My Horror Movie Quandary

As we close in on October, it becomes that time of year to pull out all the old horror movies and get involved in Scary Movie Month. This is where I face my annual challenge. See, a lot of people watch scary movies to get scared... of movies. Which is something I don’t really understand. Not the desire, I’ve been in and around the BDSM community long enough to understand pleasure gained from discomfort, so I get that part. No I just don’t get the being scared part.

You see, I have never been scared by a movie. I’m not sure I’ve ever really been scared of anything, but certainly not a movie. I have been disturbed, or been shown things I don’t necessarily want to see, but never actually scared. It just never happens, nothing ever gets to me that way. I’m also bad company in a haunted house because I tend to look at the ghouls as they come out of the walls and judge them on their make-up choices. I know I’m perfectly safe, this is all for entertainment, and even if someone gets stupid I know I’m at least six times meaner than a sporadically employed actor is prepared to deal with on an average Tuesday night.

I’m not particularly fussed when safety is questionable either. I’m wary, because the person who is unaware of their surroundings is a victim waiting to happen, but I’m never afraid. Partially, again, I’m not the sort of person who just walks into an unknown alley and even if I have to for whatever reason I know that I’m at least four times meaner than most muggers are prepared to deal with on an average Sunday night.

This issue became such an issue for me, that I eventually had to come up with a formula so I could separate fantasy from horror. I don’t think many people would argue that fantasy and horror share a common wall, and sometimes the smells from one can seep into the room of the other. In trying to decide where to place things, or how other people might place them, I eventually came up with this idea.

If the powers of good can easily and readily assist the hero, then it’s fantasy. If the powers of good are helpless, or non-existent, then it’s horror. Gandalf can always show up on the back of an eagle, but The Turtle cannot help you. Now with something like the Elric series, you simply adjust your definition of “Good” to mean “On Elric’s side” and you’ve more or less got the idea. It’s not perfect, because by that logic Labyrinth is a horror movie, but if there weren’t exceptions, how else would we prove the rules?

This is actually a huge reason why I’m sort of uninterested in large swaths of horror. Gore flicks tend to bore the shit out of me. Oh, you’ve got sprays of blood? Bitch, I watch samurai movies, come back when it’s a geyser. You’ve got arms and legs hacked off? Second verse, same as the first! Pig parts loaded into a latex body mold don’t do much for me either. Any movie that relies on guts and gore over story or invention is going to bore me rigid.

I look at all horror as I would any fantasy or thriller. I get the same feeling watching Saw as I do watching Kiss the Girls, a deep and profound sense of loss for Carey Elwes ability to act. Seriously, he is TERRIBLE in both of those movies. What the hell happened? He was almost okay in Cat’s Meow. Seriously. But then, that movie had Eddie Izzard pretending to be Charlie Chaplin and if ever an actor was miscast...

What was I saying?

This is why I often can be found at the fun said of the horror aisle, with my copy of Creepshow and Corman’s Poe Cycle. If I go in for a serious horror movie I at least go for the really good ones. I need something interesting to watch, a story that can unfold, not just a treasure chest of jump scares and people screaming. The Blair Witch Project for example, I must have turned off four or five times while it ran on cable because it just didn’t work for me in the slightest. Watching annoying people bicker might be a horror movie to you, for me it’s Thanksgiving. Actually, I’ll admit on that on that it’s the found footage thing. Found footage can eat a dick. I mean, if I’m going to complain about bickering, what else is Night of the Living Dead, other than watching people bicker? Watching interesting people bicker about interesting things other than sticks tied up with string and where did the map go, comes the answer.

I know most of us here are grown ups, and most people aren’t really scared when they go to see a scary movie, but I have heard a fair amount of “these used to scare me and I watched them to conquer them and became them and now I’m not scared anymore.” and I hear a good deal of “these are literal fears, they’re metaphorical.” The example being no one is really afraid of the wolfman (or rather becoming the wolfman), they’re afraid of becoming something they can’t control. No one fears Pinhead, the cenobites just represent people who are more into BDSM than you are, and they want to show you all the fun. Only, somehow that’s supposed to be scary? I think? Help me out on this. Are the cenobites scary, sexy, or a monastic tradition that stresses community life? Even then though, I’m not particularly fussed by these things, so I don’t get the same effect. Not even the idea of kinky sexy monks can get my heart racing.

So in conclusion I would just like to say that Falco deserved way better than he got from the world.

Movie Review: “Manos” The Hands of Fate

“Manos” The Hands of Fate (1966/ Dir. Harold P. Warren) MST3K Episode 24, Season 4,  January 30, 1993

When I do reviews of movies that were on MST3K, I get a copy of the movie on its own. No bots, no mads, not a single luxury. Now, I do that for a couple of reasons, the first of which is that I want to watch the movie on its own dubious merits. Once you watch the movie with the bots, you’re watching an episode of the TV show. Second, if you watch a TV broadcast, things may have to be cut for TV standards. Movies can be cut for both time and content, meaning that you might not get the whole movie on the show. Even if you have the whole movie, you’re still breaking up the flow for the commercial breaks and host segments. So I don’t review the episodes, I review the movie clean, or as clean as the DVDs I get will allow. I mention all of this because this movie is down right infamous, there are people who can’t even watch the MST3K episode, so this is heroic in the eyes of some.

TV Review: Tales from the Darkside “Seasons of Belief”

TV Review: Tales from the Darkside “Seasons of Belief”

Tales from the Darkside: Seasons of Belief (Season 3, Episode 11; First Broadcast December 29, 1986; Laurel Productions; Dir. Michael Mc Dowell)

What say we get this VEWPRF season started off right? What better way to get a season started than with an episode of my favorite TV show? That’s right, I’ve got a holiday episode of Tales from the Darkside and I’m not afraid to review it! Like so many other Darkside episodes, this one is based on a short story. This time it’s based on a short story by Michael Bishop a Locus and Nebula Award winning writer. The screen play was written by Michael McDowell who also directed the episode. McDowell is also the man who created Beetlejuice as well as wrote some two dozen books. So what I’m saying is, in this episode, we’re in good hands. Unlike some holiday episodes, this will be a joy to watch. And with that, I just guaranteed you won’t even read past the opening paragraph, didn’t I? Look, I like some things, okay? I try to review things I think I’ll enjoy. Of course, since my program is being handed to me by forces I don’t really understand, it might be crap. I can’t see that happening since at worst a Darkside episode is just dull, but it might. C’mon! Read on and see what happens!

The Greats: Horror

I’m too scared to write a proper into. Horror movies are scary!

Movie Review: Twilight Zone: The Movie

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983 Warner Bros. Dir. John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante & George Miller)

Hey! An anthology without AIP, Vincent Price or Stephen King’s writing! It’s not even based or inspired by EC comics! Woo! Something different. This time it’s the movie based on the Twilight Zone TV show, which probably was only made after everyone saw how well Creepshow did. Far as I can tell, Steven Spielberg & John Landis put this joint together with Frank Marshall as the Executive Producer. Sort of like how after Tales from the Darkside did so well, Spielberg made Amazing Stories. That’s not to say that this is bad or anything, just saying that it’s a copycat production made after Romero proved that it could be done. I will say however that this sort of a crystallization of these directors in that time period. Everything you want to know about Landis, Spielberg, Dante and Miller in the early 1980s, you can learn by watching this movie. They pretty much bring all their early 80s tropes with them to this production. Is that good? Is it bad? We’ll have to see…

Movie Review: Creepshow 2

Creepshow 2 (1987 New World Pictures Dir. Michael Gornick)

How do you follow the success of one of the most popular horror anthology movies ever? You make Tales from the Darkside for TV of course. What if you’re knee deep in that program and someone reminds you that Creepshow was a theatrical release and that they’d like to have another movie? Well, if you make a sort of halfhearted sequel that’s under funded and as a result fails to capture quite the spirit of the original. I place no blame at the feet of director Michael Gornick. I’ve listened to his commentary and it sounds like he made the best product he could with the tools he was given to work with. The problem was that New World Pictures was trying to make the movie on less than half what the first movie cost, which I can’t help but wonder if that frustrated Romero, which caused him to pass on directing duties. As I understand it, Romero was going to write and direct, and then decided to pass the directing duties to Tom Savini, who either because of time or not wanting to deal with what was becoming a cost cutting adventure passed it on to Gornick. Additionally, because of some production problems, the bonding company ended up placing extra pressure on the company asking them to speed up the production. So, there was some frustration in production, and that caused the end product to be less than stellar. It’s not even that this is bad, or not an enjoyable ride. It’s good, it’s fun, it’s just not as good or as fun as the original. It’s worth watching though, so let’s dive in and check it out.

Movie Review: Twice Told Tales

Twice-Told Tales (1963 United Artists Dir. Sidney Salkow

Hey, how about that? An anthology horror movie that isn’t based on Stephen King stories or was made by the good people at American International (a name that frankly confounds me) for a change. It still has Vincent Price in it though, so we’re not totally out to sea without a familiar landmark. We got Vinnie, we’re good. After Tales of Terror did so well, one assumes United Artists wanted to get in on the horror anthology game. Since AIP had a lock on Edgar Allan Poe's work, UA went for three stories from Nathaniel Hawthorne. Or, maybe they never even heard about Tales of Horror and it was just chance that they got AIP’s biggest star to be in a horror movie for them. Sure, that’s probably it… chance. Probably just chance that it looks like a Corman Poe movie too.

Movie Review: Tales of Terror

Tales of Terror (1962 AIP Dir. Roger Corman)

Right before the out and out comedy of The Raven, the idea of adding a little lightness was experimented with in Tales of Terror. This is a little set of three Edgar Allan Poe stories, but done in that very special Corman way, by which I mean they only vaguely follow the original stories if at all. Part of the reasons Corman went on like this is that the stories are actually so short, or in some cases deal almost entirely with sensation, that it would be impossible to spin a coherent narrative out for 90 minutes. Partly it was budget constraints. Fewer characters meant fewer actors. For the most part, they pulled it off. This however, just might be the weakest of the Corman Poe Cycle. It’s okay though, chronologically they hit a low point in the middle and swept back up to great heights by the end. Usually a series dips and then just keeps going down hill, but Corman saved it and brought the whole thing to a triumphant conclusion.

Movie Review: Creepshow

Creepshow (1982 Warner Bros. Dir. George A. Romero)

How does one begin to talk about Creepshow? I have to do an above the fold description, but it’s hard to know where to begin. This is a strange celebration of so many things that established wisdom says is bad for you. The horror comics of the E.C. era, anthology films, and of cheap and dirty storytelling. See, anthology movies never work. So says Hollywood. Argument not without some merit, as they rarely find an audience, thus they have poor box office and are difficult to manage artistically. The horror comic scare of demented perverts like Fredric Wertham* are the reason wanna be lawmakers even today try to demonize funny books. And even the short stories that these tales are based on are looked down on by snooty critics who can’t find any merit is works that people might actually enjoy reading. This is just a big bowl of everything that’s bad for you. I guess that’s why it’s so darn good. This is King and Romero doing their best scary-fun work.

*I’m just saying, no one ever though Batman and Robin were gay until this guy pointed it out. We also didn’t know Plastic Man was a phallic reference before him, or that Wonder Woman was a lesbian slut or that Superman was an un-American fascist. The guy was deranged, and a seriously shitty researcher to boot. I honestly can’t decry the fuckbag enough.

Movie Review: Tales from the Crypt

Tales from the Crypt (1972 Amicus Productions Dir. Freddie Francis)

Tales from the Crypt! No, not this Tales from the Crypt, nor this one, not even that one that had Dennis Miller in it, but the 1972 UK movie. The Stories are based on the old EC comics though, just not all of them are from Tales. One is from The Vault of Horror, two are from The Haunt of Fear and two are from Tales from the Crypt. However, as they were all owned by EC Comics, I'm sure it doesn't matter. Most the guys who actually wrote the stories that these short films were based on worked on all three comics so there was a lot of cross pollination and I'm sure it really didn't matter too much which comic they actually got published in as long as there was money involved. Hell, since The Old Witch, Vault Keeper and the Crypt Keeper kept showing up in all three titles, I'm pretty sure any given artist or writer had no idea what title would end up being slapped on any given book on any given day! “Enough history!” I hear you cry out. “What about the movie?”

TV Review: An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe

An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe (1972 AIP Dir. Kenneth Johnson)


Okay, so I’m cheating a little here. This isn’t really a movie, so much as it’s a TV special, and it’s not even a proper narrative because it’s actually a one man show. Vincent Price recites four Edgar Allan Poe stories. In order they are… The Tell-Tale Heart, The Sphinx, The Cask of Amontillado and The Pit and the Pendulum. If I seem to be a bit short on explanation, that’s because that’s really all this is. It’s a 53 minute made for TV special that probably bumped I Dream of Jeannie for a week. There isn’t a hell of a lot to say about this.

Doesn’t mean I won’t fill a few pages with wit and snark though. Come on! Let’s tear into this baby. Who’s with me?

Movie Review: Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye

Well! It’s that time again! September has begun and with it, my two month run up to Halloween. I like Halloween, and I like the Halloween run up. I also like this time of year because I don’t really have to think about my schedule for the next four months. Halloween movies in September and October, movie suggestions in November, and then the VEWPRF stuff in December. The only real question is do I do reviews with a theme or just toss out a bunch of appropriate movies? Well, this year, we’re going with a theme. I’ve decided to review one of my favorite genres, the Anthology Movie. I have no idea why, but there seems to be more horror anthology out there than other kinds. Maybe I’ve got a selective eye on this and just forget all the things that aren’t horror, but it feels like there are more horror anthologies out there. Either way, we’re going to spend from now until November checking them out! So let’s start with…

TITLE PAGE!

Cat’s Eye (1985 DEG Dir. Lewis Teague)

Around the time Stephen King was getting ready to make Maximum Overdrive, The De Laurentiis Entertainment Group was making another King movie. This one was, as far as I can tell, the second of three movies that De Laurentiis and King would make together. The first being Firestarter and the last being Maximum Overdrive. Like Firestarter, this also has Drew Barrymore in it and like the other two films it was shot in and around Wilmington, North Carolina. It’s also directed by the man who directed Cujo, so there is a strong contingent of King Veterans in this movie. It contains two stories from Nightshift and a story that, again as far as I can tell, was just written for the screenplay for this movie.

Movie Review: The Dark Half

You know, we've seen us some dull title cards on this blog, but this one takes the cake. It was a nice cake too.

The Dark Half (1993 Orion Pictures Dir. George A. Romero)

This is not one of the better-loved Stephen King books, so I suppose it’s natural that the movie wouldn’t be that beloved either. Hell, I had to order a copy from England just to get a proper widescreen edition. Part of the problem was that the movie sort of flopped when it came out, which it did nearly two years after it was made, due to Orion’s death throws. The release of this movie could almost be considered a final death spasm, and as such, it wasn’t enthusiastically promoted or even properly funded. All this means that not many people saw the movie, however one cannot simply blame that as people who have seen the movie aren’t that impressed by it. This makes it much like the book, which is one of my favorites, but they can’t all be The Stand or IT now can they? Still, let us clear those things from our mind and try to focus on this movie. How does it stack up against the book or other King movies? Well, let’s see…

TV Review: The Stand (Part Four: The Stand)

Part One: The Plague
Part Two: The Dreams
Part Three: The Betrayal

Final Round!

The Stand (1994 ABC Dir. Mick Garris)

TV Review: The Stand (Part Three: The Betrayal)

Part One: The Plague
Part Two: The Dreams

The Stand (1994 ABC Dir. Mick Garris)

TV Review: The Stand (Part Two: The Dreams)

Part One: The Plague

The Stand (1994 ABC Dir. Mick Garris)

TV Review: The Stand (Part One: The Plague)

The Stand (1994 ABC Dir. Mick Garris)

Movie Review: Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror

Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (1922 Prana-Film GmbH Dir. F. W. Murnau)

Movie Review: Hellraiser

Pimping ain't NEVER been easy.

Hellraiser (1987 New World Dir. Clive Barker)

Movie Review: Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn

Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987 Dir. Sam Raimi)