Halloween

No explanation is necessary to under stand why Halloween is such an amazing film. It helped mold slashers as a whole and still continues to influence the film industry to this day. Here it is...




Happy Halloween!

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

Directed by George Mihalka.


"From the heart comes a warning, filled with bloody good - cheer, remember what happened as the 14th draws - near! "

As I walked through the "Miner's Revenge." maze as Canada's Wonderland I thought that My Bloody Valentine would be a perfect choice for Oct. 30. Not to mention that on the way, I intercepted a conversation regarding the remake and told the girls that they NEED to see the original before they can even consider that garbage. Might as well celebrate another holiday film seeing as I've almost exhausted good Halloween films...except the best Halloween film yet to come.



In the small mining town of Valentine Bluff's several miners are buried underground in the mind for weeks a t a time. When the rubble is cleared and rescuers make it into the mine shaft, where the trapped workers resided, they discover that only Harry Warden has survived. Warden survived be consuming the dead remains of his deceased co-workers, and of course, has lost his mind in the meantime. Warden is locked up but escapes on Valentine's Day, only to cut the heart out of the foreman out of the mind and leaving a message to the town...that if the town ever celebrates Valentine's Day again, then they'll will suffer the same carnage as this night.

Years later, the new young miners and their girlfriends decide to throw a Valentine's party. Heading the warnings of the town folk, they continue to decorate the town. As their disbelief is at its highest peak, the group decides to take their party in the mine. Here, they become hunted one by one by a miner, who means to spill their blood with his pick axe.



Released in 1981, the film along with Friday the 13th Pt.2 were cut by the MPAA extensively. My Bloody Valentine was cut by 9 minutes for its graphic scenes of gore and violence. Director Mihalka, also said that he believes the film was heavily due to John Lennon's murder the year before, causing a public backlash against violence.



Shot in Syndney, Nova Scotia, this film brings a feeling of familiarity for me, as the setting, accents and mannerisms are very similar to that of Newfoundlands.

The acting isn't mind blowing, but it's good. However, if you're into slashers than this film is a must, it's one of my favorites.

Trick 'r Treat (2007)

Trick 'r Treat as feels like an homage to time when practical effects and campy horror was accepted, yet more importantly, embraced. Standing as an anthology film, it consists of five short stories that intertwine with one another, revealing just how deeply so as the story progresses.

The film opens up with a couple coming home from the usual street party Halloween festivities. As the wife blows out the jack o'lantern and begs her husband to take down the decorations to prepare for her mother's arrival in the morning, he warns her about breaking Halloween traditions. Which sometimes come with supernatural repercussions. When she decides to start taking down decorations on Halloween night she must pay the the spirit of Halloween with her life for doing so...her throat is slit with a jagged Halloween sucker.



The second tale is of the local elementary school principal. He seems to be killing children and burying them in the backyard, all in the spirit of Halloween of course. In once instance when he answers his door he's covered in child's blood, but its authenticity is quickly brushed off by trick r treaters, after all, it is Halloween. Before long we see the principal's son ("Charlie Brown's an asshole!") descend into the basement, begging his dad to start carving. The principal holds a knife over the boys head...but when he strikes, the shot reveals that the principal has been severing the heads of his child victims, all the while teaching his son how to carve their faces like pumpkins.



The third tale is my favorite. Mixing vampire lore and werewolf lore, the tale tells the story of a group of girls looking for dates. When the virgin of the group breaks off from the rest to find a date, she becomes the victim of a stalker. Realizing she has no escape, the vampire reveals his fangs and the film cuts to a shot of her friends gathered...soon the vampire falls from the tree, wounded, broken and helpless. His victim shows up and we learn she was luring him the whole time. Werewolf transformations, feasting on humans and the stripping of one's flesh ensues...

The fourth tale is of three kids who are collecting pumpkins for unicef (BULLSHIT). They recruit and acquire a local, nerdy, Halloween obsessed outcast. With their strange new friend's wagon of personally carved pumpkins, they all travel to a stone reservoir. It was here years ago when a school bus, filled with mentally challenged kids, went off a cliff into the water, killing all the kids on board. The parents had gotten together and paid the bus driver to drown their burdens... ...later, the jerk kids pretend to disappear and reappear as the dead kids' ghostly figures, who chase and scare the timid outcast girl. When she hits her head and wakes up she's confused and frightened. Soon they hear real screams and eerie noises haunting, and begin their descent into torment by the very ghosts they mocked. Trying to escape. the kids become locked outside the elevator with no where to run and hide, holding her pumpkin, the girl smirks while her pranksters become just hunks of flesh.


The last tale is of a bitter old man who decides to scare chidren, skip out on giving out candy, and overall, being a jerk. However, when he's visited by the spirit of Halloween, he's soon reprimanded for his Halloween crimes filled with contempt for the holiday. The spirit tries desperatly to kill him but the old man proves to be resilient. He eventually saves his own skin by way of accidentally sacrificing a candy bar the spirit, breaking his anti Halloween tradition wats...the real trouble beings and when he sees the spirits of the school bus kids, appearing as if alive for one night, just to seek out their vengeance on their driver that drowned them.

TrT is shot incrdibly well and uses a deligtful mix between classic horror subjects, modern opinions on old traditions and preserving the spirit of Halloween.The film even seems to have a slightly orange tint at times, which of course, will tug at your Halloween heart strings. It tugs at mine.

The Changeling (1980)

"That house is not fit to live in. No one's been able to live in it. It doesn't want people. "

Peter Medak's The Changeling is one of the best ghost films that you haven't seen. Not to be confused with the recent theatrical release of the same name starring Angelina Jolie, the two are completely unrelated.

After John Russell's (George C Scott) family is killed in a horrible car accident while on vacation, he decides to escape his all too real reality and rent an old mansion in order to restart his life and return to normalcy.

Before long the mansion seems to come to life...Russell's spirit filled home becomes aggressive--shattering windows, making noises and slamming doors--but it's not enough to make him leave... yet.




After all this becomes too much for Russell, a seance is held in his home, causing the apparation to manifest itself and make its presence known. Russell's convinced that the spirit wants something from him, undoubtedly, he needs to find out before the spirit's presence is uncontrollable. Russell soon learns that a former senator lived in the house, the same house where a little boy was killed, combined it begins to seem that this may just be the cause of the haunting...watch as the spirit tears the house apart, and in many ways, tears itself apart.



This Canadian horror film is one of the best haunted house movies I've ever seen. With a brilliant score to match it's atmosphere, this film should be the archetype for all haunted house movies, and director's should be made to watch The Changeling before they spew out the familiar, yet boring regurgitated garbage that dozens have done before them. It's dated as it is one of the purest example of a well put together 80s horror film,with plenty of exterior shots, and subtle creepy occurrences, while focusing on eerie tones and building towards an over the top ending, typical of many great horror films of the time.

Empire Of Passion (1978)

Originally I had planned to blog about the Japanese film House (1977) which came out on dvd earlier this week. However, the distributor Paradox has not sent their shipments out, leaving me unable to find the dvd in the city of Toronto. Bogus.



As a result I've decided to focus on another Japanese film, Nagisa Oshima's Empire Of Passion. Considered to be Oshima's only true kwaidan, he doesn't stray too far from familiar territory of eroticism and betrayal.


Winning the prestigious best film award at Cannes in 1978, Empire Passion is combination of both drama and horror. Set in 1895, in an rural village in Japan, the film follows Seki: A loving wife who spends her time cleaning, cooking and tending to her husband, Gisaburo. As Gisaburo spends more time away, his friend Toyiji moves in and after time, convinces Seki to be his lover, secretly. Seki and Toyiji plot Gisaburo's death which they eventually execute. After they viciously strangle Gisaburo, they dump his lifeless body down a well in the forest. Seki explains her husbands absence by telling her neighbors that he has taken a job in Tokyo. Eventually rumours surface and Seki becomes haunted by her dead husband, practically driving her insane...


As her husband's disappearance becomes taken into the hands of an outside police authory in the area ,the hauntings become increasingly more intense and soon it becomes too much for Seki to handle.


Starting as an erotic drama, filled with sex, lies and passion, and changing into a ghost story filled with eerie scenes and haunting images, Empire Of passion is a beautifully made hybrid. A great drama but a much bettter ghost film, Empire of Passion has great cinemotograpy, incredible set locations and brilliant acting.

Watch and enjoy, Empire Of Passion.

The Prince Of Darkness (1987)

Undeniably a part of his masterworks, John Carpenter's The Prince Of Darkness is one of my favorite films, and one of the best films overall in regards to those which visit the joke of satan, evil and the apocalypse

"This is not a dream... not a dream. We are using your brain's electrical system as a receiver. We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference. You are receiving this broadcast as a dream. We are transmitting from the year one, nine, nine, nine. You are receiving this broadcast in order to alter the events you are seeing. Our technology has not developed a transmitter strong enough to reach your conscious state of awareness, but this is not a dream. You are seeing what is actually occurring for the purpose of causality violation."


Play!




This film is infact the second film of Carpenter's apocalypse trilogy. The first being The Thing, and the last being In The Mouth Of Madness, however, none of the films are related in anyway.





The Prince Of Darkness is about an age old secret that the catholic church has been guarding for years. A vile of green liquid, sealed from the inside is said to contain the essence of evil itself, which existed before time and mankind, and the container is said to have been the vessel in which god sealed his follower's mutinous opposition. Now the liquid is brewing inside the container as people lose


their fate in the church and god.

A local preist seeks the help of a friend, a professor at a local university who teachers advanced physics to grad students. Recruiting his physics grad students, along with several other professors, they form a team to attempt to explain the liquid evil, residing, and gaining momentum in the bowels of the church. With physicists, historians, chemists staying the weekend in the church, the group attempts to make sense of this impossibility. Before long the liquid escapes and possesses some of the bodies. If the evil can reach its true potential, the gate between this world and the next will open and hell will spill across the land like the black plague.



The really attractive aspect of this film is the approach taken to address evil as a scientific anomaly not as religious fact or miracle. The vat is said to have existed before civilization, the book tells the story of the vile and how it's come to be, and according to physicists, the liquid inside denies reality and gravity simultaneously.



If all this isn't enough to grab your attention then perhaps the fact that Alice Cooper plays a homeless man controlled by other worldly forces may Most importantly, the soundtrack is one of the greatest eerie scores put together for a horror film. From the first moments of the film, Carpenter develops his characters early on so that later the film can really focus on their struggles instead of still trying to tell who they are. Host to great special effects, music, cinematography and great angles, and a truly creepy atmosphere, Prince Of Darkness never feels anything short of amazing, no matter how much you watch it.

April Fool's Day (1986)

From the writer of The Beverly Hills Cop series comes April Fool's Day!

Fred Walton's April Fool's Day can is almost like a really good episode of Saved By The Bell combined with Friday The 13th, where the teenagers are loaded with extra hormones.



On a remote island, Muffy and her friends retreat to her families cabin for a carefree weekend. Before they even arrive on shore, the tone is set when one teenager falls from the boat resulting in his face becoming gruesomely disfigured.

Shortly later, the rest of the kids begin settling in the house, pulling small pranks on each other here and there, but before long they start to go missing, one by one.

The group discovers that their host has a twin sister, whose completely mad. With the discovery of Muffy's head, the teenagers know that they're in for a rough weekend.



Starring Amy Steel from Friday The 13th Part II, April Fool's day is a not a film with a think heavy plot, but it's surprisingly well shot and well crafted considering the regurgitation of slasher films at the time. However, it seems that this film may of been a curse...the actors, director, and writer went on to do nothing substantial with their careers.

Despite everything else, this slasher is undeniably fun, lighthearted in nature, and of course, stands above the sea of boring, forgettable slashers that caused the genre to die out as the 80s progressed.

Tales From The Darkside - Double Feature

As Halloween winds down I know many of you are looking for Halloween themed movies and shows alike. Henceforth, I decided to recommend two Halloween oriented episodes of Tales From the Darkside, whose executive producer is none other than icon George Romero.

The First Episode is Trick Or Treat, written by George Romero. It tells the story of a local businessman, Mr. Hackles, who seemingly, is owed money in the form of IOU's by the whole town. Every year he throws a haunted house that the whole town forces their children to attend. The deal is, if a child finds one of their parents IOU's, which is stashed somewhere in the house, then all the family's debts are forgiven. Going out of his way to terrify the children, he's soon paid a visit by some characters he finds quite spooky. First,a bear in his house seems to nudge him and amongst other things a knocking is heard at the door, and a witch is there to greet him. Showing how real she is, she scares him from the door where soon he wonders into a room colored in red. Here, we see Lucifer taunting and laughing at Hackels...as this is all going on one of the local boys earlier in the story is given the IOU's by the witch as she flies off. This fun, and campy story is not without serious of harsh realistic undertones, including notions of child abuse, poverty, debt and desperation.




Halloween Candy. As an elderly man attempts to fight off Halloween spirit he goes too far. Filling children's bags with condiments from his fridge, karma comes to visit this old man in the form of a goblin. As the goblin torments him and he attempts to resist, his efforts prove pointless. He gets what he deserves. With Tom Savini in the directors chair you feel no remorse for the old man as time goes on...as he develops more your resent develops with him. This is for every kids who went to a house who had their lights turned off, sitting in their living room, unresponsiveness to the sound of Trick Or Treat echoing in the autumn night.




The really great aspect of these stories is that they seem to serve as cautionary tales to those on opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to their Halloween spirit.

Halloween time is to be celebrated. Participate, have fun and be lighthearted. S
Keep your Halloween spirit in the right place. it can be spooky and scary, but don't take it too far...

Trick Or Treat




Halloween Candy

Monster Squad (1987)

“Wolfman’s got nards!”

From its stormy beginning, and sweeping shots of coffins, tombstones and outstretched bat wings, you know that you’re watching an eighties horror classic, Fred Dekker’s Monster Squad.

You may know Dekker as being the one behind Night Of The Creeps, or as the writer of the horror film House. Not to mention, Stan Winston created the monster effects. For those of you not familiar with Stan Winston, he’s responsible for the special and make up effects in such films as T2, Predator and Jurassic Park.

Monster Squad opens up with a retelling of the battle between Van Helsing and the forces of evil, centuries ago. When a portal opens up and all those near are sucked into an otherworldly dimension, the film cuts to the present. The founding members of the Monster Squad are introduced, Shawn and Patrick, who we see sitting in the principals office being punished for their monster drawings, created in class:
“Monsters aren’t real!”



Next, we see the remaining members of The Monster Squad introduced. Horace, whose overweight build leaves him vulnerable to bullies and Rudy, who shows up while Horace is getting humiliated. Instantly, the bully is reprimanded by Rudy, who forces him to eat Horace’s squished chocolate bar on the ground.

The trouble begins when Dracula, whose coffin is seen being transported on a courier plane, escapes through the emergency hatch, but not before scaring the shit out of the employee on board.



The really attractive aspects of Monster Squad is the realism of the dialogue and behaviour of the kids, and of course the throw to the golden days of horror, when Universal were on top with its long list of Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein and Creature films.




The real fun begins when we see Dracula at the swamp with a werewolf and a mummy(who has recently broken out of his museum home), followed by a creature from the black lagoon replica( but not officially due to rights) lifting a coffin out of the swamp. With the aid of lightning, Dracula brings the Frankenstein creature to life…from here The Monster Squad struggles to find and battle the malignant powers which seek to enslave all humans.

Monster Squad is a warm, fun, horror film that tests many rumors regarding classic movie monsters, including garlic, crosses, silver bullets and much more. While watching this film it’s incredible obvious that the films director/writer Fred Dekker is a monster movie fanatic. For example, admission into the Monster Club involves monster trivia that only an educated fan may be able to answer. The child actors in this film are incredibly and completely believable, not to mention their amazing lines. However, not all of Monster Squad is playful with routes in classic horror cinema, there are several touching moments. For example, when the wolfman is shot and returns t his human form, he lets out a sorrowful “thank you.” Or when we see one of the kids pass Frankenstein a Halloween mask of his own face, touching his face, he throws the mask out frustration and touchingly mutters “…scary.”



Ever wonder what happens when you blow up a werewolf? Watch Monster Squad and you’ll find out.




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In the vein of kids movies with the title monster, Monster House gets an honorable mention! So good.

Jigoku (1960)

"Hear me! You who in life piled up sin upon sin will be trapped in Hell forever. Suffer! Suffer! This vortex of torment will whirl for all eternity.

When a theology student, Shiro, and his friend, Tamura, hit and kill a man in the street in their car, he is constantly burdened with guilt. What seems to be his best friend, but may be much more than that, begins to torment him about the accident he confesses his mistake to his fiancee. After deciding he will confess to the police he calls a cab. The same cab is involved in an accident and kills the woman in turn.




Shiro's life falls apart quickly, and before long his own life comes to an end.

What horrors will hell be host to? Jigoku means to show us just that.

Shiro, now in hell, journeys through the abysmal realm witnessing the true sight of horror.



What he sees in hell is what really separates the film from the rest. Unlike Christianity's version of the hell, the film takes the viewer into a Buddhist inferno which is based on the concept of Karma. Technically the film is brilliantly constructed with an amazingly beautiful vision of hell, accompanied by the shots to make it work. The editing is smooth but quick, and the colors transitions are perfect. The set design is enough to make you watch the film, but Nakagawa won't leave you walking away with being much more than aesthetically satisfies. Fifty years later, Jigoku is a film that withstands the test of time.




However what's really captivating about Jigoku is its set and its depiction of those who dwell hell.

From Beyond (1986)

Following the success of Stewart Gordon's Reanimator, From Beyond is amazingly enough, just as good but not as well known.

Starring Jeffrey Combs as Crawford and Barbara Crampton as Dr. Katherine, both of Reanimator fame. The film also stars always wonderful Ken Foree (as Bubba) of George Romero's Dawn Of The Dead.

Crawford and his partner, Dr. Pretorius are both physicists who are experimenting in what they seem to believe work on the pineal gland. They believe that it is the third eye, with unmatched potential to evolve human development to make us into super beings. However, when another dimension is opened up to an incredibly aggressive dimension, Pretorius's head gets bitten off and Crawford is left dwelling in a world of madness.

As an educated man he's able to convince the police and a psychiatrist to allow him to prove his innocence and show them that the other world dimension really exists. Once he shows his skeptics the dimension, their fascination with Crawford's discovery is only matched by their horror of its occupants.

Based on a HP Lovecraft story, From Beyond is host to some of the greatest special effects I have ever seen. Unfortunately, once it was completed and reviewed by ratings boards it was cut significantly for its theatrical release due to its graphic nature and shocking scenes which include Crawford latching on to several faces in order to suck their brain matter out through their eye sockets.



The other dimensional beings can be described as none other that malevolent in nature and attack as soon as their able. The real problem materializes when the decapitated doctor reveals himself as a super being trapped in the dimension with unlimited power and a taste for bondage and sexual repression.



The film is incredibly well shot and visits a theme not so common amongst horror movies, especially of those from the 80s. Like Reanimator in the way of its use of vibrant greens, From Beyond has a similar lighting approach, but with pinks and blues.



Not campy like slashers of the time, this film is one of the Holy Grails of undiscovered 80s horror films.

The Devi's Rain (1975)

Firstly, you should know that I'm not a Star Trek by any means, therefore my opinion is not biased when I say how amazing this film is. Yes, William Shatner is in it, and yes it is completely focused on the art of satanic worship.



The film's focus is on the Preston family, who have supposedly kept a satanic bible out of it's true owner's possession for quite some time. When Tom (Shatner) learns that his father has become the most recent victim of a satanic cult he seeks out vengeance and retribution for his family. Taking the bible to Corbis (Ernest Borgnine of The Dirty Dozen fame amongst a sizable catalogue of films)he loses possession and the battle of faith begins the two. God against Satan. Of course, there is the other part, Corbis is the leader of a power satanic cult working out of a dilapidated, abandoned church in the middle of the desert. Here, is where much of Tom Preston will fight for his and his family souls, but of course he must be weary of the devil's rain, which seems to be able to melt flesh on contact...




This film is incredibly fun. Firstly, the fact that it takes place in the desert is atypical of horror. I find it refreshing that the desert was the setting for the film, instead of a somewhere typical of horror, like an old house, a swamp, a city...you get the point. The old church is a nice touch too. It's design and scenes therein are somewhat Hammer-esque, more specifically Dracula AD 1972.





It's no secret that William Shatner is a bad actor but there's much more to this film than just him...Anton LaVey (Founder of the real life Church Of Satan) makes an appearance as one of the Satanic followers. Filled with black mass marchers, satanic stained glass, and plenty of face melting, The Devil's Rain is quite the gem and shouldn't be missed.

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)

Aka, "The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue" or "Don't Open The Window"






Only several years after Night Of The Living Dead, and years before zombie films got really good was LSCL made. I'll be the first to admit that zombie films over the last decade have become more of annoyance than a reason to get excited. Furthermore, out of all horror sub-genres, zombies, are certainly my top choice, or even second or third, but I really loved this film.



LSCL visits a small, remote English town, where, by a series of events two strangers end up in a car together. On their drive, Edna is visited by a man who acts incredibly peculiar, all the while George is asking for directions. The man, stumbling but not dragging his feet approaches Edna and tries to grab her through the window. She runs free and gets George's attention but it's too late, the man is gone.

Later, when she arrives at her sisters house she finds her sibling frantic. Moments before we see the brother in law taking photos at night when he's attacked by a man who is no longer living. Despite several blows to the face, the undead is not stopped and chokes the man to death. The police don't believe the junkie wife's story and question the visitors, banning them from leaving. From here, the town deaths begin to escalate, coinciding with a new machine being used to eradicate the town's crops of insects by creating a signal that drives them mad, killing each other.



With the English country side as the setting, this detail is refreshing enough to watch this zombie film. The gore and special effects are incredible, especially for the time it was made. One scene in particular that takes place in a graveyard is absolutely amazing. Another exciting difference for me was that in LSCL the dead rise from coffins not to devour the living, but to destroy their lives.

With a great score, Jorge Grau's Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is especially well shot, well directed and well scored, not only for the time it was made but for the type of film it is as well.