Halloween 2015

[lhb412]

[klen7]

[Dr Kain]

Here is a little video I did of the Mile High Horror Film Festival this past weekend at the Alamo Drafthouse.

[Dr Kain]

Hey, if you want to listen to some really horrifying music, check out the theme to the new Bond movie. Oh my god that thing singing made my ears bleed.

[jellydonut25]

Something Wicked This Way Comes - I wasn't feeling this. I kinda was at first, but it slows down a lot after starting with some good atmosphere. It also isn't super child-friendly, nor is it serious with more "important" philosophical musings. It just sorta sits somewhere where, I don't know who this movie is for, and after looking at Wikipedia, it seems it was originally a little more darker with some heavier morals but screened poorly, because people weren't expecting something so heavy from Disney, so they removed a lot of stuff and did a bunch of re-shoots with just more special effects. Too bad. It had potential, but fails to click.


Clue - This movie is SO much fun. The script is great, the cast is awesome, the plot is involved. I can't believe it was as critically poorly received as it was upon original release, except to say that critics may just have been reacting to the ending gimmick. (For those not in the know, like I wouldn't have been if I hadn't read about it: Three versions of the film were released to theaters, all the same, but with three different endings - the three endings you see on home video or television when you watch it now. In original theatrical release, there was just one ending; a random one based on which print your theater had and/or showed that day.) So, maybe critics just hated the notion that the studio was trying to "trick" people into going to see it in theaters multiple times to see all the endings? I don't know, because the movie seems too damn fun and smart to be so poorly reviewed.

[XvGojira]

God I love Clue. I remember hearing that it, along with a few other board games, were heading up for a movie adaptation. Maybe Battleship made studios pause. But I honestly can't think that another Clue movie could be as faithful to the source material AND wickedly entertaining. Not to mention who the hell could you get to top that cast! The only thing way I could maybe see it work, send it over the pond and have it be a British only cast and call it Cluedo. I could totally see Hugh Laurie and Steven Fry having a time with it, and I'm sure Benedict Cucumber would chop the scenes up with his cheek bones. That's the only way I could see it being even close to on par with the original.

I Watched Something Wicked This Way Comes a few years back, after reading the story. For some reason the story was a slog for me to read, loved basically everything else though. Maybe it's just Bradbury's style of writing, but I remember devouring Fahrenheit 451 in school so I don't know. But yeah the movie lost some of it's teeth, which is a shame because it is a great story with a damn creepy atmosphere. Seems like something that's ripe to be adapted again.

[jellydonut25]

I think I would have liked if the characters in Clue wore more on-point outfits (Yellow, Green, Red, etc) but that's about all I could think to do differently, unless you really stuck to making it a whodunit based solely around the death of Mr Boddy.

[klen7]

American Werewolf in London - the Mrs had never seen this, I figured it was a safe choice based on the comedy elements. Definitely a classic and a huge round of applause for Rick Baker. The undead make up as it progressed through the film deteriorated in a logical way while still being aesthetically striking at every stage. Also I know the Werewolf transformation is often listed as a high point, but what struck me during this viewing was the attention to both human and wolf anatomy and how one can become the other.

[DannyBeane]

Today I'll be watching Peter Jackson's best film ever... The Frighteners.

[lhb412]

You know, this is the first October where I feel we have an appropriate amount of seasonal fare in the theaters: Crimson Peak, another Paranormal Activity, Goosebumps and Hotel Transylvania for the kids.

[Dr Kain]

I have watched Tales from the Crypt Season 4.

[tbeasley]

[jellydonut25]

I've always felt Last House on the Left was pretty overrated. And then the remake is almost better, but completely BOTCHES the ending.

[klen7]

We did an episode of Face Off and Goonies tonight... neither are really horror, but maybe the sum of parts can count for one

[lhb412]

[Dr Kain]

Let's step away from the Kaiju genre as I continue Halloween Month with a look into the greatest horror TV series of all time, Tales from the Crypt. Here are my top 10 favorite episodes of Tales from the Crypt.

[klen7]

Tremors 5. Not really my bag. Jamie Kennedy stars as the world's worst camera man that randomly interjects phrases like "ballin'" to the film. The graboids are different and "Assblasters" play a bigger role than graboids, and "shriekers" are no longer part of the cycle. I also felt like some scenes were straight out of other main stream monster flicks.
There looked to be a Shogun Warriors Godzilla in the mid credits scene.

[DannyBeane]

I'm kicking off tonight with the classic Rosemary's Baby.

[lhb412]

Next I watch the ethereal, arty take on Dracula: Nosferatu the Vampyre. It sticks pretty close to the original, but for me what stands out is flipping the script and making Van Helsing an ineffectual wimp and making the female lead, here called Lucy (and played by the gorgeous Isabelle Adjani), the heroic character.

[XvGojira]

[jellydonut25]

Hausu - Ummmmm...this was great? Terrible? Crazy? Stupid? Brilliant? Unwatchable? Compelling? All of them?

The Witches - Geeze, this movie is a pretty unrelenting attack on children. The first 20 minutes especially, wherein a little boy gets fed stories of being kidnapped and brutally murdered by scary old lady witches, then his parents die, then his grandmother has a medical emergency and he's powerless to help her.

House - It's got some decent effects for fans of 80s rubber suit stuff, and it's mostly fun, but it's nothing special.

Housebound - Clever, fun, funny, and ultimately pretty dang good. It takes a bit to get really rolling, and our main character is a bit of a pill, but once you get past the first 40 minutes, things kick into high gear and it becomes awesome.

Grabbers - I avoided this because I kinda thought it was a cheap Tremors ripoff. It's not. It's a lot of fun, in the same vein as Tremors in terms of being fun but not necessarily a COMEDY, but it's not a Tremors ripoff.

Monster House - I mostly enjoyed this, but the ending was a major issue for me, as I felt it was kind of a cheat and didn't pay off on everything they built throughout the course of the entire film.

[Dr Kain]

Yeah, I liked MOnster House right until the ending, which I felt was a cop out. I haven't bothered to watch it again

[jellydonut25]

Repo the Genetic Opera - This has roughly a truckload of issues. Two major plot points (the drug made from dead people and the revelation that the rich dude killed the repo-man's wife) are completely meaningless to the overall plot. I mean, I know the thing about the wife dying has ramifications, but NOBODY ever finds out, so there's no impact from the deception; it could just as easily have been that the dude accidentally killed his wife to the exact same effect. Also, some of the songs are just not very memorable or catchy at all especially when it comes to the lyrics.
But, I still had an enjoyable time watching it due to how stylistic it was. The sets and costumes and gore are all really cool and the songs are generally interesting enough. It could have stood to be a little shorter, though.

[Dr Kain]

I love Repo. It is one of the only musicals I can actually sit through.

Anyway,

Halloween H20 - This is my first time jumping into this movie without watching 4-6 before it because I wanted to do something different and you know what, I think I've enjoyed it moreso when coming off of 6 than I did now. My score for it is going to lower from a 7 to a 6/10 as it just isn't as good as I thought it was. There are some enjoyable moments, but the cast is pretty lackluster and the Michael masks all look terrible. Ottman's score leaves a lot to be desired as well and there are just way too many bits homaging the original movie that it feels like they were just trying to remake the original, but had to find a way to keep Curtis in it. It is entertaining though, but it doesn't really feel like a Halloween movie (not that is anything new since all of the 80s slashers have a different feel to them when they entered the 90s).

[alienhulk2099]

Things I've seen so far:

-Sharknado 3 (okay)
-The Blair Witch Project (excellent)
-CHUD 2 (excellent, could have been fantastic, but they screwed with continuity too much and acted too jokey)
-When They Cry Kai (didn't care for it)
-The Portrait of Little Cossette (it looked pretty yet was hard to follow)
-Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge (liked it)

Will update as time goes on.