October 5th

Monster Cereal Week 3: Boo Berry.
Buster Keaton's pork pie hat, Pee-Wee Herman's bow tie, and Peter Lorre's voice.
I could never tell if the ghost was supposed to look sleepy, disinterested, or stoned.

The Worst Witch (1986) directed by Robert Young

My pick for the yearly attempt to watch a Halloween movie with the daughters.  I think I picked well, as it was the first time my eldest actually made it through a whole Halloween movie (the youngest, lacking an attention span, wandered off midway through).  She fled briefly behind the couch when Mildred was having trouble flying -- she's still sensitive -- but recovered when the film didn't kill its main character in a grisly crash.

I'd have been the right age to watch this when it was first released, but I've never heard of it.  Researching for movies to watch with the girls, lots of people spoke fondly of this one, though.  I can see why.  It's a completly innocent Halloween movie set at a school for witches and full of silly adult characters hamming it up.  I especially like Charlotte "Mrs. Garrett" Rae as the scene-chewing evil witch Agatha.  Everyone appears to be having a ball in this show.

But the best thing in the movie -- maybe in any movie ever made? -- was Tim Curry's music video.  Curry plays the "Grand Wizard" (yes, really, that's what they called him) for the witch boarding school who visits on Halloween.  When he arrives, he smoothly segues into a song and dance number about how cool Halloween is, surrounded by cheezy '80s video effects. It. is. awesome.  Watch it now:

If you're feeling at all blue today, I guarantee a smile, at least, from the above.

Watched: DVD from BFS.

Dead Hooker in a Trunk (2009) directed by Jen Soska & Sylvia Soska

After watching the impressive American Mary, I immediately threw the Soska Twins' first movie in my Netflix queue.  It suffers from some typical first film issues, both technical and artistic.  I don't think they did any ADR, so some of the shot-on-location dialogue is hard to hear.  The cameraman has watched too much Battlestar Galactica, and puts far too much movement into his shots to the point of annoyance.  The tone was initially hard to figure out.  The title suggests you're in for some goofiness, but it's really a very black comedy.  I didn't get this until well into the movie when the Junkie had her arm knocked off by a semi truck, then sewn back on with fishing line.  I still had a hard time getting over the Geek twin having her eyeball knocked out, though she did not have the same issue after applying some tape to the damage.

Thanked in the credits are both Robert Rodriguez and Eli Roth, which is a pretty accurate indicator of the style they went for here.  There's Hostel-style torture and dismemberment mixed with Rodriguez-ish hyper-reality and violence mixed with a dark sense of humor.  Unfortunately, the story these things are thrown into isn't quite fully developed.  It ends up being about a serial killer who stalks hookers, but we don't actually find out anything about this until near there end.  There's a twist concerning the killer, but it wasn't exactly a surprise.  Mostly, the movie follows four friends driving around with hooker in their trunk, who get into a series of not particularly related wacky and violent adventures.  Good effort for a first movie filmed with no budget, but not something I'm going to be watching again.  I'm glad to see the Twins went onto greater things after this.

Watched: DVD from MPI.