Writing about Movies, TV, Comics & Toys. Critically and creatively.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween

I hope you're having a great Halloween folks. Here are my suggestions for Halloween movies for you to watch with the remainder of the greatest holiday all year:

The Original Grandfather of them all

 A (great in my opinion) movie set on Halloween, guaranteed to spook you

Another questionable pick in your opinion probably, but I love it

How can you not love it?

One of the best horror movies of the past 10 years, and possibly one of the best Halloween movies ever

Classic

(Another) Classic

The perfect Halloween or Christmas movie

The Great-Grandfather of them all

For your Halloween karaoke needs

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Horror in comics

 I don't think the horror genre is properly represented in comics like it should be, I mean a lot of comic writers and companies have their roots in horror comics. Movies like Creepshow, Tales from the Crypt and countless others expound on the idea of comic books being either strictly horror stories or a majority of them being horror.

It's not fair for me to act like there aren't any horror comics, because there are some and most of them are about zombies, and sadly most of them are just limited series. Victorian Undead, The Walking Dead, We Will Bury You, The Waking, all zombie comics and only one of them is a continuing series.

I would encourage you to read The Walking Dead, I'm about half way through compendium 1 of the series (the first 48 issues) and I really enjoy it thus far, also the television adaptation airs on Halloween night on AMC.

Though it's small, the horror comic needs to expand from zombies. There is one non-zombie horror comic coming out now that I'm reading that I find enjoyable, and if you're reading this you'd probably like it too: X-files 30 Days of Night. Yup, a crossover where Mulder and Scully investigate the vampires up in Alaska, not a bad comic and certainly has enough vampire action in it to be considered scary.

Go read horror comics, actually buy them, trades, issues whaterver. Buy them and then the companies will make more, because we need them.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Movies 51-55

 Movie #51 Deadgirl
What do you do if you find a girl chained up in the basement of an old mental asylum? Do you make her your unresponsive sex slave? A very interesting movie, a new spin on the zombie story with strong performances and a great script. I highly recommend this to everyone.

movie #52 4bia
This four part horror anthology from Thailand is proof that this type of horror movie still works. The stories in this are very affective and quite scary. A great flick, loved it.

Movie #53 Slaughter High
Stupid, cliche, nothing new here. Avoid this please.

Movie #54 Bubba Ho-tep
Another movie I'm ashamed to admit I hadn't seen before, because I absolutely loved it. Its a Bruce Campbell movie in case you didn't know, and if for some reason you need further reason to see it Bruce plays Elvis. Great movie, I prefer it much more to the director's previous film I saw (Phantasm)

Movie #55 Paranormal Activity 2
Here is how you should know if you should watch this movie, Did you see the first one and like it? If yes, you'll probably really like this, if no you'll probably really hate this. The movie does recycle a lot of the gags from the first, but it DOES turn them up to 11 instead of just leaving them at the same level. An affective scary movie that will lose all of its muster on home video I'm sure. One thing I don't like about it though, to quote my roommate, "I hate how a lot of the 'scary parts' are just loud noises", couldn't have said that better myself. I think I like this movie more than the first one, and it also does a great job of relating itself back to the original film. Fans will want to check it out, haters keep on hatin'.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Well.....

It certainly doesn't look like I'll make it to 100 by the end of the month, but I'll certainly do my best to watch as many as I possibly can.

I'm trying to think of other ideas to keep this blog going after the end of the month too, so if you have any suggestions you should let me know.


sp

Monday, October 18, 2010

The first 50

A quick recap of the first 50, the ones I've seen are underlined, and the ones I hadn't seen that I thought were the best will have a * next to them.


1.       The Exorcist II: The Heretic
2.       The Exorcist III: Legion
3.       Planet Terror
4.       Paranormal Activity
5.       Feast
6.       The Butcher
7.       Dolls
8.       An American Haunting
9.       The Gate
10.   The Monster Squad *
11.   Evil Dead Trap
12.   Satan’s Little Helper
13.   Pontypool *
14.   Wrong Turn
15.   Wrong Turn 2: Dead End
16.   Urban Legend *
17.   Wicked Little Things
18.   Day of the Dead *
19.   The Lost Boys *
20.   Hellbound: Hellraiser II
21.   Legion
22.   Children of the Corn
23.   Blood: The Last Vampire
24.   Night of the Comet
25.   Pumpkinhead
26.   [REC]
27.   Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
28.   AXE
29.   Nekromantik
30.   In the Mouth of Madness
31.   The Rocky Horror Picture Show *
32.   Student Bodies
33.   Jeepers Creepers
34.   The Frighteners
35.   Hatchet
36.   Frozen *
37.   Fright Night
38.   The Descent
39.   Dead Silence
40.   Dog Soldiers
41.   Demons
42.   Shocker
43.   Mother’s Day
44.   Alien
45.   Chopping Mall
46.   Grotesque
47.   The Descent Part 2
48.   The Hamiltons
49.   City of the Living Dead
50.   My Name is Bruce

Movies 45-50

Movie #45 Chopping Mall
Very goofy horror film, poster can lead you to believe it's a slasher movie but its actually about killer robots. Stupid at times, some kills are cool, but there's no substance here to make it worth watching.

Movie #46 Grotesque
Another Asian snuff film movie. The title gets it right, if you want to see a movie about senseless (and at times highly sexual) violence with almost no story behind it this is your movie. At least I can get behind the Saw and Hostel movies, because the victims actually stand a chance, there is no hope in this movie for the victims. Personally this wasn't an enjoyable movie to me, well made yes, worthy of the label "good"? I'm not sure.

Movie #47 The Descent Part 2
The idea of a sequel to The Descent sounds stupid to me, and the first twenty minutes of the movie will lead you to believe that your assumption was wrong, the opening act for the film is quite good. Then they get back in the cave and start recycling things from the first. There are new ideas about the creatures and the caves in the movie but they just don't click like everything in the first did. If you've seen the first and are curious about the sequel, it wouldn't hurt to watch it but I would recommend you just pretend this movie doesn't exist. The ending is flat out terrible too.

Movie #48 The Hamiltons
Slow, predictable, boring, cliche. All of these describe this movie, its mediocre story, its dreadful actors, and cheap camerawork. Avoid.

Movie #49 City of the Living Dead
A different kind of movie, I've noticed a trend in these 80s Italian horror movies in that the gore is good but it seems the ideas for kills and effects came before the story. Not as good as  movie #41 Demons, but not terrible either. Pretty slow start, and boring at times. Only watch it if you have nothing else better to watch.

Movie #50 My Name Is Bruce
This movie is ridiculous and silly, and that's exactly all it needed to be. Could have been better but I certainly didn't hate it. Campbell is easily the best part of the flick (didn't see that coming did you?).

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Movie 41, 42, 43 and 44

Movie #41 Demons
Not a bad flick, the effects are pretty good and though the story is very far-fetched it plays very well. Cheesy at times, and sometimes things happen on screen that have nothing to do with anything else on screen and then is never referenced again. This boasts one of my favorite tag lines of the movies I've seen this month.

Movie #42 Shocker
This was wes craven's attempt at making another horror franchise after Nightmare on Elm Street, he failed. This movie is long and boring, the story isn't terrible but the execution is poor. Absolutely boring and stupid.

Movie #43 Mother's Day
An okay movie overall, goes back to the backwoods/last house on the left era where everyone was trying to be last house on the left. Very silly at times, boring too, the last 30 minutes is more watchable than the first hour. The remake should be good, and better.

Movie #44 Alien
A very affective movie. Essentially a haunted house movie in space, one of the greatest sci fi horror movies of all time. If you haven't seen it, you should, great flick.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Movies 37, 38, 39 and 40

Movie #37 Fright Night
A very interesting movie. Good performances from the lead protagonist, the vampire, and "the vampire killer". The vampires are pretty awesome in this movie, the effects look very awesome. A good movie, but everything thats not the vampire aspect of it doesn't hold up well.

Movie #38 The Descent
This might be one of my favorite horror movies ever. The characters are great in my opinion, and the scares don't start with the monsters. This movie is to spelunking what Frozen is to Skiing in my opinion. The monsters are quite disturbing, the direction in this movie is wonderful and this movie doesn't let up once it gets going.

Movie #39 Dead Silence
Ends up being more silly than scary, has potential at times to be very frightening but falls short of its goal. Script is somewhat clever at times, the gore sucks, and for once the unrated version isn't as good as the theatrical cut. An okay movie overall, don't watch it if you have a better option to see instead.

Movie #40 Dog Soldiers
Pretty good movie overall, the good parts don't really come until the last 45 minutes. The werewolves are quite good in this movie, probably the best werewolf movie to come out in the past 10 or 15 years. Good affects, good script, good direction, I liked it.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Movies 33, 34, 35 and 36

Movie #33 Jeepers Creepers
It had been a while since I had seen this movie in its entirety, but it did hold up. I rather like this movie, not because its good (it's okay overall) but I think this movie has a lot of special things about it that we don't see really in most mainstream horror. This movie has some very genuine scares, and lots of it is quite frightening; however it suffers from a second/third act slump. The ending of the second act/start of the third are so slow and boring that its almost not the same movie at all. I still really like this movie, the scares/creepy parts are great and the antagonist is quite original and quite terrifying.

Movie #34 The Frighteners
A movie about a series of strange killings that can only be solved thanks to a psychic Michael J. Fox and the spirits of dead people that he keeps around to make money of the towns people by clearing the ghosts under his employment out of their homes. The effects in this movie are quite good, and are still passable among todays standards (even though it was made in 1996), but its Peter Jackson when he was still doing what hes best at so what should you expect? The script is great and the actors are fantastic, this movie is a winner.

Movie #35 Hatchet
I've seen this movie at least a dozen times all the way through, and it still holds up incredibly well in my opinion. The movie is so funny in its first act and it has some of the best kills in recent memory, and apparently slasher movies can still be scary (as one of the people we were watching with jumped continuously throughout the flick). A bit of a hokie premise in retrospect but the dialogue is very well written. Big fan of the director, great flick.

Movie #36 Frozen
This movie comes to us from the writer/director of Hatchet, and I was speechless while watching. This movie proves that Adam Green doesn't have to rely on special effects and gore to scare the audience, he is a capable enough writer and director to unnerve and frighten us with simply his characters and visuals. Green has matured so much as a filmmaker in just three movies, and it really really shows. His same style of writing is still present (not complaining though), and though not the focus, he brings gore to the table for the fans. This movie is very very intense, an incredible character driven horror movie that has made me never want to go skiing EVER.

Movies 29, 30, 31 and 32

Movie #29 Nekromantik
This is one of the most disgusting movies I've ever seen, and that is NOT a compliment. Very stupid, horrendous, rediculous, and down right terrible. This is one of the worst and most outlandish movies i've ever seen, but it does have a fantastic ending (though it's not worth sitting through it to get to the ending).
Highlight this area if you want to know just whats so gross about this movie:
They take a rabbit, and show the following on screen: Stabbing it, bleeding it out, stringing it up by its feet, pulling its skin off with the guy's bare hands, and gutting it....ON SCREEN, and it serves NO purpose in the movie...AT ALL. Also, it's real....not a fake bunny....a REALLY REAL BUNNY.
Also the main characters steals a corpse because he and his girlfriend are necrophiles, and his girlfriend takes a section of lead pipe, sticks it in the groin of the rotting corpse AND HAS SEX WITH IT.

Movie #30 In the Mouth of Madness
While watching this movie I didn't think I really liked it, it had everything going for it but there was something about it that didn't seem to click, but then I finished the movie and thought about it and I decided I really liked it. A great script (though it owes SO much to H.P. Lovecraft without any credit), a good performance and fantastic directing by one of my all time favorites John Carpenter. Good movie, I liked it.

Movie #31 The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Yes, ashamed to admit I hadn't seen the flick (though I was very familiar with the concept and story), and there's nothing I can say about this movie that hasn't been said already except that I loved it.

Movie #32 Student Bodies
If you like humor like in The Naked Gun or Airplane movies you will love this movie. I laughed my ass off, and now consider it one of the funniest horror comedies I've ever seen. Not scary, but very very funny.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Movies 25, 26, 27 and 28

Movie #25 Pumpkinhead
A little on the cheesey side, but quite watchable. Genre favorite Lance Henriksen delivers a good performance with a story that could have been A LOT worse. Great special effects (What do you expect from Stan Winstons directorial Debut?). I was surprised how much I liked this movie, though it does seem like it owes A LOT to Alien/Aliens/The Thing, you should only watch this if you've seen those three.

Movie #26 [REC]
Easily one of the most affective found footage movies ever made, the scares are fantastic. Though I've never thought a movie done in this style WAS real, this is the closest I've come to feeling actual distress for the characters in the story, the actors are just that genuine. Loved it, I'm very excited to see the sequels.

Movie #27 Wes Craven's New Nightmare
A personal favorite of mine that in the first act didn't seem like it was going to hold up to the expectations I had set for it. A great script idea and solid writing and directing is dragged down by Langenkamp's almost stale performance as HERSELF. The movie starts off incredibly slow but once it gets going it really really goes. Big fan of this movie, freddy's design is GREAT.

Movie #28 Axe

One of the worst horror movies I've ever seen. Boring, stupid, redundant, cliche, cheap. Just one of many stupid rip offs of Craven's Last House on the Left. Avoid at all costs.
 

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Movies 21, 22, 23, and 24

I'll be doing quick reviews for the movies I saw in my spare time over the weekend, I'll try and be as in depth with so few words as possible.

Movie #21 Legion


Very interesting script, lots of good and different ideas. Solid action scenes and very convincing performances. Not too many scares to be found, but there are a few. I really liked this movie, but I am a fan of religious themed movies and I do like seeing action like this movie has. I highly recommend it.


Movie #22 Children of the Corn
Could have been a good movie if it was just about the kids in my opinion. None of the scares seem to be long lasting, lots of quick jumpy parts, though some are affective. Very poorly directed, and had a lot of potential to be chilling and scary. Was an okay movie over all but could have been better, I'm interested to see the sequels and go in with the sequel mindset (IE: This will be ridiculous but boy will it be fun to watch).

Movie #23 Blood: The Last Vampire
It isn't clever to make a half vampire half human characters anymore, don't do it. The movie has some well shot action scenes, but it's inability to have a cohesive interesting story leaves it flat on the floor. The special effects are dopey, uses cheap looking CG as opposed to passable practical effects. A stupid movie with some good action scenes.

Movie #24 Night of the Comet

Very interesting end of the world movie, goes in favor of what would probably actually happen as opposed to a hyper stylized version of hell on earth. Very goofy and very 80s, only scary scene had nothing to do with either of the main antagonists in the "story". An interesting movie none the less, I'd only watch it again whitest playing a drinking game though, but I definitely didn't hate it.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Movie #20 Hellbound: Hellraiser II


Hellbound: Hellraiser II had a lot to live up to, since its predecessor is one of my favorite horror movies, and it did no live up to my height.

The movie has a lot of good ideas in the script, but they're drowned out by how incredibly boring it is. The story is a good idea, props to clive barker for coming up with it, but I don't think I'll ever watch it again because of how boring it is. The movie is well made though, just very dry and not scary.

The effects are pretty good for the movie, considering that it was made in the 80s, and whenever Pinhead is on screen (which isn't very often, a sad fact) he captivates your attention.

Hellraiser II is a very boring movie and a weak sequel, I didn't like it very much at all.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Movie #19 The Lost Boys


Again, another horror classic that after viewing I'm ashamed that I hadn't seen it sooner.

The movie brings its own good version of the vampire mythos, though it is mostly similar to the legend there are differences and they're quite interesting. This movie works for three reasons: 1. The script, 2. The characters, 3. its blending of horror and comedy.

The script is very very well written. Its a seamless movie in terms of structure and appearance. The situations within are very well written and it's different take on vampirism is captivating.

The characters in this movie are great. Not only are they well written in the script but the performances bring them to life. None of the characters serve the same purpose, it truly is an ensemble piece as the movie couldnt have turned out the same without one of the major players. Though there are main characters in the story, I don't think you should refer to the secondary characters as supporting roles, though they do help enhance the performance of the primaries, but they help carry the story so much that they shouldn't be labeled as mere supporters.

The Lost Boys is a great example of horror comedy. It's balance between laughter and horror is perfect, and even more so the funny parts are very funny and the scary parts are quite scary.

The Lost Boys is wonderful, a near perfect movie.

Movie #18 Day of the Dead





I'm ashamed to admit I hadn't seen this movie before today, and boy am I mad I haven't seen it sooner.

Day of the Dead is Romero's third outing into the zombie apocalypse, and this time he's tackling the military/scientists life after the end of the world.

The movie takes a different spin on the situation and most of the scary aspects of it come from the intense scenes with the people, the fear comes from fear of the other people not the zombies. Day of the Dead is very well written, the script is smart and presents a lot of things that would definitely happen in the event of a zombie apocalypse. That's Romero's biggest forte as a writer in my opinion, he writes people and their interaction so much better than almost any horror writer ever.

It wouldn't be a Romero movie if it didn't have amazing gore and makeup, and it does. The deaths in this movie are AMAZING, and they only reinforce the point that slow zombies are scarier than fast zombies.

I loved this movie, a whole bunch. Watching this makes Survival of the Dead the only Romero zombie flick I haven't seen, though I dont think it will surpass the first 3 in the series, I have high hopes because he is such a capable director.

Watch Day of the Dead if you haven't seen it, even if you have you should watch it again. This movie is definitely worth your time, attention and money.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Movie #17 Wicked Little Things


Wicked Little Things is the first movie that I've watched so far in the month that I thought was actually quite scary.

Wicked Little Things is part of the original 8 films to die for, and the first one of all (what 24 at this point?) that I've seen. It's about a family that moves to a house in the mountains and the local legend of children that were killed in the mines 100 years ago and how they return to life to kill the person that wronged the, or anyone that gets in their way.

The mother in the movie is played by Lori Heuring, who plays the stressed out near the breaking point mother perfectly. Her children are played by two of the best working young genre actresses today: Chloe Moretz and Scout Taylor Compton.

The tension in the movie carries over scene to scene even though it's predictable. The script for the movie is great thought cliche in terms of setting, and a few scenes in the movie seem unnecessary but they still fit within the tone and context of the movie. The zombies in the movie aren't your typical zombies which is something that I really cannot stress enough is a good thing. We're in an age where zombie films and the zombies in them are just a rehash of old zombie attitudes, origins, and survival; so a story that does something different is a treasure, and then when it's as good as Wicked Little Things it's a diamond in the rough.

Wicked Little Things is a genuinely scary movie and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Movie #16 Urban Legend





I really enjoyed Urban Legend, I'm surprised its taken me this long to see it because it probably would have been one of my favorites when I was a teenager.

If you don't know, the movie is about a serial (slasher) killer that kills people themed around urban legends, sounds pretty neat and it is.

I felt like the best thing about the movie is the script, Jared Leto, and the kills. The kills, though unoriginal technically, are very well executed on screen (pardon the pun). The script is really smart, to me it feels like the first two Scream movies, the dialogue just sounds very real. The actors just carry themselves very well on screen, they make their performances very believable.

Normally a movie about kids in college is pretty terrible due in part to the inability of the actors to perform, but this movie does not fit this stereotype. Leto's performance is the best in my opinion, and we also get a nice cameo from genre veteran (and one of my favorite genre actors) Robery Englund!

The movie is more tense then scary, but I seldom think of slasher movies as scary anymore so you might disagree. The first few scary scenes are very unnerving to watch and I loved them very much.

Urban Legend makes for some quality horror entertainment if you want something that is smarter than your typical slasher movie.