The End.

Well. I did it. I watched 31 (or maybe a couple more than that) horror movies during October. I didn't quite get to watch one every day, but watching so many definitely had its effect on me... restless nights, dreams of being chased, and falling asleep because I could've sworn a movie had the same plot as the one I'd seen two days before. In any case, I'm glad I did it. I don't think I'll watch another horror movie until next October, but that's okay, it was lots of fun while it lasted.

I didn't get a chance to post about the last batch of movies I watched this weekend, so here they are.


Twenty-six: Piranha


Piranha reminded me quite strongly of the 1975 classic Jaws, except with an origin story. As you might be able to guess, piranhas are our monsters here, except their in a river in the United States after being let loose from a government testing facility. We never really see the piranhas up close... when they attack, we just get shots of rubber fish moving back and forth quickly next to kicking legs with red blood floating to the surface and the most annoying sound, which must be the sound piranhas make when feeding?? It's much more convincing than I made it sound, and these quick glimpses underwater, along with the tension built by needing to reach the next area downriver before an attack occurs, add to the thrill of this movie. I enjoyed it, even though it did feel like a bit of a rip off of Jaws, made only three years earlier.


Twenty-seven: Eraserhead

I'm not really sure what to say about Eraserhead. As writer/director David Lynch's first feature-length film, it has all the bizarreness you'd expect from him, with a kind of raw student-film quality that lends itself very well to the overall feel. It's indisputably one of the best horror movies of all time and just an all around crazy film. I'll try to summarize for those who don't know anything about it, but I think I'll need to watch a dozen more times to even know how to begin to describe everything in it. Henry Spencer lives in an industrial environment in an apartment that looks abandoned. His girlfriend leaves him with their mutant baby, he has weird encounters with his beautiful neighbor, and his only entertainment is the lady in the radiator who sings to him. This very bleak look into Henry's life kinda made me go crazy. There is very little dialogue, only the constant screaming of that weird looking baby. Very bizarre, and yet I want to watch it again...


Twenty-eight: Repulsion

Roman Polanski's 1965 movie Repulsion follows Carol as she descends into madness. We are never given a reason, though there are plenty of hints and nuances leaving us guessing as to why she has become seemingly schizophrenic. A terrifying thriller that started out quite normally and just spiraled more and more out of control to a gripping conclusion. Truly scary, in a kind of Psycho way.





Twenty-nine: Hellraiser

I was kind of apprehensive that Hellraiser would be a typical horror film with the monster hiding behind the door, but it's far from it. It gives us a glimpse into the world from which the movie's villain has come from, how he got there, and there is more than one monster. The imagination of Clive Barker has got to be pretty messed up to come up with this movie and the characters in it.


Thirty: Tale of Two Sisters

FYI: Make sure you pay attention during this movie. I got a little bored during the beginning and got distracted with something else, and then I had to look up the plot summary on IMDB. There's a lot of crazy in this movie. And you don't really find out who is the crazy one and just how crazy they really are until the very end. The movie begins with a girl in a hospital being questioned by her doctor about her family and the day that led her to being taken into the hospital. The rest of the movie is a flashback of what the girl remembers, and then the camera slowly reveals to us what actually happened. The family must cope with the deaths of those close to them, at least one character is hallucinating several things, and there's some pretty serious parental abuse. Thank you, South Korea, for yet another hauntingly creepy film.


Thirty-one: Halloween

If you haven't seen Halloween, then you've probably been living under the same rock as me. Hi, neighbor! If there's one thing I've learned this month, it's that I'm not a fan of slasher films. They don't particularly scare me, the make me upset at the characters, and they generally don't interest me because the slasher him/herself is usually not that interesting. I though the scariest part of this movie was in the first few minutes, when Michael Myers is shown as a child in his clown costume holding a bloody knife, just after his first kill. That image will haunt me much more than the image of him later in life when he's chasing down poor Jamie Lee Curtis. But, just because I say I didn't really like it, doesn't mean it's not a good movie. It's just not my cup of tea. And, just because I say it wasn't as scary as others I've watched, doesn't mean it won't give me nightmares tonight. I'm almost positive it will.



There you have it. Thirty-one horror movies in one month. When I decided to do this, I knew I'd be scared, but I didn't really expect to be sleepless for so many nights. Let's hope none it hasn't done any real, permanent damage, and I can safely say that I'm really excited to watch a happy, feel-good movie tomorrow night. Happy Halloween!

Twenty-five: House on Haunted Hill

When I picked out my movies to watch on Monday, I told David that I was looking for campy, fun- not so serious or gory. He handed me Creepshow and Piranha, looked at the copy of House on Haunted Hill in my hands, and replaced it with the RiffTrax version of the movie (from the guys who brought us MST3K). I would like to publicly express my gratitude for the fantastic recommendations, as they were all exactly what I was thinking of.

The original 1959 House on Haunted Hill stars Vincent Price as a rich guy with nothing to do with his money. His hot young wife throws a party and all sorts of crazy twists are revealed! But most importantly, this skeleton/marionette machine answers that age-old question about old movies: "Can't they see the strings????" No, apparently they cannot.

This movie is really enjoyable to watch. It had enough going on to where I didn't get bored, but still built up enough tension and was just scary and surprising enough. There are some pretty neat special effects, and Vincent Price's voice is just so tickling. This movie would have been great to watch just as is, but I have to say the RiffTrax version was so much fun... Like this line:

"She was innocently hanging herself when something went horribly wrong!"


Whichever version you choose, have a ghoulish stay at the House on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price!

Twenty-four: Creepshow

Creepshow consists of five stories, written by Stephen King and directed by George Romero. It is heavily influenced by comics of the 1950s, as evidenced in the comic book that is seen as an interlude containing the five stories, as well as the style of shots and direction.

It's cheesy, yes, but since it obviously based on comics, it totally works. The stories are not incredibly inspired... but their short, fun, and offer different flavors of terror. A overbearing father returns as a corpse demanding his father's day cake; a dull farmer (Stephen King in a compelling role) discovers a meteor that spreads some greenery; a vengeful husband takes his wife and her lover to the beach and leave them buried; a hairy creature under the stairs gives a man the opportunity to get rid of his wife; and a wealthy, controlling businessman is done in by cockroaches. There is also a story that threads the five main tales together about a kid whose comic book ("Creepshow") is taken away by his father. He sends away for a VooDoo doll from one of the comic book's adverts and gets back at his dad.

This movie just pure fun, with some supernatural revenge. All the stories are well-written, though some are executed better than others (and some are just longer than they should be). It's obvious that King and Romero had a good time making it, to the point that it's just too much fun to be scary. And that's okay, as it mixes just the right amount of thrill into it.

Twenty-three: [Rec]

Why are people in movies so freaking stupid?! I found myself gripping the armrest of my couch and yelling, "NO YOU IDIOT, RUN!" or, "STOP BEING A WUSS AND KILL THE FREAKING ZOMBIE!" wayyy too many times during this movie. BUT I do give [Rec] a lot of credit for getting the handheld-camera style of filming right (unlike Blair Witch Project, which was cool for like, a minute, until we all started getting nauseous and making fun of it.)

[Rec] begins with Angela, a reporter for the late night show "While You're Sleeping," and Pablo, her cameraman, filming an episode at a fire department. They travel with two of the firemen to help with a woman locked in her apartment. It soon becomes apparent that the situation is a bit more complex than that and, less than 20 minutes into the movie, we get our first crazed loony attack scene! The authorities quickly quarantine the building, trapping the residents, firemen, a few police, along with Angela and Pablo inside with said crazed loony. Will they find a way out? Will they manage to keep themselves from being bitten? And what is that weird sound coming from the penthouse? Will they have enough tape to film all 70 minutes? Will they ever learn that zombies don't die until you lay some hurtin' on 'em?!?

You'll just have to watch and find out! I can tell you that you will definitely learn some Spanish swear words by the end of this movie. Which makes sense, given that they're trapped, have no idea what's going on, and are getting viciously attacked by their comrades. While this movie is a fairly two-dimensional view of the situation, it does stay fairly realistic, as far as human reactions are concerned. Until the end. I'm really not sure where all of that came from, but I guess they had to explain the virus somehow.

Twenty-two: Ginger Snaps

Ginger Snaps is a movie about sisterhood, growing up, and werewolves. Ginger and Brigitte are two teens in suburbia who like to pose in gruesome photos depicting their own deaths. They vow never to be normal and would rather die than become the typical high school "breeders."

But all that changes when Ginger is attacked by a vicious doglike creature in the woods. Using lycanthropy as an awesome metaphor for puberty, Brigitte watches as her sister changes daily before her eyes and the bonds of sisterhood are put to the test by hormones, boys, and hair in unusual places.

I really appreciate a movie with strong female characters, and I have to say that this movie attracted me because of that. Ginger kind of gets the short end of the characterization stick since she spends the movie morphing into a sex and violence-crazed monster, but younger sister Brigitte has a great role. As she watches her sister transform (both through lycanthropy and puberty), she shows her own fears of growing up, of losing her sister, of becoming just another typical and boring girl. Her relationship with Ginger is complex, and we understand that from her actions and decisions.

Don't get me wrong, I think the presence of "scream queens" has its place, but Ginger Snaps just proved itself to me in a lot of ways. It has a solid plot with meaning beyond the nightmarish werewolf-horror, a strong and complex lead (who is even a teenage girl. Bonus!), and good enough writing and filming to make me not mind the really horrible creature effects (Howling 3: The Marsupials almost had more realistic were-wallabies. But not quite.)

Joey and I both agreed that we really liked this movie beyond the realms of comparing it to other horror films. Thank you, Canada, for giving us Ginger Snaps!

Twenty-one: House

aka Hausu

aka my new favorite movie.

This movie is bananas! And I LOVE it!

I don't really know how to describe this movie. Neither does its jacket. Here's the summary given for its first-ever DVD and Blu-ray release (as a part of the Criterion Collection). They do a much better job than I ever could:

How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 movie House? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby Doo as directed by Dario Argento? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home, only to come face to face with evil spirits, bloodthirsty pianos, and a demonic housecat. Too absurd to be genuinely terrifying, yet too nightmarish to be merely comic, House seems like it was beamed to Earth from another planet. Or perhaps the mind of a child: the director fashioned the script after the eccentric musings of his eleven-year-old daughter, then employed all the tricks in his analog arsenal (mattes, animation, and collage) to make them a visually astonishing, raucous reality. Never before released in the United States, and a bona fide cult classic in the making, House is one of the most exciting genre discoveries in years.

I honestly don't know what to say about it. I giggled throughout the entire movie, beginning to end. I was also pretty scared by parts of it. It was a series of "What the f*#@" moments, both gleeful and terrifying. My favorite things about this movie:

-The soundtrack. 70s pop. Funk. Sticky-sweet piano. Random, wind-machine fueled songs with translated lyrics that are sooo ridiculous.

-The characters' names. Each of the 7 girls is aptly named for her personality: Gorgeous, Fantasy, Sweet, Melody, Prof (the brain), Mac (the "fat" one?), and Kung Fu (obviously my favorite). Kung Fu even gets an awesome fight scene in the end.

-Animation. No amount of CGI or 3D could ever top the inventiveness of this movie.

Oh, and most of the random comic relief moments involve only the male characters. Actually, I'm pretty sure all the scenes with the male characters are intended solely for comic relief.

I hope this movie trailer will help you understand-no... No, there's no way anyone could ever truly understand this movie. But it's still awesome.

Number Twenty: Army of Darkness

I know I just laid on the praise for how much I adored Evil Dead II. Oh and by the by, I realized that I have indeed seen The Evil Dead; it was that movie I knew I watched and really really loved but I couldn't really remember anything about it except it was zombies in a cabin. That's super embarrassing, especially since figuring out what "that movie with that guy who was in that other thing with that lady" is what I do for a living. So, I loved both Evil Dead movies. The third installment, Army of Darkness, just didn't quite muster the feelings in me that the first two did- which is not to say I didn't like it.

While the first two Evil Deads are pretty basic zombie flicks with low-budget charm, the third takes off where Evil Dead II left off- Ash is transported back in time and must lead an epic battle to fight off the undead "Army of Darkness" (hey that's the title!). Immediately noticeable are several inconsistencies with the previous installment. For some reason, footage from Evil Dead II was not used in the recap, so scenes were reshot with a different Barbara. I can handle that. What I couldn't take was that they took out the best scene from the end of Evil Dead II- when Bruce/Ash shoots down a giant monster with his shotgun, thus proving how awesome he is. I think this probably got cut to make taking Bruce prisoner more believable.

This movie is much less gory than the first two. Bruce gets to be a huge chauvinist, there's more time for characters to get some development before they get killed off (well, not much), and the slapstick comedy is pretty heavily relied upon. While it is a sequel to the first two Evil Dead movies, I really wouldn't consider it a trilogy. Army of Darkness can totally stand alone. Actually, any of them could stand alone. But this one really stands apart. (Not necessarily in a better way.)

Interestingly, there are two different endings to Army of Darkness. According to that ever-honest source, Wikipedia, Universal wasn't happy with the original ending, so they reshot a happier one during post-production. I guess Sam Raimi didn't have a problem with this. He's quoted as saying, "Actually, I kind of like the fact that there are two endings, that in one alternate universe Bruce is screwed, and in another universe he's some cheesy hero."