31 Days of Horror: Year 5 - Part 2

Movie #11

ln all honesty, l only chose this Hammer Horror film because lt had an R rating; kinda lame, l know.
lt has a decent enough story: 3 upper-class men, with a taste for the bizarre, decide they want to dabble in some "black magic" and sell their souls to Satan. They end up scoring some of Dracula's blood from an antique store, which l guess is supposed to solidify yourself with the Lord of Hell after digestion. Sadly, this isn't the case, as the devil-worshipper who gave them the idea dies immediately after taking a drink. They leave him for dead, and his dead body ends up resurrecting Count Dracula(Christopher Lee). Ol' Drac is not happy that they let his minion die(???), and decided it's time for a good old-fashioned Death Wish-style revenge plot on the three men, even though if the Satanist hadn't died, Dracula would never of come back. lt's a slapped together plot, but an enjoyable one.
Body Count: 5
Best Death: The movie opens with a man stumbling across Dracula right after someone had impaled him on a gigantic cross. We watch him die and turn into red powder.
One More Thing: The last time I talked about Christopher Lee on this blog, I would only jokingly refer to him as Count Dooku, and nothing else, which in turn had an anonymous commentor call me "not a true horror fan." Well, l never!

Movie #12

This is less of a horror movie, and more of an Aussie, cat and mouse thriller. Stacy Keach and his pet dingo follow who he believes to be a "Jack the Ripper" style serial killer. Jaime Lee Curtis plays a hitchhiker that gets kidnapped and Keach needs to save.
This movie would've been a dud if not for Keach's performance, plus I'm a fan of the locale(Australia). This is worth a watch, but it's nothing special.
Body Count: 1
Best Death: This movie has one death, and it's off-screen, and it's only a strangling. So I'll make something up: Stacy Keach is face-fucked to death by his pet dingo.
One More Thing: A much better slow-burn Aussie horror is Wolf Creek, which I'll watch later this month.

Movie #13

I find the Hatchet films to be fun, but largely forgetable. It would seem that the writer spends more time trying to come up with insanely violent deaths, rather than an engaging story. But despite how elaborate and crazy the deaths are, I wasn't all that impressed.
Body Count: 12(one less than Scream 4, nice try)
Best Death: Taking as ax directly to the ass, then to the head gives new meaning to the term "ass to mouth." HIYO!
One More Thing: I feel that this movie is part of a new breed of horror filmmakers who wanna be rockstars, and I find it pretty obnoxious. They care more about being loud than scary. Thankfully for every Adam Green and Eli Roth, we have a Ti West(whome I'll get to later this month).

Movie #14

One of the rare horror sequels that is a huge improvment over the original. It's also Jason Voorhees' first outing as a soon-to-be horror legend. The second member of the Mouth Rushmore of horror(with the first member being Michael Myers.)
Jason wears a bag over his head in this instalment, but soon he would change that to the iconic hockey mask he wears to this very day. I guess I could do some actual research on this, but who's idea was it to change Jason's mask? And why? No matter, it was a move in the right direction, because I seriously doubt that Jason would've been the icon he's become had he kept the Acme bag as a mask.
Body Count: 10
Best Death: Wheelchair guy taking a stiff machete shot square to the face, and proceeds to roll backwards down a flight of cement stairs. Pretty awesome.
One More Thing: 1980's nudity continues to be awful.

Movie #15

James Gunn's return to horror after spending time with the Scooby gang was well worth the wait. This love-letter to '80s goo-fests is one of the best horror movies of the 2000s so far(although at times it seems to be a little too much like Night of the Creeps).
Body Count: 8
Best Death: Officer gets half of his head shot off, and you can see one of the slugs wiggling around the exposed area.
One More Thing: While a lot of fun, this movie is slimy and disgusting. Not to be watched while eating.

Movie #16

I picked this movie at random on Netflix because it had a good rating and I liked the description. I ended up with an Irish rip-off of Pet Cemetery(sort of).
A little girl gets mauled to death by a dog and after suffering through the grief stages, her parents decide to use an old Celtic ritual to bring her back for only 3 days, as she was before her death. She's not aloud to leave the town of Wake Wood during the 3 days, and she has to have been dead for less than a year.
As it turned out, the parents lied about how long she'd been dead, and the little girl brought back some evil with her. A good flick that's worth a view.
Body Count: 6
Best Death: Evil little girl violently rips out a woman's heart, with her bare hands.
One More Thing: My favorite scene has to be when the little girl tries running away, the moment she leaves the town limits, her wounds reopen, and she drops dead. Taking her back into the town fixes her up, right as rain.

Movie #17 & 18

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This double feature I came up with on the spot and shared the idea with friends on Facebook & Twitter, and it got a very positive response.
I'll admit, sitting through Nosferatu was a chore, but I enjoyed most of what I payed attention to. I have a healthy respect for this movie, because you know it scared the snot out of people back when it was brand new and folks actually dressed-up to go to the movies.
Watching Nosferatu, and then following it up with Shadow is a rewarding experience, and I recomend other horror fans to try it out sometime.
Body Count: Nosferatu- N/A(I don't think anyone died in this movie, my lack of paying attention in the middle may have kept my death toll from being accurate. Sorry.)
Shadow of the Vampire- 6
Best Death: Nosferatu dies of a drug overdose in one of the Olsen Twin's apartments. Tragic.
One More Thing: Possibly Willem Dafoe's best performance.

Movie #19

This movie did not get the love that it deserves until recently. The studio decided that they wanted to turn the Halloween franchise into an anthology series, so people cried foul when H3 lacked Michael Myers in 1982. And because of this, H3 was unceremoniously shit on by fans and movie-goers. It would be nice if history could be changed and this movie would just be released under the title Season of the Witch. Ah well, at least it's getting some much deserved recognition now, and just received an awesome home video release from Scream Factory.
Body Count: 8(not counting robot death)
Best Death: It's a little hard to choose, since every death here is great, but what the Silver Shamrock masks actually do is very disturbing, so that scene wins with little trouble.
One More Thing: The exasperation that my friend Laura and I kept feeling everytime the lab tech had to make a rush phone-call using a rotary telephone was deafening.

Look for part 3 next week, or possibly earlier.