31 Nights of Horror

Wait Until Dark

31Nights — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 07:39:45 +0000

Rating: ****.5 (4.5 out of five)
Year: 1967

Plot: Mission: stick a bunch of heroin in a doll in Canada and smuggle it into the states. Outcome: doll is given to stranger in airport, and when you get to the states you have difficulty retrieving it… and when I say difficulty I mean that you are murdered. Murderer’s new mission: try to finesse the blind girlfriend of the guy who has the doll into giving it to you willingly. Keep yourself untraceable by conning the Keystone Cops into doing some softshoe for you, and keeping the whole murder thing on the hush-hush. Murderer’s outcome: success on many fronts; marked lack of success on others.

Review: I’ve never been a fan of old movies. In fact, I’d never even seen a movie starring Katherine Hepburn, but the g/f wanted to alleviate such a deficiency by showing me this film. I now realize what all the hubbub’s about. There’s only about a teaspoon’s worth of blood. No aliens, no demonic children, and no naked, screaming sorority girls. And yet, somehow, the movie provides eminently compelling gripping suspense. Remember how much you loved old NES or Genesis video games? Have you ever noticed how the newer games, while 1000 times prettier, simply don’t have the same draw as the old ones you fell in love with? Well, one could argue that this phenomenon is due to the fact that the old stuff relied completely on substance. The same argument can be made here. There was no Weta Workshop back then, so the scares had to be genuine. They had to come from real characters and eerily plausible plot-lines. It is obvious that the writers have attended painstakingly to every detail. The plot and dialogue are masterfully crafted. While this movie might fall more into the suspense category than straight-up horror, it packs more creeps than a childless, solo, mustached man in a raincoat at a little league game.

Notable scene: When Hep describes “important things” to be “picking out a wallpaper or choosing a necktie”, you see just how successful the feminist movement has been over the last 40 years. Oh, and specifically, when the refrigerator door opens

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: A box of chocolate flavored Oreos Your poo will be black as night.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

The Burning

31Nights — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:11:36 +0000

Rating: ** (2 out of five)
Year: 1981

Plot: Campers try to pull a prank on a groundskeeper. Prank goes WHOOSH with flames. Burning and horribly painful permanent disfigurement follows. The dude is understandably pissed, so he returns to the camp a few years later and joyfully slaughters everyone in sight with garden shears. That should even things up.

Review: Get ready for a classic 80’s exploitation film! Yes that’s right kids, that means blood and guts, hammy acting, T & A (& P), and a complete lack of directorial imagination! What the death scenes lack in creativity they make up for with gratuity and often-ness. And then of course there’s all the camp sex – these kids make Alyson Hannigan’s Band Camp seem downright prudish… I’m still trying to figure out if “the burning” refers to the fires that take place at camp, or the sensation during urination that inevitably follows summers like those. When I was growing up, we came back from camp with a couple homemade candles and our throats and hymens in tact… come to think of it, their way might have been better.

Notable scene: See George Costanza when he was young, virile, merely portly, and with a hairline a hair’s breadth away from all out retreat.

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples
(Including Costanza’s butt!)

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Get some of those liqueur-filled chocolates and eat ‘em ’til you’re tipsy.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

The People Under the Stairs

admin — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:33:22 +0000

Rating: ***.5 (3 and a half out of five)
Year: 1991

Plot: A young boy from the ghetto named Fool gets dragged along to a burglary by his mom’s boyfriend (Ving Rhames). He’s heard that there’s gold there! The house is very well guarded by pit bulls and crazy inbred freaks. The burglars quickly die and Fool is left to fend for himself and try to escape. He runs into a young captive girl (Rayanne from My So-Called Life) and decides to try to get her out too. Apparently, being caught by the homeowners and held captive is a pretty common occurrence, cause there are about 20 people who live in the basement, and it looks like they’ve been there a long time. Can they all find a way to work together? I’d imagine so… otherwise, they probably wouldn’t have named the movie after them.

Review: You really can’t go wrong watching a Wes Craven horror movie. He has a sixth sense on how to creep you out. The idea isn’t all that original… it’s pretty much Texas Chainsaw Massacre set in the inner city with a kid as the hero, but it is executed very well. The homeowners are creepy as hell, and they do a good job of implying horrific acts and pasts without going through the painful experience of showing them to us.

Notable scene: Remember when that kid turned into McGuyver? That was awesome.

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Tostitos Scoops with spinach dip.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

The Fearless Vampire Killers or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck

admin — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 05:18:43 +0000

Rating: **.5 (2 and a half out of five)
Year: 1967

Plot: A moribund professor takes his bumbling assistant to the frozen reaches of Transylvania in an effort to confirm some of his controversial ideas about humanoid bloodsuckers. Turns out he’s right about all of them! ‘Cept the bat thing. They don’t turn into bats. Anyway, they arrive at a claustrophobic tavern where vampirific stuff happens. They follow one of the rascals to an old gothic castle. There they meet the count, his hunchbacked servant, and his bisexual son. The assistant has the hots for the innkeeper’s daughter, who also turns up at the castle. Professor and assistant attempt a rescue of the cute red-head, and pull it off much like Scooby Doo and the gang woulda.

Review: Rosemary’s Baby is one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen, so I was very excited to see Roman Polanski’s stab at a Dracula movie. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the intent for this flick – it was marketed as a slapstick farce in the U.S.. So, it wasn’t very scary… but it wasn’t really funny either. Perhaps it’s just all the reminders about his pedophilia in the news lately, but I had a chill up my spine throughout most of the film. The sets are completely believable. Among them is one of the most genuine spooky old castles you’ll ever see. Although many elements of the Bram Stoker story show up here, Polanski’s version is different enough to be original, and it’s hard to tell just where the scene is going to take you. Overall, this is just a luke-warm rendition of a vampire movie, but certainly different than the rest, and definitely worth watching.

Notable scene: When the vampire Jew is arguing with quasimodo about sleeping arrangements, it seems like something right out of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Steak with wine.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

The Fly II

admin — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:29:48 +0000

Rating: ***
Year: 1989

Plot: If you’re ever been to WalMart, then you are fully aware of the possibility of a hideously horrible hairy mutant managing to get it on with someone and create some brood. And, of course, a hybrid child of a fly and a human would be a super-intelligent, exponentially aging 80s star. Enter Eric Stoltz. He’ll invent new stuff. He’ll woo pretty girls. He’ll mutate just like his dad and kill bunches of folk.

Review: My girlfriend gave lent me this movie with the proviso, “this is BY FAR the worst movie I’ve ever seen!”. Oh boy, is she in for some pain during the month of October… I actually liked this one quite a bit! One of the toughest things for a movie to do (especially a horror movie) is to create a unique world, and Fly II does this quite well. While you could construct something extremely similar to this iteration without ever having seen it, the director and producer do a pretty damn good job of going just far enough past the expected to be unique. The first movie was primarily known as a special effects flick, and they do a great job of carrying the torch. Wait it out, and you’ll be treated to plenty of slimy, bloody, gory indulgence in the third act. Stoltz is really the perfect pick for Goldblum 2.0… they seem to share the same quality… some sort of narcotized condescending gallantry. ‘Course, I’m biased to 80s films, so you may think this one totally sucks.

Notable scene: I have two for you… first, notice the painfully fake beard on the only carry-over from the first movie. Second – accelerated growth + sex scene = sex with a five year old. Gross or hot? You decide.

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Some leftover broccoli alfredo with chicken breast cooked in uber-expensive balsamic vinaigrette.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Cube

admin — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:07:08 +0000

Rating: ****.5 ( 4 and a half out of 5)
Year: 1997

Plot: The Village People and a mentally retarded man awaken to find themselves in an odd room that takes the shape of a cube. There are doors in all 6 surfaces that lead to other rooms that are exactly alike, with the exception of the ambient light color and the occasional homicidal booby trap. They have had all their possessions stripped and have been put into jumpsuits. They have no idea why or how they got there, or what the hell they are supposed to be doing. They laugh, they cry. They get each other killed and occasionally try to rape each other. Good times all around.

Review: The acting is terrible. The script is even worse. How then, can I justify 4.5 stars? Because the idea is f’ing brilliant. With the combination of no-name actors, simple technical effects, and a set that pretty much consisted of one room, the producers were able to make an innovative and eminently watchable movie for a very small amount of money. They did obviously spend some cash on the cgi death sequences, and they were worth every penny – the opening sequence plays like a Tool music video. It’s hard not to get creeped out while watching this… it preys on so many common fears: claustrophobia, xenophobia, confusion, and helplessness. And plus, it has lots of fun math-y-ish themes, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Notable scene: The math parts can be fun. Here’s a quote:
“Leaven: Descartes!

Quentin: What?

Leaven: Cartesian coordinates. Of course! Coded cartesian coordinates. They’re used in geometry to plot
points on a 3 dimensional graph.

Quentin: In English, slower.”

Also worth a laugh is when Leaven is figuring out which numbers aren’t prime. It always takes her 3 seconds, even if the number ends in a 2.

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Ham and Cheese cubes with some Jack Daniels Old No. 7 Mustard… No. 7 mustard… get it?

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

The Last Man on Earth

31Nights — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 22:44:13 +0000

Ran out of steam with the posts. This review and the remaining 12 for the month will be posted, at the very latest, by the beginning of next year’s horror season. I promise!

Private Eyes

31Nights — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:43:22 +0000

Coming Soon!

Wes Craven’s Don’t Look Down

31Nights — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:42:43 +0000

Coming Soon!

Scanners

31Nights — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:37:09 +0000

Coming Soon!

Candyman

31Nights — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:26:34 +0000

Rating: *** ( 3 out of 5)
Year: 1992

Plot: From acclaimed horror Guru Clive Barker comes a modern twist on the urban legend genre. Set in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, he brings you the tale of a well-to-do bouncy blond whose thesis project takes her to the belly of the twetieth century beast. Perhaps she can escape the ghetto with a mere beating, but how will she fare against a supernatural, baritone negro with a hook for a hand and a belly full of bees?

Review: Candyman was released right on the heels of the Rodney King beating and the subsequent riots. The country’s racial tensions had never been higher, and this movie capitalizes on that anxiety without crossing the line into racism. One of the devices that works best in this movie is Candyman’s ability to make it appear as if his victims were actually killed by the woman whom he is stalking. Barker’s story writing succeeds in part because it’s just so damn weird. The movie goes in directions that the viewer really doesn’t expect. Perhaps it goes too far towards the end, but the flick’s flat-out weirdness increases the suspense. You think to yourself, “What’s this movie going to do to me next?”

Notable scene: Helen (played by Virginia Madsen) awakens in her apartment drugged and disoriented to find her dog decapitated, her best friend sliced and diced, a butcher knife in her hand and cops yelling it her to put it down and her hands in the air… harder to explain than when your wife finds lipstick that she doesn’t own on a pair of your underwear.

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples
(there’s a good, old-fashioned strip-search!)

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Go ahead and dig into the Halloween candy you just bought for the big night… and eat it all! There’s plenty of time to restock.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Vacancy

31Nights — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:17:28 +0000

Rating: ***.5 ( 3 and a half out of 5)
Year: 2007

Plot: A couple’s failing marriage is punctuated by car failure. They check into a skeezy little local motel where they are the solitary residents. The husband David (played by Luke Wilson) tries to pass the time by popping in some old VHS tapes only to discover that they are home-made snuff films… and they were taped in the same room that they are currently nervously staying! Will the prospect of vicious murder help the couple put aside their differences and stymie the hotel’s snuff producer’s plans for them? Will they make it out alive?

Review: Director Nirod Antal does a superb job of creeping me out without actually showing me all that much. The anxiety starts in early and builds upon itself exponentially. My heart caught in my throat 15 minutes in, and I couldn’t choke it back down until the movie’s final sequence. The premise is believable, and the characters are fleshed out with reality. Here’s a good example of how to scare people without any appeal to the supernatural.

Notable scene: Opening credits are an oft-neglected way to bring the viewer into the movie. They get a mention here not because the rest of the movie was bad but because the credits are just that good!

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples
(but you’ll feel like you’ve seen a helluva lot more)

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Take home order of Egg Fu-Yung

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Silent Hill

31Nights — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:48:57 +0000

Rating: ****.5 ( 4 and a half out of 5)
Year: 2006

Plot: A little girl’s somnambulistic adventures make mom (Radha Mitchell) fearful and frantic. She decides to take her daughter to the town she mentions while in her trances: Silent Hill. They do so against the advice of the locals, the commands of the police, and without the husband’s knowledge. Mom and daughter are separated upon arrival, and the rest of the movie is about her search to find her child. Is Rose (the mother) experiencing some sort of psychotic episode, or does the town of Silent Hill possess a demonic power to twists the nature of reality which it uses to force new-comers to hear it’s terrible tale? Here’s a hint, it’s the latter.

Review: Probably the best movie to come from a video game. The set design, color schemes, monster effects, pacing, sound design, and religious overtones combine for a permeating sense of creepy apprehension. The movie itself develops in much the same way that a video game would, with tasks that enable the pursuit of more advanced goals, the progressive release of background exposition, and even a cut sequence towards the end that feels very much like an end-of-the-game reward video. The movie makes use of a clever mechanism that allows the town to transition every 15 minutes or so between a simply creepy, off-putting ghost town and an out-and-out hell dimension. The protagonist’s journeys into the depths of that hell build to a panting crescendo that release the viewer at just the right moment. This is a movie I watch year after year.

Notable scene: Have you ever seen a man who wears a giant, metal, pyramidical helmet rip the skin from a human being as if it were a Little Debbie snack wrapper? Pretty wicked.

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Leftover cheeseburger patty and tofu scramble from The Grit in Athens, GA.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Wolfen

31Nights — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:38:20 +0000

Rating: * ( 1 out of 5)
Year: 1981

Plot: It’s a new take on the traditional werewolf mythology… Indians and wolves enjoyed a symbiotic utopia of tens of thousands of years, and then the white man came and started killing everything in sight. Some of the survivors of the genocide became a species of uber wolf (Wolfen) that inhabit American cities and thins the pack of human undesirables. And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for that laconic detective and his hip-hop sidekick (played by Edward James Olmos).

Review: An interesting idea that goes nowhere. For the first five minutes or so, I thought that I was in for an eerie, carefully executed thriller. I was wrong. The ‘killer’s eye view’ effect is simply regular film stock presented in negatives. It’s overused and quickly becomes annoying. Painstakingly and painfully slow pacing drags the movie to a crawl from the beginning. The cop’s relationship with the police department is nonsensical at best… as is his relationship with reality.

Notable scene: For the first 10 minutes of the A plot, the protagonist talks with food in his mouth. Why?

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples
(mostly of the full-frontal male cadaver variety)

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Super size Sonic Tots with chili, cheese, bacon, ranch and onions.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Turistas

31Nights — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:29:45 +0000

Rating: **** ( 4 out of 5)
Year: 2006

Plot: A guy and his sister are vacationing in Brazil when the tour bus driver sends his charge over the side of a cliff in the middle of nowhere. All the occupants escape, and the siblings partner up with a handful of other tourists and decide to pass the time until the next bus’ arrival at a picturesque beach bar. That night, they are drugged, and through an increasingly creepy series of events end up imprisoned at a black market organ farm.

Review: A masterfully crafted blend of “Hostel” and “The Cave”. The bodies and beaches of Brazil serve as delectable eye candy for the first act of the movie. Tension in the second act plays on our fears of isolation and xenophobia. The third act is a combination of claustrophobic cave diving and heart pounding chase sequences where the chasers are intent on harvesting the chasee’s most precious possessions: their organs! The previews make this movie seem like another of the recent crop of torture/exploitation films, but the film is executed with a reserved and careful hand. The violence is, for the most part, necessary to the plot and stays shy of the negatively connotative ‘gratuitous’.

Notable scene: There’s an especially visceral bit where the bad guy keeps his minions in line by popping a rogue’s eye out with a pencil. Icky.

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples
(prepare for the most absolutely bonable operation dummy that you’ve ever laid eyes on)

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Garlic bread dipped in special pizza sauce all the way from Nashville.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Made For TV)

31Nights — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:16:31 +0000

Rating: ***.5 ( 3 and a half out of 5)
Year: 1980

Plot: Icabod Crane comes to the teensy, snowy town of Sleepy Hollow to try out the job of schoolmaster. He discovers that the last 3 or 4 schoolmasters had all ‘gone strange’, but this fact doesn’t sway his empiricist’s attitude towards the town’s odd goings-on. He fancies Katrina Van Tassel, but Brom Bones is going to do everything in his power to prevent their union.

Review: This low-budget, made-for-tv version far surpasses Burton’s blockbuster. Jeff Goldblum is perfectly cast as the gangly, eccentric Icabod. Dick Butkus hams it up as the villain; it’s bad, but works well for the part. Despite a virtually non-existent budget, the writing is decent, some scenes are rather spooky, and the viewer is treated to fuller, more complex version of the story than he or she might be accustomed to.

Notable scene: You gotta love the stills played as the station comes out of commercial break… maniacal laughs and all!

Gore: Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: A slice of Butterfinger pie dropped into a melted pint of Mayfield’s “Cupcake” ice cream.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: . (No Wiki entry)

Phantasm

31Nights — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:11:46 +0000

Rating: ** ( 2 out of 5)
Year: 1979

Plot: A long haired kid who thinks that he’s cooler than he really is needs to convince his near retarded brother that the local mortuary is home to a bad “tall man” who can weave the fabric of reality into a hell dimension of his own making. He succeeds. Their plan? Go in there with shotguns.

Synopsis: There are a few things that make this film watchable. They spent money on the mortuary set, and it shows through in its creepiness. Some of the special effects and sound design show ingenuity. And that’s about it. Since Don Corcarelli wrote, produced, and directed this, he didn’t have a voice of sanity around to scream, “HOW ABOUT A MODICUM OF BELIEVABILITY!?” The script barely qualifies as human speech. The decisions made by the main characters are simply unintelligible. There are no ‘rules’ by which the bad guy operates, and there are plot holes big enough to drive an ice-cream truck through. Having said all that, the movie is worth a watch. The badness of the movie borders on cute, and will certainly evoke an incredulous chuckle or two.

Notable scene: The silver sentinels make for some fairly fearsome foes. How does one fight a high-speed, flying, four-inch ball-bearing equipped with blades and a brain drill? The MacGuyver sequence in which the kid breaks out of his room with a shotgun shell taped to the end of a hammer is worth a hoot too.

Gore: Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Little Ceasar’s Hot and Ready

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Poltergeist

31Nights — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:46:53 +0000

Rating: ****.5 ( 4 and a half out of 5)
Year: 1982

Plot: Daddy is a premiere real estate salesmen for Cuesta Verde development; so good, in fact, that he and his family get to live in one of the units. Problem is, when the community was built, the devs didn’t think it necessary to respect the dead people in the cemetery by not building houses on top of them. The ghoulies are pissed, and are salivating at the opportunity to take out their hostilities on the home’s current residents.

Review: Do you remember the good ol’ days when mom and dad smoked pot before going to bed, t.v. stations played the national anthem at the end of the day’s broadcast, and Stephen Speilburg had skill and integrity? Seems like a long time ago. Speilburg and director Tobe Hooper manage to take this 15 cent plot line and turn it into one of the most dynamic, intriguing, and terrifying horror flicks of all time. The completeness of the family’s backstory and the genuine nature of their interactions bring you in close to the action, giving you reason to care whether or not they are pulled into a hell dimension. With ahead-of-its-time special effects and a really creepy ghost hunter, you’ll find yourself holding your breath time and again. Craig T. Nelson also brings some acting chops that he must have left on the set before going on to star in “Coach”.

Notable scene: For those who haven’t seen it before, you’ll finally understand the oft-parodied lines, “They’re heeeeeere” and “This house is clear”.

Gore : Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: Mellow Mushroom pizza with pesto base, extra cheese, bacon and pepperoni on top.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

The Return of the Boogeyman

31Nights — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:43:07 +0000

Rating: “Phtbtbtbt!”
Year: 1994

Plot: Some random girl (Annie) has dreams and visions. A paper doll psychiatrist hypnotizes her with his inanity and she relives some new murders and the majority of the original film.

Review: You know the saying ‘you’re not even a has-been, you’re a never was!’? Well, this is a not even ‘straight-to-video’, but a ‘never-even-went-to-video’. Video tape yourself watching Boogeyman 1 and, apparently, you can make it in Hollywood… I write this as I’m watching it. That’s how uninterested I am. Most bad movies are at least good for a laugh, but sitting through this just makes me angry. It’s like forcing myself to watch the end of a game where my Bucs are down 49-0 at the end of the third quarter. An underestimation of the percentage of this film that is comprised of stock footage of the original “Boogeyman” would be 50. Much of it with either a play by play of the pictures on the screen or simply crappy music overlays. Another 30% of the film is a single 2 minute sequence played repeatedly and in slow motion. Some scenes are inexplicably in sepia-tone. Quizzical jump-cuts, inaudible conversation, and voiceovers abound. Seriously, this is quite possibly the worst movie I’ve ever seen.

Notable scene: The one that flashes back to the first movie (i.e. this movie)

Gore: Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples
(by the movie’s conclusion, you’ll be able to sketch them perfectly from memory alone)

Scariness: Screams
(nary a yipe)

Campiness: Donald Pleasances
(camp hasn’t started yet)

Creepiness: Cellar Doors
(yawn)

Munchy Suggestion: You’ll feel queasy and probably shouldn’t eat.

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: . It’s so bad that a wiki entry doesn’t exist!

Garfield Halloween/It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

31Nights — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:32:10 +0000

Coming soon.

The Boogeyman

31Nights — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 23:34:34 +0000

Rating: ***.5 ( 3 and a half out of 5)
Year: 1980

Review: Creepy. Weird. Bizarre. The movie opens on this horrifying milieu of pre-teen, incestuous voyeurism and and bondage. As any young lady with a head on her shoulders would do, the little daughter stabs daddy to death. It’s the kind of unsettling thing that makes the viewer think, “Jesus Christ! Where is this going next?” It’s a good thing too, because the next half hour is slow enough to be just boring without that added edgyness. Keep your guard up though! You’ll have to navigate through a HEAVILY EMPHASIZED mirrors theme, a killer glass slippers, a haunted eye-patch, and an exorcism. Good watch – gritty and nostalgic.

Notable scene: Do you constantly struggle to think of a way to combine the activities of making-out and prepping shish kabobs? After watching this movie, you won’t have to!

Gore: Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: A big bowl of Mayo, pickle, smoke-flavoring, pepper, and tuna (sounds a lot more gross in that order, doesn’t it?)

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Black Sheep

31Nights — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:24:53 +0000

Rating: ***** (5 out of 5)
Year: 2007

Review: Any film that insinuates a sexual relationship between a megalomaniac and an uber-sheep has to be good. And it’s likely to make you laugh… for one reason or another. Black sheep is one of the recent flock of horror movies for horror fans. Although it can be supercilious at times, director Jonathon King sells the goofy moments by going all out on plot and gore and effects. Full motion genetic monstrosities, a bitable penis, and an homage to the transformation scene from American Werewolf in Paris are all pulled off hitchlessly by WETA workshops (the same people who worked on Lord of the Rings and Revenge of the Sith). The pastoral New Zealand landscapes put a tried and true genre piece in a beautiful and new environment. And while the idea of granting innocuous creatures with the lust and capacity for brutal evil is not new, the finesse and skill with which it is executed is. I doubt I’ll watch another movie this good this year.

Notable scene: In a dress shirt, without pants, and smoking a cigarette, the evil brother laments, “You wouldn’t understand,” Then a sheep wonders through the frame. ‘nuf said.

Gore: Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples
(But probably not the kind you want to see.)

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: 1 Box Dark Chocolate Cookie Dough Bites

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Are You Scared?

31Nights — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:23:04 +0000

Rating: * (generously, 1 out of 5)
Year: 2006

Review: To answer the titular question: no (unless you’re talking about the prospect of a forced second viewing). With each word that angrily dribbles out of my fingers, the portion of my life wasted on this movie painfully increases. As a derivative Saw clone with the production budget that street-sweepers would scoff at, this piece of rubbish manages to fail on every measurable facet of movie making. Piss-poor acting, laughable writing, and back-yard sets moor this junker to the dock permanently. If the B storyline of the cop were a football, then it got fumbled early on and was intercepted and returned for a touchdown in the closing minutes.

Notable scene: Ending credits.

Gore: Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples
(get with it! If you’re going to have a movie this bad, at least turn it into a soft-core porn!)

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances
(Not even pleasantly bad.)

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

(But it’s not one cellar door – it’s just a slightly creepy door to a somewhat neglected bathroom in a mediocre McDonalds’.)

Munchy Suggestion: Leftover baklava from a recent Greek Food Festiva

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

976-EVIL

31Nights — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:03:28 +0000

Rating: **** (4 out of 5)
Year: 1989

Review: Another director of note starts off our second movie of the month: Robert Englund (aka Freddy Kreuger). I really wish that I had watched this the previous night; just what I was in the mood for! Its 1988 release date gives it that grainy nostalgic feeling with which movies from other decades simply can’t compare. The satanic powers of the horro-hotline are never really explained, but I think it was better that way. The kid who is the ostensible protagonist is a borderline sex-offender who would have been a trench coat mafia member in the 90s. The fact that he’s the one we’re routing for makes for an entirely disturbing viewing experience.

Notable Scene(s) :anything that involves the pneumatic tube system. What, did they build the house on an old, Indian curbside banking cemetery? Oh, and the random jump-cuts that truncate every other scene.

Gore: Buckets

Sex/Nudity:

a tumescent Nipples

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: 2 Original Cookie Company Double Doozies

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

31Nights — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:07:57 +0000

Rating: *** (3 out of 5)
Year: 1994

Review: Director Kenneth Branaough brings his Shakespearean flair to Mary Shelley’s classic tale. Everything about this movie is over the top. A simple kite-flying outing is set to the backdrop of some majestic Swiss Alps. The house that is one the main locations of the movie is the epitome of opulence. The acting is hammy and grandiose, and shots that call for blood have extra buckets on the ready. I think that Branough’s stage approach to the movie was one of those rare things that’s theoretically bad but works well in practice. The story is a bit stale and tried, but the gluttonous approach keeps the movie watch-able. A good way to start off the month.

Notable Scene: The monster rip’s Carter’s still beating heart out of her chest and presents it to her husband. When I think about what it would be like to see this happen to a loved one of mine, I can’t imagine a much more disturbing thing to witness.

Gore: Buckets

Sex/Nudity: Nipples
(no Helena Bonham Carter boobs, but a full five minutes of DeNiro phallus… wtf?)

Scariness: Screams

Campiness: Donald Pleasances

Creepiness: Cellar Doors

Munchy Suggestion: 2 Boxes Kroger brand spiral Mac and Cheese with fake eggs and extra cheese

For More: Information than you require about the flick, look here: or here: .

Welcome To Your October Horror Movie Viewing Schedule!

admin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:25:42 +0000

Do you plan out your Halloween costume months in advance? Have you seen enough horror movies that you can relate intimately to Jamie Kennedy’s character in Scream? If so, then you might appreciate this list I’ve compiled. Below you will find last year’s schedule, along with reviews, links to more information, and munchy suggestions from an artherosclerotic food-hound.

For a bit more information about how this list was compiled, check out the About page.

Now, on to the movies!