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.