50 Nights of Horror 2014: Late Entries - It Smells Like Godzilla's Butthole

So by the time Halloween had come and gone, there were still a lot of movies that I had not written reviews for yet.  So, in an attempt to complete this, here are 16 more reviews.  There will probably be more coming when time permits.

Jason Goes to Hell:  The Final Friday (1993)
Genre:  Slasher
Format:  DVD

This movie surprised me right from the get-go!  I've never seen such a surprisingly quick, violent, action-packed start to a horror movie.  I challenge anyone to find a franchise horror movie with such a jarring film opening.  Where most of the F13 movies start with some sort of recap or introductory slaying, this one starts with nothing you expect.

From there, though, it begins to play out kind of how you expect it.  Granted, there are some interesting twists and kills, but there's not too much that's going to catch you off guard.

In the last F13 movie, Jason was reduced to a child-sized puddle of nuclear waste in a Manhattan sewer.  That's a pretty conclusive ending.  In this movie, Jason is chasing a hot blonde, but he looks more like Super Shredder and less like a man-child that's grown up in the shell of an abandoned summer camp, been stabbed, shot, and bludgeoned multiple times, killed, raised from the dead, chained to the bottom of a lake, resurrected, and re-chained.  In theory, Jason would be a hulking, rotten corpse monster (because we use theory and logic in THE REAL WORLD...just kidding).  In this movie, he's bigger and more blistered than ever, and his mask...well....he really just looks like Super Shredder instead of like Jason.  So the nuclear waste at the end of Jason Takes Manhattan was actually the Ooze from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2:  The Secret of the Ooze.

But this doesn't last long, because Super Shredder Jason gets blasted apart by the military, and his soul begins passing along from person to person in a weird, unholy, disembodies demon spirit thing.  You're taking a leap of faith with this movie, but it does its best to steer closer to the F13 roots.

I should also take the time to let you know that there are lots of boobs in this movie, so if that's your thing, dig in with this one.

There were some really cool things going on in this one besides the Jason mythology.  The Necronomicon from The Evil Dead 2 makes a brief cameo.  And the special effects in this film are WAY above my expectations.  You don't see body melt scenes like this very often.  F13:IX Jason Goes to Hell:  The Final Friday (jeez that's a long title), features some incredible effects.  Well done, team!

I won't spoil the twists to Jason's history, and I won't spoil the surprise ending here.  I heard about it on the playground as a kid and thought it was setting up for one of the coolest movies ever.  I saw that "coolest movie ever" as an adult when it was released in the theaters.  I was kind of drunk, so I'll have to revisit that one later.

Final Note:  This VHS cover scared me bad as a kid.  It also informed me of what I thought Hell actually looked like - flames and demon snakes.  Good God, it still terrifies me on some levels.

Poltergiest II:  The Other Side (1986)
Genre:  Possession
Format:  streaming

I decided to wrap up the Poltergeist series recently since I love the original movie so much.  The team of Spielberg and Hooper worked really, really well for the first movie.  It was creepy and gross and you could sympathize with all of the characters.  Well, maybe not with the weird dwarf woman, but everyone else in the family.  Even the villain in the film, the white developer, was guilty only of not believing urban legends.  And the original movie was light-hearted enough that you could keep watching in between the terrific and dreadful scares.

The mythology of the first movie continues to grow in Poltergeist II:  The Other Side.  And the movie really benefits by bringing back most of the cast from the first movie.  All of the important players are back, and that's important, because the family dynamic remains.  The daughter, Carol Anne (I wonder how many parents made the conscious decision to NOT name their daughter Carol Anne after these movies), is still being haunted by ghosts, but here we get an explanation of just why that's happening.  It wasn't really explained in detail through the first movie.

A crazy old zealot made some bad decisions (predicting the end of the world), and he ended up inadvertently killing all of his followers in a very depressing way.  Early in the movie, we see a big snake-ish, eel-thing ooze out of this guy's gooey remains, and this signals that the game is on!  

So, we have a family on the run from ghosts, the father is battling depression/alcoholism, the daughter is susceptible to demon ghost preachers...who can help the Freelings?  In the first movie, we had Zelda Rubinstein, but she can't possibly pull a repeat performance all by herself.  Who you gonna call?  How about a mythical effin Shaman?!  That's right!  The silent Native American guy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest!

The situation takes the kind of path you'd expect, and I'd hate to ruin anything for you.  The audience gets some genuine character development (albeit through some crappy montages and too-goofy-for-this-movie humor) and some AWESOME special effects.  The ending doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but this is Poltergeist II, sequel to a GREAT horror movie without the original team that made it.

Give this movie a chance.  It will surprise you.

Poltergeist 3 (1988)
Genre:  Haunted House
Format:  streaming

Oh damn it.  For all of the credit earned by Poltergeist II for keeping a budding franchise alive, Poltergeist III just lays a giant egg and falls into the trap of being a predictable teen vehicle that happens have Carol Anne from the first two installments.   It should be noted that the bad guy from Poltergeist 2, Kane, returns for P3.  Unfortunately, the actor that portrayed Kane in P2 had died in between movies.  So we're without the Freeling family and we're without the heavy bad guy.

I mean, Kane's featured in this movie.  He's still chasing after Carol Anne.  He's just played by someone else in bad makeup.  Still creepy.  It just feels cheapened.  For all of the other directions this movie tries to go in, I don't understand why the filmmakers felt the need to carry over this character.

I also realize that it's not good to speak poorly of the deceased, but the actress that portrayed Carol Anne was not very good at acting.  So...I don't think I'll be adding this one to my collection.  There are some neat special effects here, but it doesn't feature enough of the chemistry that made the first two movies so good.

Dolly Dearest (1991)
Genre:  Killer Dolls
Format:  DVD

When you watch this movie, keep repeating to yourself "this is not a Child's Play movie" over and over, because it feels just like a Child's Play movie.  Rip Torn is in this movie, and he's pretty awesome (this would have been around his career revival around The Larry Sanders show).  And if this HAD been a Child's Play movie, I would say it would have been one of the better entries into that franchise.

It's a cheaply-made movie, and it's not acted extremely well acted.  It's not too scary.  I just...it's kind of hard to explain.  One of the creepier aspects of this movie is that, unlike Chucky, the killer doll isn't one person in particular.  Rather it's a collection of evil Mayan spirits.  I think.  There's no need to waste too much time trying to figure this out.

I'm not going to lie.  This isn't a great movie.  But somehow it struck a chord with me.  Maybe I just watched it at the right time.  Ultimately, I had a really good time with this one.

Torso (1973)
Genre:  Slasher
Format:  bluray

I started this movie off on a bad foot.  When I popped in the bluray, there's an option to begin with a special message from director Eli Roth.  So I selected it.  And the dude immediately begins talking about THE END of the movie!  I had to hit [STOP] real fast so that piece of crap...sorry... I need to slow down.

This is a really good movie, and I absolutely understand why Roth was so excited to talk about the ending.  I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone, so I'll do my best not to spoil it.  The movie is a really slow burner with a lot of red herrings.  There were a couple times that I debated stopping the show and selling my copy of the movie back.

I am so glad I decided to ride this one out.  This is a really beautiful movie with lots of really beautiful women.  It oozes sleaze and sex and violence, but it does so very deliberately.  It is not unlike an issue of Playboy very carefully tucked inside a school book.  Or a terrifically juicy hamburger held within the confines of a delicately baked fresh bun.  On its surface, this movie is a straight-ahead toss-away slasher, but there's a lot more going on, and that's what makes it really, really good.

You know...I saw a couple other movies that were really well done.  I should go ahead and review them now, too.

Watch this movie, though.  it's solid, and I understand why Eli Roth was so excited about it.

Repulsion (1965)
Genre:  Psychological Horror
Format:  bluray

I guess if you have to attach a label to this movie, you'd call it a psychological horror movie with a killer blonde that is...dealing with some issues.  To say the least.

Catherine Deneuve portrays Carol, a beautiful young woman who just doesn't have a spot in this world.  She's simply off-kilter.  Her "safe place" is an apartment she shares with her sister and a job as a stylist's assistant at a spa full of sympathetic women.  And it seems like Carol's life is humming along ok because it exists in a bubble.  But then her sister brings a man home.  And a guy begins pursuing Carol in an attempt to court her.  And her sister takes a vacation, leaving Carol alone and unsupervised.  And things take a turn for the worse.

Without her support system in place, the cracks in Carol's world become big, gaping fissures.  Little things take on a life of their own.  And Carol slowly goes crazy.  That's the story, as simple as that, but Roman Polanski tells a really wonderful, ambitious story here.  This movie is really a piece of art, and I feel more cultured for having watched it.  Wonderful.  Let's keep this thing going.  Here's another beautiful, ambitious classic horror movie called Possession.

Possession (1981)
Genre:  Insanity
Format:  DVD

There is no other kind of story that simultaneously has the potential to be great or to be miserable as when someone wants to tell you about the kind of dream they recently had.  Dreams are extremely personal, ranging from extremely funny to sad to exciting and often just plain weird.  And they can be intensely detailed.  Imagine trying to explain to someone a vivid nightmare about the end of a personal romance.

That is Possession.  Andrzej Zulawski crafted together a poignant 2-hour nightmare that is communicated so personally and yet so effectively that the audience feels like they have stepped into a nightmare.  What makes this movie so much scarier is that you can believe and live in this nightmare along with the director.

I had heard about this movie because it kept popping up on lists of great 80s horror movies.  I would have watched just *because*, and I would have expected it to lump in with movies like Cat People or The Gate or other eccentric 80s horror movies that didn't spawn franchises.  Then I read an article in which Beneciou del Toro said a woman has sex with an eel monster in Possession.  So I moved it up on the Netflix queue.  But none of these descriptions or write-ups or lists do this film any justice.  This is less a movie, and more of a peak inside another person's mind.  And the thoughts and images we get to share are not pretty.

I take that back.  They're extremely pretty.  This is one of the prettiest, most colorful movies I've seen in a long time.  I imagine that if Repulsion had not been in black and white, it would have shared a similar color scheme.  But the colors aren't just there to make the film more palatable, because sometimes they were so off-putting and effective that they disgusted me.  Oh, it was so gross.

The acting, too, seemed WAY too real.  To me, Sam Neill was always a smart guy from Jurassic Park, and any other role came a distant runner-up.  I won't ever be able to look at him the same after this film.  And I don't think I'd ever seen Isabelle Adjani in a movie before, but I fell in love with her right from the start, even though her character Anna never really seems all that likable.  It's hard to describe WHY I felt the way I felt, but it was certainly passion.

What transpires trough the film is difficult to describe.  Like most dreams, this isn't exactly linear.  The story starts before the movie starts, and similarly, you can assume it continues after the movie's ending.  I did a lot of reading about these three films after I'd watched them, and I don't think most reviewers can settle on what they think the ultimate theme of the movie is.  There are some obvious take aways, but there's a lot more going on here than a simple Kramer vs. Kramer movie about divorce.  I feel like the director pierced his own personal Hell, observed as best he could, and then made a movie to communicate that Hell to a larger audience.

Last year I watched a movie with Pat called Inside, and I never want to see that movie again.  It was an ordeal to watch because of how much physical pain was involved throughout.  This movie was painful in a very different way, and I haven't settled on whether or not I'll ever be able to watch it again.  If I do, it won't be for a good, long time.  And the scenes where Anna looks directly into the camera?  Shivers.  Holy shit, the shivers...

Nightbreed (1990)
Genre:  Fantasy Horror
Format:  bluray

Everything that made Possession such a great movie makes Nightbreed a real dog of a movie.  I see loads of potential for this one, but Possession was directed very effectively so that the viewer feels like they're experiencing the nightmare.

Remember what I said about some people doing a piss poor job of telling you about their dreams?  That's how Nightbreed plays out.  Clive Barker had a nightmare, and it probably energized him and scared him, and he probably thought "hey, I should share this nightmare with millions of people!"  Unfortunately, Barker had only directed Hellraiser at this point in his career, and he wasn't able to really capture...well...anything with this mess of a movie.

From what I gather, this film has a pretty devoted following, and I get it.  Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) made a movie called Southland Tales that seems, to me, like one big convoluted dream sequence.  I felt like Kelly had an extremely vivid dream, woke up, and immediately wrote everything down regardless of how much sense it made.

If I didn't know that this movie was based on a short story that Clive Barker had written beforehand, if I didn't know that he had plenty of time to really think this one through, then I would probably be a little more forgiving with it.  I also read that the movie studio interfered with the final cut of this movie and really changed the tone of it.  I can't imagine they changed the film so much that any incarnation of it would have been really watchable.

The casual observer might enjoy the fact that David Cronenburg played Dr. Decker, a psychiatrist that is also a duplicitous slasher killer (I'm not spoiling anything - this is explained within the first 15 minutes).  Unfortunately, Cronenberg is as good an actor as Barker is a director.  That is to say, he was bad.  It's a shame.  But it's doubly shameful that Cronenberg, a man responsible for so many unique, horrifying, thoughtful movies was on set with Barker during the making of Nightbreed, and he didn't pitch in more or give more direction.  Cronenberg should have anchored this movie, because if anyone could have helped this, I think it would have been him.

If we called this movie "Bag Face" and edited it to make a story about a therapist that led a double life as a slasher that thought murdering people would earn him a spot in a special kind of Hell inhabited by demon monsters....that could be a good movie.  If we made a movie called "Bag Face" about a man intent on killing undead demon monsters, THAT could be a good movie.  Of course, either of these movies would require (a) a good actor in the role -- sorry, DC-- and (b) a story re-focus from Boone and Lori to a character with actual charisma.

Boone and Lori would have been characters that I might have bought into if...well...no.  I don't think the actors were really that good, and their storyline was pretty silly.

I'm probably being overly-critical of this movie.  Admittedly, I had high hopes for it for some reason.  I don't know why.  I'm not a huge Clive Barker fan.  I didn't love Hellraiser or Candyman.  I didn't really buy into The Midnight Meat Train.  Barker, I respect your work, but I don't want to hear about your dreams anymore.



Night of the Demons 2 (1994)
Genre:  Haunted House/Demons
Format:  Netflix Streaming

This movie has really surprised me!  For reasons unknown, I thought I'd seen it shortly after I watched the original Night of the Demons the first time.  But as I sit and watch this now, I realize that I know NOTHING about this movie.

If you sat my friends and me down in a room back in 1994, this is probably the horror movie that we would have put together.  It features plenty of sex, violence, and black humor to make it extremely entertaining, especially if you're a young teenager.  These kinds of movies really resonate for me on a weird level.  It's a nice mishmash of horror comics, scary stories, haunted houses, and all of the scatterings that make Halloween such a fun holiday.

And I had no idea, but Ben Stiller's wife, Christine Taylor, has been in THREE movies from this year's batch of horror movies.  I had no idea she'd ever been in ANY horror movies!  She's featured here in NotD2, she was in Campfire Tales, and she also played a role in The Craft.

The tone of this movie is very different from the first Night of the Demons (one of my recent favorites).  It's campier, it's funnier, and it's much lighter.  At one point, someone makes the comment that a room smells like Godzilla's butthole.  I'd never really considered Godzilla's rear end before, but it is probably pretty rank.  Regardless, none of those things really take away from this movie, and those aspects certainly could.  I recommend this one very highly.

Stake Land (2010)
Genre:  Dystopian Vampire Zombies
Format:  Netflix Streaming

In this film, a ragtag team of survivors do their best to live in a post-apocalyptic America that has become overrun with vampires.  The monsters are afflicted with varying degrees of vampirism:  some are mindless zombie vampires.  Others are intelligent, crafty bastards.

I'm a sucker for most post-apocalyptic movies to begin with.  The filmmakers did a very good job crafting a bleak version of America here.  I got the impression that they weren't working with a lot, but they made it feel pretty authentic.

And the actors did a good job making their characters seem real.  That being said, each character is a derivative of characters you've seen in similar movies or TV shows (The Road and The Walking Dead both came to mind).  But that's totally ok, because I enjoyed both of those shows, and Stake Land uses those themes and plots devices very well.  I suppose you could compare it to Zombieland without most of that movie's humor.

The movie is surprisingly good, and it's worth watching.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
Genre:  Ghost Story, Slasher, Revenge
Format:  DVD

I popped this bad boy in on a whim.  The DVD cover featured quotes from horror heavies such as Vincent Price and Ray Bradbury giving it a lot of acclaim - way more than I would have guessed.  And I totally get why they paid this movie those compliments -- they were probably contractually obligated to say such by CBS!

That's only halfway a joke.  I had no idea this had been a CBS made-for-TV movie when I started watching it.  The movie has a great cast, and there are scenes that are genuinely scary.  I started to get suspicious, though, when some characters met some gruesome deaths, but no gore was shown.  That's when I did some reading to find out that it had aired on CBS on a Halloween Saturday night back in 1981.

How cool would it be if the major stations still showed Saturday night movies?  And how cool would it be if these channels invested money to make their own movies, especially seasonal movies?  I suppose it would be more difficult now that there are so many damn channels out there.  I digress.

The plot here is essentially one of revenge.  A mentally-handicapped man is killed by some vengeful rednecks when they incorrectly blame him for murdering a young girl.  The mentally-handicapped dude had tried to hide from the rednecks by dressing up as a scarecrow and hanging himself from a post in a cornfield.  So when he dies, something magical might happen to allow him revenge on his killers.  Or the rednecks might be getting murdered by other members of the community that don't appreciate the rednecks' vigilante methods.

Even though this was a made-for-TV scary movie, it's still genuinely scary and creepy.  Supposedly this movie started the killer Scarecrow sub-genre.  I don't think I've ever seen any other killer Scarecrow movies, but I'll look them up now because of this one.

The Outing (aka The Lamp) (1987)
Genre:  Dark Magic
Format:  DVD

Ugh.  For a movie that has such a cool movie poster, and such a neat opening scene, this one really gets away from itself in the second and third acts.

A group of clumsy high school kids get their hands on an evil magic lamp.  The ringleader of the group gets possessed by the lamp's genie, and she invites her friends to spend the night in the museum her father curates.  From there, the kids start dropping like flies, killed magically by different things the genie possesses.

With a plot like that, I suppose you can't have really high expectations. It's kind of hard to say what it was in particular about this movie that bothered me.  I guess it didn't help that I saw an edited version of the film (4-movie horror marathon from Scream Factory), so I know I missed the end of a couple characters.  Overall it seems really watered down.  The first scene and the tone of the movie seem like a hard R, but then it gets cluttered with PG-13 melodrama.

Or maybe I just had high hopes for this movie.  Too high.  Someday I'll watch it again, and now that I know what I'm getting myself into, maybe I'll appreciate it more.

What's The Matter With Helen? (1971)
Genre:  Psychological Horror
Format:  DVD

Another movie from the Scream Factory All Night Horror Marathon vol. 1, this movie really isn't terrible.  It is a curious addition to this collection because it doesn't feel much like a horror movie at all.  It seems like the kind of psychological horror that exploded in the 90s after Silence of the Lambs.  Kind of like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Fatal Attraction, or Sleeping with the Enemy.  But the movie was two decades too early.

That's not to say that it isn't a good movie, it's just not the movie I thought I was going to watch.  Shelley Winters plays a really good off-kilter woman, and Debbie Reynolds plays a woman determined to be a starmaker.

One interesting fact about the film:  Debbie Reynolds was actually having a nervous breakdown while she was portraying a woman going through her own mental breakdown.  So that's neat.

I don't think I'll watch this one again.  It's not bad by any means, but it didn't do much for me.

Castle Freak (1995)
Genre:  Monster Movie, Slasher
Format:  DVD

Stuart Gordon  took another H.P. Lovecraft story and made an above-average horror movie out of it.  In this one, a family inherits a castle in Italy from a relative they weren't familiar with.  Gordon regular Jeffrey Combs is the father in this family, and he's dealing with the consequences of his drunk driving accident.  The accident claimed both the eyesight of his daughter and the life of his son.  So he's already in a weird spot.  Now he's uprooted his family to another country, and on top of that there's something weird going on in this castle.

The weird thing going on in the castle is actually a human monster that's been chained in a weird little prison room in the castle's bowels.  The previous owner used to give this person just enough sustenance that it would survive being whipped and beat over and over again.  So the monster is a little sympathetic.  Kind of like The Phantom of the Opera or Frankenstein's Monster.

But things being to topple quickly.  When he's spurned by his wife, Jeffrey Combs' character John begins whoring and drinking and falling into the bad graces of the local authorities.  Meanwhile, the Freak breaks free of his chains and begins doing weird things in the castle.  The Freak kills some visitors.  He pervs out on the blind daughter.  He is more of a menace than a monster, and sometimes these movies make me wonder why the monsters are never given a chance.

Wait.  It could be because the Freak eats a woman's boobs off.  That's pretty gross.  Disregard everything I said about sympathizing with the Freak.  Kill it with fire!  NOW!

The ending of this movie was way bleaker than I thought it would be, and I have to say it was pretty satisfying.  This movie was a slow burn, and I wish I had a better copy of it.  My DVD seemed dark and blurry and cheap.  Sometimes that works for an older movie, especially a Full Moon Pictures release, but this one deserves better.

Jennifer's Body (2009)
Genre:  Demons, Dark Comedy
Format:  bluray

Watching as many horror movies as I do is a guilty pleasure.  My wife doesn't get it.  Most of the people I deal with on a daily basis don't get it.  And I don't think I could really identify that moment when my horror switch got flipped.  That being said, Jennifer's Body is one of my guilty pleasures of horror, and with this movie I CAN put my finger on when I flipped.

You know, as I type this, I think Jennifer's Body is the culmination of multiple guilty pleasures that I harbor.  I was still living in Kentucky.  I worked late.  It was Halloween weather outside (chilly and drizzling).  I decided that I wanted to go see a movie by myself before going home (guilty pleasure).  I settled on what was supposed to be a campy horror movie (guilty pleasure).  I snuck in a pint of bourbon (guilty pleasure).  I made a dinner of popcorn, a big bourbon-and-coke cocktail, and I sat in an almost-empty theater on a week night.

I had never really bought into Megan Fox, and in this movie she reminded me a lot of Juno (Ellen Page), cute but unremarkable.  Now Amanda Seyfriend, on the other hand, earned herself a new fan for this movie.  She was really fun to watch (and the next movie I saw her in, Chloe, made me an even bigger fan).

The movie in itself is very silly.  The tone never takes itself too seriously, but I remember jumping at least once when I saw it in the movie theater.  When I rewatched recently, my wife kept looking up from her phone, looking at me, and shaking her head when she would hear some of the dialog.

I don't need to defend the movie.  I recognize that it's not scary or gory enough to win as a standalone horror movie.  It's not funny enough to be a standalone comedy.  But on one funky night, I got buzzed in a movie theater with two strangers on a date, we laughed and shrieked together from across the theater, and this movie earned a fan.  I watch this one about once a year.

Bride of Re-Animator (1989)
Genre:  Mad Scientist, Zombies
Format:  DVD

Bride of Re-Animator is not a perfect sequel, but it holds on its own in a really fun way.  If you haven't seen the first Re-Animator, stop reading here and go watch that.  It is great.  BoR isn't great, but it's still fun.  I also love the way the movie starts, essentially re-capping some of the events of the first movie.  Dr. Hill from the first movie issues a threat to Dr. West.

From here, we find Dr. West and Dr. Cain continuing their experiments in Peru in the middle of a civil war.  Dr. West has mastered his reagent, and now he and his partner can move back to Miskatonic University.  At the university, the two scientists are working to CREATE life instead of just reviving corpses.  And how better to create than to cobble together parts harvested from the hospital's morgue.  (To be fair, this plot point doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but we're watching the sequel to Re-Animator, so we let this ride.)

 Brian Yuzna (writer/director of Society) introduced some neat kinks to the Re-Animator plot.  First, another doctor/scientist gets his hand on the reagent and accidentally reanimates the first film's villain, Dr. Hill.  So there's threat #1.

The second kink in this movie is a nosy detective, Lt. Chapham, investigating the murders of the first Miskatonic Massacre (from the first movie).  Chapham also has a personal stake in the game because his once-dead wife was reanimated during the events of the first film (apparently, a lot of zombies were captured and confined to a mental hospital because nobody knows what's wrong with them).  Chapham is slowly narrowing his investigation on West and Cain.

The third new player in this movie is Jillian Francesca, an Italian journalist that Dr. Cain fell in love with during his stint in Peru.  Of all the plot points in this movie, this is definitely the weakest.  It does serve as a device to drive conflict between West and Cain.  But other than that, there's not much reason for her to be involved.

And a neat new twist in this movie is that the reagent can be used like zombie crazy glue.  At one point, Dr. West "glues" together an arm and a leg, and the arm-leg gains sentience and tries to fight West.  There are a lot of possibilities with this kind of logic.  I don't want to ruin the ending for you, but all of these different themes come together for one wild final act.  It was so fun and creative that I'm bumping up the third movie in the series (Beyond Re-Animator) way up in my Netflix queue.  Well done!

Conclusion:
So Halloween season is gone.  It's been almost a month now.  But I don't think I'll be taking my foot off of the gas any time soon.  I might start trying to publish these on a more regular basis.  Maybe weekly?  Maybe bi-monthly?  I don't know yet.  Stay tuned.

50 Nights of Horror 2014: Special Edition: Dismember the Alamo

To be completely honest and up front, there's no way I would have attended the Alamo Drafthouse's Dismember the Alamo movie event if it hadn't been for my friend Patrick (IcyJones) persistence.  It's always good to spend time with friends, and it had been too long since I had spent time one-on-one with Patrick.  On the other hand, the thought of spending upwards of 6 hours with a theater full of strangers was, to be completely honest, intimidating.

Initially, I declined the offer.  "Come on up to NYC, but let's find something - anything else to do."  I have more than enough movies to consumer, WAY more than the four offered by Alamo.  I was also concerned that I would probably have seen any of the movies that would be screened.  But IcyJones was relentless.  The event was REALLY affordable when you put it to paper (around $5 per movie), and I had been informed that most of these movies would probably be rare.  The chances of seeing any of them on the big screen of a theater was slim.  I caved.

This a record of the events that transpired that evening.

Some things you ought to know about the Alamo Drafthouse:
When you purchase a movie ticket, you have an assigned seat.  In that seat, you get food and drink service (the service and the goods served are all above-average..in fact, it's all great).  The theater caters each screening of each movie to the audience by showing a unique pre-show that consists of archival footage related to the movie you're about to watch.  For example, before we watched Dawn of the Planet of the Apes this past summer, we were treated to scenes from featurettes about circus monkeys, clips from actors in gorilla suits from old movies, and some sketch comedy scenes poking fun at motion capture special effects.

When we arrived at the theater, just in time to start the marathon, we got to see some vintage trailers, and then the hosts of the marathon made a couple funny comments about the movies we were about to see.  Nobody in the audience knew what the movie selection for this theater was going to be.  I was nervous.  And a little hungover from the night before.  And kind of tired.  "I should have napped before jumping into this," I kept thinking to myself.

The lights dimmed, and as soon as the title sequence started to creep along the screen, I knew which movie we were about to be treated to.  What a drag.  I had seen the first movie just a couple weeks ago.

Night of the Creeps (1986)
Genre:  EVERYTHING
Format:  Theater!!!

I slid into my seat, disgruntled, and quietly sure that this was going to be a long waste of a night.

But then a funny thing happened.  I remembered that this is one of my favorite horror movies!  And as much as I genuinely love the film, I was probably never going to be able to see this in a movie theater ever again!

So I eased up on the negativity and really got into the movie.  I looked for scenes and jokes that I might not have seen during previous viewings of the movie.  And I found them!  Watching the movie with an audience of like-minded fans took it to another level, too!  People laughed when I laughed.  They buzzed when there were boobs on-screen.  Ultimately, I was completely wrong about my initial thoughts about this movie.  It was a blast.

One movie down, I turned my phone back on (it's considerate to not have your phone on during a movie) and texted my wife.  "Both of us had seen the first movie, but we both loved it, so this isn't so bad."  I ordered a snack, I munched on some popcorn, and I talked with some people sitting next to me.  Pat and I had come into the theater after some other announcements had been made.  Apparently we missed that there was a special food and drink menu for the night.  The Drafthouse was serving Blood Bags - a sangria cocktail served inside a plastic pouch made to look like...blood bags.  I didn't have any, but man did they look cool.

The hosts returned to the front of the theater to about the next movie we were about to watch.  They gave away a couple clues:
- the director is from New York.  The movie is set in New York.  The director refused to attend a screening of the film.
- there is only one copy of this movie on 35mm film, so we were about to be treated.

Right away I got the impression that this was going to be one of those So Bad It's Good movies, so I was encouraged to start on movie #2.

The lights dimmed, the credits started.  Pat and I had an unspoken challenge to see who could guess the movie first.  Directed by Frank Henenlotter.  "FrankenHooker!"  No...  Then the movie title crawled across the screen and Pat and I cackled.

Basket Case (1980)
Genre:  Monster Movie
Format:  Theater!!!

I had never seen this movie before.  Patrick, on the other hand, has.  Regardless, we were ready to get this show on the road.

This movie has been on my radar for a long time, and for whatever reason, it kept getting shifted lower and lower on my Netflix queue.  Then, during the past couple weeks, the storyline of the conjoined twins on this season of American Horror Story brought it back to the front of my mind.  Recognizing the other movies in my queue, I opted to purchase the movie outright from Amazon.com.  I was convinced that I should see this film.  The cost and the subpar distributor convinced me to wait on the purchase, but I couldn't get the thought of this movie out of my mind.  So it was a huge surprise to me that I would be able to see this in a movie theater.

There's a lot going on in this movie that appealed to me.  It's both gross and sentimental.  It's cheap, but effective.  And it was set in New York City.  During one scene, Patrick pointed out that among the storefront signs seen along Times Square, there was one that advertised selling Adult Movies, Porn Mags, Lingerie, Dildos, and "plastic goods."  There are a lot of products that are covered by the description "plastic goods" (ice cube trays, cell phone cases, hair brushes, water bottles...).  We got a good laugh out of that.  And the characters and scenery are VERY late 70s/early 80s New York.  I'm a sucker for it.

This was extremely satisfying.  You could tell that the movie didn't have a lot of movie behind it, but the team really made a great film with very few means.  The actors didn't do much of significance after this movie, but they all pitched in to make a funny, scary, gross, touching horror movie.  Many movies try to balance all of those themes in a given film, but most faceplant when they try.  This one succeeded, and if you haven't seen it, I recommend you try soon.

But you won't be able to see it in a movie theater.  And I did.  So suck it.

Before the movie started, we were promised that a member of the actual movie would be joining us for a Q&A.  We were treated by Beverly Bonner, the hooker with a heart of gold from the film.  It was neat.

So far, I'd seen one of the two movies.  Patrick had seen both.  So this wasn't a total bust for me.

Another intermission.  Some more food and drink ordered (I really like their draft root beer).  Then some more clues about the next movie.
"It's from Italy."
Patrick and I started making our guesses.  Suspiria, Demons, Don't Look Now, Phenomena...none were right.

Well, one was half-right...

Demons 2 (1986)
Genre:  Demons...
Format:  Theater!!!

I watched this movie within the past couple years, and I remember having a hard time of it.  The first Demons movie takes place in a movie theater, so it might have been a great one for the marathon.  I'm still curious on how the sequel was settled upon.  But, much like Night of the Creeps, maybe I'd take more out of it if I watched it in a theater instead of in my living room.

Nope.  It's still a weird, dysfunctional mess of a film.  Instead of being trapped inside of a movie theater, this film's cast of characters is trapped inside of a state-of-the-art apartment complex, not unlike Poltergiest 3.  The transformations from human to demon/zombie aren't as frightening as the original.  The logic of the movie is WAY more disjointed that the original (a television program, deliberately made for a television station for education purposes in the wake of the events of Demons 1, possesses ONE viewer of the show...not the entire viewing audience).  And the pacing is extremely off-balance.

Italian horror movies are notorious for having extreme scenes that aren't tied together by much logic or plot.  And that's how this movie feels.  Killer kid movies are popular, so let's feature a kid demon.  Scary little monsters are popular, too, so let's feature a little monster like the one from Gremlins and Ghoulies (shit, we forgot to edit out the strings...oh well).

There's a lot that's wrong with this movie, and I got the impression that the audience just didn't have it in them to forgive this movie for all of its faults.  The ending of Demons 2 certainly didn't help.  Everyone was getting restless.

Ultimately, I think that this was the weakest point of the evening. Also, the movie was just recently re-released on bluray, so it's already found most of its fans.  I thought I could expect better from the Drafthouse than to pick this.  It certainly could have found worse movies to fit what would prove to be the theme of the night, 80s cult horror movies.

At this point, I've seen 2/3 of the movies.  Pat had seen 3/3.

We got no clues for the next movie, but I figured it out early on.  And I thought the theater would explode...

Society (1992)
Genre:  Monster Movie/Paranoia/Body Melt
Format:  Theater!!!

I watched this one with my buddy Mike this past summer.  It had popped onto my radar when I saw a few gifs of the film on the Tumblr feed.  I quickly found a copy of the movie on VHS and anticipated sharing it with Mike during his May visit.  I didn't know what to expect that time, and it proved to be an exciting, funny, gross movie.  The second time around, however, I knew what was coming, and it proved to be less-than-excellent.

This movie is creepy, and it's effective in making the viewing sympathize with the protagonist's paranoia.  Everyone in his family has blonde hair and blue eyes (except him).  Everyone seems preoccupied with "joining Society."  Everyone except him.  I am not familiar with that term, but I would liken it to joining an exclusive country club.  Everyone is tall and athletic and socially incestuous and insulated.  Except him.

Through a series of odd, plodding events, Bill stumbles into a conspiracy that may or may not concern his family and friends.  It actually makes a slow go of a movie (especially if you don't start it until 11 p.m.).  I really thought the audience would buy into this one, and I still think they might have if it was the first or second movie of the night.  Starting behind Demons 2 did it no favors, and the audience didn't really seem to buy into the extreme third act that had me cackling and laughing when I watched it the first time.

I'm still pretty amazed that a copy of this film was found, because I had a difficult time procuring a copy on VHS.  If you can get your hands on a copy, I do think you ought to see it.  Brian Yuzna contributed to a lot of my favorite horror movies, and this is his first time in the writer/director seat, so you have to be a little forgiving in that regard.  Maybe I'm a little too forgiving, but I really think this movie has a lot going for it.  Maybe just don't watch it as the final movie of a 4-movie marathon, that's all I'm saying.

Patrick had never seen this movie, so both of us walked out of the marathon, fuzzy-eyed, tired, and over-stimulated having seen ONE new movie and THREE movies we'd previously seen.  We were both a little dank and musky.  For whatever reason, the temperature of the theater had been turned up.  Everyone exiting smelled like sweat and fear.  That's my one criticism of the Drafthouse that evening.  It could have been a little bit cooler.

WRAP-UP:

In hindsight, I'm very happy that Patrick convinced me to attend Dismember the Alamo.  With the exception of Demons 2, I think the theater really picked some winners.  I understand that each Drafthouse featured different lineups.  By comparison, I think that the Yonkers theater, the one we attended, had the best selection.  I'll be curious to see if this gets picked up again next year.  If it does, I'll be there.

One last note - before we exited the theater, I hung back to thank our server.  He had been dealing with some hot, stuffy horror nerds for most of his waking hours that Saturday night, but his service to us had not faltered.  He asked me if I had enjoyed myself that night.  Of course I had, and I let him know.  Then he mentioned to me that one of his tables had remarked that the entire evening had been a waste of time.  Apparently, they hadn't enjoyed a single one of the movies.

Patrick and I talked about that on the drive back to my apartment.  I suppose if you're a fan of Saw and Hostel and Paranormal Activity (modern Hollywood horror), then this probably didn't satisfy that horror need.  And if you saw that the poster and read "FOR HORROR CLASSICKS" you could have interpreted that as movies along the lines of The Haunting, The Phantom of the Opera.  Or you could have read into the "CLASSICKS" term and thought of Cannibal Holocaust, Wizard of Gore, or Last House on the Left.  What I'm trying to say is this - an evening like this certainly isn't for everyone.  Hell, it's probably not for MOST people.  But even among the horror community, there are many particular "tastes."  What I sat through was right in line with the kind of horror movie that I enjoy watching (not too gross, not too dark, not too serious).  Making a commitment to sit through FOUR movies in a row is a risk.  I gambled and walked away very content.  But I can absolutely see how some could have been upset.  Regardless, the atmosphere was cool, the service was top notch, and though you invest a lot of time, it didn't really cost THAT much money.