October HorrorDays 2014

[New Blood]

I'm currently rewatching Don't Go in the House (1980). It's a very sleazy Psycho knockoff where the Norman Bates type character likes to use fire instead of knives. It's got good amount of nudity, great atmosphere, an awesome score! Check it out if you like exploitation cinema!

[Curt McGirt]

That movie isn't just sleazy, it's flat-out nasty. Be forewarned. I'd put it right up there with something like Maniac, maybe not as high quality-wise but definitely in every other fashion.

[Reed]

Also: Manhunter still freaks me out. And is ten times better than Red Dragon and always will be.

 

Yeah, Manhunter feels inventive and different. Red Dragon is essentially the cash-in. It's not a terrible cash-in, but still.

 

And Ed Norton was really not a good Will Graham. He played it too straight, I think. Didn't have the oddball quality Dancy and Peterson have.

[J.T.]

Yeah, fuck the movie critics for punishing Annabelle for not being as good as The Conjuring.

 

It is not a instant classic, but I didn't think it was as bad as the critics let on.

[Technico Support]

Yeah, fuck the movie critics for punishing Annabelle for not being as good as The Conjuring.

 

It is not a instant classic, but I didn't think it was as bad as the critics let on.

 

I never listen to critics when it comes to reviews of sci-fi or horror.  There's no use.  Most are afraid to risk their reputations by admitting to enjoying a "genre picture."  It reminds me of why Roger Ebert is probably the last great reviewer.  He judged every film relative to its genre and what it set out to accomplish, not relative to all cinema ever made.  He gave The Devil's Rejects 3 out of 4 stars, for fuck's sake.

[Tromatagon]

Go watch Never Sleep Again and tell me how great Ebert was, especially in relation to the horror genre. Netflix instant. Go!

[piranesi]

HALLOWEEN complete box set on sale at Amazon today for $86.  Regular $130!!!!

 

GO FOR IT!!!!

 

You'll be so happy when you get to Part 5!!!

 

 

Fucking like four days too late for me to get the price match credit too!

[Brian Fowler]

Yeah, it just keeps dropping and pissing me off that I paid 110 or whatever.

[piranesi]

It dropped three more dollars just since you posted that.  THESE MICRO MARKETS ARE INSANE!!!!!

 

It's now like $5.50 per disc.

[Curt McGirt]

Bug is just wrong. The closest films I can come close to comparing it to are The Machinist or Repulsion, maybe Jacob's Ladder. William Friedkin, who directed it, might be right in saying that it's not a true horror film, but neither are any of those films but they are anyway. Sometimes the results overwhelm the premise. It gets really uncomfortable to watch early on (and anyone who's been in an abusive relationship, this is a trigger warning) and just stays that way, but is so convincing because Michael Shannon and above even him Ashley Judd pull off a slow slide into insanity so well. Shannon, we're used to; Judd seems so beaten-down and vulnerable at first, then takes on Shannon's worst traits and gets pulled into his world so effectively that she deserves an Oscar for her performance. This movie will really upset you.

[Burgundy LaRue]

Bug is a well-done movie.  It's also depressing as all out.  From the beginning, it's clear Ashley Judd's character won't get a happy ending.  Because no one living in a dead-end motel like that, with an abusive ex-husband like that (and boy, does Harry Connick Jr. come across as the biggest SOB ever in this film), and gets involved with a delusional person like Shannon's character---comes out unscathed.

 

There's a moment where Judd is screaming about 'baby bug water' and I nearly lost it.  The mania, the complete surrender to insanity without even realizing it--that is some seriously scary sh*t.

 

Sh*t is way too real.

[piranesi]

This is only a half review because I started this not very seriously just in the background while getting ready for bed...but I feel I have to report in because I'm suddenly super excited about finishing it tomorrow.

BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN (1971)

1970s Satan movies are pretty bad for the most part and usually only good for a tepid William Shatner-y laugh or two.  And I was certainly not expecting much given that this movie, after the prologue, begins with a looooooooong Manos-like family-driving-nowhere scene.

But the prologue itself promised something more.  It's a bizarre scene of a family being crushed to death in their car by what alternately appears to be a child's toy tank and a real tank.  They scream and scream and we are treated to various limbs sticking out of the twisted wreck. Weird and twilight-zonish.

This movie, it turns out, is fucking whacked in all the best ways.  It's cheap but clever.  Director Bernard MvEveety, who did almost exlusively 70s t.v. drama directing, manages to make the dull setups and lack of budget creepy by squeezing every bit of weirdness out of the premise.

For instance when the driving family pulls into a little town to report the wreckage of the crushed car, they are greeted by a sudden explosion of violence from a hillbilly sheriff and a mob of small town weirdos.  The complete lack of explanation of it all makes it pretty awesome and unsettling and the lady is just screaming "They're all mad!" as the family drives away.  The movie at this point has a kind of color NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD look to it.  The people are believably bland and weird looking and we are kept in a bewildered series of camera shots that are framed oddly close.  It's all just off enough to make a movie where not much is going on yet seem like something is ominous.

Even though he can't show us much, he hints at a lot.  And doesn't keep you in the dark about the satanists.  He gets that old people are terrifying and so he gets right to the satanic elders right away and lets you revel in their gross Metamucil orgy of blood and BenGay.

Turns out the little town is in the middle of being systematically wiped out by a satanic cult.  22 people brutally murdered in 72 hours, the parents only and all the kids are missing.  But we only learn this in rapid little bits over a few quick scenes.  We see the town doctor and sheriff worrying so we know people are dying...and then we see a couple murdered by another child's toy (their daughter's doll)

this little guy

...and now the shit is on.

We follow the murdered couple's tranced-out kids to a house where dozens of old people are waiting to be given new child-bodies by the local satanic cult leader.



They just stand around in their dinner party outfits talking about politics and fashion waiting for all these children to be delivered to them while in another room, little kids stand like lifeless statues.  It's really simple but really demented.

The cult leader is the town doctor STROTHER MOTHERFUCKING MARTIN!!!! He is fucking amazing...strutting out of the smoke in a full on Faust outfit,

Oh, come on!  Too much awesome.

Strother Martin is that kind of awesome actor who just enjoys the hell out of everything he's in.  Tell him to put on a cape and pretend to lead a coven of satanists and he's like "Can I turn the collar up!  I think it'll be awesomer if I turn the collar up!!!  I'm gonna do this whole scene as Richard Burton, okay guys!!"

Just to give you a sense of how great he and all the old people are in this, here is the scene where one old lady is judged for having failed Satan:
 

 

"Degenerate creature.  Weakling soul.  Is this the result of our master's teaching?  What have you in your bowels?"

"Love for you! Prince of Darkness!  I gave...by all your holy laws did I live!!! I sacrificed.....not once on high holy days did I fail to give the homage, or spread your story among the uninitiated."

"Fool.  Can you believe that he who has renewed the very blood in your veins, who was your husband, your lover, can fail to see yet even through the veil of your miserable mouthings and gyrations, the one great blot that covers all else as if it were nothing?

"I adore thee!"

"Alice.  {Strother Martin holds in his hands a baby's boot}

"My baby!"

"Undone even before he was born.  Dead to Satan from the beginning.  At his mother's breast he was a damned soul already."

"My baby! MY BABY!!!!"

"Not your baby Our baby SATAN'S BABY!!! Alice you move my disgust too strongly"

 

By the way...nice try on the answer to "what do you have in your bowels" with "Love for you."  I was thinking he really wanted to know what was the last thing she ate.  Clearly I would make a bad satanist.  I would have been like, "P.F. Changs and maybe still some pancake???"  Like, how pissed would Strother Martin be if you couldn't even get that one right?  "Oh...and love for you, Oh demonic overlord!!! That's totally in there too.  and some Big Leauge Chew I think...I'm not sure how long that takes...but I've heard it's like years..."

 

Turns out the old lady committed the sin of allowing her child to be baptized.  She is promptly pronounced guilty and torn limb from limb by all the other old people.  This is that kind of movie.  Like the kind where the sight of dozens of sets of 80-year-old's dentures gumming down on you and pawing at you is horrifying...and it is.

The old lady who gets killed is awesome.  She chews the living hell out of the scene and Storther Martin is right there with her.  They are clearly having a blast.  



For the record, her name is Helene Winston and this was not her first brush with the Devil as she also appeared on a number of episodes of THE MONKEES:

 

And did a purgatorial stint on the CBC in the uniquely Canadian Hell that was KING OF KENSINGTON:

 

I hope to God that means something to one of you weirdos.

She has the best head shot in the world too:

 

 

 

Okay, I'm getting off track here.

 

There is this awesome scene where we get a glimpse of a garage where the local town folks are keeping all the murdered bodies and it's hilariously gruesome.  One bag hanging from the ceiling appears to be just legs and an arm.  It's those little touches and Strother Martin and an army of old t.v. actors, that make this movie so great.

I cannot express how excited I am to finish this tomorrow.  Apparently, this little proto-tele-tubby

 

 

Is going to kill the fuck out of someone.

 

five hundred stars.

[Curt McGirt]

Yeah, if you don't already want to punch Harry Connick Jr. in the face just for being himself, you will want to stomp him to death after watching Bug. 

[Curt McGirt]

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.

[Curt McGirt]

Hey hey! For your lunar eclipse! 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T248rFRQZVE

 

^this is actually worth watching

[J.T.]

Bug is just wrong. The closest films I can come close to comparing it to are The Machinist or Repulsion, maybe Jacob's Ladder. William Friedkin, who directed it, might be right in saying that it's not a true horror film, but neither are any of those films but they are anyway. Sometimes the results overwhelm the premise. It gets really uncomfortable to watch early on (and anyone who's been in an abusive relationship, this is a trigger warning) and just stays that way, but is so convincing because Michael Shannon and above even him Ashley Judd pull off a slow slide into insanity so well. Shannon, we're used to; Judd seems so beaten-down and vulnerable at first, then takes on Shannon's worst traits and gets pulled into his world so effectively that she deserves an Oscar for her performance. This movie will really upset you.

 

What Curt and Burgundy said.

 

Bug is frightening because it is a scenario that could be going on right now as we speak in someone's life.

 

The existence of monsters like Vampires or Werewolves is debatable, but the existence of batshit insane people is not up for conjecture.  They are real.

 

Crazy people are crazy and this movie is really good... in a very wrong kinda way.

[jaedmc]

The original Warlock is so fucking good. I rewatched it a couple of years ago and it still holds up. It's just a really fun horror adventure with some kick ass scenes, and some beautiful bits of tension. The whole deal on the farm was fucking aces.

[J.T.]

The original Warlock is so fucking good. I rewatched it a couple of years ago and it still holds up. It's just a really fun horror adventure with some kick ass scenes, and some beautiful bits of tension. The whole deal on the farm was fucking aces.

 

When I saw a trailer of the second Harry Potter movie, I totally marked because at first glance, I thought that Julian Sands was playing Lucius Malfoy.... but it turned out to be Jason Issacs with a blonde wig.

[Jingus]

Yeah, if you don't already want to punch Harry Connick Jr. in the face just for being himself, you will want to stomp him to death after watching Bug. 

Already wanted to after Copycat.  Dude plays a great scary dirtbag.  

 

 

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".  

[Curt McGirt]

I'm not touching the Twilight Zone deaths with a ten foot pole, except to say that that guy has a cross to bear bigger than we'll ever know.

[Burgundy LaRue]

I'll say this:  the video footage from that terrible night is the stuff of true nightmares.

[Reed]

I'm not touching the Twilight Zone deaths with a ten foot pole, except to say that that guy has a cross to bear bigger than we'll ever know.

 

I get that "guilt is its own punishment" and all. I just wished he'd served a few years jail time too.

[Reed]

If we're talking horror, I'll never resist the opportunity to talk up Takashi Miike's Imprint. That was the one Masters of Horror movie Showtime refused to air. Even with Bill Drago's over-the-top acting, it's a masterpiece and far, far more disturbing than even Audition.  

[assfax]

Speaking of Julian Sands, I tried watching Tale of the Vampire the other day and was bored shitless.  Haven't shut a movie off like that in a while.  Like, remember how you could nod off in school even though you were basically sober and awake?  Woof.

[piranesi]

BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN Part 1.5

I was excited to finish this movie tonight.  I was not disappointed.  There is so much awesome in this movie.  If you're not convinced yet, just take a look at the VHS box:

HOW DO YOU NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH THIS????

I want a Strother Martin plushie!

The whole second half consists of a long satanic ritual  intercut with a few scenes of the townspeople trying to close in on what's happening.  It is 100% Strother Martin huffing paint and showing Marlon Brando what crazy looks like.  He is my new most favorite actor ever.

In between slow but surprisingly natural and well-directed scenes of the small town folk trying to figure out what's happening (local priest is on the right trail of a Black Mass while Strother Martin tries to throw them off the trail)...we are treated to a bizarre and pretty horrifying scene that plays out through suggestion and symbol.

The 11 children abducted so far are brought into a 100% Kubrickian banquet room and begin to have a party.  



As they frolic around we see flashes of paintings and drawings of satanists killing kids in increasingly horrific ways, culminating in a sketch of the Devil literally eating the bowels out of a screaming child...Holy shit!!! This movie is not a gore fest, at all, but those primitive images are haunting and genuinely disturbing in their own way.

Once again, kudos to director Bernard McEveety who has to among his credits
 

5 episodes of SIMON & SIMON
2 episodes of MISFITS OF SCIENCE (Fuck, eyah!)
2 episodes of AIRWOLF (FUCK YEAH!!!)
5 episodes of KNIGHT RIDER
1 episode of THE FALL GUY
2 episodes of BLUE THUNDER (can you do that and AIRWOLF???)
an episode of THE DUKES OF HAZZARD
2 episodes of THE A-TEAM
1 episode of THE INCREDIBLE HULK
A ROCKFORD FILES
A HAWAII FIVE-0
2 episodes of THE ACTUAL FUCKING PLANET OF THE APES series
A BANACEK!

This is an astounding resume of excellence spanning decades.

But it gets better.  The local priest convinces the local sheriff that the coven needs one more kid to have the 13 it needs and they stake out the houses of the remaining kids in town.  One little boy manages to wander off all tranced-up and when his father chases after him he looks up to see the most unlikely thing...a FARGING MEDIEVAL BLACK KNIGHT ON HORSEBACK RIDES UP ON HIM AND CHOPS HIS FARGING HEAD OFF!! We see the head fly off in shadow and then are treated to a shot of the head on the ground with blood spurting out of it...but...hold on let me check and make sure about someting...yes, yes, it appears that indeed that...WAS A FARGING MEDIEVAL BLACK KNIGHT ON HORSEBACK!!!


Now we get to our main event.  All the old people are dressed in red monk's robes.  

Process this image for a moment.  Look at how stoked that old lady is to see her new self...she's doing the hand jive!!!!

And to think that a few years after this, this old lady in her new body will star in WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE!

Strother Martin, in full College of Winterhold regalia leads them to the Satanic altar.  


They are singing some form of Gregorian chant punctuated by what sounds like a piano being struck with a hammer.

Here's a fun bit of trivia.  This movie was written by one of the gross bounty hunters in THE WILD BUNCH.  

The guy on the left wrote this fucking amazing movie!

 

And the man on the right?  IS STROTHER FUCKING MARTIN!!!!!!!

 

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS!!!!

Now, imagine for a moment the following scenario.  It's the 70s.  You're a movie producer.  This man


shows up at your production office with a script called "The Brotherhood of Satan" and a list of demands including

1) Strother Martin
2) Lots of children
3) A FARGING MEDIEVAL BLACK KNIGHT ON HORSEBACK

...you take that meeting, my friend.  You take that meeting.

Anyway back to Strother Fucking Martin.  I can't describe how great he is.  He opens the ceremony thus:

- He kneels at the steps of the altar
- He twists his head back and forth as if in genuine agony
- He slams his head down onto the stone steps
- He prays

 

 

 

"Greetings, dear one.  'Tis we.  Late in the day and light we come.  Power of all powers with awe and supplication we beg and plead the gift that has kept us with you for lo these many centuries.

Is it possible yet again to build that bridge that connects the two worlds of..."

{he pauses here and makes a fist with his right hand}

"life and..."

{he pauses here for a solid five seconds before making a fist with his left hand.}

"death..."

He collapses
A wind howls
the altar is covered in giant cobwebs and is bursting forth with smoke and flames.
 

ANOTHER NOTE:  The main little girl we are following around would go on to become the new "fake" Jan Brady on THE BRADY BUNCH VARIETY HOUR:

 

 

This means that her two main claims to fame are working with

- The Wild Bunch

- The Brady Bunch

I am currently desperately searching for footage of her in The Baseball Bunch.  If it exists, It's time for The Rapture.

 

In 2011 she released a CD:

This is a film teeming with history.

 

Strother Martin inspects the supplicant old people.  He tests them.

"If you are found wanting he shall judge ye to damnation."

 

This leads to the following exchange with a lady we'll call "Phyllis":

 

 

SM: "in his presence kneel and make thy covenant"

Phyllis: "In this new life nothing will come between us.

SM: "To thee will I cling though all the powers of heaven shall rage about me?"

P: "Thou art my God!"

"Though false gods tempt and lure me?"
"Thou art my God!"
"Though lean times come and sorrow sits 'round about me."
"Thou art my God!"
"Though worldly flesh waver and spirits weaken?"
"Thou art my God!"
"Fool thou art and fool I call thee.  If in the master's presence you should foul the air with lies and words that come only from the mouth..."
"Never!"
"KNOW YE THIS SPAWN OF THIS EARTH THAT HE HAS HEARD AND HE SHALL JUDGE TREMBLE IN HIS AWESOME PRESENCE for even now he sees your innermost thoughts and lays bare you very soul!!!"
"Oh I adore thee.  My master and my God I'm yours.  I want no other. Precious is the light of your covenant and your service a sweet service of delights!"

and Phyllis...

PASSES!!!!!

And then out of nowhere we see a flash of a very old very fat man who is naked except for a cape.  This is full frontal old guy scrote and tube complete and center frame.  There was no purpose for this except to put you on notice that it's something that can happen and might happen again.  For the rest of the movie you will be on edge because you will never know when that will happen again.  And I'm not going to tell you. 

Strother Martin screams "SATAN BEHOLD THY PATHETIC SUPPLICANTS" in exactly the same delviery that he yelled "YOU GUYS ARE PLAYIN' LIKE A BUNCH OF....PUSSIES!!!" in SLAPSHOT.  It is exactly the same delivery because it is exactly the same sentiment.

He does the death/life fist thing again but this time he kisses his fists like Floyd Mayweather.  The entire last 40 minutes of this movie is Strother Martin doing a one woman reverse drag show.  He only needs to sing "When I was seventeen it was a very good year" and I will throw my hotel room key to him.



He is openly weeping now "Hear and be merciful!!!! SATAN HONOR THY COVENANT!!!!!!!!"  The old people are all shrieking and wailing.  It's chaos.  It's worse than a Ross Perot town hall meeting at Old Town Country Buffet..the spittle is gumming up the camera works.  The smell of applesauce is deafening.  There are wheat pennies taped to pieces of candy everywhere.  We are all lost.

Oh shit, now it's time to start the killing.

  "GLORIFY, DROWN OUR USELESS AGE IN BLOOD, PURIFY, CONSUME"  I have never loved a man more than I love him right now.

He is now wielding a FLAMING SWORD...A SWORD THAT IS ON FIRE!!!! and murdering all the old people, slicing them up...blood coats the walls of the altar...hair nets float to earth.  Pomade runs in rivers through the halls...and then a guy in a black robe guy stabs Strother Martin....why????


None of that matters.  Only this man matters.  



I declare him KING OF OCTOBER!!!!!