October 19th

Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996) directed by Kevin Yagher & Joe Chappelle (as Alan Smithee)

"Needs more Pinhead!" declared the Miramax execs.  And their word was made reality.  The script was rewritten, Yagher quit the film in disgust and Chappelle shot the rest.  What resulted was a mess that doomed the Hellraiser series to an eternity of direct-to-video crappiness.

I hate that Angelique is just a regular demon, summoned using regular old black magic.  Hellraiser's Hell is supposed to special.  Your Sunday school classes were wrong.  Hell isn't about fire and pitchforks; it's about exploring the limits.  Pinhead's the same as he was in III: overly chatty and bizarrely bent on taking over the world.  The filmmakers seemed to realize these were flaws when Merchant pops up a picture of Earth on a screen, which causes Pinhead to yap so long Merchant can escape.  Pinhead is also fooled by a hologram at the end of the film.  Horrible.  The Cenobites on the space station do nothing but murder people Jason-style, which, again, is utterly not what they're about.

It's not all bad.  Angelique is probably the second best Cenobite design of all time after Pinhead.  Too bad she's barely in the film in this form.  I think the Chatterer Beast is pretty cool, even though the idea of Pinhead having a pet doggie is idiotic.  Mickey Cottrell is awesomely hammy as the powdered wig-wearing magician D'Isle.  Too bad many of his scenes were cut. The idea of having a robot solve the box in order to protect yourself is clever.  I appreciate that continuity with part III was kept, with the Lament Configuration-inspired building and the box buried in concrete.

Other than that, the film's a mess that continues the downward slide started in III.  (5/10)

The Walking Dead: "Guts" (2010) directed by Michelle MacLaren

Though not quite as apocalyptic as the first episode, this one was still quite good.  Rick escapes the tank with the help of Glenn and meets up with a group hunting for supplies in the city.  All the noise they've stirred up has attracted a lot of zombies and they end up trapped in a department store.  Their ultimate solution is for Rick and Glenn to cover themselves with zombie guts and walk among the dead to escape.  The scene is played very well, with gore and tension and fast driving.  It was surprisingly gory, actually, for a non-pay channel TV show, with Rick chopping up a dead zombie with an axe.  And, after it begins to rain and the guts start to wash off, Rick and Glenn have to fight tooth-and-nail in order to reach the truck they're aiming for.  It's nice to see some solid zombie action involving axes and shovels, especially since everyone seems to be a deadeye shot with their guns, dropping zombies with ease from a distance.  All in all, I liked it better than the equivalent scene in the comic series.  

I'm a bit worried about the other survivors at the camp, though.  Their scenes are very soap opera-esque.  And, their camp layout is bugging me.  It's spread out all over the place.  It should be tight, so they can quickly gather and fend off any attacks.  And Lori also wanders into the woods without a weapon to get water, which is horrendously stupid in this world.  Then again, the zombie apocalypse just happened and maybe they don't know any better yet.  We'll see how it goes when the two groups join up...

6WH: Oct 26

Pumpkin carving works best with a couple of horror TV shows playing in the background as you scoop the guts out:

Tales from the Crypt: "Strung Along" (1992) directed by Kevin Yagher
Zach Galligan of Gremlins and Waxwork fame is seeing a woman married to an old, rich puppeteer with a heart condition. Logically, he concocts an elaborate scheme to give the old man a heart attack involving building an animatronic duplicate of the old man's favorite puppet in order to make the puppet look like it's knifing the girl to death. One wonders what plan B was going to be if the sight of this killer puppet made the old man laugh rather than making his heart stop? (7/10)


The Munsters: "Mummy Munster" (1965) directed by Ezra Stone
Herman falls asleep inside of a sarcophagus at a museum -- don't ask -- and gets mistaken for a mummy. Hijinks ensue. Most hilarious is when Lilly comes to the museum to claim him, looking to the museum workers as a completely insane woman convinced a 4000-year-old mummy is her husband. (7/10)


Halloween (2007) directed by Rob Zombie
When it isn't The Thing, the original Halloween is my favorite horror movie of all time. Needless to say, the announcement of a remake had me less than thrilled. Going into this, though, I was determined to give it a fair shake. I like Rob Zombie and I knew he is also a huge fan of the original. Out of anyone in Hollywood, I knew he'd at least be respectful.

Zombie tried really hard to get me to accept this. Look at this list of awesome character actors he has in the movie:

• Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis
• William Forsythe as Michael's stepdad
• Danny Trejo as a janitor at Smith's Grove
• Brad Dourif as Sheriff Brackett
• Clint Howard as a doctor at Smith's Grove
• Udo Kier as the head of Smith's Grove
• Dee Wallace as Laurie's stepmom
• Ken Foree as the source of Michael's coveralls
• Richard Lynch as Michael's principal
  
• Sid Haig as the graveyard caretaker
• Danielle Harris as Annie, returning to the series

I never imagined I'd been watching Clint Howard and Udo Kier in a scene together. I thought my head was going to explode.

The "Michael's origin story" part at the beginning of the movie wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Carpenter already did the mythic, force-of-nature Michael perfectly. There's no reason to try to copy that, so Zombie went for a real world Michael who had bad parents. Fair enough. From killing his pet rat to killing a fellow student to his time at Smith's Grove, we see Michael slowly lose his humanity. Did I want to see this? Not really. But, it wasn't done too badly. My main complaints would be that William Forsythe was a tad over-the-top as the verbally abusive stepdad and making Michael's mom a stripper was pushing the low-class family thing a bit too hard. If anything, this made me keep thinking of Mallory's family from Natural Born Killers, complete with sitcom laugh track.

The remainer of the film is a bizarro world version of the original, where things are slightly different or out of place. Which, I have to admit, is kind of fun. As a fan of the original, it's fun to pick out the references and twists (Bob actually puts the sheet on first! We get to meet Paul!). Ultimately, though, I think many of the changes Zombie made were for the worse. For example, he has the Laurie-Michael confrontation take place in the dilapitated Myers house instead of in Tommy Doyle's house. No longer is the babysitter being attacked in a seemingly safe, normal suburban home; now she's in a stereotypical haunted house. It's not as effective. The pacing is massively sped up as well. Lynda is killed almost immediately (again, in the Myers house). There's never any tension allowed to build or any time spent with atmosphere. We're just dumped right into the action. Michael is also made to be a rather ineffective killer. In the cut on the Blu-ray, both Annie and Dr. Loomis are attacked by Michael and (seemingly) survive. I suppose this fits with a more real world version of the character, but it's kind of odd.

Rob: for the love of Herman Munster, let's get over the '70s fetish. The beginning of this movie takes place in 1978 (per the script and, clearly, the music and posters in the film). The last half takes place 17 years later... in 2007. WTF? My wife and I both found this to be quite distracting: "when is this supposed to be?" she kept asking me.

Better than Halloweens 6, 8 and maybe even 5. So it's got that going for it. Like 99.9% of horror remakes, though, it's just unnecessary. Just ignore continuity and make a new sequel instead. No need to rehash the origin story. Plop Michael in Haddonfield on October 31st, come up with a least one interesting twist, and let him go to town. Anyway, this one could've been worse. (6/10)

SWH: Week 3 (thirteen)

Tales from the Crypt: "Lower Berth" (1990)
I'm a sucker for a horror tale from the carnival. (8/10)
d. Kevin Yagher

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (trailer)
The Return of the Living Dead (trailer)
Simpsons, The: "Treehouse of Horror 07-2: The Genesis Tub"

Dagon (2001)
I want to live forever in the sea with a tentacle-mermaid. (9/10)
d. Stuart Gordon

Masters of Horror: "Dreams in the Witch-House" (2005)
A really evil witch, irrational spaces beyond walls and a Dagon reunion make for good watchin'. (8/10)
d. Stuart Gordon

Mangiati Vivi (trailer)
The Birds (trailer)
They Live: "Cheese Dip"

Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Could've stood alone without coat-tailing on Romero's good name and I still think super-speed zombies look ridiculous. (7/10)
d. Zack Snyder

Bloodsucking Freaks (trailer)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (trailer)
Looney Tunes: "Broom-Stick Bunny"

Tonight's proceedings were joined by C and partially by Mrs. K. Neither of them, to my disappointment, appreciated the excellence of Dagon as I do.

I tried the Jones Soda Monster Mojito Soda this week. Having never tried the apparently popular alcoholic drink by that name -- such fruit-flavored concoctions remind me of college-era vomiting -- I don't know how it compares. I will say, like the Lemon Drop Dead soda, it tastes like (non-existent) lime-flavored Pez. C decided to give Candy Corn a try. He repeatedly, sarcastically admired its candy-cornish flavor throughout the final movie. After he left, I discovered more than half of it still in the small 8 oz can. When I dumped it down the sink, it was a disturbing, nearly-neon chartreuse yellow. I imagine his innards are permanently dyed that color now.

Here's the famous Six Weeks of Halloween candy drawer:

SWH: 2005 (1)

Saw (2004)
Cool extension of Se7en, but the last half is weak and could've used more traps. (7/10)

Tales from the Crypt: "The Man Who Was Death" (1989)
William Sadler and Roy Brocksmith ruled, but the plot was nothing special. (7/10)