The Double Feature: Evil Twinning

Aahhhh…The Double Feature…

It all started with The Creature Double Feature on channel 56…

 I’d hear what I now know is the song “Toccata” by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and I knew what was going to happen…

Four hours of mega monster mash-up mayhem.

The next evolution of the double feature came when I was going to see a movie at the Loews Copley Place Theatre…

There were long snaking hallways with doors leading to the various theaters on the left and the right…

Pulling off the Movie Hopping Double Feature was a breeze.

 Finally, it has evolved into sitting on the couch on a Friday or a Saturday with my best friend…

And watching two movies back-to-back, from our favorite genre…

Horror.

 I want to honor the tradition that began with the movie monster mash-ups, and give you two great tastes that taste great together…

This time around, it’s…

Evil Twinning.

The Other (1972) – This movie that aired on network TV, all the time in the late 70’s, was directed by Robert Mulligan (To Kill A Mockingbird)…It disturbed me…A lot…I spent the remainder of my childhood afraid of twin boys…I was completely convinced that this film illustrated what must be a universal formula where twins are concerned…The twins here are Niles and Holland, and they are the Yin and Yang kind of twins, one good…And one not so much…It is a spooky flick that keeps the tension up, as the not so good deeds of one of the twins continue to escalate…It is a slice of gothic Americana that colorfully subdues the audience at times…You get swept up in the innocence of rural America in the 30’s…Until that last act…That’s when the serious pants-shitting happens…As the viewer unravels the fact that one of the twins is actually dead, but to the other twin is a living breathing part of his life still…That’s when we start to question not only the sanity of the child, but what he might actually be capable of. 

 

Goodnight Mommy (2014) – This Austrian film came into my life after I had about four decades to recover from my traumatic twin experience with The Other…Let me tell you folks…I found out the hard way, that it wasn’t nearly enough time…The twins here are Elias and Lukas, and they are kind of Yin and Yang at first, but as the darker forces of Lukas begin to have a greater influence on Elias…It’s all Yin and Yin from there on…As with The Other, One of these twins is no longer with us…Well, most of us…For Elias, his twin brother Lukas never went anywhere…And once again, once the audience realizes this fact, our trust in the sanity or actions of Elias come into question…The tension ratchets up notch by notch in this one, too…But the claustrophobic confinement that not only the country home, but the twins themselves create causes that tension to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck…I found myself wanting to know the truth…And then immediately regretting that foolish fact-finding mission…And ultimately I spent the final act…Just wanting it all to stop.

 

Both of these films contain a similar theme of one good twin, one bad twin…

 

Both of these films contain a similar theme of one living twin, one dead twin…

 

Both of these films contain a similar theme of a family torn apart by tragic loss…

 

Both of these films contain a similar theme of that tragic loss being so devastating to the surviving twin, that they become forever changed by it…

 

Both of these films contain a similar theme of a twin, who once forever changed, begins to destroy the world around him…

 

Both of these films contain a similar theme of royally fucking me up…

 

So badly that, in the case of The Other where it took me almost forty years to be okay again…

 

It will take forty more to heal the re-opened wounds caused by Goodnight Mommy…

 

And yes…I am officially scared shitless of young twin boys again.

 

Frightday Night Film Recommendations: Globe-Rotters

It’s Friday…

Ahem…I mean Frightday…

And I have some recommendations for you to enjoy this weekend…

Okay…This Frightday’s theme is…

Globe-Rotters.

Or…Zombie Movies from around the globe.

People from all over the world are united in their love of zombies…

 

And it could even be said that the love of zombies brings our world closer together…

 

Aaahh…Rotting corpses that ramble around eating people…

 

The Great Unifier.

 

Ever since I saw Lucio Fulci’s 1979 Italian classic Zombi 2, where a zombie has an underwater battle with a shark, I knew that we here in the states didn’t corner the market on love of zombie movies…

 

So, let’s take a chronological look at the best, most underrated, and possibly even unknown to you, Globe-Rotters, or zombie movies from around the world in the years following Zombi 2.

 

Versus (2000) – Here’s a film that throws an ass-load of genres together in a pot, stirs it up, and serves it up…Piping hot…Starts out as a 10th Century Samurai film…Transforms into a Yakuza gun-frenzy and martial arts action movie…Then becomes a straight-up zombie film as an all out war with the undead breaks out…But then…Get ready…Then, it becomes a sci-fi mindbender about reincarnation and supernatural forces that exist in the realm of man…This one comes from Japan, and is one of the most unique zombie flicks out there.

 

Dead Meat (2004) – Here’s a zombie film that comes from Ireland…It tells the tale of how Mad Cow Disease turned humans into hungry hordes of the undead…It has a low budget feel that in a weird way reminded me of the original Night of the Living Dead…It was grittier and less polished…But thankfully their low budget somehow accounted for some really good practical special effects…

Like my buddy here…I call him, Ol’ Shovelhead…

One of my favorites.

 

Black Sheep (2006) – This film comes from the beautliful island nation of New Zealand…Now The Speirig Brothers created the classic zombie film, Undead from this country in 2003, but I have recommended it so many times, I didn’t think it was right to do it again…Although my love for that film is greater than this one, this one does something super-special too…The zombies in this one…They’re sheep…That’s right…Sheep…I don’t think I need to say another word…Well, maybe just one more…Sheep!

 

REC (2007) – This is the Spanish film that inspired an almost immediate remake here in the states with the movie, Quarantine…This is found footage done right, folks…For me, found footage has to make at least some sense…You know what I mean?…When you’re sitting there saying – “Why the hell is he or she still filming?” It just doesn’t make sense, and then it pulls you out of the film…So in this one, it’s a reporter and a cameraman who are documenting the outbreak…And for me, that makes sense…A cameraman will keep filming…They will keep viewing the world through that lens of theirs…It’s what they do.

Dead Snow (2008) – This one is Norwegian…Originally titled,  Død Snø, it is the classic tale of a bunch of whippersnappers on vacation, in a cabin in the woods…Except that it’s freezing cold…The ground is covered in snow…And the woods are filled with…Um…Well…How do I put this…Nazi zombies…Apparently, regular zombies weren’t frightening enough, so director Tommy Wirkola made them Nazis…This campy and delightfully gory entry was not only well received by fans of the genre, but critics as well…So much so that it spawned a bigger budget sequel in 2014.

 

Pontypool (2008) – This one comes from Canada…And yes…Canada is in fact another country…It is one of the most slow-burning and unique zombie flicks that I’ve ever laid eyes upon…It is an isolated, and intelligent story that was deep and extremely compelling…Creepy Stephen McHattie was perfect as the aging shock-jock who helps to unravel just what the hell is going on…Oh man, just wait until you find out how the zombie virus is transmitted…Original is an absolute understatement.

 

The Horde (2009) This French zombie film, released as, La Horde and it tells the tale of the zombie apocalypse by way of juxtaposition…Here we have a squad of rogue cops who storm a high rise all Raid: Redemption style to confront the gang of drug-dealing criminals who murdered a cop…When the shit hits the fan, and the cops get caught by the cop killers…It looks like the cops are done for…And that’s when the shit really hits the fan…A horde of super-strong zombies show up, and these two groups go from foes to frenemies, like that (snapping fingers)…They form an uneasy alliance in an attempt to bring down the more threatening threat.

 

Rammbock: Berlin Undead (2010) – This is a German zombie film…It is also one of the most claustrophobic zombie films I have ever seen, except maybe Stalled, which took place almost entirely in a public restroom stall…The story that’s told here is about sad sack Michael, who after a recent dumping by Gabi, has returned to her apartment to return her keys…He ends up getting trapped there during a zombie outbreak with Harper, a young plumber’s assistant…It is a cool perspective on a zombie apocalypse, one where you’ve barricaded yourself in your ex-girlfriends apartment, and you’re more concerned with using her silverware as a weapon, than the zombies themselves.

 

Juan of the Dead (2010) – This one is a joint production from both Spain and Cuba…Originally titled, Juan de los Muertos this film, which is set in Cuba, tells the tale of Juan, a 40 year old do-nothing, who decides to try and capitalize on the zombie apocalypse…Now the zombie films of the master, George A. Romero, always had a subversive political undertone…Hell, sometimes it wasn’t an undertone at all, it reached through the screen and punched you right in the face…This film falls into the latter category…With a band of misfit, unlikeable, anti-heroes in the lead roles, I found myself picking up all sorts of social commentary along the way…In a way it reminded me of the iconoclastic films of Korean director, Joon-ho Bong.  

 

 

Throwback Thursday: Brain Damage

So there’s a talking blue turd-worm in your sink…

Guess there’s only one thing to do about it…

Let him inject drugs directly into your brainstem, of course.

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

Brain Damage (1988) – This warped late 80’s yarn comes from writer/director Frank Henenlotter, the man who a few years earlier created the cult classic, Basket Case…In this one, he opens a window into the long and bizarre life of Aylmer, a slightly phallic, host-hopping, brain-noshing, drug-dealing, parasitic creature…Aylmer gets tired of eating cold calf brains from a Jewish deli, bails on his roomates, Morris and Martha…

Moves down the hall…

And finds Brian…

Aylmer injects his extremely euphoric, highly hallucinogenic, accutely addictive drug directly into Brian’s medula oblangata…A gift that he trades with Brian in return for field trips outside to find Aylmer some fresh food…

Their first field trip takes them to a junkyard…

And Aylmer grabs a snack from the nightwatchman’s noggin.

During their next field trip, Brian tries to go out to dinner with his girlfriend…

Mmmmm…Spaghetti and Brainballs, anyone?

After abandoning his plate of pulsating brains, Brian wanders into a night club…

In his drug-fueled fugue state…

He meets a girl and wanders out into the back alley with her…

 

And if you were thinking that Aylmer looked a bit too phallic before…

 

How ’bout now?

 

On a side note…

This film received the award for Scariest Oral Sex Scene…

A title held by The World According to Garp for six years…

 

On a lighter note…

Their next field trip puts them on a train, where they run into…

Hey look!…It’s Duane and his Basket-O-Brother from the film Basket Case…

One of the best nods to an earlier film…Ever.

 

On a more serious note…

This film did more for the war on drugs in the 80’s, than Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign…

I mean, seriously…

Look at what happens to Brian in this flick…

He spirals out of control…

He can’t remember anything from the night before…

He is losing family and friends…

Shit, minus the scenes containing nudity, violence, gore, and of course the chick fellating a blue turd-worm…This would make a great After School Special!

It could be called…

My Brother Has a Monkey On His Back, and a Blue Turd Worm On His Neck.

This is a movie that is sexually charged in a very bizarre way…

 

This is a movie that is unabashedly and surprisingly anti-drug…

 

This is a movie that perfectly illustrates the loss of control in addiction…

 

This is a movie that is completely comfortable with it’s twisted sense of humor…

 

This is a movie that is most definitely…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

Emelie (2015)- A Solitary Film Recommendation

A Solitary Film Recommendation?

What in the Wide, Wide World of Sports is going on around here?

Hey folks…

There’s a reason why this is the only evil babysitter movie out there…

 

Because, it just might be the scariest damn thing imaginable…

 

I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking it too…

 

There must have been another film about an evil babysitter…

 

No…Not her…

She was a nanny, not a babysitter…

 

And …

So was she…

 

And…

I’m afraid…She too, was a nanny…

If you are a parent, then I must tell you…

Films like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, The Omen, and The Guardian will scare you…

But remember…

Nannies are interviewed…

They have references…

They are vetted…

Hell, you can even find out what other parents say about them on Angie’s List…

But there’s something fucked up about letting a random teenager into your home to care for your children…

 

A complete stranger…

 

Oh man…

That’s already scary enough…

And thanks to this director, and the film he created…

It just got a whole lot scarier.

 

Emelie (2015) – This is the feature film debut of director, Michael Thelin a man who bravely travelled into uncharted territory…This brave bastard tells us the story about a mother and father who are on their way out to celebrate their thirteenth wedding anniversary…They have three beautiful children all with very individual and very distinct personalities…

Dad heads out to pick up the new babysitter…

We the audience already know that the babysitter is not who she claims to be…And we know that she is bad news…But how bad?…To what extent?…Aww geez guys, don’t ask…

For now…

Just watch the trailer…

 

Even if you aren’t a parent, this film will still horrify you…

Because, generally speaking…

It’s the underlying theme of the majority of all horror films…

An innocent, incapable, and inexperienced protagonist…

Frightened and tormented by a malevolent, capable, and experienced antagonist…

 

And you don’t have to be a parent to be distraught by the horrifying thought of the unatural, unnecessary, and untimely loss of these children’s innocence…

 

Let me tell you, folks…

 

What she puts these children through is traumatic…

It’s disturbing…

It’s unsettling…

Oh Hell…

I can’t believe I’m recommending that you watch it…

And not because it wasn’t a good film…

Because it is one of the best horror films that I have seen this year…

No, I can’t believe that I am recommending a film that royally fucked me up…

Um…

In a…

Good way?

 

 

Directors Cut: John Carpenter

The apostrophe was not forgotten…It was omitted. 

This is not a place where we look at the remastered, extended editions originally intended by filmmakers, commonly called a Director’s Cut…

This is instead a place to celebrate the filmography of a director…

 Who either cut their teeth on horror films…

Or took a random stab at them with resonating success…

The cutting-edge masters of years past…

On the other side of the globe…

Or in years to come.

 Now, I have found (the occasional dud notwithstanding), that in the unreliable world of watching horror movies, any advantage in the search for a good one is well received. When a director proves themselves to the audience by creating a horror classic, they also create a fanbase. A fanbase, that buys tickets and home video for everything that director’s name is attached to.

 

So let’s take a chronological look at every damn thing John Carpenter has ever directed…Some of them you may have seen…Some you may not…But buddy, you definitely should.

 

 

 Dark Star (1974) – This was originally  a student film, and the first film to be released theatrically by John Carpenter. Fellow USC classmate Dan O’Bannon, wrote the screenplay for this, and such classics as, Alien, Dead and Buried, Lifeforce, Total Recall, and Return of The Living Dead. The film was marketed as a serious sci-fi film, and anyone who has seen it, knows that it doesn’t have a serious bone in it’s body…The intense and gripping scenes where O’Bannon’s character, Pinback is being chased around the ship by a beach ball with clawed flippers, should let you know what you’re dealing with…It is a snarky, sardonic, send-up of space operas like 2001: A Space Odyssey…I mean it’s actually funny…I absolutely lost my shit when Doolittle had a philosophical debate about existentialism with an artificially intelligent bomb.

Here’s Doolittle waxing philosophical with the bomb…

 

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) – With nods to movies like Rio Bravo, and Night of the Living Dead, this film was snubbed here in the U.S., loved in the U.K., then we woke up, and loved it here, finally…A cult classic action film with a great script full of ballsy, smart-assed, strong-willed dialogue, a tension building score, and vivid visuals, brought to us by one incredible artist. Carpenter truly set the tone for the rest of his film career…He is fearless, and dedicated, and of course…Willing to shoot a cute little girl while she’s bitching about getting the wrong kind of ice cream…The more times I watch this film, the more of a classic it becomes…One of my all time favorite action movies.

Maybe you should’ve been content with vanilla, kid…

 

 

Someone’s Watching Me! (1978) – Also known as High Rise, this TV movie aired in 1978 on NBC, and stars Lauren Hutton as Leigh Michaels, a woman who moves to L.A. after a breakup…She befriends Sophie, played by Carpenter’s former real-life squeeze, Adrienne Barbeau, a co-worker at the television station where she just got hired…Can I just say?…Carpenter’s writing in this is progressive as hell…The two friends not only discuss openly the fact that Sophie is a lesbian, but they even discuss the social dynamics involved…Did I mention that this aired on network television in 1978?…Anyway…This  is a classic stalker story, before laws against stalkers had been written. Forced to deal with this torturous harassment on her own, Leigh shows the tough as nails aspect of her personality, known to be ever-present in a number of Carpenter’s female characters.

Oh…So someone’s actually watching her?…That explains the title.

 

 

Halloween (1978) – Hands down, not only the most well known John Carpenter film, but his most well received film, as well. This film basically created the slasher genre, while at the same time setting the bar so high for it’s slasher successors, that the mold was pretty much broken…If you don’t know anything about this film…Two things…

1) Glad you crawled out from the rock you’ve been under for almost four decades…

And…2) Watch the damn thing.

What do you want to be for Halloween, Mikey?…A clown? 

Hey, parents of Michael Myers…That was your first clue.

 

 

Elvis (1979) – Now, I saw this as a kid, on ABC…Didn’t care much about Elvis, but watched it with the family (Back then the one TV in the house, stayed on whatever channel your parents wanted)…Re-watched it recently….Still don’t care much about Elvis…But…One very important thing happened in this well made biopic with a great performance by Russell as The King…Kurt Russell met John Carpenter. Russell up to this point had been a Disney actor, relegated to spending his twenties grabbing various TV roles…Two years after meeting Carpenter though, the two would join forces to create a character that couldn’t be further from his Disney persona.

Kurt’s not Plissken yet…But he’s finding his inner bad-ass nonetheless…

 

 

The Fog (1980) – A classic tale of “We Reap What We Sow”…The citizens of Antonio Bay are preparing for their centennial celebration…And in honor of this milestone, the boat full of lepers that they murdered and robbed 100 years ago have come back for some recompense. This is a dark, creepy and karma-friendly ghost story…And one thing I love about Carpenter’s ghost stories, is they’re never these ethereal, wispy spirits with a penchant for jumping out of closets…Nope…When his ghosts want to physically hurt you…Man, lemme tell ya…They will fuck you up.

Huh…So you were scared of them when they were just lepers?…

Man, I love irony…

 

 

Escape from New York (1981) – As I previously mentioned, Kurt Russell playing Elvis with Carpenter at the helm was setting the stage for this momentous occasion…The birth of Snake Plissken, the real King…Sorry Elvis…But in this futuristic tale of a time when the island of Manhattan has been walled off, and is being used as a penitentiary…The president has been kidnapped and is being held somewhere within those walls…And the only person able but not too willing to save him is former Special Forces and current criminal by the afforementioned name of Snake Plisken…Hands down the biggest of the big-screen badasses.

The King of Badassery…

 

 

The Thing (1982)- This one is a reimagining of the Howard Hawks classic, The Thing from Another World…In Carpenter’s version, the team at an American research station in the arctic witness a neighboring Norwegian team flying above them in a helicopter, chasing and firing at a dog…This act results in a ton of research into the why of the helicopter vs. dog chase…And that’s when we realize that the dog is just a Xerox copy of a dog…A malicious alien that can take the form of any mammal that it comes in contact with…That’s when the real crux of the film rears its ugly head…Not the alien…The paranoia that comes from not trusting your fellow man. One of the best alien invasion movies that I have ever seen.

If you like practical effects…

Rob Bottin’s work here is incredible…

 

 

Christine (1983) – In the 80’s, there were a handful of amazing Stephen King adaptations…This was one of ’em…It tells the tale of teen angst…Of what being on the receiving end of bullying can do to your psyche…And how transformative of an experience it can be when you get your first car…

Especially when it’s possessed…

And it’s turning you into kind of a dick…

Shitters beware.

 

This scene was years before CGI…

But somehow…The car fixing itself effects still hold up…

 

 

Starman (1984) – This one is the E.T. for grown-ups…It’s the story of a kind-hearted and benevolent being from another world, who takes the form of a woman’s deceased husband…Karen Allen plays the recently widowed, Jenny…And Jeff Bridges stars as the Starman…The story is a touching one…We the viewer see more of what’s gone missing from humanity from an entity that is not even of our Earth. The most poignant of these scenes, is when Starman brings a recently killed deer back to life, much to shit-kicking chagrin of the hunters who did the killing.

I never should have asked him to put the porch light on…

 

 

Big Trouble in Little China (1986) – It’s really hard for me to pick my top three favorite Carpenter films…It would be even harder to pick my favorite…But with both the gun to your head, and the deserted island scenarios in place, I might have to pick this one to take with me to the island…Plus a shit-ton of peanut butter…What? It’s survival food, folks…Anyway, this one brings Russell and Carpenter together again to create another memorable hero…Much like Plisken and MacReady…Jack Burton is the bad-ass you want standing next to when the shit hits the old fan…Much like a technicolor acid trip version of The Raiders of the Lost Ark, this flick has a coolness factor that is off the freakin’ charts.

I know…I know…

Sometimes you have to let off a little steam…

 

 

Prince of Darkness (1987) – In my humble opinion, this is the best film about the devil ever made…Here’s why…The cast is primarily made of up some very scientific-minded scholars…Their skepticism mirrors that of the audience, so when the group one by one, experience by experience, begin to believe the demonic elements of this story…We the audience begin to suspend our disbelief, as well…Look out for Alice Cooper as a demonic homeless person in this one.

If Satan’s homeless zombies had a King…

Makes sense to me that’d be Alice Cooper…

 

 

They Live (1988) – “I’ve come to kick ass and chew bubble gum…And I’m all out of bubble gum.” This classic line was not in the script, but was a moment of epic genius improv by the late, great Rowdy Roddy Piper…Anyone who thought that casting a WWF wrestler in a lead role meant that John Carpenter had lost his mind, clearly never saw this flick…This counter-culture, anti-Reagan, anti-conformity tale has a subversive alien species from another world that has infiltrated our society by blending in…With the help of some kick-ass Ray-Ban knock-offs, Rowdy Roddy can see through not only the facades that the aliens are wearing, but the subliminal messages they’ve planted in every aspect of our media.

This epic fight scene…

Lasts six freakin’ minutes…

 

 

Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) – This is not your typical John Carpenter film…It’s not John Carpenter’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man…The script is not written by him…He didn’t compose the score…It is a big budget Warner Bros. release, that was initially meant for director Ivan Reitman, but due to disagreements between he and Chevy Chase, he backed out… Carpenter knew what he was getting into…He said Warner Bros “is in the business of making audience-friendly, non-challenging movies.” This film was advertised as a comedy, but it wasn’t funny…Instead you will have to cling to the very well done invibility effects that Carpenter brought to the screen.

These are the effects I was talking about…

 

 

 

Body Bags (1993) – Carpenter tapped into his inner Crypt Keeper in this one, as host to and creator of, a bad-ass horror anthology…Initially planned to be a series on Showtime, but sadly, the network scrapped the idea…Damn them…Carpenter directed the first two segments, The Gas Station, which tells the tale of a young woman who while working her first night at a gas station is tormented by an escaped serial killer…The second segment, Hair…Has Stacy Keach as a man obsessed with his waning hairline and gets a possessed hair transplant…The final segment The Eye, was directed by Tobe Hooper, and starred Mark Hamill…Keep an eye peeled for all of the horror guru cameos in this one.

Carpenter is a lot funnier than the Crypt Keeper, too…

 

 

In the Mouth of Madness (1994) – This film pays homage to H.P. Lovecraft…Not only is the title a play on his novella, At the Mountains of Madness, but it also dives head first into the realm of insanity, as does Lovecraft’s work  on a regular basis…The writer who alters the reality here is named Sutter Cane…Homage is also paid to Stephen King as well…This is one you either love or hate…Typically, if you are a huge Carpenter fan, you will most likely fall under the love category.

Looks like he’s a huge Carpenter fan…

 

 

Village of the Damned (1995) – Carpenter always says that this is the one film that he has directed that he was not passionate about…And sadly, the subsequent side effect from that, is that we the audience weren’t all that passionate about it either…Course it was fun to watch Mark Hamill as a preacher on the edge of madness…

Here’s ol’ Reverend George now…What’s that you got there, Reverend?…

Oh, it’s a sniper rifle, you say?…Okay then, see ya on Sunday.

 

 

Escape from L.A. (1996) – With his passion for a project rejuvenated, Carpenter created what he refers to as the better of the two Snake Plissken films…Say what you will about it…It’s gotta be pretty freakin’ hard creating a sequel to a cult classic…But you did hear me say that Snake Plissken’s in it, right? Because frankly, that’s all I needed to hear.

Here’s our boy, Bruce Campbell…

Barely recognizable in his role of Surgeon General of Beverly Hills…

 

 

Vampires (1998) – It’s a vampire-western, man…A band of brutal vampires battle against a band of brutal vampire slayers in this very Carpenter-esque tale of good vs. evil…James Woods is awesome as Jack Crow, the leader of the slayers…And Thomas Ian Griffith is equally awesome as Jan Valek, the leader of the vamps…I dig this one…After Escape from L.A. there were rumors that Carpenter was quitting the biz…So glad he didn’t.

These guys gear up for killing vampires…

Like Rick Grimes and Co. gear up for killing zombies…

 

 

Ghosts of Mars (2001) – Originally designed to be a Snake Plissken film called, Escape from Mars…The studio did not want another box office failure like they got with Escape from L.A., so they changed the main character to Desolation Williams, and forced the casting of Ice Cube…Regardless of the fact that Carpenter felt even more burnt out at this point in his career…There are still a ton of things that work in this twisted little sci-fi horror film…Cube was even more of a bad-ass than Statham…And Natasha Henstridge was more of a bad-ass than both of them.

Sorry fellas…

The GWAR concert has been cancelled.

Masters of Horror – Season One, Episode Eight – “Cigarette Burns” (2005) – Starring Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead) as Kirby Sweetman, a man who has a knack for acquiring rare films…The film in question La Fin Absolue du Monde upon its premiere caused its audience to break out in a homicidal riot…The cause for the reaction is explained by revealing not only the existence of, but the brutal mutilation of…An angel.

Here’s our boy, Norman Reedus…

All clean and fresh faced…Pre-Daryl Dixon.

 

Masters of Horror – Season Two, Episode Five – “Pro-Life” (2006) – A bunch of gun-toting rednecks are trying to protect their sisters baby from being aborted by a bunch of godless liberals…It’s a fun tale of irony…The male members of a family, who are adamantly anti-abortion…Fight to save the life of a child…The child they are fighting for, may not be a child at all…It is one of my favorite episodes from this shortlived but amazing television series.

And the results are in…

Satan…You ARE the father.

 

 

The Ward (2010) – As a self proclaimed John Carpenter super-fan, there is no excuse for why I waited so long to see this movie…Perhaps I was waiting because after a big screen hiatus that has lasted six years and counting, I was afraid that this might have been his last effort…If this sadly is the final entry into the epic Carpenter Canon…Well then, at least it was another worthwhile addition to the list. Amber Heard (All The Boys Love Mandy Lane), plays Kristen, a girl whose mysterious past slowly unfolds while institutionalized in a place that holds unfolding mysteries of it’s own. In this psychiatric hospital, both the natural and the supernatural forces at work will fill the viewer with a palpable tension and a potent sense of dread. Top-notch performances from not only Kristen’s fellow patients, but the menacing Cuckoo’s Nest style staff as well. Carpenter’s visuals are here in full effect…But I must admit…I missed him as the composer…Nothing really wrong with the score here, just that it wasn’t Carpenter.

 Like I’ve always said…

 Carpenter’s ghosts…Are not to be fucked with.

 

 

 

Frightday Night Film Recommendations: Ghost Stories

It’s Friday…

Ahem…I mean Frightday…

And I have some recommendations for you to enjoy this weekend…

Okay…This Frightday’s theme is…

Ghost Stories.

This week’s Throwback Thursday Classic, was Ghost Story…

 

So let’s stay right there, shall we?

Ghost Story gave me very high standards for horror movies where ghosts are the antagonists…

It has to be more than the wispy semi-visible apparitions floating through the attic that inhabit most haunted horror films…

You’ve got to give me more…

Some parts of ghost stories can be a wee bit on the boring side…

Oh look…Someone stacked up the furniture.

 

But other parts of those same ghost stories…

Can scare the ever-loving shit out of you.

 

Let’s take a chronological look at the best, scariest, and possibly even unknown to you, Ghost Stories that you may not have seen…But should.

House (1986) – Okay…This is a fun 80’s ghost story about Roger Cobb, a horror writer who wants to disappoint his rabid fans by writing a novel about his experiences in the Vietnam War…The house in question, is his creepy old Aunt’s house…And now that it is vacant due to her hanging herself in it, Roger chooses to move into the house, to do some writing…And that’s when things go all screwy-louie…And let me tell you, this guy does everything wrong, here…You may find yourself quoting Big Ben…As you shout at the TV…”You’re pissing me off, Roger.”

Practical effects are always a good way to stand out…

And they’re plentiful in this film.

 

Lady in White (1988) – This a hauntingly creepy ghost story that will chill you to your core…It tells the tale of young Frankie, played by Lukas Haas…He gets locked in the cloak room of his school by a couple of bullies, and begins to witness things that start to reveal a much larger mystery…This mystery is something that a nine year old should not have to deal with…Hell…I’m a grown-ass man, and I should not have to deal with it…It is a great film…Still.

Although the spirits are of the wispy semi-transparent variety…

They are not the reason little Frankie is fraught with fright.

 

The Frighteners (1996) – Before bringing Bilbo and Frodo Baggins to life, Peter Jackson brought us this wild and crazy ghost story…The tale is about a man who after the brutal and possibly supernatural murder of his wife, receives the ability of seeing ghosts…Initially using these powers for the opposite of good…Frank Bannister, played by Michael J. Fox uses ghosts to scare up business for his ghostbusting business…He stumbles upon the ghost to end all ghosts…And probably end him as well.

The addition of Jeffrey Combs as Milton Dammers…

Lets you know that this won’t be your typical ghost story.

 

Stir of Echoes (1999) – Based on the chilling novel by Richard Matheson, the man responsible for nearly every scary episode of The Twilight Zone…This is the ghost story to watch from 1999…Far superior to the all-twist/no-substance bucket of commercially accepted crap known as The Sixth Sense…

Sorry, but my disdain for Shammalammadingdong‘s films are something you must be well aware of at this point…

Kevin Bacon plays Tom, a regular guy who begins to unravel a series of disturbing and potentially dangerous secrets after being hypnotized at a party.

Bacon brings his awesomeness to this role…

As a man who is holding it together while falling apart.

 

The Gift (2000) – Sam Raimi brought us this spooky, southern, supernatural story about a psychic who gets dragged into a murder mystery…This film has some amazing performances by an amazing cast…Cate Blanchett has a perfect performance, as Annie, the psychic…Giovanni Ribisi is incredible in his portrayal of Buddy, a damaged young man, who befriends Annie…But the real stand-out performance comes from Keanu Reeves as wife-beating, squirrel-hunting, alleged mistress-murdering redneck, Donnie Barksdale…This role is so many light years from Ted Theodore Logan, or even Johnny Utah, that it blew my mind…Hands down one his best performances.

Ribisi and Reeves were outstanding…

Both performances took the film to another level of awesome.

 

The Others (2001) – On a British Isle, just after World War II, a family deals with some seriously spooky stuff in their rural country home…This is a film that takes its time, and that’s okay with me…Some stories need the build-up and this is one of them…By the time you get there, though…It will be entirely worth it…I promise.

Every time you throw kids into the mix…

Things always seem to get a bit spookier.

 

Ghost Ship (2002) – Now I am aware that critics everywhere took a giant steamy dump on this film upon its release…But folks…I must confess…I enjoyed it. The opening sequence alone is one of the goriest I’ve ever seen in a ghost story…The remainder of the film is claustrophobic as the salvage crew roams the haunted hallways of this old cruise ship…The cast is amazing…You’ve got Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Margulies, Ron Eldard, Desmond Harrington, Isaiah Washington, and Dredd himself, Karl Urban…Now it has it’s moments that you know were “borrowed” from all of the classics…But regardless…It is entirely entertaining.

When the opening scene is an absolute gore-fest…

In a ghost story…That just means more ghosts.

 

1408 (2007) – Based on a short story from Stephen King’s anthology, Everythings Eventual…John Cusack plays Mike Enslin, a writer who travels to various haunted places to write about them…He is completely discouraged and disheartened by his profession because he literally does not believe in the supernatural occurences that he writes about. Samuel L. Jackson plays the hotel manager who reluctantly grants Enslin access to room number 1408…It is one of the most confined and claustrophobic ghost stories that I have ever seen…Cusack carries the entire weight of this spooky flick, and he does it with ease…Interesting side note…Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson will star in another Stephen King adaptation…The much anticipated Cell, will be released this summer.

If you’re gonna be watching someone all alone, slowly losing their mind…

It might as well be John Cusack.

 

Insidious (2011) – Not my first time recommended this film…Probably won’t be the last…But it is such an original, and well-made ghost story, that both it’s sequel, and it’s prequel could have easily made this list…James Wan, the man behind Saw, created this one, and established himself as a horror director that can shift gears from a nail-biting, snuffy, gorefest…To an intelligently written slow burn that uses cinematic subterfuge to bring some serious couch jumps from its audience…Hopefully when he’s done filming Aquaman, he’ll come back to horror…I miss him already.

The scares in this film were bountiful…

Served up with distraction and sleight of hand.

Throwback Thursday: Ghost Story

So you’ve decided to hook up with your twin brother’s ex girlfriend…

So not cool for a whole bunch of reasons, dude…

Not the least of which being…

I’m sure there was a pretty good reason he broke up with her…

Yep…That sure looks like a pretty good reason…

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

Ghost Story (1981) – Based on a novel by Peter Straub comes the tale of a gentlemen’s club in rural New England where a  night of tragedy turned into a lifetime of supernatural recompense…The Chowder Society is a group consisting of four well to do and influential gentlemen who regale each other with scary stories…The cast that makes up the Society is four amazing, aging, A-List actors…Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and John Houseman.

Years earlier, all four young men became smitten with a new girl in town named Alma Mobley, played by the always creepy Alice Krige…When Edward, one of the Chowder Heads, tries and fails to get busy with her…But then tells his buddies what a super-stud he was…It gets back to Alma and she calls him out…But before she can report his Brewer’s Droop to the group, Edward accidentally bashes her head on the fireplace…Now, at this point, our well-to-do friends at the Chowder Society decide to cover their collective asses, put the body in a car, and push it into the lake…

Oh shit…I don’t think dead bodies are supposed to do that…

Decades later, Edward’s twin boys get caught up in the nightmare, as each of them get involved with what they believe is a real live woman, named Eva Galli…But as she shows her true self, and is revealed as the living embodiment of the malicious spirit of Alma Mobley…Things start to get pretty messed up…One twin dumps her…The other one scoops her up…And well…You know what they say about the sins of the father…

 

Now here’s the straight dope…

This film actually holds up…The practical effects floored me when I first saw them, and they still floor me today. At times the film is a New England style gothic mystery, but at other times, it is also a chilling and macabre horror film with plenty of scares and plenty of…

Well, this…

And this…

And man…That ain’t even the half of it…

There’s more horrifying decomposing body special effects in this film than you’ll find in most episodes of The Walking Dead…

And they were created by the master of special effects himself, Rick Baker…

The first R rated horror film that my older sister and her boyfriend snuck me into was Friday the 13th…

This film was the second…

It was filmed not far from where I grew up, and I still remember the cheers from the audience when a familiar bit of scenery would pop up on the screen…

It was so exciting for me back then to see horror movies on the big screen…

And this one…

In particular…

Stayed with me…

 

For a long time.

 

The film is a classic revenge story, with a supernatural twist…

 

The film is the grisliest, gruesomest, goriest ghost story from the 80’s that you’ll ever see…

 

The film tackles sexuality and gender roles, and taps into the inherent male fear associated with these issues…

The film is without a doubt…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.