October 16th

Once mine and Chef Gregory's kids were finally asleep for the night, it was time for some Halloween fun for the parents.  For this second night of Chef's visit, I put together my traditional weekend trailer disc full of stuff I thought he'd get a kick out of.  Particular hits were the Tucker & Dale vs Evil and Troll Hunter trailers, both of which look like great fun.



Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2010) trailer
Thanksgiving (2007) fake trailer
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror III: Clown Without Pity" (1992)


Zombieland (2009) directed by Ruben Fleischer
Well, I broke one of my Six Weeks of Halloween rules: no repeats.  There are so many horror movies I need to watch, re-watching the same movie a second time during my short 42-day fest doesn't make any sense.  I'd just watched Zombieland with a separate group of friends a few weeks ago.  But, eh, what the hey?  I couldn't deny that it makes for a perfect follow-up to yesterday's Ghostbusters and that it's a zombie movie even our wives would enjoy watching with us.  I knew it was a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, so who am I to stand in the way of pleasing crowds?

I'm pretty sure, in the zombie apocalypse, I'd also be smashing the hell out of minivans and tourist traps.  And looking for the last remaining sugary snacks that will ever be made.  And shooting guns and driving big cars and living in Bill Murray's mansion.  Damn, Tallahassee was right about everything. I sense a post-apocalyptic religion brewing. (8/10)




The Troll Hunter (2010) trailer
Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) trailer
Mime Massacre (2006)


Jacob's Ladder (1990) directed by Adrian Lyne
Somehow, this ended up being a hugely influential movie, even though I rarely hear people talk about it these days.  Konami should be sending Adrian Lyne a royalty check for Silent Hill, for one.  I'd told this to Chef before we started the film and maybe it skewed his expectations.  He was thinking there would be a lot more weirdness in the film.  There's really not a lot; the demons are few and far between (except for mostly normal-looking Jezzie).  This is an excellent decision on the part of the filmmakers.  Wall-to-wall weird stuff in this film would've muted its impact and made it much less memorable.  As it is, the demons are more like the strange things you see out of the corner of your eye in real life.  I've always liked the strange face staring out of the car that almost runs Jacob over in the alley.  He and we only see it for a second, but, man... creepy.  I feel like I've seen similar things myself when walking down the road.

Jacob's Ladder made me forever a Tim Robbins fan.  Lyne gives us plenty of close-ups of Robbins' face because, I think, he knew Robbins could handle displaying just the right level of emotion for them without going overboard.  We can see on Robbins' face the pain of loss or his determination not to die or terror in perfectly believable detail.  Jacob's Ladder made me forever afraid of Elizabeth Peña.  I saw her in Kathryn Bigelow's Blue Steel recently and, even though she was a good person and friend to the main character in that one, I couldn't see her as anything other than a demon.  I know, I know, she's really an angel to Jacob, but she's so seemingly bad for him (inpatient and quick to anger) and cruel (referring to Gabe as "the dead one", burning his photos) that it's hard to view her as helping Jacob let go of his life.

Best re-imagining of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge ever. (9/10)




The Walking Dead (2010) trailer
Werewolves on Wheels (1971) trailer
How To Destroy Angels: "The Space in Between" (2010)


And, at the end of the night, I broke another Six Weeks rule when Chef Gregory and I popped in Black Dynamite.  It's a movie that has nothing to do with horror or Halloween, but the Chef only visits once or twice a year and BD is too damned funny not to share.

Almost makes winter worthwhile.

September 25th

With the pumpkin lights lit, the apple cider candle aglow, a fridge stocked with beer and some bowls of candy, the first big weekend night of Halloween was ready to rock!  Amigos J and C came over to help me out with the beer-drinking and candy-eating and horror-watching.  J even brought a treat to try, courtesy of Dan Aykroyd of all people.  After some meandering discussions on what to watch, we settled on the night's selections:


Biozombie (1998) trailer
Satan's Cheerleaders (1977) trailer
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror IV: Terror at 5½ Feet" (1993)


Tales from the Crypt: "Food for Thought" (1993) directed by Rodman Flender
Ah, Tales from the Crypt, a Halloween tradition that makes for a great starter before diving into full-length movies.  Though I've had all of seven season for years, I only watch these things during Six Weeks.  Amazingly, we're up to season five now (though we've been working on it for a long time).  

I don't think I've ever seen Ernie Hudson play a bad guy before.  He was great at it in this episode, where he plays a gluttonous carnival performer who's abusive to his telepathic wife.  Maybe it was the clown make-up he was wearing, but after a few minutes I completely forgot I was watching Winston being a meany.  A decent episode with a nicely gorey zinger at the end.  Gotta love the utterly gratuitous female siamese twin shower scene, too.


Season of the Witch (1972) trailer
Buttcrack (1998) trailer
Donald Duck: "Trick or Treat" (1952)


After.Life (2009) directed by Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo
Like Grace last year, I rented this one blind based solely on ads I was seeing for it in the magazines I read.  It was a pleasant surprise.  J and I agreed it was much better than expected.  In it, Anna (Christina Ricci) dies in a car accident and wakes up in Eliot's (Liam Neeson) funeral home.  He explains to her that she's dead and that he has a gift for helping people transition.  She has a bit of trouble accepting this, as does her grieving near-fiancé Paul (Justin Long). The movie does a great job of striking a balance between the two possible interpretations.  Though I think there's a definitive answer, one can make arguments for both Eliot being a crazy kidnapper who's drugging Anna and for Anna really being dead.  Both options are pretty creepy, given the situation.

I can see how people might complain that the movie is slow and that nothing much happens.  They're right, though I liked this aspect of it.  Neeson as Eliot, in particular, sets this tone.  He's very calm and meticulous.  He very slowly cuts Anna's clothes off, very carefully sews up the gash in her forehead and speaks to people in that calming, deep voice Neeson possesses.  Matching this is the camera work, with its slow tracking shots into the morgue where Anna lies naked on her slab.

Not unlike Phantasm, it's a look at "the American way of death" wrapped in a horror movie.  I'll be picking this one up on blu-ray in the future. (7/10)




God Told Me To (1976) trailer
Invasion of the Fish Fuckers (1996) trailer
Akira Yamaoka: "Fukuro" (2001)


Zombieland (2009) directed by Ruben Fleischer
I probably don't have much more to say about this one than I did last year. Though it got me thinking about horror comedies.  Seems like no two are ever alike in tone.  Return of the Living Dead and Shaun of the Dead are also zombie comedies, but all three movies have completely different comedy-to-seriousness mixes.  Return is closest to a straight horror movie, Shaun has that British sense of humor embedded in it and Zombieland is a film in which a character beats a redneck zombie to death with a banjo after playing "Dueling Banjos" to attract its attention.  I think I still like Return the best, though all three are great.  Not sure what that says about me.

(and with Bill Murray's appearance in this movie, three of the four Ghostbusters have shown up in some way tonight.  Whither Harold Ramis?) (8/10)

A skull glows blue in the light of the beer fridge.

6WH: October 10th

Week 3 ends with Mrs. K and I venturing to the theater. Later, we'd watch a film with my mother... always hard to pick a horror movie when that happens.

Zombieland (2009) directed by Ruben Fleisher
A bucket of fun. More of a comedy than a zombie film (whereas I might say the opposite about Shaun of the Dead). Sure, the story, when you boil it down, is pretty Hollywood-standard: lost souls wind up together by accident, dislike each other at first and then end up as a happy family. I know, I'm aware that amusement park rides require an operator and don't just go on their own once they sense someone sitting in them. Yeah, a certain actor in a cameo isn't really as rich as they made him out to be. Doesn't matter. This stuff is in the film to drive the fun, not to make sense.

There are lot of good bits stuffed into the picture. I loved Tallahassee's quest for a Twinkie and Columbus' quest to simply push stray hair behind a girl's ear. The zombies were of the fast type, but this okay due to both the awesome slo-mo shots of them chasing food (especially the stripper zombie) and so that Columbus could have his amusing cardio rule. The scene in which the four main characters have a blast trashing a highway tourist shop struck me as unique. In these zombie apocalypse films, I can't recall anyone ever just having fun with the situation (at least, without the scene ending in someone getting bitten or eaten). That was nice. That's one thing I would do myself if zombies were everywhere.

It's not exactly a deep reflection on the end of the world, but it is one of the funniest horror-comedies I've seen. (8/10)




Creepshow (1982) trailer
The Shining (1980) fake trailer
Michael Jackson: "Thriller" (1983)


Bubba Ho-tep (2002) directed by Don Coscarelli
I hadn't seen this in while and it seemed like something mom might possibly get a kick out of. Of course, I'd forgotten how much Elvis talks about his pecker throughout. Ostensibly about a mummy who eats the souls of old people in a rest home, this really isn't much of a monster movie. It's more of a comedic mediation on old age. Most of the movie has little to do with the title character; it's Elvis ruminating on what it means to have lived so long you're about to die of old age. As such, it's not exactly the most exciting mummy movie ever made. You have to be a certain frame of mind to enjoy this one, I think. I suppose this is the frame of mind that finds the idea of a mummy writing dirty graffiti on the wall of a toilet stall while taking a dump amusing. Afterward, mom expressed disbelief such a thing was ever shown in real theaters, stating "that was a weird movie." (7/10)




Book of Blood (2008) directed by John Harrison
After everyone was asleep, I popped in this Netflix acquisition. I read the short stories this was based on so long ago, I had no idea what it was going to be about. It was sort of Clive Barker's version of Poltergeist, in a way. Very much in line with Barker's style, it mixed horror, sexuality and metaphysics as it told the story of a college professor investigating a haunted house. Turns out the house exists at an intersection of a ghost highway, where their realm and ours mix. Turns out also that the ghosts are really sensitive to people messing with them, going so far as to rip the faces off of teenage girls performing seances. It's a bit slow-paced in the middle when the ghosts aren't doing any real harm to people, but I dug this one. (7/10)

Pumpkin Guarding the Steps