I had been waiting for some time to watch the WNUF Halloween Special. I'm a sucker for found footage, and this seemed to be playing up the "found" aspect to a T. It is presented as a lost Halloween newscast from Halloween night 1987 - complete with commercials, VHS dubbing effects, poor film quality and all. In order to promote it, the filmmakers actually left tapes around VHS conventions to be found. I was saving it for *The* Halloween movie this year. Unfortunately, I think I had psyched myself up too much for it. I was expecting "amazing" and instead got "pretty good."
The WNUF Halloween Special plays as if recorded on October 31st, 1987. We start off with a local newscast from a presumably smallish town. Our news anchors are dressed up in their Halloween costumes, giving us short stories about what is happening locally (the town is never called by name, if I recall) on Halloween night - police telling kids how to stay safe, dentists warning parents about the ills of eating too much candy, and the local religious groups rallying against Halloween. They also hype up the titular special, where reporter Frank Stewart (Paul Fahrenkopf) will be reporting live from the Weber house, which has been closed for 20+ years after a horrific crime - a man killed his parents there claiming to be possessed by the Devil. Stewart will be searching the house with two paranormal investigators, as well as a priest, to see if the local legends of hauntings are indeed true.
October 30th, 2014 - Devil's Messenger (1961)
Devil's Messenger is a short, sweet, and cheap little anthology from my 50 Tales of Terror budget set. I've always liked the idea of the horror anthology - some ideas are really not meant for full length feature films. And even if a story is terrible, it doesn't stick around long enough to be too offensive. Although if it's all terrible, anthologies can be even more of a slog than just a regular movie. Luckily, Devil's Messenger avoids being all terrible - really only one of the three is outright bad.
The framing device is actually my favorite part of this one. It starts at the Gates of Hell (or more like, Low-budget-Hell - I think the rocks in the back are just blankets tossed over a frame of some sort), where Lon Chaney Jr. is collecting a paycheck playing the gatekeeper of Hell. I'm not up on my Christian mythology, but does St. Peter have an *eeeeevil* counter part? But basically, he's just checking names and sending people to a bottomless pit, where actual (i.e. more expensive looking) Hell is hidden away from us, the viewer.
The framing device is actually my favorite part of this one. It starts at the Gates of Hell (or more like, Low-budget-Hell - I think the rocks in the back are just blankets tossed over a frame of some sort), where Lon Chaney Jr. is collecting a paycheck playing the gatekeeper of Hell. I'm not up on my Christian mythology, but does St. Peter have an *eeeeevil* counter part? But basically, he's just checking names and sending people to a bottomless pit, where actual (i.e. more expensive looking) Hell is hidden away from us, the viewer.
October 29th, 2014 - Dead Silence (2007)
This one is always remembered as "the time the Saw guy tried to make a scary doll movie." And I suppose that is kind of accurate. It is from James Wan, and it does have a scary ventriloquist dummy. But it would appeal more to people who are fans of simple ghost stories, rather than people who are fans of haunted dolls (are there those people?). Ultimately, it is much more of a ghost story along the lines of Wan's Insidious rather than a killer doll movie like Devil Doll or Magic. No dolls yelling or chasing people around here - maybe just moving their eyes and turning their heads.
I remember hearing that Wan just wanted to make an atmospheric ghost story, but then the studio pressured him into making it a bit more violent and visually shocking, so they could get an R-rating and say "from the director of Saw." So in that respect, I think Dead Silence is really kind of a test run for Wan's more successful future films like Insidious and The Conjuring. It's almost like he's learning how to build tension here - Saw showed he knew how to direct a film, but the tension there was more out of the threat of violence rather than the threat of the unknown. Some of the scare scenes here are extremely effective, but just about everything else didn't really work for me.
I remember hearing that Wan just wanted to make an atmospheric ghost story, but then the studio pressured him into making it a bit more violent and visually shocking, so they could get an R-rating and say "from the director of Saw." So in that respect, I think Dead Silence is really kind of a test run for Wan's more successful future films like Insidious and The Conjuring. It's almost like he's learning how to build tension here - Saw showed he knew how to direct a film, but the tension there was more out of the threat of violence rather than the threat of the unknown. Some of the scare scenes here are extremely effective, but just about everything else didn't really work for me.
October 28th, 2014 - Rawhead Rex (1986)
I've gotten into Clive Barker's short stories recently, so I was pretty stoked to see Rawhead Rex. Apparently, it's a pretty tough to find (legally). It's not available on any of the big sites, and the DVD is selling for over $100.00 on Amazon. Is it worth that much? Well, I don't know if any movie really is... but despite its short comings (of which there were several), it was still a pretty enjoyable monster flick with some progressive politics and a good sense of humor.
Incidentally, my copy was a VHS that I picked up maybe 10 years ago. It's funny, after a month of watching horror movies, the most startled I've been was from this VHS tape. The last person to have it was *not* kind and did *not* rewind, so I had to do it. I try to avoid doing so (I feel my VCR is fragile and don't even know how to replace it if it breaks), but what can you do. So I started the rewind, and it was loud, but fine for a minute or so. Then, as it got to the end of the tape, it got louder and more squealy - like in a horror movie where the music (usually strings) just keep getting more chaotic and higher pitched to ratchet up the tension? And then it hit the end of the tape with a bang. It was super loud - way more vicious than I've heard from this machine before. It made me exclaim "shit!" out loud, and made my heart race a bit. Good jump scare, VCR! (I think something was wrong with that part of the tape, because there were some visual problems in the first 20 minutes of the film). Cool story, huh?
October 27th, 2014 - The Vampires Night Orgy (1974)
The Vampires Night Orgy has a pretty misleading title. Not to get all horndog on you, but you figure that a mid-70's Vampire movie with "orgy" in the title is going to be a little sexually charged. But not here - you've got a peeper, a little bit of nudity, and that's about it. It must be going along with the classic definition of orgy - per freedictionary.com: uncontrolled or immoderate indulgence in an activity. In this case, the activity is the killing of a bus load of people traveling through the Spanish (I think) countryside.
Also, the grammatical vagueness and the lack of an apostrophe in the title is getting to me. Is it an orgy on the night of the vampires? Is it a night orgy involving vampires? Inquiring minds want to know! It is listed on the box (50 Tales of Terror) as Vampire's Night Orgy, which kind of makes sense - it is the Night Orgy of at least one Vampire. On imdb, it is listed as The Vampires' Night Orgy, which is probably the best (it's the Night Orgy of several Vampires) but looks stupid. In the movie itself it is listed as The Vampires Night Orgy, which I've been thinking about for several days (seriously) and am having trouble unpacking. I'm a bad English Major. But I've already spent too much time on thinking about this movie that was just passable at best.
Also, the grammatical vagueness and the lack of an apostrophe in the title is getting to me. Is it an orgy on the night of the vampires? Is it a night orgy involving vampires? Inquiring minds want to know! It is listed on the box (50 Tales of Terror) as Vampire's Night Orgy, which kind of makes sense - it is the Night Orgy of at least one Vampire. On imdb, it is listed as The Vampires' Night Orgy, which is probably the best (it's the Night Orgy of several Vampires) but looks stupid. In the movie itself it is listed as The Vampires Night Orgy, which I've been thinking about for several days (seriously) and am having trouble unpacking. I'm a bad English Major. But I've already spent too much time on thinking about this movie that was just passable at best.
October 26th, 2014 - Frightmare (1974)
There are apparently several movies called Frightmare. I guess it's an easy pun - apparently there are a bunch of episodes of TV shows that go by the name too. There was one a.k.a Horror Star from 1983 (per imdb: "Drama students decide to pay tribute to their favorite horror star by stealing his body from his crypt for a farewell party." Presumably horrific shenanigans ensue.) Another a.k.a. Paranoid from 2000 ("A group of high school seniors put on a haunted house to raise money... when 3 people are killed, they hunt for a serial killer before the haunted house is shut down.") The one I watched for today is a.k.a Cover Up, and is about a crazy cannibal woman and her estranged family. Odd that not even one is about dreaming, but I guess Frightmare is generic enough. Oddly enough, there is no Frighttime or Nightscare...
October 25th, 2014 - The Gingerdead Man (2005)
"I was really expecting to be blown away and spiritually moved by the drama, intensity, and relatable characters in Gingerdead Man."
- no one, ever.
It's called Gingerdead Man, and it's about a killer's spirit who magically inhabits a gingerbread cookie/bad hand-puppet. That should be ample warning right there. I appreciate that it tells you how terrible it is within the title - no hidden agendas here.
To be fair, this was a very late night inebriated watch for me. Which might be the only way to do it, really. So take that into consideration. But it was not a terrible way to kill an hour (60 minute run time! Plus a full 10 for credits). In fact, it might be the best murderous cookie movie to date! Watch out Snickerdoodle Slayer and Some Other Cookie/Murder-related Puns.
- no one, ever.
It's called Gingerdead Man, and it's about a killer's spirit who magically inhabits a gingerbread cookie/bad hand-puppet. That should be ample warning right there. I appreciate that it tells you how terrible it is within the title - no hidden agendas here.
To be fair, this was a very late night inebriated watch for me. Which might be the only way to do it, really. So take that into consideration. But it was not a terrible way to kill an hour (60 minute run time! Plus a full 10 for credits). In fact, it might be the best murderous cookie movie to date! Watch out Snickerdoodle Slayer and Some Other Cookie/Murder-related Puns.
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