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October HorrorDays 2014


Burgundy LaRue

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Missed all the but the end but damn... I still have a hard time calling An American Werewolf In London a horror-comedy. That shit is funny in only the utmost blackest sense. John Landis might be a guy you probably couldn't hang out with and not laugh the entire time you're with him, but that film is his heart of darkness.

 

Total black comedy. While the whole mess is indeed the drizzling shits the movie is clearly tackling the absurdity of it head on.

 

John Landis might be a guy you probably couldn't hang out with and not laugh the entire time you're with him

As long as nobody mentions the words "Twilight Zone", "helicopter", "crash", "Get lower, get lower!", "manslaughter", "Vic Morrow", "violated child labor laws", "dead Vietnamese child actors", "decapitated heads flying everywhere", and especially "seriously, why were you NOT blackballed from the industry, you soulless cocksucking murderer".

If piece of shit John Landis had tragically died somehow even before he got around to making American Werewolf In London but we got a bunch more surly and/or sleazy Vic Morrow performances I'd be fine with it. Also since it's been speculated that The Beast Within would've simply featured a werewolf (as in the novel it was adapted from) instead of a mantis man if it weren't for those two successful werewolf movies that had just come along the previous year then we would've still gotten those two werewolf designs. Although I must admit a certain fondness for said mantis man featured in The Beast Within.

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Perusing some of the standard Halloween-theme blogs I stumbled on something I hadn't even thought of before.  i-mockery (remember them?) had a little post about horror movie novelizations and their cover art, which is sometimes just the same as the movie, but often completely new.

It had never even dawned on me this was a mineable lode of awesome.  But holy shit.  i-mocker included these two:

 

horror_paperback_covers_friday_the_13th_     

 

horror_paperback_covers_halloween_movie_


And then a quick google led to these also:

 

               indrotlex.jpg

 

Tr_Tbook.jpg

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I have this 

 

Halloween_II_Novel.jpg

 

and John Russo's Night of the Living Dead novelization which has an awesome cover I can't find of what looks like claymation arms and hands struggling to get through a boarded window. And the Alien novelization with the same cover as the poster, but that's redundant.

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Not only does Squirm have a bunch of shit hot posters/cover art, it turns out the novelisation cover is ace too.

tumblr_mtrbvyhxFX1s6cspyo1_500.jpg

 

Aweseome.

 

 

It looks like what you would get if you made a horror movie out of the "joke peanut brittle can" intellectual property.

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I'm not much of a horror movie guy (So there's going to be lots of horror comedy in here) and I KNOW there's no way I'm going to watch 31 horror/Halloween-related movies in a month, so I'm going to include TV specials in mine...I'm sorry if that violates some rules.

 

01. Beetlejuice: Man, 'Beetlejuice' is so great.  It's weird, too, I've watched this MANY times yet there's still stuff I'm noticing for the first time: like that the hardware store he pops in and out was his own (I always assumed it was just some smalltown store where he popped in and out, leaving enough money behind for his purchase) and somehow didn't notice the damn store has their name on it, or that after his death, Adam Maitland, while updating his giant scale model adds a hole in the side of the bridge where they crashed through.  What's funny is the movie is decent and funny enough to begin with, but it jumps in quality noticeably when Michael Keaton is on-screen.  It's also funny that the cartoon made him and Lydia into friends.

 

02. The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues: The right for this sounded pretty good and creepy.  It was not.  People in a small coastal town are being killed by either a giant atomic ray under the water or a weird papier-mache monster protecting it.  An undercover scientist comes to town to investigate the deaths and falls in love with the mysterious scientist's daughter.  There's also another portly protege of the scientist who's creeping around in the bushes trying to steal his mentor's experiments and killing witnesses.  It's bad.

 

03. Child's Play: I liked this a little better the second time I saw it.  It's not really scary and the whole story is really silly but Brad Dourif is great as the voice of Chucky and there's some pretty creepy parts.  Also, whenever they shoot/stab/ignite or otherwise go after Chucky, it's rather unsettling because it looks like them assaulting a small child.  It's the counter-point to...

 

04. Leprechaun: Man, there is nothing funnier to me than the Leprechaun getting shot with shotguns and punched in the face.  I don't know why, but it just SLAYED me every time.  This was no better the second time around, there's a whole plot-point where they can't escape because the truck doesn't work that is so STUPID because there's a jeep there that works perfectly fine but they won't get into it.  Warwick Davis is fairly fun but this is just inane.  And not good inane.  Even 23-year-old Jennifer Aniston in short shorts doesn't really overcome it.

 

05. King of the Hill: Hilloween: I think the King of the Hill Halloween episode is one of my favourite Halloween specials.  It might seem a little alien to some, the idea of one religious nut getting Halloween canceled seems rather far-fetched nowadays, but it wasn't that implausible around the time this aired.  My mother was just reminiscing the other day how in the early to mid-90s she was pretty much the only person who decorated her house for Halloween and now you can buy lights and giant decorations everywhere.  This is the one where Luann becomes convinced that Halloween is evil because of a religious nut Junie Harper.  And it has the best KOTH exchange of maybe ever when Harper quotes a bible verse at Hank who replies with "Get out of my house...Exodus."  Just a letter perfect episode.

 

06. Scary Movie: You know I had never actually watched this until now.  I've seen 2, 3, 4 and even 5 (God is it bad!) but never 1 until this.  It's all right.  I liked some of the gags, was pretty over the gross-out gags before they occured and there is some rather nasty misogyny at times but it was all right.  If I had to rank them I would go: 3, 4, 2, 1, 5 in all honesty, but I'm a much more of a fan of Zucker/Abrahams wackiness instead of Wayans gross-out/weed jokes, but that's just me.

 

07. News Radio: Halloween: Another good Halloween special.  Mr. James is upset with his staff and barring them from his Halloween party because they never dress up and don't participate.  It's super-good: Bill finds out when he's going to die, Dave dressed as a woman, Matthew's history of gay costumes.  And it all ends with Matthew doing a Halloween robot....dance.

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07. News Radio: Halloween: Another good Halloween special.  Mr. James is upset with his staff and barring them from his Halloween party because they never dress up and don't participate.  It's super-good: Bill finds out when he's going to die, Dave dressed as a woman, Matthew's history of gay costumes.  And it all ends with Matthew doing a Halloween robot....dance.

 

 

I did a guide search for Halloween themed episodes of any show I can find to DVR.  I hope this one comes up.  I see there's a ALF in there and a classic-era 90210 already!

 

Either way I now have single (or maybe two) episodes of a ton of shows I would never actually watch otherwise and some old classics as well.

 

Hopefully they begin to pile up and get more varied as the month wears on.  I do notice that the kid-type networks seem to use the whole month of October to revel in Halloween stuff.  But the shows are just...so unfathomably bad.  I'm sure what I watched as a kid was terrible, but there wasn't so much of it!

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Perennial Board favorite NIGHT OF THE CREEPS was on Sony Movie Channel tonight and I caught a little of it...the best part, the "Axe zombie returns" part.  This version had the alternate ending which I had never seen before, having always seen the "dog/slug" ending.  Neat!

But right after that Axe-zombie part we cut to the "sorority boob chicks get boob ready for the big boob dance" boob montage, which features this tune...the absolute distillation of perfect 80s horror synth pop:



Realizing I had loved this tune for decades now and had never even bothered to look up who wrote it, I checked and it was this guy:

 

barry_de_vorzon_02.jpg

Who looks just about as fantastic as a human male can look with Bert Convy's hair and Borat's moustache, Burt Reynold's unbuttonable shirt stock, and Glenn Campbell's recklessly casual leg resting...until you see the back cover on this same album and

 

tema_de_nadia_lp_barry_de_vorzon_nadias_

SCORE CONSUMMATION AND LOVEMAKING BETWEEN ONE FINE BABE FOR THE GUY WHO WROTE NADIA'S THEME!!!!!!  Also note:  They are wearing the same outfit.

That lady he's with is named Jelinda.  And on that same "Nadia's theme" album you can find "Jelinda's theme" which frankly is a bit of a consolation prize for her.  Like, you're Jelinda, right...and he writes this amazing theme and he's like "Oh, yeah...no I've got another theme for you....this one....is for someone else....a tiny Romanian....Your theme??? Oh, yeah.  Sure...um...give me a minute.  I'll be right in to play it, I just need to....do something first...."

To make up for that awkwardness, he made "Jelinda's theme" every bit as sexual as you might hope it could be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTS5EaWA7hc

If while listening to this you suddenly realize that you are rubbing your groin against the couch, or the cat, or the laundry hamper that is because THIS IS MUSIC TO IMPREGNATE YOUR WOMAN TO!!! It is it's only purpose and you really can't control the pheremones it releases.  So, Jelinda, PREPARE TO RECEIVE THE SEED!!!!

So, yeah.  The guy who did the score for NIGHT OF THE CREEPS also wrote Nadia's theme.  Do you know what else he wrote?



The fucking theme for THE WARRIORS, that's what!!! 
Could any one specimin of virile musicianship get better? Well, speaking of amazing moustaches, what if I told you he also wrote this:


You probably wouldn't beleieve me because that's too much for one man.  But HE DID!!!!

 

I can't even deal with.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant now and pretty far off topic too.  So to bring it back around to what this thread is supposed to be about, here's Tom Atkins' amazing monolog from NIGHT OF THE CREEPS:

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I guess this would be my third one. 

 

Alien1Pbk.jpg

 

As a kid, for some reason I was HUGELY into movie novelizations.  I've still got a bunch of 'em, including that one, Aliens, and Alien 3, all written by Alan Dean Foster.  They're kinda fascinating in many ways, one of which is comparing the differences between them and the eventual movie; it's obvious that Foster was working from a slightly earlier draft of the script, and not the actual footage that was shot.  For example, the original Alien had eyes, and Ash was a Data-type mechanical android rather than a Replicant-ish organic one.  Also, it's funny how he obviously started running out of time and nearing his deadline by the end of the book, and his writing becomes more hurried and sloppy; there's one unbelievably lazy part when Ripley's running from Ash and it says something to the effect of "he almost caught her, but then she got away from him somehow" and I'm barely even paraphrasing it.  Also, oddly, there was a slightly-edited version of the novel published for juvenile audiences.  

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BORDELLO OF LOLLIPOPS & REAPERS

 

004/005/006:  The Karnstein Trilogy

The Vampire Lovers/Lust for A Vampire/Twins of Evil

1970, Roy Ward Baker/1971, Jimmy Sangster/1971, John Hough

 

The Vampire Lovers is the best known of the three, with the late Ingrid Pitt in the role of lesbian vamp Mircalla Karnstein.  Yutte Stensgaard takes on the role in Lust for a Vampire, while Mircalla is barely on screen during Twins of Evil, making room for the Collinson Twins.  All three are reasonably decent--interesting sets, the right amount of mood, and acting that elevates the sometimes flat dialogue.  The first film is the best of the trio, but the others are pretty good in their own right.  The third one is helped by the return of Peter Cushing.  If you're into Hammer Horror, they're worth a look, as they're the last three film from the studio before it delved completely into camp and bad parody.

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Been doing my normal watch and review a film each day this month,

 

01-Hell's Highway--Got this on one of those Echo Bridge "20 Horror films for $5" sets. Has a good premise,but shits the bed at the middle point.

 

02-Horror rises from the Tomb--Really fun Paul Naschy witchcraft film. 

 

03-The Amityville Horror--Hadn't seen the original in decades. Plus just read the book earlier this summer. FUn film that had an even better sequel.

 

04-Children of the Corn 5 Fields of Terror--Horrible sequel. That has an early appearance of Eva Mendes.

 

05-Children of the Corn 2 The Final Sacrifice--The 3rd best of the CotC sequels.

 

06-Hollow Man--Decent time waster.

 

07-Flying Monkeys--Made for Syfy schlock. 

 

08-Tales from the Crypt Demon Knight--I have always loved this film.

 

09-The Return of Skeleton Farm's Halloween Horrorshow--Every few years Skeleton Farm releases a mixtape. This one is Halloween themed. If you look around you will find full dvd images of this for download.

 

10-Amityville Horror 2 The Possession--Sleazy as hell. Paulie from Rocky beats his kids. And the older brother tries to mack on his younger sister. 

 

Most nights at 2am I add my newest review.

 

www.doubletsblogofreviews.blogspot.com

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My strategy of DVR-ing every tv show with the word "Halloween" in the description is paying off already.  It's kind of weird to watch one episode of a bunch of shows you would never otherwise watch, but it makes for a fun Halloweeny time-killer.

Like, I had never in my life seen an episode of MOESHA, but there's a Halloween one so I'm there...and it was perfectly fun.  Brandy was hot.  Sinbad was the special guest mad scientist whose new experimental drug turned people lycanthropic.  Brandy was hot.  That's three awesome things.  Oh, and there was a guy in a magnificent Frankenstein outfit and another dude showed up dressed like Sisqo and no one said it out loud, so we were all just supposed to know that...so, 1999 y'all!!

 

Now...I could not have imagined any reason that I would ever watch an episode of DR. QUINN: MEDICINE WOMAN...but, goddamit, they did a Halloween episode.  and HOLY SHIT, DVR just told me there's a Halloween episode of QUANTUM LEAP coming up!!!!

If you have a DVR with enough room...do this!!!!!

Right now I'm watching the 90210 halloween episode from 1991 and it opens all abstract like HALLOWEEN II with a series of super closeups of jack-o-lanterns, but because it's 1991 one of them has a mohawk and is carved to look like it's wearing Bret Hart wraparound shades and the whole thing is accompanied by screaming 'WeeeeewWeeee" electric guitars.  It's...so titilating.  Thank you, 90210 for taking this seriously!

Of course the whole thing revolves around the big Halloween party.  Hey I forgot all about Brandon's hot girlfriend.  She's wearing Chubby Checker's slacks as a blouse and over it leather vest.  Vests!  Why is Brandon's teenage girlfriend dressing like Paula Poundstone?  Did you know she was in the t.v. series of A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN?  (not Paula Poundstone, Brandon's hot girlfriend...actually now that I think of it, there's a 60-70% chance that Paula Poundstone was in it too)  Did you know there was a t.v. series of A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN?  Research project!

 

Ian Ziering's shirt appears to be an homage to this painting by Mondrian:

 

mondrian_composition_with_grid_9_checker

I never realized how cartoony the soundtrack to this show was.  When they go to the Hollywood Costume Palace, "Hooray for Hollywood" plays.  When Brenda makes Dylan try on a Robin Hood outfit, Medieval strumming pops up.  When Kelly shows off her sexy witch costume, sleazy saxophone music kicks up.  When Dylan finds a Bonnie & Clyde costume, gunshots and banjo music appear.  We then kick right into shots of trick or treaters with "if you go into the woods" on skeletal xylophone.   This is all within the space of 12 seconds.

But onto the party.  As a kid, I assumed every Halloween party was going to be like the ones in Beer commercials hosted by Elvira. 

 

 

And this is pretty close.  The house the big party was in was a staple of films and t.v. from the 60s through the 90s.

 

zpfile002.jpg

It's known as the Higgins-Verbeck-Hirsch Mansion, and was built in 1902.  It also shows up in WILLARD, BEN, WITCHBOARD, HALLOWEEN WITH THE NEW ADDAMS FAMILY (1977), THE NIGHT WALKER (William Castle!), and softcore 90s "psycho  sexual thriller" SECRET GAMES 3 ("revisit the dark side of desire!").

 

Wait...there's a 1977 ADDAM'S FAMILY Halloween Special?

 

Boom!  You're welcome!

Holy shit, I think that same Frankenstein costume is there.  I wonder if it just got recycled from show to show?  Someone is wearing a George Bush mask.  Out of all the presidents who people still wear masks of, I can't imagine anyone ever wearing a George Bush mask after 1992.  Clinton?  Nixon?  Reagan?  Carter even.  But Bush I?  People would be like "Why are you Mitt Romney's Grandpa?"

Oh, shit, this is the episode where Kelly almost gets raped because her costume is so slutty.  Brenda tells her as much ahead of time "You're asking for it, Kelly!"  Jesus, I wonder if Jezebel has written this episode up yet?

The rapist gives us THE MESSAGE after Dylan and Ian throw him out:

"Guys, you got this all wrong.  I mean, come on.  You know!  When a girl dresses lik a slut...."

Ian delivers the righteous punch...but the message is delivered in as confusing a way as possible.  

 

Kelly cries "It's my fault.  I was leading him on."

Dylan says "You are blaming yourself for leading that guy on.  But I want you to know as a guy, it doesn't matter how much of a slut you clearly are, a guy always has a choice...wait, sorry I lost my train of thought.  I was thinking about raping you.   WHAT?  Guys, look how she's dressed!!!!"

Our teenaged brains are left swimming...IT'S SO CONFUSING!!!  I'm going back to check in on Sinbad.  Whatever else you think of him, he's never confusing.  He's always very clear.   Black people dance like "Oooooh" and white people dance like 'Erp erp erp!!"

God bless you, Sinbad!  God bless you Halloween-themed t.v. episodes!

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Revisited two old favorites, CANDYMAN and FRIDAY 13th Part 3 (this mainly because I finally have a 3D viewable version!)

I know this is not new to anyone but I don't think I've ever really appreciated before this viewing how well-made CANDYMAN is.  Clive Barker is really good at the basic premise and at touching on different issues beyond the main "slasher" themes of youth/mortality/destiny/punishment.  In CANDYMAN we get a setting rich with such connotations.  the lead is an explorer (academic, yes) who is pushy and obnoxious and overly ambitious for good reason - she is surrounded by asshole men in an academic environment that conspires to thwart her ambitions - the petty affairs and conspiracies of fat-cat professors.  But she herself is not free of sin...she is not seeking to undermine that system but to join the fraternity, by exploiting the history and fears of others, by mirthfully mocking "the folk" and by making a name for herself.  It gives us a complex and adult character with complex and adult relationships in place of the level of "smoke pot, touch boobs, get stabbed" that we normally exist at (ironically, a banal observation that has made the careers of any number of film-studies academics just like Helen who claim to understand the "dark corners" of our cultural mind without really delving deeper than the veneer of a few exploitation movies.

Throw in the intersection of the "enlightened" white liberal academic with the setting of Cabrini Green, symbol of the failure of mid-century social theory...throw in the idea of a population so marginalized that their reality becomes bound up in myth...it's such deeper water than usual, but puts that all out there slyly without screaming about it.  And it all could have gone wrong in so many ways and didn't.  It's remarkable how not shitty it is.

So apart from whatever flim-flam supernatural connection exists between Helen and Robitaille, their real connection is that they are both feeding on that cultural mind in different ways.  Neat.  And so when she encounters yet another shallow "feeder," Dr. Burke who has also made his career using cheap theory to pretend to understand the dark corners of other people's lives, with her now in the position of "subject," her now the "girl in the projects" being poked at by an institutional "explorer," she recognizes and recoils from that feeling and for the first time wields her own power on purpose.   It's a great scene.  One of many in this movie.

   I forgot the scene in the project where the child is taken.  Fucking pushing it, man. And then the examination scene that follows.  Really disturbing.
   
   Not just Barker, though but also director Bernard Rose.  He treats this story like a historical epic.  He gives it the same kinds of beautiful framing shots and aims for the same weight of myth that he would in something so much more respectable as IMMORTAL BELOVED.  He finds ways for the "personal" scenes between her and he despicable husband (who looks disturbingly like Joel Hodgson!) to be more than just patter-filler, but to have the tone of something important.  The scene in their apartment when she confronts him and his new girl is one of the best scenes non-scare in any horror movie ever made.   It means something.  It ends with her saying "It's over."

 

But seriously, Joel!

xandercandyman.png

"Hey, sirs!  On this week's invention exchange I've invented a new life for myself with a younger graduate student.

Also, a combination whoopee cushion/colostomy bag for those moments when a giant hook is tearing through your bowels, but you don't want to be a downer about it...Whoooo!"
   
   So many masterful bits of effect too.  Candyman floating over her is scary and looks great.  The bee shots are fantastic, when they are coming out of him and going into her.  This was all practical effects, I guess and it was so skillful.  The dead eyes of all the cops and orderlies when she suddenly instantly finds herself on the other side of institutions of discipline and punishment, herself singled out for unfair prosecution without anyone listening to her, just like him.
   
   His sales pitch to her is great too.  He offers her a kind of vampirism.  Immortality, but only if she agrees to shed innocent blood.  An eternal life that is only real as long as it is supported by fear.  Funny that what he is, and what she becomes, is something Freddy Krueger-like.  This is basically NIGHTMARE for adults.
   
      I could go on, I think.  Shot by shot there is so much rich detail here.  I haven't even touched on Philip Glass' score which is itself, okay...standard Glass, but wielded so deftly by the editing process.  Such basic musical symbols (choir for "epicness", piano for "sentimentality", repetition to match the various patterns that show up in the movie...like the great opening shots where the highways of Chicago appear like the blood-transporting arteries of a body, preparing us for other such images, his mouth as an entryway into plumbing pipes).
      
      Goddamn, this is a fun movie to think about.

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