Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts

Saturday, October 23, 2021

PODCAST: "Son of Frankenstein" (1939) and "Son of Dracula" (1943) - Halloween 2021 - Horror Sequels w/ SimonUK and Ryan



Watched:  09/06/2021
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  a whole lot
Decade:  1930's and 1940's
Director:  Rowland V. Lee and Robert Siodmak (I KNOW)



We check in on the boys and see what the kids are up to! One back in the old family villa and the other heading to Louisiana for some jambalaya, we assume. Two franchises rise yet again, stitched together from ideas new and old as we look at the third in the series for each, and sink their teeth into familiar tropes as well as all new stories and characters!




Music:
Son of Dracula Theme - Hans J. Salter Orchestra
Son of Frankenstein Theme - Frank Skinner


Halloween 2021



Friday, October 22, 2021

Japan Horror Halloween Watch: Hausu/ House (1977)




Watched:  10/22/2021
Format:  HBOmax
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1970's
Director:  Nobuhiko Ôbayashi

Uh.

I don't know what I just watched, but it was maybe the best thing ever? 

I mean, truly, I could not look away.  This movie is batshit, and I love batshit.  Like, it starts out batshit and just keeps going, changing and getting better.  I can truly say, I did not know what was going to happen next.  

Anyway, any attempt to describe the movie is a fool's errand, so I will not.  But I will definitely be rotating this into my scary movie faves.


Kiddie-Horror Watch: Return to Oz (1985)

noticing the poster makers realized they needed to not tell everyone their favorites aren't really in the movie



Watched:  10/21/2021
Format:  Disney+
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's
Director:  Walter Murch


I am categorizing this movie as a kid's horror movie, because (a) that's how Jamie, who has seen it, pitched it to me, and (b) this is a horror movie.  Starring and for kids.  I don't know if that's what anyone set out to make, but that's what it is.  Dorothy returns to a post-apocalyptic Oz where everyone is "dead", and she's pursued relentlessly by murderous creatures.  This is AFTER she's almost given experimental shock treatment to make her forget Oz.  There's a headless woman and her cabinetry of de-capitated heads she can wear who is going to enslave Dorothy for future decapitation.  Dorothy's then put into some weirdo Saw type situation and has to outmaneuver the guy playing with her life.  

All of which would be fine - kids can take a lot - except that the movie is joyless and a slog.

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Hallow-Scream Watch: Killer Workout/ Aerobicide (1987)




Watched:  10/21/2021
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's (so, so 1980's)
Director:  

A few weeks ago, tweeter Dr. PopCulture BGSU posted a picture or two from a movie of which I'd never before heard discussed, Killer Workout (1987), and I vowed to watch this movie at some point.  Well, our own JimD decided, YES, we would both see this movie, and so a copy showed up in the mail.  

I am genuinely supportive of the genre film preservation going on in weird little corners.  There's basically no reason anyone should work to preserve and distribute Killer Workout.  It's a very low-budget film with no bankable stars, bad cinematography, as wobbly a plot as you're going to find, and zero logic.  Sort of.  But.  Movies like this were an important part of the cinema world for a long time, and they've mostly disappeared as VHS players and tapes have headed to the bin.  It's weird that we may lose a lot of movies because of dedication to a format.

Olive Films is a newer but growing distribution company doing good work out there, bringing a wide range of film types to the market - from respectable classic film to.... Killer Workout.  They seem really cool and I need to spend more time reviewing their catalog.  I would LOVE to know more about their efforts to preserve and distribute films - but I have a lot of questions about their presentation of Killer Workout.  It *seems* like they had an idea to not just get the movie out there, but retain some of the VHS experience.  

JLC Hallow-Watch: Halloween Kills (2021)




Watched:  10/20/2021
Format:  Peacock
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2020's
Director:  David Gordon Greene


SPOILERS

So, this isn't a movie, it's the second act of a three part film about Michael Myers and the residents of Haddonfield.  Maybe the third part of a 4 part film, if you want to think of the 1978 film as the prelude.  

I haven't read anything about the movie as I was trying to avoid spoilers, but it's got a very low reviewer rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which... fair enough.  Horror sequels usually stand alone, using some of the same characters.  But, much like Halloween 2 from the 1980's (now erased in this continuity), this chapter acts more as an extension of the prior film.  Halloween 2 picked up as Laurie Strode was whisked away to a hospital and Myers tracked her down.  This one does similar - picking up from the end moments of Halloween 2018 on the same truck ride where we left the Strode women.

Monday, October 18, 2021

Vincent Price Watch: The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)




Watched:  10/17/2021
Format:  DVD
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1960's
Director:  Roger Corman

It is insane that I've never watched this movie.   With Corman directing, Vincent Price starring and a set-up that would become classic and - as Jamie pointed out - feels positively Bond-ian, it's a fun watch.  

It's a period piece, sometime during the Spanish inquisition (don't ask me when.  They're wearing those frilly collars I think of as 16th Century), and the events are around fallout of the Inquisition.  It's a genuinely screwed up story, maybe more thriller than horror, but there are genuine moments of creepiness and chills here and there, which I frankly wasn't expecting.

Sunday, October 17, 2021

PODCAST: "Dawn of the Dead" (1978) & (2004) - Halloween 2021 - Horror Sequels w/ SimonUK and Ryan


 
Watched:  08/25 & 08/31/2021
Format:  YouTube and Amazon
Viewing:  at least second for both
Decade:  1970's and 2000's
Director:  George Romero and Zack Snyder



SimonUK and Ryan celebrate Halloween by taking a bite out of the sequel to the zombie movie that started it all, and which some consider the most delicious of the genre. We also discuss the 21st Century reanimation of the same idea. Join us for a Halloween horror discussion fit to wake the dead.




Music:
L'alba dei morti viventi - Goblin, Dawn of the Dead/ Zombi Soundtrack
What the World Needs Now (Is Love, Sweet Love) - Burt Bacharach


Halloween 2021 Playlist!

Saturday, October 16, 2021

Hallow-Scream Watch: Gothic (1986)




Watched:  10/16/2021
Format:  Amazon
Viewing:  First
Decade: 1980's
Director:  Ken Russell

Gothic (1986) is one of those movies I remember always seeing on the shelf at movie rental places.  It was always in, but I never pulled the trigger and watched it.  I'm thinking the copy on the box describing the movie was not great, because - I believe - had it been more accurate, I would have rented the movie.

Based loosely on some real-life events (and then deeply fictionalized), the movie imagines about 24 hours of drug-fueled shenanigans in a mansion in Geneva at the turn of the 18th to the 19th Century as Percy Shelley, Mary Godwin (soon to be Mary Shelley) and Mary's step-sister arrive to have a hang with the notorious libertine, Lord Byron - in self-exile from England.

Halloween Watch Party: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)




Watched:  10/15/2021
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1930's
Director:  James Whale

My friends, I have watched this movie so many times and talked about it so much, I am sure you are sick of it.  But we had a grand old time watching it together for a Watch Party!

So, annual viewing of Bride of Frankenstein, complete!




Thursday, October 14, 2021

Halloween Watch: The Blob (1988)




Watched:  10/13/2021
Format:  NBC Peacock
Viewing:  Second (maybe third)
Decade:  1980's
Director:  Chuck Russell

So, for some time, my pals who are horror fiends have been saying to me "have you ever seen the 1980's Blob remake?" and I've said "yes" and they say "did you like it?" and I laugh, and say "it was fine, but I haven't seen it since it first hit VHS."  And then they say "well, you have to rewatch it."

What I failed to ask was "but why?"

Circa 1989, I did watch The Blob remake on VHS.  I recall it was my brother and me during the summer, and we called Kevin Dillon "Rocky the Reckless Driver", laughed a lot about his mullet (which has to be a crazy wig) and, at the time, felt it was an okay movie, but not great.  

Friends, I need some feedback in the comments, because my takeaway from rewatching The Blob (1988) is that it's an okay movie, but not great.

I genuinely don't know if this movie was kidding or not.  It's not funny enough to be a straight up horror satire, but it does do some things I quite liked.  Now knowing more about horror films when I first saw it - I'm still not sure if the filmmakers were being "edgy" or - possibly - subverting audience expectations.  Like, they just bump off all sorts of people who would have been the survivors in other films.  The good-hearted football player, the waitress, the sheriff... a kid!  It's wild.

It also has a certain attempt at Last Starfighter folksiness for our hero, Rocky the Reckless Driver and The Cheerleader (I cannot recall her character's name but the actress is Shawnee Smith who is still very active).  People are very small town and folksy.  As the town's Bad Boy, Rocky the Reckless Driver sure is a problem for the Sheriff.  After all, he has a bad attitude!  Again - I have no idea if the movie is kidding or not about this character.  Or the attitudes of the town.

Anyway, the effects are good for a 1988-era mid-budget sci-fi film, and they don't screw around with much in the way of sideplots.  Instead, using what seem like side-plot set-ups that should go someplace else as a red-herring so you don't think certain people will be consumed by Mr. Blob.  

I also don't get how a Blob that can't tolerate cold was matured in space. But that is not for me to know.  But I do like the pivot and plot twist that this was a government experiment gone wrong versus a rogue asteroid.  I'm not sure it actually impacts anything, but you feel less bad when the containment suited government agents start getting et.

Anyway, you people have been telling me this movie is great.  It's okay!  So, lemme know what you love about it.  

It can't be that good.  It doesn't have a rockin' theme song like the original.



Sunday, October 10, 2021

HALLOWEEN PODCAST: "Psycho II" (1983) - a Horror Movie Sequels Spooktacular! w/ SimonUK and Ryan




Watched:  08/05/2021
Format:  Amazon
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's
Director:  Richard Franklin



Simon and Ryan go nuts talking the second and unexpected installment in the adventures of a boy who is maybe a little too close with his mother. We're reminded the 80's weren't that much after the 60's as Stormin' Norman returns back to Casa Bates to start over and maybe enjoy his role as a motel entrepreneur. Could things go wrong? Hey, let's not get crazy here.




Music:
Psycho II Score by Jerry Goldsmith


Halloween 2021 - Horror Sequels Playlist

Queen of Halloween Watch: Elvira's Haunted Hills (2001)




Watched:  10/10/2021
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  Second?  third?
Decade:  00's
Director:  Sam Irvin

This movie is a curiosity on so many levels, the mere fact of its existence tends to overwhelm the actual content of the film.  

Elvira was a pop culture phenomenon back in the 1980's, but it's probably fair to say that the 1990's weren't as good to her.  After the commercial failure (but, I think I can say, comedic success) of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark in 1987, big media interest in Elvira waned.  Back then, that was it.  You basically got your shot, and the idea of revivals wasn't huge at the time.  The roaring return of Elvira as a talk-show staple, baking show staple and general presence and gadfly in the universe is mostly due, I think, to people who liked Elvira and had access to the internet.

But in 2001, we were just barely getting past GeoCities and convincing our parents that getting a computer was actually something they needed to do.  I had dial-up.  It was a different time.

The 1993 attempt at an Elvira sitcom had fizzled (and, frankly, I DO NOT GET HOW.  The pilot is as good or better than 90% of what was on TV at the time, and came loaded with Elvira), so the Hail Mary of the moment was Cassandra Peterson and John Paragon writing a movie, self-funding it, and then grabbing a bunch of people and heading to Romania to film.  

80's Hallow-Horror Watch: CHUD (1984)




Watched:  10/09/2021
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's
Director:  

Uh.  

This was not great.  You can read my tweet-thread as the movie unspooled here:  


It's a not-great film that doesn't understand how cheap horror movies are supposed to work, or movies in general, and is weirdly pretentious.  Which, frankly, if you told me yesterday that CHUD (1984) has lots of scenes that feel like they're improvised by a couple of actors who've been taking a lot of classes, and it will all be treated with deadly seriousness: I would not have believed you.  But here we are.

All of that stuff, by the way, is fine:  if any of it lands.  Or the movie is earning it.  Or the writing doesn't get away from the movie.  But at the end of the day, this is a movie about Morlocks eating people, and for some reason we spend 1/3rd of the movie in an unrelated story about John Heard's career and his relationship.  None of which is CHUD-related.  Or particularly good.  

By far the weirdest are the extended scenes between Daniel Stern and Christopher Curry, where both are intent on playing unhinged and angry.  And the scenes just. keep. happening.  Both in length and frequency.

In theory the movie is about NYC having a problem with Carnivorous Humanoid Underground Dwellers, but it's also about a soup kitchen, the plight of the homeless, a career change that's really impacting a marriage that might be on the rocks, and a cop who seems really stressed out because his wife disappeared, but he fails to mention this as a problem until the second half of the film.

Also, the willing belief that nuclear waste was disposed of beneath NYC when it would literally be easier to put it on a boat and float it out 20 miles and dump it.

Maybe the WEIRDEST moment of the movie was when we saw a scene that I now believe James Cameron must have ripped off for Aliens where people with flamethrowers go down into the tunnels with a video camera  while their bosses watch them on monitors.  That's gonna sit with me a while.


Hammer-Ween Watch: The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964)




Watched:  10/09/2021
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1960's
Director:  Michael Carreras

Hammer Horror!  That eventually gets scary!  If you really wait.

This first Mummy movie from Hammer is awesome, and so I figured even a xerox of a xerox would be fine.  And, it is.  

Mummy is dug up, Egyptians are actually okay with it  - sort of - except for killing the one British guy.  But then a big, dumb American showman (Fred Clark, who was in *everything* for like 20 years) decides that instead of taking it to the British Museum, they should take it on the road.  

Anyway, there's a whole lot of plot, and the leading lady seems like she's written by someone who really had some trouble with their last girlfriend, taking the usual 1960's Hammer misogyny to cool new levels.  The reason the Mummy shows up and the motivation of those bringing him back is all-new.  But we do get some decent Mummy-Terminator action.

For once, the Egyptians are given the benefit of the doubt - they're not the ones setting things in motion - at least not the official Egyptian government.  They're not thrilled Fred Clark is going to tour their dead pharaoh around Wisconsin, but aside from that...  

Anyhoo.  It's fine.  It's not my favorite, but it was a fun Hammer watch.




Saturday, October 9, 2021

Hallow-Zombie Watch: Return of the Living Dead (1985)




Watched:  10/09/2021
Format:  HBOmax
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's
Director:  Dan O'Bannon

Well, that was a lot of fun.  Y'all were right.

I have been intending to watch this since I was 18, and I always just forgot to watch it.  But "Add to My List" and HBOmax are an excellent pairing for getting me to actually watch some things.

I don't have a ton to say about the movie.  It's good, Rated-R chaotic fun, and I was shocked to see James Karen in the first scenes, and then realize I was also looking at Clu Gulager.

Anyhoo.  Not writing it up, but very glad I finally saw it.

Halloween Interaction Watch: Frankenstein (1932)




Watched:  10/08/2021
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1930's
Director:  James Whale

My friend, I am not writing up Frankenstein again.  Here's all the stuff about Frankenstein on this blog.

Here's SimonUK and me talking about the film during last year's Halloween podcast.


Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Halloween Watch: Halloween (2018)




Watched:  10/05/2021
Format:  Amazon
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's
Director:  David Gordon Greene

When I heard David Gordon Greene, Danny McBride and Jamie Lee Curtis were involved, for once, I was not skeptical of a new installment in the Halloween franchise.  

Look, I am sure seeing - and thoroughly enjoying - the original Halloween when I was fourteen means I can't really be objective about that 1978 film.  I was already roughly a fan of Curtis in 1989 when I saw it, and the movie is - for this blogger - the platonic ideal of a slasher horror film.  In many ways - after Halloween, you either up your game or what's the point?  

Like Meyers the character, the 1978 movie itself is a single-minded shark, moving forward and striking.  It's fatless meat and bone, giving just enough character to Laurie Strode and her friends to make you actually care when kitchen knives get deployed.  And, of course, we only get the crucial details about Michael.  The horrifying incident as a child that indicates how broken he is, and then Loomis letting us know:  "oh, yeah, he's bugfuck crazy.  We need to stop this maniac."  (That's his doctor.) provides a villain who simply is.

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Halloween Price Watch: House of Wax (1953)




Watched:  10/04/2021
Format:  Amazon
Viewing:  Third
Decade:  1950's
Director:  André De Toth

I knew I'd seen this one again in recent years, and here's that post from 2012.  The one thing I'd walk back from that post is - yeah, this is necessary viewing.  I dig it.  You should watch it.

The movie has a terrific cast, great sets, really good make-up and costuming.  It feels high budget (I genuinely don't know if the listed $1 million budget was high or not.  I see Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, that same year, was $2.3 million, for comparison, and that movie looks super expensive.).  But, House of Wax made that budget back twenty-times over, including a couple of re-releases, one in the 70's.

The movie was also originally in 3D, and one day, maybe Alamo Drafthouse will show this in 3D.  That would be great.  I mean:  it's got an extended paddle-ball sequence that demands to be seen in 3D.  

Monday, October 4, 2021

Halloween Hammer Watch: The Gorgon (1964)



Watched:  10/02/2021
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1960's
Director:  Terence Fisher

This particular film seems to get a lot of mentions as part of the non-Universal-remake horror output of Hammer Studios.  It's part of a 30-film set Jamie got me last Christmas that we haven't spent much time with - but Halloween seems like a fine time to do so.  

I was deeply curious what something as complicated as a Gorgon might look like on a Hammer budget, and now I know.  And now you know:

if you're trying to place it, it's "Mrs. Roper with snakes".  You're welcome.

Sunday, October 3, 2021

PODCAST: "Halloween 2" (1981) and "Halloween 3" (1982) - a Halloween Sequels PodCast w/ Simon and Ryan




Watched:  07/27 + 28/2021
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First on both
Decade:  1980's
Director:  Rick Rosenthal/ Tommy Lee Wallace



Simon and Ryan delve into the sequels of some Halloween and horror greats, returning to the scene of the crime with a mix of technology and magic! Join us as we discuss the follow ups to a bona fide classic - one a direct sequel and one a terrific deviation from the formula! Plus: ATKINS. Come spend a spooktacular hour with your two (g)hosts, in a continuation of a Halloween series!




Music
Three More Days to Halloween - based on London Bridge - I'll blame the screenwriter
Halloween II Theme - John Carpenter w/ Alan Howarth
Halloween III Theme - John Carpenter w/ Alan Howarth


Halloween 2021 Playlist