50 Nights of Horror Challenge: Week Six - Italian Eyeball Violence

50 NIGHTS OF HORROR WEEK SIX!

Instead of keeping a list of the movies I've seen and then wrapping everything up at the end of the week, I'm going to start typing notes as I watch the movies so I can review them more accurately.  We'll see how successful this is.  I fear it might just devolve into me typing and rambling more than usual.

Black Sabbath (1963)
Format:  Netflix Streaming
Genre:  Anthology
Subgenres:  Serial Killer, Vampires, Ghosts, Giallo

Wow.  I've never seen a Boris Karloff movie before, but damn, this guy is just as fun and just as scary as Alfred Hitchcock, Vincent Price, or Peter Cushing.  I toss Hitchcock into the equation because, like AH, Karloff narrates this horror anthology.  Even by 1963 standards, this film is really beautiful.  It's just colorful and creepy and dark (can something be beautifully colorful and simultaneously beautifully dark---I feel like I just asked a question that will launch a goth teen's pubescent rock/YouTube career).

Karloff gonna getchu!

There are three stories at play, one a ghost story, one a serial killer story (more on this later), and one a very effective vampire story.  None of these stories are so gruesome or terrifying that they couldn't be remade into a fun, creepy Doctor Who episode.  In fact, I think each one of these has been remade into an effective Doctor Who episode.  I say that because the production value is that of a Hammer Horror or Amicus film.  That's ok.  I'm not one to complain about 60's horror production values.  It's fun for me to think that my dad was only six when this movie came out, and I imagine a baby Jim crapping his pants if he was to watch this in a movie theater.  And that's quite a compliment to this film.

Even though the effects, gore, and sexuality of this film render it completely suitable for TV, it's still creepy, and a very effective forefather to the Creepshows, Trilogy of Terrors, and V/H/S's of today.  In fact, it was so memorable that some successful rock band from yesteryear named themselves from the title of this movie.  True.  Story.

Ghost from the first story (3rd story in Italian version)

My only complaint about this movie is its movie poster.  The image that Netflix picked for this movie was so negligible that I would probably have never gotten around to seeing it if my friend Patrick hadn't recommended it.  Once I opened that can of worms, though, I was extremely satisfied.  After doing some homework, I actually have a second beef.  According to wikipedia (which is never wrong), the serial killer story had much more subplot and drama in the Italian version.  The American cut of the film leaves out a lesbian lover and revenge kill aspect of the story.  Still...it's still a fun section of the movie.  Just hurts that I missed out on something that I really enjoyed.

The fact that it was directed by Mario Bava coincidentally lines up with the fact that I'm on a tear of loving Italian horror right now.  So this gets a couple bonus points.  Might be hard to knock this movie off the top of the week's list.

Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Format:  Blu-ray
Genre:  THIS MOVIE CANNOT BE CONTAINED BY ANY GENRE

BAM!  This is going to be a tough week to compete for movie of the week!  This movie is smoking awesome.  To be fair, I also saw this movie in theaters on its opening weekend.  AND I subsequently snuck in a pint of bourbon to mix in with my $7 Coke.  AND I watched in the theater with with fellow horror-dork ("dorrork") Mike.  That's an almost insurmountable combination to overcome.

Regardless, even when I watched it at home, the movie still feels fresh and exciting.  Cabin in the Woods encompasses just about everything that I love about the horror genre.  And it's so difficult to describe on a blog.  The best I can do is repeat what I told Mike as the movie rolled through its credits:

"How can anyone imagine that?  How does that kind of story slip into any person's mind?  HOW DO YOU GET THERE?!"

It is a really great movie that blows the roof off of the entire horror genre.  There's something here for just about anyone that enjoys scary movies.  And after seeing it in the movie theater I still jumped.  And I still left wishing that there was still another two hours of movie to watch.  The last thirty minutes will blow your mind.

The Beyond (1981)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Haunted House
Subgenre:  Demons, Zombies, Hell, Giallo

Dude!  Apparently I need to watch more giallo films, because this one was really entertaining from front to back.  Like some of my other favorite giallo films ("Giallo" is Italian for "yellow," stemming from the mystery/horror/fiction genre of cheap paperback novels that all shared yellow covers), there isn't much of a succinct story here.  In fact, it can be summed up in one sentence:  woman inherits old New Orleans hotel and inadvertently opens gateway to hell.  There's not much to chew on here.  That being said, there are tons of gory deaths as demons torture and kill even the most cursory movie characters.

For as much as I thought Pulse had potential to grow if it had more "throw-away" characters with throw-away deaths, this movie (typical of 80's giallo) has a a disproportionate amount of characters being killed without much story.  If only Pulse and The Beyond could meet in a happy middle, it could make for one hell of a movie!

Spooky stuff, folks.

Before I go any further, I should admit to being a huge fan of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead franchise.  I love each installment, albeit for very different reasons.  The creepiness of the first Evil Dead was kind of a high-water mark for me in middle-high school.  I've seen that darn movie at least a dozen times.  Watching The Beyond, I can see that Raimi must have drawn at least a little inspiration from Fulci.  The deaths, the gore, the camera angles...it's all there.

Oh, Hai!

The scary elements?  Ghosts, zombies, the physically handicapped, dogs, sewage.  What more could you ask for?  A fleshed-out story that brings all of these elements together?  What do you want?!  Sense and Sensibility?!  Geddowdaheer!

The New York Ripper (1982)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Serial Killer, Giallo

As far as my recent viewings of giallo are concerned, this is by far the least impressive.  It's sillier than the other movies, and really just unnecessary.  Horror fans may recall that this is the movie with a serial killer with the Donald Duck voice.  No kidding.

There is gore aplenty here, and nudity, too.  In fact, there is so much nudity and raw sexuality in this movie mixed with violence and gore that it feels like the first movie I've ever seen that could actually deserve the modern equivalent of an X-rating.  Back in the day, X-ratings were given kind of indiscriminately.  This one, though...wow.  And it wouldn't earn the rating for the gore/violence, and not necessarily for the sexuality.  But for the liberal application of both without hesitancy....it makes for a tough film to watch.

I would give credit to the script for being a murder/mystery at its core, but the detective work employed in the movie is almost non-existent.  The detective, Lieutenant Fred Williams, is given a murder case, and reviewing the case, the pathologist tells the detective that this is a similar style of murder to two other bodies he'd recently observed.  MUST BE A SERIAL KILLER.  From this point, the detective visits several "experts" that are all wrong at different points in the film.  It's not until the end that there's any real indication that anybody knew what the hell they were talking about.

The lone point of interest for me in this movie was seeing the director's vision of 1982 New York City.  I've said it before, but I'm a sucker for movies set in New York now that I live here.  The subway, the skyline, the dark streets, Times Square...they're all here, and each is interesting to look at.  But it's the history that has piqued my interest.  Not the gross story.  This is still not as awful as Street Trash, but it is pretty bad, and The New York Ripper makes a greasy, nasty slide in that direction.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972)
Format:  VHS
Genre:  Zombies

This trailer gives one the impression that they're going to watch a funny, grim movie about witchcraft, zombies, and maybe necrophilia.  One is lead to believe there will be many things bumping in the night.  unfortunately, that is not the case here.

Creepiest part of the movie is a ham-fisted monologue directed to Satan.

I read that this movie has a lot of dedicated fans.  Me?  I just don't see it.  The scariness doesn't come until there are less than 20 minutes left in the movie.  Before that point, we're treated to a slew of obnoxious characters that all seem to try to one-up each other in the shit-eating-grin and bad jokes department.  One character in particular hams it up with horrible forced laughter to the point that you want the character to get eaten by zombies immediately.

Therein lies a micro amount of charm in this movie, I suppose.  Each character is flawed to the point of being unlikable.  So the buildup, then, because anticipating when the corpses (really the victims of this movie) will get their revenge on these college-aged a-holes.  I only wish the corpses had started their revenge a bit earlier in the movie.  Like maybe 30 minutes earlier.  The characters are almost immediately recognizable as jackasses.  Additional exposition to the levels of their jackassery was really not needed.  They were established idiots after 20 minutes into the film.  Might as well start hacking and slashing them shortly thereafter.  No such luck, though.

Zombies!  Yes!  Too bad there are only ten minutes left in the movie...

The other cool note about this movie is that the actor that played the ringleader of this squad was also the special effects guy.  This is a very low-budget horror movie, so set your expectations low.  And its actually pretty OK for the money this team was given to work with.  The zombies don't look great, but they look...OK.  It's really the characters and the pace of conflict that ruined the movie for me.  I don't hate it, but I certainly am not going to put this towards the top of my list.  Worth seeing once.  But don't let the cool poster and trailer fool you.

Christine (1983)

Format:  Borrowed

Genre:  Killer Car

Christine has so much going for it, it was going to be impossible for me not to like it.  Based on a novel by Stephen King.  Excellent.  Directed by John Carpenter.  Also excellent.  1980s horror.  Turbo excellente!

As far as killer car movies go, this is the best I've ever seen (also:  only).  Setting realistic expectations, this is a movie about a sentient, self-healing, evil car that influences it's owner/driver to do bad things.  If you can swallow that fact, the rest of the movie is really good.  If you can't get over that fact, then you might as well pass this up.  Think of it as the antithesis of Herbie, the Love Bug.

Holy crap.  That is one evil looking car.

What we get outside of the car is solid participating from everyone involved.  The special effects are really cool.  The gore is more implied than it is shown (and in this case, that's ok).  The acting is better than average.  And I give a lot of that credit to John Carpenter (who held it all together) and Stephen King (for turning in a story about the usual high school kid that experiences a lot of dark stuff).

There's not too much gore here, and not much nudity (if any).  There are some beautiful damsels in distress.  There are solid relationships between all of the characters.  There are some creepy people (including evil-John Travolta-ish guy).  There are some lovable losers.  And there's also Harry Dean F'n Stanton!  BOOM!

William Ostrander.  AKA: Evil John Travolta-ish Guy

Ultimately, any horror buff should be able to find something enjoyable here.  There are realistic plot elements to be appreciated.  There are some completely unrealistic plot elements to be enjoyed.  Something for everyone.  And even a killer car to boot.

Also, kudos to this movie for having such a bad-ass soundtrack album art.  Most of the music is probably John Carpenter's unsurprising synth music.  But still.  Badass cover.

Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)

Format:  DVD
Genre:  Serial Killer

Full disclosure:  Brooke Shields is only in this movie for the first 15 minutes.  She is then brutally murdered.  This is a picture of her corpse:

Brooke Shields has certainly looked better...

If you wanted to see a young, pre-pubescent Brooke Shields do something sexy in a movie (a la Blue Lagoon...never seen it), look elsewhere.  This is a genuinely creepy movie about a spitfire of a little girl that is honest-to-goodness bad.  But is she serial-killer-bad?  That's what you try to figure out in this movie.  She does lie.  And steal.  And sneak.  And torture her fat, no-good, waste of a landlord.  But would she resort to murdering him?  Would she resort to murdering a sister that is favored over her?  That's the question this movie is all about answering.

I was pretty freaked out by the opening credits.  The Hail Mary prayer is whispered over and over again before a shadowed figure begins stabbing at the camera.  The Hail Mary was the prayer my mom always had me say when I was scared as a child.  And hearing that prayer over and over just bothered the crap out of me.

The movie is really creepy.  There's gore here.  There are gross characters aplenty...the kind you can't wait to see earn their comeuppance.  I even caught myself rooting against the wholesome mom and stepdad simply for their poor parenting skills.  That being said, I'm sure that alone is not going to be enough for the majority of horror geeks to get on board with this movie.  It's still a goody that I recommend, but not one I suspect will be universally appealing.

Trilogy of Terror (1975)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Anthology


This is an odd-ball.  That might sound odd in a forum that's all about oddball horror movies, but this one sticks out for one bizarre reason.  This was a made-for-TV movie-of-the-week on ABC back in 1975.  And it was never meant to be an anthology film.  It was actually three pilot episodes for what was supposed to be a horror TV show like the Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt.  So it couldn't be too scary or too gory.  It was shown on ABC during primetime.  So this film has a lot of restrictions working against it.

That being said, it's still pretty graphic with what is implied.  Of the three stories, we have off-camera rape, murder, incest, and potentially gore and demonic possession.  All three stories/episodes star Karen Black in all of her Karen Blackness.  I can't tell how pretty Karen Black is.  That's my one complaint against her.  And it's not a fair one.  She's a fine actress, and she pulls off everything well enough.  But I get confused, because she was a really hot teacher/professor, but she also looks kind of weird when you notice her cross-eyes or her extremely defined features.

"Prey" is the third, scariest episode.  It is also the most notorious.  It centers around Karen Black accidentally unleashing an evil Zuni hunter spirit from it's doll-shaped prison.  The Zuni doll then hunts Karen Black throughout her apartment, trying to kill her.  The special effects aren't all there, but the camera angles and the editing still make this a creepy one.  Imagine all of the best scary scenes from movies like Gremlins or Critters, and condense them into a 20 minute story.  That's what this is.  Without any character development.  It's a chase scene with our heroine trying to escape an inanimate-yet-sentient statue with a knife.

"Prey" was also the story that had picture gracing the VHS box of Trilogy of Terror.  And that movie box scared the hell out of me when I was a kid.  So when I finally sat down to watch this last night, I was kind of let down about how NOT scary it was.  As I said earlier, that can't really be helped.  It was an ABC flick.  And I imagine it was re-released and put at the front of my video rental store's horror section because of the success of the Gremlins, Critters, and Ghoulies of the store.

ODD NOTE:  The actors in this movie had the worst haircuts I've ever seen in a movie.  They were all just really awful.

House by the Cemetery (1981)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Serial Killer, Haunted House

OK...I think I've seen enough giallo movies now at this point.  And this is a good one to end on.  Of the three Fulci films I watched this week, this was by far the creepiest and the most linear.  The story was much easier to follow, the ending made much more sense, and the pace of the movie matched the character development, the drama, and the gore.  This was much more balanced than The Beyond, and I really liked that movie.  There were a couple loose ends that I didn't quite grasp (why does everyone think they've seen the father before?), but that didn't present too much of a problem to the film's story.

This is a pretty and scary scene.

Like the other Fulci movies, there is some very bad editing here, some odd dialogue, random plot points, and a peculiar amount of peppy music in an otherwise gloomy, grim part of the movie.  I've noticed this about The Beyond and The New York Ripper, too.  We'll go from a gory, depraved scene to an ambient shot of the environment or a character walking around in public, and the music goes from dark and gory to light and pleasant, not unlike the music you would hear before a 1970's weather report from the local TV news channel.  Sorry...I digress.

Notice the eye damage.  Not sure why I didn't see this go down.

ODD NOTE:   I suspect the version I watched was heavily edited.  Fulci was beating the hell out of eyeballs in the other movies I watched this week.  And here I saw corpses with damage to the eye area, but none of that violence took place on screen.  And that leads me to believe those scenes were chopped out.

Solid, genuine child fear here.

The child acting in this movie is solid.  The boy and girl have dubbed over voices, but damn it, when they scream, you can see the fear in their poor, young eyeballs.  The gore is typically over-the-top.  The monsters are awesome here.  I don't want to spoil it for anyone.  The backstory of a haunted house is pretty neat.  There's nothing brand new here, and it's not mind-bending like The Beyond, but it's still a neat scary story.  This is the one giallo movie that I've seen that I would like to add to my collection for repeat viewing.  I would be ok buying The Beyond, but House by the Cemetery is the cream of this Italian crop so far.

You wanna dance?  How about a little...polka!

This movie literally opens with a fun scare and closes with an even more fun scare.  I really got behind this one.  There are loads of fun, scary scenes, the kind that would scar my sisters if I had shown this to them when we were all younger living with my parents.  Bats have never looked simultaneously so fake and yet so terrifying.

50 Nights of Horror Challenge: Week Five - Unmarried Bride Witch Eats Topless Japanese Girls

50 NIGHTS OF HORROR WEEK FIVE!

The weather has changed.  It is beginning to get dark earlier.  It has been consistently gloomy and chilly.  Goosebumps are forming naturally.  This is perfect weather for scary movies.  And the past week my friends and I watched some very appropriately spooky titles.

Cronos (1993)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Vampires

In the same vein of Let The Right One In (but predating that movie by about 20 years), Cronos is a vampire movie that is more than just a vampire movie.  There's a lot of humanity in the film's star, a conflicted man who accidentally tumbles into a curse, initially loves the thought of immortality, but then struggles against the inherent moral consequences of living forever.  All that and there's a family of bad guys out to get him.

Frederico Luppi is the veteran actor who shines in the film as a grandfather that stumbles on a legendary device with dark implications.  The little machine is creepy as hell, kind of like the floating murder ball from Phantasm.  Luppi's character has a granddaughter that does things that granddaughters do in movies.  She plays, looks cute, and assists her grandfather.  They make a cute pairing, and because they're so cute together, it's a bit of a surprise when the movie throws them for some dark loops.

Not only is the machine itself evil, but it comes with some evil baggage in the form of a heartless villain that has been hunting for this artifact for years.  When a clue finally falls into his possession, he sends his nephew, an even more-heartless punk who has eyes on his uncles' fortune.  The actor that plays this punk?  RON F'N PERLMAN.

RON F'N PERLMAN

As bad as Ron Perlman's character is, he's also the most charismatic and fun to watch on screen.  He's a well-written character.  He lusts for power and money, but he also has the youthful energy to play with the grand daughter and coerce the shopkeeper to reveal some nuggets about the antique machine he's looking for.  On one hand he's a gentle crooner.  On the other, he'll kick the sh!t out of old men in a restaurant bathroom. He's creep candy.  I love Ron Perlman.

This movie really works.  There was plenty of gore and more than enough mind-fudging.  Guillermo del Toro really kicked butt with his feature film debut.  It definitely set him up for success with his subsequent releases (Mimic, Hellboy, Blade 2, Pan's Labyrinth, and the Devil's Backbone which I will watch before the dust settles).  I recommend this one.  Not too scary or gory for the uninitiated to enjoy, too.

Dream House (2011)
Format:  Cinemax
Genre:  Ghosts
Subgenre:  Psychological Thriller

Umm...I kind of liked this movie more than I should have.  I credit that to the cast.  Namoi Watts kicked butt as usual.  She's just a powerhouse of an actress.  Here she's "good creepy."  Daniel Craig was...nnhhh...ok.  He's not given too much to work with.  Rachel Weisz, like Craig is...nnhhh...ok.  She does a good job with what she's given.  The entire movie is just that...ok for what it is.  There's not much here that hasn't been done before, and done better at that.  The trailer led me to believe that this was going to be really creepy.  The Ring creepy.  But it's not by any means.  It starts spooky and devolves into something else entirely.  Not a bad movie at all if you have nothing better to do before football comes on some Sunday afternoon.

Pulse (1988)
Format:  VHS
Genre:  PG-13 Horror

There was a lot of potential for this movie to scare the hell out of people.  If the main character was an adult and there were plenty of tertiary characters that could easily meet grisly, electric deaths this movie might have generated quite an audience.  What I saw, instead, is a horror movie with a pre-teen Joey Lawrence (Blossom) in the lead, and there is no gore, there are no grisly electric deaths, and nobody central to the plot dies.  Spoiler?  I suppose so.  But then, you're watching a PG-13 movie about a boy fighting sentient electricity.  The movie's trailer is deceptively scary.

Joey Lawrence vs. Electricity

That's not to say that this movie is completely devoid of spooks and startles.  Like I said, it had a lot of potential to generate a cult following.  The bad guy?  There is none!  The villain is some rogue, sentient electricity that lands in a community's power lines after a thunderstorm.  It decides to start killing people by manipulating their home appliances (none of them are General Electric...trust me...I checked this diligently).  Instead of just zapping them through their power outlets, the electricity begins by simply f^cking with their water temperature, their garage doors, their televisions, and in an ultimate psych-out, it changes the time on their VCRs (not really)!

There's a creepy wizard-like character that pops in and out of the film for no good reason.  He appears to have some inside knowledge of the killer volts, but not really.  The film leaves it open as to whether he was knowledgeable or just nuts.

Magical or nuts?  It doesn't really matter.

I feel bad that this movie starred Joey Lawrence.  It could have been so much better if a kid wasn't in the middle of it.  Teenager?  Could have made it so much better.  Ultimately the film suffers from not enough scares.  It's really, really solid for what it is.  But what it is is a horror movie that could be shown unedited on Nickelodeon or ABC Family during Halloween.  And that is NOT good enough for me...usually (Hocus Pocus and Beetlejuice are bad ass, y'all).

Alone in the Dark (1982)

Format:  DVD

Genre:  Serial Killer(s)

Jack Palance.  Martin Landau.  Donald Pleasance.  Dynamo from The Running Man.  A creepy daughter.  Dude, that should be enough for you to see this film!  Each one of the actors listed has the potential to be creepy.  You know you watched City Slickers and just waited for Curly to lose his sh!t.  Martin Landau always looks crazy.  Take those actors and let them run loose like killer maniacs and...well..that's kind of the basis of this movie.

I'm so happy to have found this movie!

Murdock from the A-Team plays a psychologist hired to work in a very progressive asylum.  Donald Pleasance plays the progressive doctor glue that keeps an asylum's worth of maniacs held together.  He coddles them and works with them inside the terms of their own neuroses.  This freaks out the newly-hired doctor, but slowly he comes to terms with the unusual treatments.  When Martin Landau freaks out and sets his jacket on fire, Pleasance whispers something in his ear to calm Landau down.  "What did you tell him, doctor?"  Pleasance's response:  "I told him that if he didn't stop, I was going to string his up by his ankles and then chop him from groin to forehead with a butcher's cleaver."  "oh."

Calmer than you are, Dude.

The good doctor's progressive asylum houses all of the inmates with electric sensors.  There are no locks or bars or cells or padded rooms.  Everyone is housed in their own space without any physical impositions.  If they try to go outside of their space, though, the electric sensors close the doors and windows and alarms ring.  One night, and I'm not giving too much away here, a storm knocks out the power, and the inmates go nuts.

That could be a fun movie on its own.  Release inmates on unsuspecting town.  Watch violence.  Roll credits.  But no...the movie takes a more interesting turn.  The most violent of the inmates are under the incorrect impression that Dr. Murdock (not his real name) has killed their previous doctor.  As an act of revenge, they will find where he lives and murder him and his family.  Then all will be right with the world.  And after meeting the doctor's family (especially his daughter), you find yourself kind of cheering for the inmates.

Martin Landau - forever nuts

The movie features some incredible twists, some extremely cool deaths, some very nice babysitter boobies, and just about anything else you'd want to see in a serial killer flick.  I am very satisfied by this one.  Recommend it to anyone and everyone.  And Dynamo from Running Man, you made an awesome killer.  R.I.P., big man.

Dynamo from Running Man - gentle giant and serial killer

V/H/S (2012)

Format:  DVD

Genre:  Anthology

Whew!  This one had a little bit of everything that I love about scary movies!  I was legitimately scared during this viewing.  I also laughed.  I cringed.  I wanted to scream at the TV for the characters to run.  So good!  I'm a sucker for found footage films (The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, [REC], etc.), and this is essentially a bunch of mini-horror-found-footage films strung together.  Each of the mini-films have their own strengths and weaknesses, but I enjoyed each one from front to back.  The over-arching story of the film leaves it open to multiple sequels, and I would love to see more come out.  I am putting this movie towards the top of my list for the challenge.  Extremely well done.  The definite winner for this week.

House (1977)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Haunted...House

This might be the most Japanese thing I've ever seen.  I watched it on Monday night, and I've pondered about it since then.  I still can't wrap my head around it, but I can kind of get where its cult audience came from.  Since I can't completely comprehend it, I'll throw out some bullet points.  You, the reader, should take these points, put them in your imaginary blender, chop everything up and mash it together, stir fry it, serve it on a plate crafted from human bone, and eat it.  Then you'll understand (maybe):

• Scooby Doo and the Mystery Gang
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Spice World
• Evil Dead 2
• LSD
• Any side-scrolling Konami video game
• Hentai pornography
• The Little Rascals
• Hannibal Lecter
• this music video (here)
• McDonaldland
• The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
• Poltergeist

It's all way too screwed up to nail down.  I can't say whether or not I recommend it, either.  The critics that adopted it and loved it when it was released in America 25 years after it's original release in Japan are probably pretentious a-holes.

The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976)

Format:  Borrowed

Genre:  Serial Killer

Here's a SUPER creepy serial killer movie based on a true story.  Unfortunately, most of the movie is a convoluted mess, and the Phantom Killer doesn't show up nearly as often as he ought to.  To make matters worse, there's a narrator that cuts into the movie in between killings to give us an update (un-horror-ific), there are scenes with a Barney Fife character doing things that just aren't funny at all, and the ending, indicative of the overall movie, leaves us wanting more killer.

Based in Texarkana, TX shortly after World War II, a series of violent murders stumps police.  Someone out there is putting on a mask and murdering people every three weeks.  All bets are off, too, because the killer murders all kinds of people in all kinds of different ways (knife, gun, trombome, etc.).  The police can't pin him down, and they have very few clues to work with.  Not to mention there's some dumb sh!t on the police force that keeps bumbling and making dumb jokes.

This movie has Texas Chainsaw potential.  But it's ultimately pretty bad.  I watched a VHS copy that must have been old, because it was too dark to see a good deal of the movie.  Hope it gets released on DVD or Blu-ray soon, because it will not hold up well otherwise.  I understand this movie has its fans.  I don't really understand how.  People are weird.  It's not the worst, but it's not good enough to stay in the middle of the pack.  Sorry The Town That Dreaded Sundown.

the scariest trombone player you'll ever see

This was a good week for movies.  It helped that I got to share the majority of them with friends (fellow horror-loving dorks).  I've amassed a sizable collection that should keep me busy for quite a while.  The fiancee is tolerating this habit.  Damn the torpedoes.  Full horror speed ahead.

50 Nights of Horror Challenge: Week Four - Slugs with Teeth!

50 NIGHTS OF HORROR WEEK FOUR

I'm beginning to see a trend here.  If you never noticed before, not all horror movies are created equal.  Some are really good.  Some are just God awfully terrible.  And some shouldn't really be considered horror at all.

Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Format:  Netflix Streaming
Genre:  Serial Killer


Initially, I didn't care for this movie.  I thought the pacing was slow, the acting flat, and the production value shoddy.  The more I thought about it, though, the more I like it.  The acting was flat because Michael Rooker plays a psychopath that cannot empathize with others.  His buddy, Otis, shares a similar affliction.  And the "love interest/sister" is an oblivious bimbo because...well...who could innocently associate with two psychopaths without being a tad oblivious?

Stuff does not end well for this trio.

Then I read that the movie was put together very quickly with very little funding.  I have a special place in my heart for low-budget movies, and this movie is one of the better low-budget movies I've seen.

The entirety of this movie comes together with a wild, bloody climax that I did not expect.  It really validated the movie for me.  Worth checking out.

2012 (2009)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Disaster Movie
Subgenre:  MOAR DISASTER!

From the director of disaster classics like Independence Day (aliens destroy the planet), Godzilla (monster destroys the planet), and The Day After Tomorrow (global warming destroys the planet) comes 2012, a movie where planetary alignment destroys the planet!

All of the best parts of Roland Emmerich's movies are here.  Basically, that means lots of stuff gets destroyed by above-average special effects.  This isn't really a horror movie, though it has the highest body count of any movie I'll be watching during this challenge.  It could have really been played with more terror.  I imagine that it was made more family-friendly in order to sell more tickets.  It could really have been more dreadful, though.  I'd be interested in watching the much-grimmer version of this.  Oh well.  It is what it is.

SE7EN (1995)
Format:  Cinemax
Genre:  Serial Killer
Subgenre:  Mystery


This is really a gem of a movie.  Even if you're not a fan of horror movies, this is a solid, very well put together mystery movie.  Every time I watch this movie I find something new that I like about it.  I would put this up against any of David Fincher's films (The Game, Fight Club, Zodiac, etc.).  Everything about this movie contributes to the story in a very positive, subliminal way.  Like Fight Club, every little thing in the movie could be a clue.  If you haven't seen it, do so at your earliest convenience.  I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but there are some fantastic cameos in the movie.  And there's one scene that will always -ALWAYS- make me jump.  One of the best endings to a movie I've ever seen.

Black Sunday (1970)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Demons, Haunted House

My dad was only seven years old when this movie came out.  With that in mind, this movie, though not really terrifying by today's standards, had a lot going on.  It's pretty gruesome, and it has some really neat horror effects.  I can't believe it is a movie that is 50+ years old.  Its worth watching for no other reason than watching a movie that impacted the direction horror movies would be made for years to come.

The story is pretty neat.  A vampire/witch is burned at the stake, condemned to die by her own brother.  She places a curse on the family and community, and several hundred years later some yokels inadvertently release the curse.  What results was probably really scary to watch back in the day.  If you watch this, I recommend watching it in a very dark room with one candle lit during a thunderstorm.  Should set the mood nicely.

The Prophecy (1995)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Supernatural
Subgenre:  Angels/Satan

I had never seen this movie before, but I've seen posters and copies of it for years.  The movie's star is Christopher Walken before he was More Cowbell Christopher Walken.  He's not the hero of the movie by any means.  And although he's the villain (the angel Gabriel), he's a sympathetic villain.

The story is as such:  God loves human beings more than any of his other creations.  The angels of heaven began fighting a civil war because of this.  Some of them are jealous of humans.  Others want to preserve God's chosen people.  So the armies of heaven are warring with each other.  God is just sitting back and not participating.  Meanwhile, on earth, the soul of one mean, demented bastard is ripe for the picking.  This evil person has just died, and for some reason his soul can be used as a weapon in heaven, and whichever angel claims the soul can use it to end the angel war.

As the angels jockey for the soul, some humans get tangled up in the mess.  Elias Koteas (Casey Jones from the TMNT movies) and Virginia Madsen (Candyman) play the two most prominent humans.  Elias Koteas is always fun to see in a movie, and here he plays a man who was on the bring of becoming an ordained priest, but he loses his faith and becomes a detective instead.  Virginia Madsen is a smoking hot teacher whose student gets wrapped up in the angel war, so she does, too.  Virginia Madsen looks like Angelina Jolie in this movie.  It makes me kind of sad that she didn't go on to do better movies.

It took me a while to warm up to this movie.  The theme of this movie is very similar to Spawn (the movie or the comic book), The Demon (comic book), Constantine (the movie or the comic book), etc.  And when I put that all together, I realized that this probably influenced those movies/comics significantly.  I haven't seen the sequels yet, but I plan to.  We'll see what direction this story takes.  It could be very very interesting by the time everything is said and done.

Ultimately, though, this isn't so much a horror movie as it is an action movie with horror elements.  There was some gore, but not enough to really make anyone jump.

Slugs (1988)
Format:  Netflix Streaming
Genre:  Monster movie


Wow.  This movie really came as a surprise to me.  I did not expect to enjoy this movie at all.  I turned it on randomly to play in the background while I was doing some work.  Thirty minutes into the movie I stopped watching it on my iPad so I could go watch it on my TV via the PS3.  It was too good to relegate to a small screen.

Basically, this is a goofy monster movie with loads (probably way too much) 80's gore and special effects.  I'm bummed that the trailer gave away as many of the gruesome scenes as it did, but the movie is still loaded with enough that anyone watching this movie will be pleasantly surprised.

To make a long story short:  toxic waste has mutated a bunch of slugs, making them faster than normal slugs, and way hungrier for meat.  When I saw the closeup of a slug with teeth about to bite a finger, I knew I was in for something good.

Toothy slug.  So awesome.  Also...terrible fake finger.

Like any good monster movie, the characters play second fiddle to their death scenes.  In an odd twist, several characters have a lot of exposition (this is my wife, these are my kids, this is my best friends, etc.), but after they die, none of the development matters at all.  I just found it odd that the writer decided we needed to be introduced to a man's wife and her alcoholism if her reaction isn't shown when she finds out he's been eaten alive from the inside out.  Just an odd thought.

My fiancee joined me halfway through the movie because I kept chuckling and gasping.  She lost her appetite several times during the movie.  I recommend watching this after dinner, because there were some scenes that made me nauseous, too.  

There was one actor that looked like 1980's, Spanish Jon Hamm (Mad Men).  There was a scene involving lettuce that made me gag.  There's a slug with teeth.  This movie has been the most pleasant surprise that I've turned up yet.  Right now I'm declaring this as the challenge's winner.  It overtook The Prowler, and that's saying something.  We'll see if it keeps its position on the throne as I go through the next couple weeks of movies.

Hide and Seek (2005)

Format:  DVD

Genre:  Haunted House

Kelley and I caught a random trailer before a movie last week, and we decided that we would check it out.  Hide and Seek arrived the other day, so we decided to sit down and watch this as our couple's horror movie for the week.

Robert Deniro is Dakota Fanning's recently-widowed father.  Dakota Fanning begins acting suspiciously, and Robert Deniro is trying to determine if she's acting out after her mother's death in the form of an imaginary friend named Charlie.  Or is she really being visited by someone/something named Charlie?  And whether Charlie is real or imaginary, how does he know so much about Robert Deniro's family?  And why is Charlie popping up in Dakota Fanning's drawings?

I am a sucker for kid's drawings being a scary plot device in movies.

The only fault I can find with this movie is that it came out during a run of spooky films that all seemed to be derivative of The 6th Sense.  Dragonfly, What Lies Beneath, etc.  It's creepy enough to scare people, but not so bad that it earns an R-rating.  This movie might have been rated R.  I'm not sure.  It certainly didn't need to be rated R.

Elizabeth Shue and Fanke Jannsen are both in this movie.  Both super hot.  Dylan Baker plays a creepy sheriff. There's more than enough creepiness in this movie.  It absolutely kept my attention as I tried to figure out what the hell was going on.  This really works as a thriller.  It was creepy.  I figured out the ending with about 40 minutes to go, but that's ok, because the ending was really fun to watch.  Also, I've become a sucker for these movies that take place in New York because now I can identify landmarks.  The bulk of this movie takes place in the Hudson Valley, another part of NY State that I adore.

There's not much new ground uncovered in this movie. Kelley told me a couple times that I've watched too many horror movies.  I was able to figure most of the scenes and surprises out before they actually happened on screen.  That's not necessarily a bad thing.  It makes it an accessible horror movie that anyone can watch with anyone else.  Not too frightening.  Not too scary.  Moody and creepy as heck, but not dreadfully so.  I can't say that I'll ever watch this again, but I am glad to be able to say I've seen it.

I only have nineteen more movies to go before I hit my 50 mark.  This shouldn't be a problem.  I have about fifty more that people have recommended to me, and I have about 50 waiting as reserves in the wings.  I've added a lot of VHS horror to my collection via Amazon.com.  I had no idea they still sold VHS on that site, and I've found several gems for less than $1 (plus $2.98 shipping).  Who knows?  Maybe by the time Halloween rolls around I will have seen 75 or maybe even 100 movies.  That would be quite the feat.  I don't know if Kelley will tolerate that kind of garbage, though.  We'll see.