Halloween Viewing Log 2010

[Ala ad-Din]

There was a similar topic like this last year, so why not again this year. October 1st is tomorrow and with that brings Halloween.

Simple enough, just post here every time you watch something Halloween-related between now and 10/31!

So far...

Films
30 Days of Night

TV Shows
The Real Ghostbusters - "When Halloween Was Forever" (November 1, 1986)

And as you continue to watch more movies/tv shows this Halloween season... just post them!

[Barbossa]

Last week on Wednesday I kicked-off my 2010 Halloween movie watching. I watched:

Ghostbusters

But also that day I met Dan Aykroyd so that had something to do with it.

[Lazario]

Burnt Offerings (1976)



Oliver Reed is terrible (that's what they paid him for), Karen Black is okay (she's mostly a freaky face), the kid is... the kid (explains itself), Bette Davis is great but they make her look like crap. The dialogue is ancient, the drama is stale, but somewhere between the music and the pretty good camerawork, it passes as watchable. Great ending. But that's the only time it's ever great.

[AwallaceUNC]

I was just thinking last night that it was time for this thread! I started the Halloween season on 9/1 so I've already watched a few things. I'll get my list ready soon!

-Aaron

[PixarFan2006]

Good to know someone started this thread. It just saves me some time.

I thought I would do things a little differently. I am going to list all the films I plan to watch. Once I finish the film, I will take it off the list.

Addams Family, The
Addams Family Values
An American Werewolf in London
Arachnophobia
Army of Darkness
Birds, The
Bride of Frankenstein*
Child's Play
Child's Play 2
Child's Play 3
Corpse Bride
Dracula (1931 Lugosi Version)
Dracula (1931 Spanish Version)
Drag Me to Hell
Evil Dead, The
Evil Dead 2
Frankenstein (1931)
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
GhostBusters
Howling, The
It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
Mummy, The (1932)*
Nosferatu
Psycho (1960)
Shining, The (1980)
Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the WereRabbit
Wolf Man, The (1941)
Young Frankenstein

*= On backorder. I might not get to watch them in time.

[avonleastories95]

Some not so scary Halloween fun for me!
3 minutes have past since my viewing of Cartoon Classics: Halloween Haunts, and I loved it! I thought it was more enjoyable than scary.
Faerie Tale Theatre: Hansel and Gretel
Faerie Tale Theatre: Rip Van Winkle
Faerie Tale Theatre: The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers
Disney'a Cartoon Classics: Donald's Scary Tales
Are You Afraid of the Dark?: Ghostly Tales
Twilight Zone: Time Enough At Last
Twilight Zone: The After Hours
Twilight Zone: Changing of the Guard
Twilight Zone: The Monsters are Due on Maple Street
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas
It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
Disney's Halloween Treat
Disney's The Black Cauldron
Disney's Legend of Sleepy Hollow

[TheSequelOfDisney]

I plan on watching The Nightmare Before Christmas tonight. It's pretty much my only Halloween-esque movie (and I'll only be able to watch it via the Digital Copy that I got; see, they are useful).

[PeterPanfan]

Suspiria - October 1

[AwallaceUNC]

So far this Halloween season, I've watched:

Films
• The Addams Family (1991)
• Addams Family Values (1993)
• The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
• Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein (1999)
• Beetlejuice (1988)
• Blackbeard's Ghost (1968)
• Death Becomes Her (1992)
• Double Double Toil and Trouble (1993)
• Halloween is Grinch Night (1977)
• Hocus Pocus (1993)
• Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
• Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)
• Tower of Terror (1997)
• Young Frankenstein (1974)



TV Shows
• "Beetlejuice"
--Skeletons in the Closet (1989)
--A-Ha! (1990)
--Spooky Boo-Tique (1990)

• "Bewitched"
--The Witches Are Out (1964)

• "Community"
--Epidemiology (2010)

• "Desperate Housewives"
--Excited and Scared (2010)

• "Freaks and Geeks"
--Tricks and Treats (1999)

• "Full House"
--It's Not My Job (Intro Segment) (1988)
--Divorce Court (1989)

• "Glee"
--Rocky Horror Glee Show (2010)

• "The Middle"
--Halloween (2010)

• "The Office"
--Costume Contest (2010)

• "Saturday Night Live"
--Jon Hamm/Rihanna (2010)

• "The View"
--A Halloween-Themed Show (2010)



<hr>
-Aaron

[Lazario]

The Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)



I believe the message from this movie is: science is garbage, God is real, religion good, and- watch out for those spearchuckers because they're also dead-on with the rocks too (I don't use the word literally, I believe that's the attitude this movie has about African tribesmen- that they're no better than American witch freaks from the old Salem days). So, the message is worthless. And the historical stuff will make you swing your legs a lot to make sure you're still awake and haven't fallen into a coma... However, the first 50-something minutes go by like a bullet and the ending is an absolute laugh-riot. I dare you not to crack up! I had a ball with it and it more than made up for the turkey section. The music is so terrible; this has got to be one of Morricone's saddest hours.



Hell Night (1981)



Really slow, but I like it that way. The killer is not scary but the mood is great. The music is good; the opening song is much better and sets a beautiful tone. Too bad they didn't go for a darker, perhaps more sadistic feel because that song would have really been a good igniter for it. The dialogue is pretty good, though there are some really stupid moments (why does Seth congratulate himself in the mirror for rocking Denise's world when he never took off his shorts?). The acting isn't so great. Overall, I'm willing to go on record and say this is still far better than the vast majority of the post-Halloween and Friday the 13th slashers (especially the likes of The Initiation) and exploitation killer flicks.



House by the Cemetery (1981)



The pure definition of style over substance. Would really suck if so much of it weren't so laughable ("NO! NOT THE CHILDREN!", "Why don't you take those pills your baker prescribed?"). However, it's worth sitting through at least once for the music score (Fulci's best?) and the excellent camerawork and atmosphere. As per usual with low budget horror, the women rule. Catriona MacColl and Silvia Collatina give the real performances, Ania Pieroni is gorgeous but is wasted, and the males are utterly ridiculous. I do not have the time to take Paolo Malco apart, but let's just say his serial killer closeups are beyond silly. The gore added nothing as well (notice how the knife blade wobbles after it goes through that girl's head and Mrs. Giddleson's death is stupid and tedious, as most of Fulci's protracted splatter scenes typically are). Great epilogue/coda ending, though.

[PixarFan2006]

I am ditching the system I created yesterday (eliminating movies I watched).

Friday, October 2

Movie
The Howling (1981) - Okay. Does not really get good until the werewolves show up in the film. Enjoyable, but I prefer An American Werewolf in London and the original Wolf Man to this (3.5/5)

Tv Show/Special
The Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror V[/u][/b]

[Lazario]

Slugs (1987)



Some really bad ideas, none of the characters are well-developed (I know- why bother?), and you can really just pick up the dialogue wholesale and dump it out back. But, it's also a refreshingly light and breezy 89 minutes (at least until the overlong ending) with some surprisingly good gore effects and a few entertainingly bad moments. It's no Squirm, but it might just be the hit of your bad movie night (should you still be on speaking terms with your friends after suggesting it).



(A) Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)



Obnoxious, cliched, tired, maybe even poorly cast. Nobody probably cares about acting in this one, so it's a good thing that some of the music score is decent (as for songs- didn't that Kool Moe Dee track they play at the closing win a Razzie award?) and the death scenes are interesting. That's why it's a shame that quite a bit of Greta's ultra-bizarre death wound up on the cutting room floor (why exactly does the doll's innards make her bloat up like her head is a pumpkin?). It's a dull, and sometimes painful, experience. Probably the least of the series (excluding Freddy vs. Jason, because neither series deserves to be tarnished by association with that pile of fecal matter).



Vamp (1986)



Who knew sleaze could be colorful and clever? The "I had a bad day!" scene, the unfortunate American Werewolf in London-isms they ripped off in the best-friends confrontation scene, a little repetitiveness in the 'showdown' ending, and a few of Dedee Pfeiffer's cute speed-line deliveries are the only things that drag this down. Otherwise, it's an incredibly fun time. With a lot of style (where's that been in the genre the last 5 years?!), some damn fine acting (especially from Sandy Baron, R.I.P., and excellent silent stuff from Grace), very good dialogue, and even though there's the standard stock "I can't be this way!" whining cute vamp-boy, the early death scenes are surprisingly more vicious than you get in this type of film. Great music! Smart editing. Great use of mostly top-notch special effects, all around. This project has so far resulted in a lot of yawning. Sadly. Every film so far, in fact... until this one.



Ghoulies 2 (1987)



Of course, the carnival setting is great. And as a Gremlins rip-off, it has a lot of energy, it's actually at times more creepy, and has the notion to be more mean-spirited. But most of the time, it's just lame. A lot of the acting doesn't work, it's packed with groan-worthy cliches (the whole 'he saw her coming out of his trailer' thing was a really bad idea), and though it tries for heart (after they've already been too nasty), I don't care about anyone in the movie. A huge improvement over the first. Unfortunately, that wasn't a difficult task in the first place. Pretty darn good score by Dolls' composer, Fuzzbee Morse.



Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988)



There's actually a lot of charm in a movie like this, even though about half of it isn't working (especially Buck Flower, who is just annoying). It's pure stereotype but I thought DeCoteau and company made these people feel like real characters. That is, in so far as a movie like this can (save for, perhaps, the extent to which Keith whines about Lisa's transformation, and the amount of times Frankie and Rhonda complain about their hair and skin- just a set-up for the Nightmare on Elm Street-esque turn where it's like, "look at your - hair, skin - now!"). It's light and not very offensive. And the music was the best thing about it until Linnea Quigley showed up. Her chemistry with Andras Jones is excellent (too bad there wasn't a sequel, I'm a sucker for romance and their odd coupling really worked). Carla Baron is the biggest surprise though and her Bride of Frankenstein demon was very cool!



The Kiss (1988)



Good music score (bad... what is it; incidental -?- music). The acting is hit or miss; mostly miss (Joanna Pacula and, especially, Mimi Kuzyk are clearly the real pros). Special effects are hit or miss as well (that corpse at the beginning is just terrible, as is the half-Critter / half-Ghoulie demon cat, and Aunt Felice as the monster-witch woman has some not very ambitious bloating torso moments - where's the alien?). The story has some good stuff in it, several good little bites of ideas. There's some good style, a little good gore (the leg moment is unforgettable, the escalater scene is slightly less impressive), but the ending goes on for-EH-ver!



Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)



Definitely better than The Dream Child. Though it has moments that are easily worse ("Free me, you idiot, I'm your f***ing memory! AHHHH!"). It's not scary but it does have a lot of playfulness, some of it very lively. Yaphet Kotto tries (but the dialogue kinda sucks completely), Lisa Zane is very sophisticated (and I've always liked the against-type casting in lead roles, you rarely see this type of woman playing a lead part in a slasher film), the younger the guys the better they act (though they could re-cast Shon Greenblatt's part and it wouldn't hurt my feelings), but Lezlie Deane for me blew them all away (and like Kim Myers from Freddy's Revenge looked like a young Meryl Streep, Lezlie looks a dead ringer for a young Jodie Foster). I really liked the lazier feel of the movie but Freddy really needed to shut up. A lot of the effects look terrible (the bed-needled torso, the stupid flying sperms, maybe the really outdated look of the video game) but a lot of things looked pretty good. The amnesia theme made a change. A lot of good imagery (the 3-D glasses, the freddy teleportation, the long tracking shot following the falling single needle, the "let's trip out" shot where Freddy's in the center of the room, the shattering plate of the horizon with the road; a lot of little things). And the final scene was pretty darn good (as was the "greatest hits" coda).

The Howling (1981) - Does not really get good until the werewolves show up in the film.

I disagree.

[dvdjunkie]

Since I am not a hi-tech computer junkie and don't know how to post pictures and things like that, I will just reserve a space to list my films as I watch them.

Friday, Oct. 1, 2010

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1973)
Picture Mommy Dead (1966)
The Omen (original version) (1976)

Saturday, Oct. 2, 2010

Frankenstein (The Original) (1931)
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (Hammer) (1969)
House of Frankenstein (1944)
Dracula (1931)

Sunday, Oct. 3, 2010

Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)
Revenge of the Creature (1955)
The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)

Monday, Oct. 4, 2010

Don't Look In The Basement (1973)
Stanley (1973)
Venom (1981)

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010

It was William Castle night in the Junkie Home Theater:
The Tingler (1959)
House on Haunted Hill (1959)
13 Ghosts (1960)

Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010

Picked three Hammer Horror films and a new release for tnight's viewing:

Horror of Dracula (1958)
Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968)
Scars of Dracula (1970)
Grindhouse Double Feature (Planet Terror & Death Proof) Blu-ray (2007)

Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010

Snakes On A Plane (2006)
I Spit On Your Grave (1959)

Friday, Oct. 8, 2010

Alien (1979)
Aliens (1986)

Saturday, Oct. 9, 2010

Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Monolith Monsters (1957)
The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)

Sunday, Oct. 10, 2010

The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (1976)
The Monster Squad (1987)
Night of the Creeps (1986)
Demon Seed (1977)

Monday, Oct. 11, 2010

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Day of the Dead (1985)

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2010

The Evil Dead (1981)
Army of Darkness (1992)
Re-Animator (1985)

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010

Circus of Horrors (1960)
Willard (1971)
Ben (1972)
Basket Case (1982)

Friday, Oct. 15, 2010

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)
House of Wax (1953)
Stephen King's The Mist (2007)

Saturday, Oct. 16, 2010

All John Carpenter Movies:

The Thing (1982)
The Fog (1980)
Village of the Damned (1995)
Christine (1988)
They Live (1988)
Halloween (1978)

Sunday, Oct. 17, 2010

Village of the Damned (1960)
The Children's Hour (1961)
The Uninvited (1944)

Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2010

The Haunting (1963)
The Pit & The Pendulum (1961)
Carnival of Souls (1962)

Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)
Scream and Scream Again (1970)

Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010

The Fly (1958)
Return of the Fly (1959)
The Entity (1981)

Friday, Oct. 22, 2010

Picked some old favorites to watch:

Fade to Black (1980)
Jeepers Creepers (2001)
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Innocent Blood (1992)

Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010

It was silly Saturday in the Junkie Home Theater:

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Abbott & Costello Meet The Killer, Boris Karloff (1949)
Abbott & Costello Meet The Invisible Man (1951)
Abbott & Costello Meet The Mummy (1955)
The Blob (1958)

Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010

Friday the 13th (1980)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Massacre at Central High (1976)
Saw (2004)
The Howling (1981)

Monday, Oct. 25, 2010

Circus of Fear (1966)
Carnival of Souls (1962)
Trog (1970)

Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2010

The Hunger (1983)
Silver Bullet (1985)
Relic (1992)

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010

King Kong (1933)
King Kong (1976)
King Kong (2005)
King Kong Lives (1986)

Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010

Mighty Joe Young (1949)
Terror In The Aisles (1984)
I Spit On Your Grave (1959)
Strait Jacket (1964)

Friday, Oct. 29, 2010

Cloverfield (2008)
It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955)
20 Million Miles To Earth (1957)
When Worlds Collide (1951)

Saturday, Oct. 20, 2010

Legend of Hell House (1973)
Last House on the Left (1972)
War of the Worlds (1953)
War of the Worlds (2005)
Mausoleum (1983)
Cars That Eat People (1974)
The Car (1977)

Sunday, Oct. 31, 2010

The Birds (1968)
Psycho (1960)

I made it to a Hundred for the third year in a row. Now I can sit back and plan which Christmas themed movies I am going to watch for this upcoming Holiday season.

[jpanimation]

The Howling (1981) - Okay. Does not really get good until the werewolves show up in the film.

It was good until the werewolves showed up.

[Lazario]

The Howling (1981) - Okay. Does not really get good until the werewolves show up in the film.

It was good until the werewolves showed up.

I disagree with that as well.




Leprechaun (1993)



Not smart, not well-written, not in the slightest bit original (it rips off at least a dozen other movies). But it gets better as it goes along. A lot better. Until the point where it's pure fun. Just take brain out and enjoy.



Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1993)



Technically slick. That's its' best quality. It is not well written, it's horrendously acted, most of the effects are not very good. But it does have its' moments. The club massacre scene at least ends on a horrifying note (the door shot) and negates the need to ever have to suffer through a showing of Wishmaster (avoid like plague!!). But other than that, it's clueless. Barely getting by on what little pity you might feel for the ultra-vulnerable Terry character. Though I give props to the city street explosion scenes and the very crafty and disturbing imagery during the church scene.



Bones (2001)



This movie would be a shining success if it weren't trying to be a combination of schlock and sophistication. It usually excells on the 2nd part, but then when they bring up the first, it just gets stupid. Bad CGI, lame gross-outs, and... that slime wall and the plasma interpretive dancers are so dumb. But there are many plusses here. It has style and slickness, amazing music, a compelling socio-political story angle, and does what so few horror movies to follow have: treats young people like they have a brain. Without ever coming close to the obnoxiousness of the dopes in the Scream films. A lot of people really cared about this film and were it not for the bad shock gags (none of which will get a rise out of you) and the awful ending, this would be one of the only quality products from the last miserable decade in the genre. As it stands, it's just decent. But the good slightly outweighs the weak.



Satan's Little Helper (2003)



Some movies leave me at a loss. And I've never been able to explain this one. The pacing is great. It doesn't pretend to be serious. It's not offensive. But- what the hell were these people thinking? No one on Earth would ever accept this game the boy plays as an actual cutting-edge 2003 video game that a lot of kids would be crazy about (it's barely, technically, any more advanced than the old computer games we used to play at school...in like 1992!). And then, this small town the movie takes place in must be on another planet. Not only does the internet not seem to exist (um, if there are no cops around and there's a riot wave of violent lootings and house-break ins taking place... I think someone would have been either calling police outside the town or sending E-Mails or something!), and the townspeople are so old-fashioned and 50's-TV-Show nice that the story isn't the slightest bit realistic, but the little boy talks about marrying his own sister... and the mother finds this cute. Not only that, but when she tells people about it, they don't bat an eye. This one somehow gets by on little-detail inventiveness. And yes, it's so stupid that it actually begins to become fun. Eventually.



Shocker (1989)



I have a list of grievances with this movie a mile long, at least. And I think I'm going to make the time to go over some of them right now. For the first 40-something minutes, this movie is a really bad male version of a Lifetime tv-movie. Heavy-handed, melodramatic, filled with a bunch of police procedural talk (accompanied by the stock "gruff cop" cliches, in spades!) and crime-scene styled sequences. The killer is set-up as super-intelligent and almost a figure of shadow. By other characters, that is. This has got to be the single hugest deviation from script to production in the history of the horror genre. Every supporting character (supporting meaning: not Horace Pinker, clearly toted as the star of the film- yeah right, this guy has all the charisma and entertainment value of a used bandaid!) is acting as though this character were Hannibal Lecter, meanwhile Mitch Pileggi is giving us a combination of football player gone insane and Mo from the Three Stooges!! How exactly does a douche like this get organized enough to methodically slaughter about 3 dozen people "under cover of night" when the second you see him, his neck is bulging like his head is about to explode?!?! This guy has the subtlety and grace of a bull in a china shop. This doesn't work! Then, back to the film's heavy, serious "sorrow and tragedy" angle. Which it uses to get self-righteous, and you accept that after 40-something minutes of waiting to see Horace get the chair. Then... they think this is an ideal time to introduce SLAPSTICK COMEDY! I'm sorry... am I missing something? I know we shouldn't take certain things too seriously, but this movie was forcing us to be very dour and sullen about the goings-on up 'til this point. Now, all of a sudden, it's a friggin' free-for-all goof fest?! No. No. NO!

Anyway, the only value to this thing at all is Alison and the very cool fantasy stuff they did with her dream sequences. Other than that, this is total and utter garbage. The kind that smells! Now you know why I hold Mick Garris's Sleepwalkers in such high regard. It never got this screwed up, either way (the serious or the silly). Lots of action, yes. And yeah I usually hate that. But, at least that film's one-liners hit their mark and the killer (Alice Krige) had real internal brooding and pathos! Not like this loser here. Is he a killer or just some foul-mouthed psycho at a sporting event?! Freddy Krueger was NEVER this stupid.

[PeterPanfan]

Suspiria - http://digital-cinema1.blogspot.com/201 ... piria.html - REVIEW

Dreams in the Witch House - http://digital-cinema1.blogspot.com/201 ... witch.html - REVIEW

Inferno
Mom's Got a Date With a Vampire

Reviews to come ^^

[Ala ad-Din]

Recent additions in BOLD.

Films
30 Days of Night

TV Shows
The Real Ghostbusters - "When Halloween Was Forever" (November 1, 1986)
Masters of Horror - "The Damned Thing" (October 26, 2006)

[PixarFan2006]

Saturday, October 2nd 2010

Movies
NONE

TV Shows and Specials
Tales From The Crypt: "The Man Who Was Death"

[Lazario]

(SUGGESTIVE SPOILER WARNING)


Frogs (1972)



Needs a few more passes in the writing department and it's more than a little boring toward the middle, but this has all the right pieces. Genuinely freaky shots of nature looking menacing, schlocky (and fun) shots of devious bugs and animals, an excellent music score (I can't think of another one that sounds anything like this), and a mostly amuisng series of one-by-one death scenes in a somewhat unusual setting for your average horror film. I just don't see nearly enough swamp or jungle horror films that don't revolve around scientific experiments or naked cannibal tribes.



Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (aka- The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) (1974)



Way too overbearing. This one has a little atmosphere and nice gore which can only take it so far before it runs out of gas. And, sure, I was gunning for the main character... But as you know the ending, what good does any of that do? Intriguing premise with the sonic pollution angle but could they possibly have loaded this thing up with more us-vs-them cliches? And I'm all for showing police and so-called psychological experts as ego-driven, psychotic, vigilante freaks but this one just brings up important arguments and drops them again for a chase sequence. And for all that struggle against the main antagonist, it ends with a simple strangulation? While the really savage killing at the end is saved for a sexy nurse who gets her boob ripped off? This movie's priorities are all screwed up.

[Barbossa]

Recent viewings in bold:

Ghostbusters
The Black Cauldron
Zombieland

Zombieland was great! I was laughing quite a bit during this one. Bill Murray's scenes were priceless:
"So do you have any regrets?"
"Garfield maybe."
The end-of-credits scene was great too.