC SKI FOR SURVIVAL.
Re: Post-Halloween movie mop-up.
Please tell me the spiders were on skis.
Re: Post-Halloween movie mop-up.
If I had been allowed to write the movie, god how they would have been.
Re: Post-Halloween movie mop-up.
Time for some claymation, methinks!
I’m still saying you have to see “night of the lepus” cause it is horrifyingly bad.
Netflix is pretty sure I’ll REALLY like that movie. 🙂
yesssss you’re coming! 😀
If I don’t get the VIP package, am I not going to be able to see the theater screen?
you should be fine :]
I am exciiiited!
Criss Angel has one other very prominent thing to make him cool in my book: he is a skeptic and debunker and spends almost as much time disproving frauds and conmen as he does doing his own sleight of hand and illusionwork. He’s one of the Cool People as far as I’m concerned.
cheers,
Phil
I didn’t know that! I can appreciate skepticism, which is why I love ‘Bullshit!’ so very, very, very much.
In his Halloween special, he mostly spent his time tooling around his hometown talking about how stupid it was, even to his supposed friends who still live there. It just came off as really, REALLY jackass-y.
Here’s an example from a story a year or so ago on James Randi’s website:
http://www.randi.org/joom/latest-jref-news/tell-me-whats-in-the-envelope-html-2.html
And a followup, not long afterward:
http://www.randi.org/joom/latest-jref-news/the-second-phenomenon-episode-html.html
cheers,
Phil
Your AVP2 feelings are much like mine about Jurassic Park 3, especially the river adventure/battle … I could NOT tell what the fuck was going on, and then I thought, Hey, maybe they darkened the whole thing when they realized it probably wasn’t a good idea to have the star dinosaur be something nobody on Earth recognizes…
Speaking of “Halloween,” though, I just saw the trailer for the new movie, but it was called “Half-Blood Prince”…
And why doesn’t October 21st say STILL GREAT!
I think the part about Jurassic Park 3 that made me cry out in despair was when the raptors set a trap…and then when they eventually killed the bait, instead of killing the guy like a dinosaur is supposed to, it picked the guy up and broke his neck by twisting his head. It was an entirely human gesture and it just didn’t fit. But yeah, a lot of things about that movie sucked HARD.
I’m pretty stoked for ‘Half-Blood Prince’ though I suppose it makes me a total dork to say so.
Good point, Alien *is* still great. My post has been edited to reflect this important change!
1. I agree and would add that all three movies set out to attribute too much intelligence to the raptors, in my opinion … I’m not saying they’re weren’t smart dinosaurs, but let’s be reasonable … and they’re so crafty, but this kid was able to elude them FOR WEEKS? I mean, Newt was at least tiny and had dark shafts to hide in … that kid was living in a tin can (in the tropics!) right out in the open…
I think we do need Alien vs. Raptor to settle this…
Also, didn’t the giant whats-its-name dinosaur kill the T. rex the same way? Or are you just bothered by the motivation and not the technique?
2. I just thought they might as well have had Donald Pleasance in that trailer … you know, IF HE WERE ALIVE and all…
3. I feel much better now…
Especially since as soon as everyone ELSE arrived on the island, the dinosaurs practically had them on radar. No way could that kid have survived.
I think Aliens and raptors (at least Jurassic Park raptors) would be pretty evenly matched at first. They’re both crafty, problem-solving pack hunters and total killing machines, but Aliens have the dual advantage of acid blood and the ability to reproduce quickly–if there are things for the Aliens to gestate inside of, the raptors don’t stand a chance long-term.
I don’t remember how the (allosaurus?) killed the T.Rex–I might have shut off my brain by that point. If it DID kill the T.Rex that way, I’d be equally as bothered by it, because my issue is with attributing mercenary human-like behavior to animals, with VERY human gestures.
1. And he didn’t even seem that bad off … no thousand-yard stare, no inability to speak … maybe he was just so happy to be thousands of miles from a world where Tea Leoni would have sex with William H. Macy…
2. Then again, to reproduce, the Aliens have to have a queen, who, at the time, must be relatively immobile … that’s something that has to be protected … the raptors would have to have nests, but to be fair from the start, there would have to be more raptors than Aliens … although, an Alien attack on a nest, even if fought off, might splash acid all over the eggs/kids … kind of like a Predator-style FU…
3. Spinosaurus … it even has a stupid name … but I LOVE this diagram … it makes the thing look like a giant turtle…
And here’s the fight, and yep, it’s all in the twist…
I would also be happy to be thousands of miles away from a world where Tea Leoni would have sex with William H. Macy–that’s a couple that I just don’t buy. It didn’t work for me throughout the entire movie.
Well, even if both have nests of eggs that need to be protected, the Aliens would still have an advantage because they’re full-grown in a manner of hours–I can’t find any info on when velociraptors are old enough to begin hunting, but it seems pretty clear to me that the Aliens would have the edge. To be a fair match right from the start there would probably have to be a LOT more raptors.
That head-twist is JUST WRONG. It still bothers me more in the raptors because it was portrayed almost as an afterthought (though I can’t find a video of it on youtube to show what I mean). I like the little wavey guy at the bottom of the picture!
It did not help the movie at all … it’s as if they needed a good-looking actress, check, and then wanted somebody who could act — well, sure Macy can act, but that role didn’t need it — it was a one-dimensional part … what they SHOULD have done was put that sidekick guy in that role and let Macy be a jealous scholar sidekick of Neill’s…
I think we would just have to restrict it to an adults’ cage match or sorts…
No, I remember the scene … the raptors were given an almost smirking kind of intelligence…