6WH: Friday, October 10th

Sis and her husband, BiL7, came up from Texas for the weekend. They were informed that in this house, at this time of year, by god Six Weeks of Halloween participation is mandatory. Not that they weren't agreeable. Joining us: my mother. Yep, mom. Watching horror movies with mom. That also meant homemade vegetarian lasagna replaced the traditional pizza and bacon cheddar fries, which my arteries are likely thankful for. After reading off a few dozen horror titles from my collection, we finally picked one to start.

Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III trailer (1990)
Werewolves on Wheels trailer (1971)
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror: Dial 'Z' for Zombies" (1992)


Martin (1976) directed by George A. Romero
My second favorite vampire flick after Near Dark. One thing I noticed this time around was the role of religion in the film. "There's no real magic," Martin declares repeatedly, demonstrating this by eating the garlic his cousin Cuda has hung in the house and touching a crucifix to his cheek. Cousin Cuda holds the diametrically opposite belief; he's a traditional Catholic and staunch believer in real vampires. When Cuda asks the new, young priest -- played by Romero himself -- to perform an exorcism on Martin, the priests laughs the idea off and Cuda is forced to recruit an old priest for the task. Young versus old, traditionalist versus modernist and believers versus non-believers are themes that run throughout the background of the film.

I don't think Romero is a believer himself ("For me, tribalism and religion are basically the big reasons we’re in trouble. Patriotism, tribalism, and religion.") and I don't think there's any real magic in the world of the film. This makes the ending of the film particularly interesting. In the end, the evil is stopped by the old, traditionalist, believer when Cuda kills Martin by pounding a stake through his heart. Though he did this in the mistaken belief that Martin was a vampire, he was also the only person on the planet to believe, correctly, that Martin was a monster. So too, I think, Romero may be saying: though the religious do good works in the mistaken belief it will bring favor with their deity, that doesn't make it any less of a positive thing. (9/10)


God Told Me To trailer (1976)
Blood Spattered Bride / I Dismember Mama trailer (1974)
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror: The Devil and Homer Simpson" (1993)


The Mothman Prophecies (2002) directed by Mark Pellington
For my money, the Mothman is what a "real" monster would be like. It's not human, so its motivations are utterly incomprehensible. To encounter it is to flirt with insanity. You can't stop it with holy water or silver bullets; it's probably not even corporeal. You can barely describe it after seeing it. Utter powerlessness in the face of something you can't hope to understand is truly scary.

This was fun to watch a second time. I had my eye out for both the flash frames of the Mothman that appear periodically and for shots with pairs of red lights (recalling the Mothman's eyes) in them. I wasn't disappointed. Red lights abound and the flashes we get of the Mothman are creepy. I think Pellington's music video background helped him here. He's used to dealing with quick, surreal imagery. (8/10)

Near Dark trailer (1987)
The Shining fake trailer (2005)
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror: The Shinning"(1994)


Masters of Horror: "Dance of the Dead" (2005) directed by Tobe Hooper
A post-apocalypse. A wild ride into the night. Zombies. And Bobby Englund hamming it up. I love this episode. (9/10)

The Halloween Jones Soda flavor of the week was Buried Pomegranate, a new flavor introduced this year. I've never eaten a real pomegranate before, so I don't really know if the liquid in this can was an abomination upon nature, or an eerie reproduction. It was perfectly drinkable, though. Not a bad change from your regular cherry/lemon/orange fruit-flavored pops, I suppose. Kinda tastes like, maybe, plum soda or peach soda or something like that. Still, I'm not going to cry if it gets replaced next year.

I was bit surprised: I though the Mothman would freak my sister out the most, but she found Martin more disturbing. I guess any monster -- no matter how bizarre -- can't really compete against "that quiet kid is secretly an insane serial killer" for things to fear in real life. Mom was also not a fan of Martin. It's not really her usual type of movie, fair enough (she thought it was "bloody"). I think picking a follow-up movie starring the (dreamy and her same age) Richard Gere probably made up for that. BiL7, I could tell from the loud laughter, enjoyed The Simpsons clips. I triple-dipped on those this week because I knew he's a big fan of the show. As you can see, I went for the cream of the crop, there, choosing the best shorts for the best three episodes (IMHO, anyway, and saving "The Raven" for October 31st).

Five hours of melting and five people drinking later...

OLR: Masters of Horror: "The Damned Thing" (2006)

Chaotic and interestingly shot, though I'm not exactly sure what the hell was going on. (7/10)

d. Tobe Hooper

OLR: Masters of Horror: "Dance of the Dead" (2005)

We both agreed: better than Land of the Dead. (8/10)

d. Tobe Hooper

OLR: Lifeforce (1985)

Too much time is spent in the confines of the Space Research Center, but the hottest space vampire in the galaxy helps make up for that. (6/10)

d. Tobe Hooper

OLR: Masters of Horror: "Dance of the Dead" (2005)

A can't-take-your-eyes-off-it post-apacalyptic escape from innocence. (8/10)

d. Tobe Hooper

SWH: Week 6 (thirty)

Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendigo (trailer)
The Shining (fake trailer)
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror 05-1: The Shinning" (1994)

Tales from the Crypt: "Dead Wait" (1991)
Guinan, no! (7/10)
d. Tobe Hooper

Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare (1987)
The Intercessor vs. Beelzebub was the awesomest thing I've seen in a very long time. (8/10)
d. John Fasano

Igor and the Lunatics (trailer)
Bride of Frankenstein (trailer)
Looney Tunes: "Water, Water Every Hare" (1952)

Masters of Horror: "Sick Girl" (2005)
Kind of a lesbian version of The Fly, but fun and better than May. (7/10)
d. Lucky McKee

Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (trailer)
Zombi 3 (trailer)
Happy Tree Friends: "Remains to be Seen" (2004)

Zombi 2 (1979)
It's hard not to appreciate a flick that has a zombie wrestling a shark. (7/10)
d. Lucio Fulci

Watched with C and chowed on some Pizza House. By the time Zombi 2 arrived, he was out for the count. I made sure to clap my hands really loudly so that he woke up to see the shark and eyeball scenes. Employed the inflatable pumpkin cooler for the first time, which held beer and Dr Pepper quite nicely. Sweet Halloween cuppin' cakes were also enjoyed:

Tobe Hooper (Features)

Tobe Hooper (1943 -)
Features

1. 1974 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
2. 1976 - Eaten Alive
3. 1979 - Salem's Lot
4. 1981 - The Funhouse
5. 1982 - Poltergeist
6. 1985 - Lifeforce
7. 1986 - Invaders from Mars
8. 1986 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
9. 1989 - Spontaneous Combustion
10. 1990 - I'm Dangerous Tonight
11. 1993 - Night Terrors
1. 1993 - Body Bags: "The Morgue" & "Eye"
12. 1994 - The Mangler
13. 1998 - The Apartment Complex
14. 2000 - Crocodile
15. 2003 - Toolbox Murders
16. 2005 - Mortuary

The Tobe Hooper Chronocinethon

A future chronocinethon.

SWH: 2005 (15)

Rob Zombie: "Super Beast" (1999)
Needed less of the band and more of the crazy background stuff. (7/10)

Rob Zombie: "Never Gonna Stop (The Red Red Kroovy)" (2001)
Dead-on duplicate of the Milk Bar. (7/10)

Toolbox Murders (2004)
An unexpected treat; awesome to see Silent Hill 2's influence. (8/10)

Carpenter (1993-1994)

1993 - Body Bags - Horror vets like Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, Roger Corman and David Naughton, 60s model Twiggy, Luke Skywalker, and Sheena Easton are all mixed up in one of those all-too-rare Creepshow-style horror anthology movies. Nice job on the casting!

"The Morgue" - Carpenter hosts these wraparound segments himself. He's such a goofball in this part of the movie, you can't help but crack a grin. The character strikes me as strange, however. I don't think of Carpenter as a blood-and-guts moviemaker and his Coroner here plays against that impression.

"The Gas Station" - "Do I still have it in me?" is the question Carpenter must have asked himself -- 15 years after Halloween -- before filming this segment. He even rips himself off at one point using the "killer gets up in the blurred background as the heroine rests in the foreground" trick. Carpenter does play with some new (for him) camera tricks and I dig the cold, blue lighting of the gas station. A decent morsel of slasherness.

"Hair" - The weakest of the three stories. At the end, when Stacy Keach looks directly at the camera -- twice -- I couldn't tell if that was his way of acting like his brain had been eating by hair-aliens, or if it was an intentional wink-wink to the audience, acknowledging that this segment was meant to be taken lightly. If the latter, Carpenter didn't do a very good job of making the previous stuff in this segment wink-wink funny.

"Eye" (Directed by Tobe Hooper) - Ostensively, this has the strongest story of the three, yet it drags. Probably this is because, only two years prior, the definitive "serial killer body part transplant takes over a person" movie came out in the form of Body Parts. The idea ain't exactly original, so we're mostly left waiting for the good stuff to start happening. The good stuff, unfortunately, doesn't really pay off too much at the end.

1994 - In the Mouth of Madness - After a six-year absence, we finally get another true Carpenter-style movie. Probably the best Lovecraft film ever made not based on a real story. I can't really say anything objective about this one, as I have double-found memories of it from youth. For one, this was the first Carpenter movie I was able to see in the theater. And, way back when, I entered and won a "John Carpenter Trivia Contest" on AOL. The prize: a poster for this movie signed by the man himself. It hangs on my home theater wall with pride to this day.

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