Halloween Interactivity! Day 7: The League (Part 1 - Movies)

Hey all!

I hope your Halloween weekend is going swimmingly.

Here in Part 1, I'll discuss an underrated SPOOOOOOOOOOOOKY movie.  And then in Part 2 - we'll talk costumes.

My favorite spooky movies are probably:  The Haunting, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and Dracula, followed by The Shining and The Thing.  None of these are particularly poorly-known movies.

And, as I've said, I didn't really have an affinity for horror movies growing up.  It was hanging out with our own JAL, Michael Corley and CarlaBeth that I finally saw some real horror movies.

Here's a quick rundown of some movies I think should get a mention.



In the Mouth of Madness - I loved this movie.  Sam Neil investigates the odd behavior and occurrences around the release of a book by a Clive Barker-esque writer whose latest novel seems to be driving readers cray-cray.  I don't even want to give away too many plot details, but it plays a bit with the audience in a meta-turn or three, and has a nice Lovecraftian tone to it.

Yes, there are special effects, but the movie doesn't lean too heavily on make-up or FX (if I remember correctly, its been a while), and relies more heavily upon story and tone to set up the movie.

Sam Neill experiences public transportation

As far as horror goes, monsters and slashers rarely do it for me, but seeing the rules of the world slip away into inescapable chaos and movie-evil is something that I always find effectively disquieting, at least when its on a TV or film screen.

on the opposite end of the spectrum...

Dead Alive - Before Lord of the Rings made him a superstar, and after Meet the Feebles upset audiences everywhere, in 1994, I went to go see Dead Alive at the then-thriving Dobie Theater in Austin.  Jackson's zombie film is a cult favorite, enough so that I hesitate to include it on the list, but I figure there's many of you out there who never saw it.

The Biiiiiiiiite!

Its equal parts disgusting, scary, funny and bizarre, and provided me with the unique experience of holding a popcorn bucket in my lap as I was doubled over laughing, but pretty sure I was about to throw up from what I was watching on the screen.

House of Wax - original - I won't watch this movie again, and I haven't seen it since middle school.  It's a well-known Vincent Price movie, but oddly, few people I've talked to seem to have watched it.  I name this movie because it was one of the first times I ever remember watching a movie by myself and getting the cold-blooded feeling of "oh, dear jesus" when the big, scary twist of the movie was revealed.

Vincent Price is all up in your movie, making with the scary

No doubt, I'd just find it a story-beat now, so I just prefer to remember it as it was back in the 1980's, when I was watching it on TV by myself one night in the summer.

It was remade a few years ago.  With Paris Hilton.  I did not see it.  But the movie poster itself gave away the big shocker to me of the original movie, so...  this is why I roll my eyes at most modern "horror" movies.