October Horror Movie Marathon

[Nordicdusk]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

The Crow. 1994.

Based on the comic book created by James O'Barr. The Crow stars Brandon Lee as rock star Eric Draven, who, precisely one year after his murder, returns from the grave to take revenge on the vicious criminals responsible for the rape and death of his fiancée and his own death.

It's an incredibly simple tale of revenge, but the gothic look and soundtrack that reflects the time of its creation drive this movie beyond its simple origins. There is some light humour from Ernie Hudson as the former detective busted down to patrol/beat cop who calls the hero a mime from hell. Michael Wincott as the Top Dollar who runs the city and creates fear and panic with his subordinates along with Tony Todd as the loyal henchman. Nearly 30 years on and this is still a classic film.

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I have such an emotional attachment to this film it came out just as I got my teens as we all know that's a strange time a time when your discovering who you are and this film was so important during that time sometimes I even find it difficult to watch because of this but I love it dearly.

[Nordicdusk]

30 Days of Unseen Horror

Day 22

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A crazed scientist is determined to prove he can mix the genes from a wolf and a man with the idea to replace soldiers with wolfmen but no one wants any part of this madness. Dr Lorenzo Cameron is using his simple minded gardener to create the first killing machine.

The Mad Monster is a fairly sad film the gardener Petro and the abuse he gets from the doctor is quite heartbreaking he is a simple minded man who doesn't have a clue that at night he is a murderous beast terrorising the swamps but it's when he is in human form your heart really goes out to him getting ordered around sometimes beaten by the doctor.

The scenes where the wolfman is walking around the swaps are amazingly atmospheric the sounds of the swamp mixed with the thick fog manages to put you right there. The wolfman himself looks just ok could of really done without the cheap looking Halloween costume fangs. There is one extremely creepy scene where the wolfman is peeping in the bedroom window of a small child who is playing before bed and the wolfman snatches him away. Talking of kids my god how annoying are 1940s kids

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Old Dark House (1932)

Following Frankenstein (1931) director James Whale turned to JB Priestley's novel Benighted for this er' old dark house terror satire which is as much a comedy of manners as it is horror film.

The plot is slight. During an atrocious storm three people are forced to call at an old Welsh mansion inhabited by stranger than strange butler Boris Karloff, an 102 year old lunatic, a fire loving brother and a God-fearing sister, not to mention Ernest "Care for a potato" Thesiger, who all suffer from at least one type of ...chosis and neurosis. Then when things can't get any odder Charles Laughton turns up with his hooker mistress.

The whole thing is bathed in an atmosphere of musky decay with the assortment of decidedly odd characters who reside in the house only adding to the foreboding creepiness of the film. With Karloff's scarred and mute brute of a butler ogling and lusting for Gloria Stuart in her underwear only part of it. Yet there's a definite streak of comic fun in there as well with Lilian Bond's showgirl and Laughton's wealthy businessman as her 'friend' at the heart of it.

Whilst making this genuine horror classic Whale also managed to spawn a genre - Old dark house films - as well as being an influence on countless other films including Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

House of 1000 Corpses (2001)

The very first thing you see on screen is Karloff's scarred, mute brute of a butler answering the door in The Old Dark House (1932). In fact the whole movie makes numerous references to the films of past decades which quite obviously writer / director Rob Zombie simply adores. As well as other clips from Whale's film we witness scenes from Universal classics such as The Wolf Man (1941) and House of Frankenstein (1944) all thrust into the insanity of the Firefly family's chamber of horrors.

Horrors themselves which are a grizzled but loving homage to the bygone era of Grindhouse cinema, referencing the likes of Tobe Hooper classics The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and 81's The Funhouse. However it's not all referential.

What Zombie brings to the Halloween party is a hallucinatory mindf*ck of weird images, colours, varying film stocks and sounds in a relentless assault on the senses. Zombie also creates some very memorable new characters in Captain Spaulding, Otis and Baby with outstanding and extremely sinister performances from Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Sheri Moon, so much so that it was inevitable we'd see them all again in sequel The Devil's Rejects (2005)

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

More of a run of the mill slasher with a loony if left field finale than the haunting menace originally created by John Carpenter. However one or two of the kills are good fun and we have Donald Pleasence's Loomis who by now appears to be more deranged than Michael Myers.

[Nordicdusk]

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Latest addition to the pumpkin family

[Frankie Teardrop]

CENTIPEDE HORROR – When animals attack, it’s always the ones further down the evolutionary scale that creep me out the most. You’d think it’d be the other way around given the species at the top of the ladder, but even though humans are undoubtably the most obnoxious lifeform nature has seen fit to throw at us so far, the likes of dogs, cats, monkeys, even sharks, never really do it for me. But worms, maggots, slugs… they make me f*cking puke. Anything capable of squirming and secreting itself within an Aldi prepack sandwich is automatically foul. Centipedes might even have the edge. They seem quite predatory, they have that darting, many-legged purposiveness about them. ‘Centipede Horror’ isn’t an ‘animals attack’ film as such, but I think I can say that centipedes are its raison d’etre. It’s an early eighties HK black magic film about the cursed aftermath of a razed village, an amulet that feeds off the wearer’s tendency to good or evil, and centipedes. In it, Pak travels from Hong Kong to investigate the fate of his sister, who died in a Chinese hospital from a horrendous disease that causes centipedes to burst from festering wounds; he uncovers a scandalous family secret and gets slowly dragged into an internecine world of warring sorcerers. ‘Centipede Horror’ is a pretty good example of its niche. It bypasses some of the things I always find a little bit off-putting about this phase of Hong Kong horror in that it skirts egregious mammal slaughter (there are chickens in it and one of them dies at some point, but most of them appear to be weird special effect ghost chickens!) It also reins in the goofy laughs that often seem to mar these films from our righteous ‘nowadays’ vantage, and I know that kooky slapstick can have its charms, but it was nice to see CH play it pretty straight and take its time to build an air of eeriness to go with its spurts of squirmy grot. It all builds gradually to that classic and patented HK black magic horror movie closer, the epic ritualistic battle magic blow-out. The one here follows the established format well enough; it ratchets up the special effects into Bava-lit overdrive and unleashes a maelstrom of lasers, stressed out sorcerers, things that fly around, mad zooms, and centipede barfing. It’s impressive, I always like that kind of thing, I mean it’s not as far out as anything in ‘The Boxer’s Omen’ for example, but it upholds the tradition well for sure. For me though, what stays in the mind about CH are the numerous scenes where centipedes are allowed to be themselves and just go for it. We watch them piling on, slipping under doors to swarm across carpets and household coverings, dominating every surface until it disappears beneath a squirming mass of segments, legs and feelers. These shots of wild centipede action are used ad infinitum as filler more than anything, but there’s just a real sense of icky dread about them. Well anyway, enough centipede talk. I’m supposed to hate the f*ckers. But ‘Centipede Horror’ is a solid example of its genre, and I enjoyed this Halloween rewatch.

[Nordicdusk]

30 Days of Unseen Horror

Day 23


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Three female reporters head out on an assignment to cover a Danish emigrants parade but when they get there their room was double booked and in a small town with such a big attraction there isnt a hope in hell they will find another room even in the neighbouring county. Enter the owner of a local museum Ernest who offers to help the three pretty ladies by letting them stay in his massive house with his wife but there is always a catch because something lurks I. The basement.

The Unseen is a decent suspenseful little horror it has a slow pace but Ernest helps move it along nicely at first you think he is just an overly friendly oaf but soon you see a darker side to him especially with the way he treats his poor wife who you can tell has suffered years of abuse from him she is broken and worn down. One by one terrible things start to happen to the girls but the big reveal is not as horrific as I thought it would be it was pretty sad actually which honestly killed my buzz for the film it just gives the whole thing a totally different feeling the ending is a real downer very meloncolic.

A decent watch but that ending is a bit too sad for me.

[MrBarlow]

Contracted: Phase I. 2013.

Samantha, a 20s something lesbian has a encounter with a guy at a party...more like a back seat bunk up...anyway...she thinks she has a STD but turns out to be something else. The warnings of having unprotected sex with a stranger this film should be a somewhat PSA advertisement. Clearly at the start we see how the person became infected and become wanted by the police, but that clearly does not need to be shared. Set over a period of 3 days, and even though at 80 odd minutes and some amateurish camera work the make-up effects are decent. Aside from Caroline Williams appearing this has actors in it that I have never heard of and manage to keep the pace going and not become a dull boring film.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Terrifier 2 (2022)

My first revisit to Terrifier 2 and it's still absolutely superb. Good characters and ones to root for too thanks to strong performances which makes the brutality carried out on them all the more powerful.

And what brutality. It's so well done and gory as hell. I maintain this is far more violent and in your face gory than any of the classic Italian films of the 70's and 80's and is quite likely the goriest film to ever play cinemas.

Art the Clown as well as being nasty as f*ck is beautifully funny with it and there's a definite art to Art's nastiness.

If it has a fault it's that at two hours 12 minutes it's probably too long yet i'm not sure what i'd cut out to bring it in under the two hour mark.

The best horror film in years.