October 13th

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) directed by Chuck Russell

Robert Englund as Freddy
27 Feb 1987

Freddy vs. Jason IX: Destruction of the Dream Warriors
The Dream Warriors fail miserably in this film. Granted, it wasn't a bad thought on Nancy's part: figure out a special power you have when you dream and use that against Freddy. In such a desperate situation, it was worth a try, but the results speak for themselves:

• Kristen - acrobatics
  Mildly irritates Freddy when she knocks him down.
• Kincaid - slightly stronger than a normal human
  Mildly irritates Freddy when he bangs him with a dream pipe.
• Taryn - dresses as a punk and carries two tiny switchblades
  Mildly irritates Freddy when she stabs him in the armpit.
• Will - becomes The Wizard Master
  Mildly irritates Freddy when he shoots green magic at him.
• Joey - loud screaming
  Breaks Freddy's mirrors.

The only thing that has any lasting effect at all on Freddy is Neil sprinkling holy water on his bones in the real world. Even there, Neil almost dies due to Freddy's skeleton bonking him on the head with a shovel. Freddy is incredibly powerful: a god in the dream world who can extend himself into reality when needed. If it were me? I'd be eating Hypnosil™ the rest of my life and moving away from Springwood. 

I've always had mixed feelings on this entry in the series. Widely regarded as the best of the sequels, it also marks the beginnings of "Wise-Crackin' Fred," the slasher villain who feels the need to make a clever quip -- like he's James Bond -- before killing someone. To me, that can get irritating. I think it would work a little better if he were a little darker with his quips. I like "this is God" and "I'll split you in two" from Part 1 just fine. "Welcome to prime time, bitch!" and "what a rush!" just don't have the same utter malevolence behind them. Freddy isn't as scary if you're half-chuckling at what he's saying to people. This also puts the character on a destructive path, where each sequel gets a little sillier until we end up with "Stand-Up Comedian Fred" in Part 6.

Outside of that complaint, this is a great sequel. While somehow not as strong as she was in Part 1, it's nice to have Nancy back. Dreams also return after being mostly absent in Part 2, and they get a lot right with them. I like that they play with the geography of Nancy's old house: the hallways seem to shift and extend themselves, and nothing makes any logical sense. The bit where Kristen finds she can no longer run as Freddy chases her is great. This is all very true-to-dreams. Freddy also has more fun with his dream powers than ever before: he transforms into a snake and a marionette, multiplies himself in mirrors, and attacks Zsa Zsa Gabor on a TV show. He seems to be enjoying the hell out of himself during the entire movie, particularly when he's playing possum to allow the kids to think they've actually hurt him.

Favorite Character
Donald Thompson (John Saxon): broken by the events of Part 1, he's turned into an alcoholic security guard who rarely sees his daughter. He snaps back into his old self during his final moments when he attacks the animated, burned skeleton of Freddy, telling him "I've killed you once before, you son of a bitch."

Favorite Sin
Making out with a dream version of a nurse who is actually Freddy in disguise.

Favorite Kill
Phillip (Bradley Gregg), who has his arms and legs sliced open by Freddy. Freddy then uses Phillip's own tendons to marionette him off a building. I've always thought this is one of the most disturbing Freddy kills for shear gore factor alone.

Freddy's Mood
Cruelly playful.

October 18th

The Blob (1988) directed by Chuck Russell

This one has always been in my list of "remakes better than the original." I know some would disagree. Unlike The Fly and The Thing remakes, this isn't a spectacular movie with something to say on the human condition. What it does share with those two movies is an incredible display of prime '80s practical effects wizardry. People are dissolved, they float inside of the Blob in various states of digestion, and the Blob shoots out vents and cracks under doors and an entire street in an aggressive quest to eat. With the exception of a handful of wonky blue screen shots of the Blob moving, it's all fantastic.

I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the plot twist invented for the remake. Instead of being alien goo in a meteor, the Blob is now an out of control bio-weapon experiment conducted by the US Government. This allows the film to insert a bunch of Feds in bio-containment suits carrying guns to terrorize the town. I'm not sure this was entirely necessary, as the Blob is pretty scary all by itself. The treachery of the head agent -- who orders people sealed under the street with the Blob -- feels completely uninteresting when there's a giant ball of jelly dissolving people.

Night of the Demon (1980) directed by James C. Wasson

Been wanting to watch this one for a long time ever since I saw the trailer, which, among other things, features a dude getting his weener ripped off by Bigfoot. Let me repeat that: one way that Bigfoot kills a guy in this movie is by suddenly jumping out of the woods on man peeing, grabbing his penis, and ripping it off. If that doesn't make someone want to give this a watch, I don't know what will.

The rest of the film is about as good as that one scene. Horrible acting. Utterly incoherent editing. Pretty good special effects. You can certainly tell where the money went. They knew it, too. Gore shots in the film are lingered on for a disturbingly long time. How's a full minute of staring at a hatchet would gushing blood sound? Good? You'll love this movie.

In the movie, a professor and group of college students set off into the woods to search for the elusive sasquatch. Along the way, they discover the horrible secret of their local bigfoot: he's a rapist. Yeah. And he's pissed that his would-be father-in-law killed his baby. Yeah. In the end, only the professor survives his wrath after an incredible, incredible scene of Bigfoot going apeshit on everyone in a cabin. Holy cow. The entire scene is in Incredible Hulk TV show slow motion, with Bigfoot ripping everyone to shreds while roaring. At one point, he rips a guy's intestines out of his guts and then uses it to whip the rest of the people.

Oh yeah, I will be ordering the Code Red DVD. Watch it below if you don't believe me:

 

6WH: HALLOWEEN!

I had a nice holiday today. To match my daughter, who was Supergirl, I dressed as Clark Kent for work. That is, I dressed in suit pants, a white shirt and a tie with a Superman T-shirt showing through the unbuttoned white shirt. I also ordered the official DC Comics "Clark Kent Eyeglasses" to wear (who knew?), though I could only tolerate them with the cheap, plastic lenses popped out. Not the most original costume in the world, but people really dug it. I got lots of nice comments from folks and my picture taken a couple of times. And to all the skeptics out there: the glasses-as-disguise thing really does work. I normally don't wear them... just by putting them on, I had people I know staring right at me, not able to figure out who I was for a beat or two.

I don't what the deal is with the hospital, though. I probably saw only 4 other people in full-on costumes today... this being a place that employs thousands. I also found out from our daycare lady that the public schools don't allow the kids to wear costumes to school anymore. What's the deal, man? Why all the dressing up hate? There's one day per year where you get to walk around pretending to be someone else and you don't want to do it or aren't allowed to? Bummer.

Afterwards, for the first year ever despite living here for seven years, I passed out candy to trick-or-treaters. Only six groups stopped by -- half of them being the local daycare kids and a third being teenagers collecting cans for charity -- but I thought it was fun. Not sure on the protocol these days with regards to quantity. I just gave 'em a handful of candy and didn't worry about it.

Then, it was movie time. The final day of the final week of Halloween:

Bride of Frankenstein trailer (1935)
Night of the Living Dead trailer (1968)
Merrie Melodies: "Hair-raising Hare" (1946)


A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) directed by Chuck Russell
Freddy at the top of his game, both cruel and funny. I love his processed, deep voice in this one. Half the time it sounds like a growl. It fits him perfectly. I think this sequel's Freddy makeup is my favorite as well. It gets more plastic looking in later movies. To me, Freddy puppeting Phillip around by his tendons remains the most disturbing image in the entire series. I'm still trying to figure out all of the Freudian implications of the phallic Freddy-snake eating Kristen. Freddy's repeated use of the word "bitch" to refer to his female antagonists may, just may, indicate he's a bit of a misogynist. Also: Dokken rules! (7/10)


The Texas Chain Saw Massacre trailer (1974)
A Nightmare on Elm Street trailer (1984)
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror: The Raven" (1990)


Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2007) directed by Lloyd Kaufman
Not quite the head explosion that Citizen Toxie was. I ordered this with two-day shipping from Amazon to be sure it got here in time to watch on Halloween. A new movie from Lloyd is a rare event indeed and I've got the trailer for this one practically memorized after watching it for two years. It's essentially Troma's version of Fast Food Nation (the book, not the shitty movie), but with song and dance numbers. I wasn't expecting those. They're pretty much contained in the first half of the movie and kinda come too close together for my liking. The lyrics, of course, are funny, with plenty of references to body parts and functions. Unfortunately, I found that the songs slowed the movie down, spacing out the scenes of extreme gore more than I would've wanted. What I liked about Toxie 4 was the nearly nonstop mayhem and insanity on the screen. Poultrygeist is a much calmer movie... at least for the first half. When the chicken zombie plague finally arrives, we start to rock-and-roll without stopping.

Speaking of extreme gore, this is definitely the gooiest Troma movie thus far (which is saying quite a bit). I can't wait to watch the documentary on the bonus disc, just to see how many times the poor PAs were forced to clean up the gallons and gallons of fake blood that got constantly sprayed everywhere. I'm pretty sure Poultrygeist beats out Dead Alive / Braindead for the most fake blood sprayed into the air. It definitely beats it for most objects ramming through anuses. Also: they put a camera in the toilet bowl... for when Joe Fleishaker uses it. Man oh man. I love you, Troma.

Holy crap! A Troma movie in real anamorphic widescreen (not the letterboxed 4:3 atrocity found on the Toxie 21st anniversary disc)? Awesome! And the transfer's even good. Wow! Troma's getting classy here. Color me impressed with this 3-disc set. (7/10)


Candyman trailer (1992)
Dagon trailer (2001)
Mickey Mouse: "Lonesome Ghosts" (1937)


Halloween (1978) directed by John Carpenter
The granddaddy of slasher films. Watching it in HD this year for the first time was a treat. I'm so familiar with the movie -- specifically, the one DVD that I've been watching for a decade -- that suddenly having all of this extra detail in the picture was like someone wiped the haze from the screen. Fun stuff. (9/10)

The seventh and final Halloween Jones Soda flavor is Blood Orange, a new one for this year. But, you know, it's just orange pop. There's nothing at all different about it except that it's dyed a slightly darker shade of orange than a Faygo orange pop. Meh. Jones really dropped the ball on the glass bottle flavors this year. Bring back red licorice!

And, that's it for the Six Weeks of Halloween. Celebrating Halloween for this long is great. By the time I've finished, I'm good and done with the holiday. I feel like I've got as much out of it as I could. I'm looking forward to watching non-horror movies in the near future for the first time in a month and a half. That'll be a treat.

Supergirl Begins.

6WH: Saturday, October 4th

The Blob (1958) directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. & Russell S. Doughten Jr.
Dig that '50s scene, man. Young, rebel teens (like 28-year-old Steve McQueen) -- in-between making out in lover's lane and backwards drag racing -- struggle to convince square adults that an alien glob of goo is eating people. This is one of the few horror movies from the 1950s that I actually like (my favorite being Invasion of the Body Snatchers). The film pops in dreamy Technicolor -- Criterion's transfer on their DVD is excellent -- with the stereotypical '50s pallet of pinks and blue-greens tickling the eyeballs. It features a truly original alien monster: no need for aliens who happen to look like humans and speak English here. The special effects are great for the era, particularly when the blob is dog-sized. Its movements at that size look quite bizarre. The concept is actually pretty dark for the time: there's a thing rolling around Smalltown, USA digesting people. Off-screen, it consumes an entire bar filled with a Friday night crowd. This movie has to have one of the highest body counts for this decade. I dug it, man. Happy 50th, Mr. Blob. (7/10)


Beware! The Blob (1972) directed by Larry Hagman
Dig that '70s scene, man. The rebel drag racers are replaced with really annoying hippies and Steven McQueen is replaced by the weenie who played Charlie X in the Star Trek episode of the same name in this wacked-out sequel. A man brings home a frozen sample of the blob he found while working on a pipeline in the arctic. It gets out, eats a cute kitten and hilarity ensues. There's quite a bit of fun to be had with this one. For example, the blob attacks a fat, bald Turkish guy taking a bubblebath, who proceeds to flee down the street buck nude, gets picked up by the police, and insists on making his one phone call at the station still in his birthday suit. Or, there's Dick Van Patten as the exasperated, no-nonsense scoutmaster who is tormented by scouts with clackers. Or, Burgess Meredith as a hippie-hating hobo sharing a drink with the director. Definitely a good-bad movie (though I imagine serious fans of the original must froth at the mouth at its very mention). (6/10)

After my Blob-a-thon, the missus and C joined me. T, from week 1, ain't ever coming back. Not a guy who understands horror, I'm afraid.

Masters of Horror: "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" trailer (2005)
Martin trailer (1977)
Johnny Bravo: "Frankenbravo" (2000)


Tales from the Crypt: "King of the Road" (1992) directed by Tom Holland
Another Two-Fisted Tales story without a hint of horror. Brad Pitt stars as an arrogant drag racer who tattoos the names of the people he defeats on his arm. He discovers a local police officer used to be a famous dragger in the '50s until he killed someone in a wreck. By seducing the officer's daughter, he blackmails him into dragging one more time. Long-story short: the boomer defeats the punk '90s kid. This, I'm sure, in no way made the director, writers and producers feel better about aging. I'm glad this is the last of the Two-Fisted Tales in Crypt: gimme some horror. (5/10)


The Thing (1982) directed by John Carpenter
My wife loves this movie. Year-round, she's always suggesting it as something to watch. My response is usually "I don't want to watch it until there's snow on the ground." I like watching The Thing in the winter; it just makes the movie more effective when I, like the characters, could freeze to death if I got stuck outside. A few days ago, though, I got the blu-ray version in the mail. C and I both wanted to see this flick in HD, so I asked the missus: "what's that one movie that you always want to watch and I say we can't until something happens?" She knew right away what it was. Needless to say, she was thrilled with the pick.

Rant: despite what people always say, The Thing is not a remake. Sure, there was a movie called The Thing from Another World made in 1951, but it wasn't the original source of this story. That's a novella called Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell. Calling Carpenter's movie a remake is like saying Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings is a remake of the Bakshi cartoon, or The Passion of the Christ is a remake of The Last Temptation of Christ.

The Thing is my favorite movie of all time at the moment. It's exactly my kind of movie. (10/10)


Satan's Sadists trailer (1969)
Satan's Cheerleaders trailer (1977)
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror: Clown without Pity" (1992)


The Blob (1988) directed by Chuck Russell
Now this is a remake. And this is exactly how to do a remake: wait a respectful three decades, create a similar but original story that touches on the big moments from the original (like the movie theater sequence) and amp the puppy up to match the times. This is the type of blob movie I really wanted. None of that demure cutting away once of the blob attacks… let's see what really happens to people inside of it. It ain't pretty. In fact, it's some of the nicest gore effects you'll fine in the '80s. People dissolved in half, people melted down to ooze-covered skeletons, people exploding from inside with the blob. Nice work. Gotta love the '80s Cold War element, too. "This'll put U.S. defense years ahead of the Russians." This time, the blob is a mutated bacteria created by the U.S. government, meant for the Ruskies. An oft-overlook gem of an '80s horror movie. (8/10)

The Halloween Jones Soda flavor of the week was Lemon Drop Dead, the last of the repeats from prior years. It still tastes like carbonated, powder lemon drink. It's fine, I guess. Fake lemonade isn't bad, though the enormous amount of citric acid in it is kind of heart-burny.

Lil K was not at all posed with Halloween stuff for this photo.