Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

If you're like me (and I know I am) then October is a time to watch as many horror films as you possibly can. I started a bit early this year by getting into these Universal Horror sequels (many I haven't seen) on my new DVD set, also watched Horror of Dracula, and the Ghostubusters 30th anniversary stuff was kind of Halloween-y...

Anyway, feel free to post any Halloween musings!

I was lucky enough this year to get every weekend off during October. I have lots of work to do around the property and I'm working on resurrecting my old Jeep CJ7, so I took a vacation day every Monday off which'll give me some 3-day weekends to, among other things, watch a lot of cool, scary, old, creepy movies to properly celebrate Halloween.

On another, Halloween-related subject... Anyone else notice that EVERYTHING nowadays that advertises Halloween features all kinds of monsters who are now drawn to look: 1) very young for the most part and 2) very friendly and anything BUT scary looking??? Man, I find that so irksome and depressing. I remember when the stores were full of cool-looking artwork featuring truly scary monstrous representations of all the classic spooky monsters. You'd come aroud a corner and see a big painting or cardboard cut-out and while not really scared shitless it gave you a momentary adrenaline rush to be confronted by a blood-dripping vampire, a lumbering Frankenstein reaching out for you, or a slavering fanged werewolf. Not anymore, sadly. The monsters now all look like cousins to the Carebears or somesuch crap. It's like retailers and advertisers have become terrified that some kid might see their "scary" art displays, be frightened and run crying to their parents, who will then promptly sue anyone and everyone they can for upsetting their precious little darlings. So now the powers that be play it safe and make everything look friendly and non-threatening. Sorry for the cranky rant, but jeez... what a bummer... *SIGH*

Well we are going to see The Thing and Creature from the Black Lagoon 3D at our local Alamo Drafthouse in Oct. Also, we have the Halloween series to watch from my new box set. As always, we will be kicking things off today with Bram's Stoker's Dracula. Well, actually, we kind of cheated and already watched the first two Simpsons Halloween specials and The Fog, but Dracula will be the movie that really starts off our horror festival, as it were as from this pint forward, we will be watching nothing but horror movies. Finally, I will be watching as many Tales from the Crypt episodes I can get through once again, starting at Season 7 since that is where I left off last year.

Horror movies on AMC is nostalgic for me. However they don't play them as early in October like they used to.

I lub me some Halloween, and specifically Halloween movies.

Granted, most every day holds pretty high potential for me to watch a Halloween-ish movie, but I always go all-out every year for Halloween and that's extending to the podcast this year too (now that I have one)
We've got episodes upcoming with discussion on the Nightmare on Elm Street Series, Halloween Series, Friday the 13th Series, and a Super Special SAWtacular where we're going to try to funnel all 7 Saw movies into our brains in just 2 hours (ie, watch all of them. AT THE SAME TIME.) and record a commentary.

ALSO, I'll be watching horror movie a day, this year's theme being 80s-ish creature features that I haven't seen. It doesn't HAVE to be a creature feature if it's got that 80s vibe and it doesn't HAVE to be an 80s movie if it's a creature feature, but it's an alphabetical rundown of creature features I haven't seen. I'll post more here as the days go by, but if you wanna check out more about it you can like my podcast on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/SecondRunPodcast
(This is both a plug, and a way of being too lazy to type up my list of planned films right now)

Our first horror-themed Halloween/October episode just went live! Link is below, where MouthForWar joined me to talk about the Nightmare on Elm Street series. We discuss the undeniable greats like parts 1 and 3, debate the merits of Freddy's Dead, and I even speak a kind word or two (or even three) on Freddy's Revenge.
We also have some (I think) fairly interesting discussion on who MIGHT be able to take up the mantle of Freddy in the inevitable event of another remake/reboot.

Also, my list of films for this coming October:
# - 976-EVIL
A - Altered States
B - Brain Damage
C - Castle Freak
D - Dagon
E - Equinox
F - The Fly (original)
G - Galaxy of Terror
H - Hardware
I - Invaders from Mars
J - Jeepers Creepers
K - The Keep
L - Leviathan
M - Matinee
N - Night of the Creeps
O - Orca
P - Proteus
Q - Q: The Winged Serpent
R - Razorback
S - Slugs
T - Ticks
U - Up from the Depths
V - Vampire Bats
W - Waxwork
X - Xtro
Y - Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon
Z - Zeiram
Bonus Day 1 - Pumpkinhead (okay, Jelli's seen this, but the blu-ray just dropped and Jelli needs an excuse to buy it)
Bonus Day 2 - Nightbreed (new blu ray set to drop in October)
Bonus Day 3 - Monster Squad (an October tradition for the Jelliman)
Bonus Day 4 (October 31st) - Halloween (ESSENTIAL viewing for the day itself)
If I get a chance, I will also be watching Willard, Mausoleum, The Forbidden World, and Nightmares (1983) to compensate for watching movies I've already seen on the bonus days.

AND, I'm going to TRY to record a brief (1-2 minute) review of each film and then edit the thoughts all together into one (hopefully entertaining) special episode.

I watched The Keep on Netflix (it was a panscan VHS transfer because that's all there is of it). I liked it. Not really horror per say, but spooky myth in the modern (WW2) world.

Watching Galaxy of Terror on Netflix.

976-Evil is....well...not good. It''s got a touch of campy charm to it, I suppose, and a couple of (surely unintentionally) hilarious moments, but it doesn't offer up enough to be particularly entertaining.

A mediocre film.

I was just saying the other day, I don't feel like there's just a big 4 in terms of slashers anymore...a lot of horror fans default to Freddy, Jason, Michael and Leatherface, but I personally think Chucky has overtaken Leatherface and at the very least, you have to think of it as a big five now.

Trying to get my wife into the spirit of things, so to speak. Screened the original FRANKENSTEIN last night. Don't think she'd ever seen it, at least in it's entirety until then. Speaking of which. I have the Legacy DVD collectins of the Universal monsters. I understand they've released these in some form or other on Blu. Anyone have these and care to comment on whether the quality is worth upgrading?

I'm going to try and mix things up with old & new films. Might spin Cronenberg's FLY tonight.

So far we have watched Bram Stoker's Dracula, Halloween, Psycho, and Annabelle. We are going to be watching Halloween II in a little bit since we are both off from work today and then we might go to a haunted house tonight. Oh yeah, and I have watched the first five episodes of Tales from the Crypt Seaosn 7.

Currently I have started my monster madness with The Howling: New Moon Rising, seventh entry in this franchise and why does this movie act more like a country music video than a werewolf movie? I can see why it did not get a US release. I was going to see Amityville Dollhouse first, but my source for watching it got deleted by copy right nazis.

The Howling film series is awful aside from the first film. 2 and 3 have some entertainment value but then beyond that the series is just complete garbage. New Moon Rising is the worst of the worst of the worst.

Currently watching the original Evil Dead. one of my favorites.