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If you don't know by now, I like to celebrate the entire month of October with the 31 Days of Horror, where I try to cram in as many horror films as possible, and I give you, my wonderful reader(s?), the results. I am by no means Mr. Originality here, but I found it enjoyable enough to do for 6 straight years. I often wish I had this idea a decade ago. Ah well...
This year: NO RULES. No forcing myself to watch a new movie every other movie. No Part 2uesday. No Sci-Fi Saturdays. NOTHING. The only thing I'm continuing from last year is the Kill Count from each movie, which Dead Heat was the winner of last year with 31 on-screen deaths.
Now, let's get into the shit-heap that's been October 2013 so far:
MOVIE 1
I decided to start this year's 31DOH with what I thought would be a fun event: A "Written & Directed By" Wes Craven Double Feature, and boy oh boy, would *I* ever be wrong.
It's been 20 years since I've seen the original Last House, so besides the film's rapey content, I'd forgotten all of it. I do remember watching it with my friends all those years ago and finding this film to be incredibly unsettling, which was probably the appropriate reaction. But by this point of my life, Last House is amateur hour when it comes to sex and violence. I guess after watching A Serbian Film, not much else is ever going to shock you.
Still, the original Last House on the Left is an incredibly well done craft of horror storytelling(the remake ain't half bad either) and is a tent-pole of the Video Nasty period of the 1980s.
The only thing this movie suffers from is that it was one chainsaw short of having a legit chainsaw fight, keeping it from true
fuck-splosion greatness. Ah well....
Body Count: 6
Best Scene: The Third House on the Right ordered a bunch of pizzas to The Last House on the Left. Boy, were they ever peeved. "What're we gonna do with pizza for 70 people?? Hey, our daughter's been raped. Ask if she wants pizza."
One More Thing: I need the score/soundtrack from this movie. If anyone can help me locate a copy, I'd be eternally grateful.
MOVIE 2
Yeah. This movie sucks a dick. 30 minutes in and I had no idea what the hell was going on. 30! Minutes! Now I realize that dialogue was really never Craven's strong suit(I can relate), but every line in this movie is embarrassing. So much so that one line in particular made me shut this off and not watch another movie for 4 days. THIS FUCKING PILE OF PIG SHIT ALMOST RUINED 31 DAYS OF HORROR FOR ME. YES I KNOW HOW RIDICULOUS THAT SOUNDS. WHO PUT GUM ON MY CAPS LOCK?
Wanna know how much I care about revisiting My Soul to Take? When changing out DVDs, I sat it on my dresser, and went to grab it's case. The disc proceeded to fall underneath my dresser, where I never bothered to recover it. Not out of laziness, but pure disdain for it's existence.
One day I'll move out of here to a new place, and while cleaning I'll randomly find My Soul To Take, covering in dust and toenails, and I'll remember the anger. Oh yes... I will remember.
Body Count: 4, before I turned it off.
Best Kill: Some asian kid was pushed off a bridge or something who cares.
One More Thing: The scene/dialogue that made me shut this turd off:
Scene - The Woods
Set up - The Reaper(ugh what?) guts the high school jock, asks if he has any last words.
Jock - "Tell my unborn baby I love her."
Jock dies.
Reaper - "Fuck your unborn baby!"
ARRG! *finds disc, snaps it in half, starts cutting wrist with it*
MOVIE 3
After I'd almost giving up for the rest of the month because of My Soul To Take, I knew I had to cleanse my pallet with something I knew I'd love.
There's not much more I can say about this that I haven't in previous years, except that if you haven't seen it yet, do so with as little knowledge about the story as possible. It's a perfect Halloween movie without having anything to do with Halloween.
Body Count: 5
Best Scene: This year, I'm going with the burn victim, but only because of how it catches you off guard, and leads to other deaths throughout the film.
One More Thing: If you need anymore reasons to watch this fantastic story, just know that it was written by the great Dan O'Bannon, whose works include Return of the Living Dead and Alien, among others.
MOVIE 4
This is just about as goofy a movie as I've ever seen. I mean, the original Blob isn't exactly serious, but it does what it can. As a lifelong MSTie and Horror-hound, it makes it easier for me to enjoy this stupid movie as it is. Watch with a group of friends while drinking heavily.
Body Count: 12(plus 1 fly, 1 kitten, 1 dog and possibly a bedroom slipper)
Best Scene: The dialogue between the barber and the dirty hippy had me cracking up: "I don't cut hair, I sculpt hair. Do you want a hair-sculpt?" As the barber proceeds to stick the hippy's head into a sink filled with the Blob. WOMP womp.
One More Thing: Burgess Meredith makes an uncredited appearance as a hobo. "You're a bum, Blob!"
MOVIE 5
A fantastic slice of fried gold, this alien-invasion-in-the-english-ghetto is better than it sounds, as most descriptions I had read before watching did not do it justice. Just make sure you watch it with subtitles, because this movie has a metric fuck-ton of cockney slang. Give it a watch, bruv.
Body Count: 6
Best Death: Black Turtle gets his throat ripped out by an alien wolf monster thing.
One More Thing: NECA needs to make figures of the creatures ASAP.
MOVIE 6
I watched this over at a friend's house, and let's just say things got a little hazy during our viewing. I do know that this is perfect to watch with Attack the Block.
The real charm of Deadly Spawn is that it's really a good movie, that's just filmed on the lowest budget imaginable. Not a slam, just pointing it out.
Body Count: 3, but there was probably a few more. I was hazy BIG TIME at this point. There's definitely a few tea party grandma's that are unaccounted for.
Best Death: SOMEONE gets their head bitten-off and their limp body falls out a window in a spectacular fashion.
One More Thing: Going by how The Deadly Spawn ends, if they ever made a direct sequel, it would've been a Godzilla-ish/Kaiju style film. Now that I realize this, I'm pretty bummed it was never made.
MOVIE 7
I'm gonna admit something right now: I was never a huge Child's Play fan. Nope. Saw the original in grade school, and years later saw part 3 in theaters(with the help of my grandmom as I was too young to buy the ticket), but that was it. Never saw part 2. Only watched Bride of Chucky recently(it was ok) and rewatched Part 3(which did improve with time), so my excitement over "Child's Play 6" was nonexistent.
I couldn't be happier to inform you that Curse blew me away. I expected nothing, and was given everything plus. This is a perfect film for people who've never seen any of the previous films, while still giving a lot to the hardcores. And don't let the still photos you've seen turn you off to the way Chucky looks; 90% of this film, he's still a doll. CGI is used only to clean some things up and nothing more. I'm excited for Curse of Chucky. I hope it does really well and possibly ushers in a new trend in horror filmmaking.
Body Count: *NO SPOILERS FOR NEW MOVIES*
Best Scene: *NO SPOILERS FOR NEW MOVIES*
One More Thing: This movie has almost as many endings as a Peter Jackson film. Also: wait through the credits...
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Week one is DONE! So far, Beware! The Blob is winning in the body count wars. Next week we'll see if Blobbo can hold onto that title.
Thanks for reading, folks!
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