Can you believe we’re at the end already? And what better way to celebrate than with the greatest slasher film of all time, and perhaps the greatest horror movie ever made?

I’ve been trying to stay away from the obvious horror movies this month, but I couldn’t resist culminating with my all-time favorite. John Carpenter’s original Halloween set the bar for the barrage of copycat slasher films that would follow. Michael Myers is the perfect killer and the movie itself is perfect in every way.

Jamie Lee Curtis plays Laurie, a nice young girl who, along with her friends, is terrorized one Halloween night in Haddonfield in 1978. You see, exactly fifteen years earlier, young Michael Myers butchered his older sister and was hauled away to a nut house. Tonight, he’s escaped and returned back home with one thing on his mind: killing.

Everything clicks in Halloween. Donald Pleasance as Dr. Sam Loomis, Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, her high school friends who are easy prey for Michael, eerily dressed in a mangled Shatner mask. There are so many spectacular kills and terrifying moments. Remember that bit where Laurie looks out the window and sees Michael standing behind a hanging sheet and the next minute he’s gone? That scene scared the piss out of me for months. I was seeing him everywhere I went.

And how about that music? That awesome, simplistic, spooky fucking music?

Halloween is a fucking classic that any horror fan should see and own. When the trick or treaters go home tonight, sit down with the family and get the piss scared out of you. I know I’ll be watching it.

I hope you all enjoyed SHOCKtober! I’ve had a good time revisiting some classic horror flicks and seeing some for the first time. I hope you were able to find some good recommendations this month, not to mention a few movies to avoid (*cough*MountaintopMotelMassacre*cough*).

Have a great Halloween tonight!

[It's a Shocktober two-fer today!]

I’ve never seen a horror franchise collectively shunned by more horror enthusiasts than the Saw series.

Most people fall into four camps when discussing Saw: the group that swears by the series because of the torture porn, the group that dismisses the whole thing claiming it’s nothing but torture porn, the camp that says only the first one was any good, and the group who follows the awesome story. I’m in the awesome story camp. What Saw does different from the conventional horror excuses to kill teenagers is that it artificially arranges strange quasi-ironic circumstantial tests with every human target, most selections being fairly evil people themselves, addresses the backstory of the target, and lets the situation play out. Like the curiosity of watching a rat in a maze, these ‘jigsaw traps’ as they are called are great suspense devices in short bursts that play with your emotions. The traps are designed to be beatable, and some characters do pass and survive these tests. This leads to results that are mostly unpredictable as almost every imaginable plot twist that could arise from these jigsaw traps has occurred across the franchise. These interesting short stories about each victim are what you can expect from every individual Saw movie.

That’s not all. if you have the stomach to follow the whole series, the real tale of Saw is about the final days of the Jigsaw Killer himself, architect John Kramer. It’s about the new ideals he develops as he lost his child, obtained his cancer diagnoses, how he was treated by everybody he came into contact with, and his intellectual battles with his wife on alternative ways to cure patients of a drug addiction recovery clinic. Unfortunately for those with the short term memory, this tale is broken up into flashbacks filling a third of every Saw movie starting from the beginning. Basically every event that occurs in the Saw movies will have an explanation or reasonable justification one or two movies down the road. The care and attention to detail for something often viewed as throwaway torture porn is thoughtful and intriguing for those willing to take a closer look. The other strong point in the storytelling is how well the writing staff creates twists that play on breaking clichés, tropes, and your general assumptions. They use every selective camera and editing trick in the book, but the results are always neat. I don’t care who you are, for one team to come up with six successful twist endings in a row is an accomplishment for any franchise. The attention to detail in the overall story is impressive and the believability of the saga is limited by how much you retain storylines in prior movies,  how feasible you think it is to research, kidnap, and build individual complicated machines to indirectly kill 30+ people in the time it takes for a man to be diagnosed with and die of cancer, how much access to thousands of acres of urban abandoned industrial property can one person have, and what exactly is the speaker power of handheld analog dictaphones that seem to have amplifed playback over the sound of heavy operating machinery?

K, let’s talk about the Saw Six.
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Another classic today. Bride of Frankenstein is one of the great Universal monster pictures of the era. And check out that awesome poster! I just can’t get enough of this stuff.

A direct sequel to the original Frankenstein, the movie continues immediately where its predecessor left off. Except this time, there is a brief introduction with Mary Shelly and Lord Byron in a sitting room while a storm rages outside. Byron praises Shelly for her tale of Frankenstein’s monster and she lets him know that there’s more to the story. From there, the actual movie begins.

I bought the set of Universal’s Classic Monster Collection years back and try to watch at least one or two from the set each year. I just love the look of these films and the classic storytelling. Some aren’t as good as others, but they’re all worth watching.

So this time, the monster turns out not to have died after the mob burned down his tower, though the townsfolk believe they killed him. Shortly thereafter, Doctor Frankenstein is revealed to also not have died, and during his recovery, another mad scientist makes a visit and shows Frankenstein a new set of rather odd experiments. The other wacky doctor convinces Frankenstein to create a mate for the monster in order to build some sort of master race, created by man. The two monsters meet, goofy shit happens, and the audience is entertained.

I love the Frankenstein flicks because you can’t help but pity Karloff’s monster. The poor bastard is misunderstood and gets attacked every time he shows his face. As a result, the viewer is rooting for him at every turn, and every time the townsfolk grab their pitchforks and torches, you watch hoping he finds a way to squeak by with an escape.

If you’re into the classic monster flicks, I highly recommend the Universal collection I linked to above. You can buy either the whole set or purchase them individually by series. Either way, they’re well worth the cost.

Phneri talked about this movie after the theatrical release, but it bears mentioning here in SHOCKtober as it was just released on DVD and BluRay. And what a movie it is! Sam Raimi returns to horror after toiling away in the world of Spiderman (wasn’t 3 terrible? Sheesh…) to bring us a mix of modern horror and the classic Raimi stuff that made the Evil Dead flicks so enjoyable.

Christine Brown works as a loan officer at a bank, working for and with a bunch of assholes. But she’s a nice girl looking for a promotion so she doesn’t stand up for herself when people trample all over her. In order to prove herself to her boss, she makes a tough decision to deny a mortgage extension to an old gypsy woman. As you’d guess, the gypsy lady freaks out and puts a curse on Christine. She now has three days to get the curse lifted or she’s going to hell; yanked down by a demon. Throughout the next couple of days, the demon comes around to terrorize and generally fuck with her life in every way. Her boyfriend (played by Justin Long) does his best to help her, along with a local fortune teller. Raimi brings back bits from his old bag of tricks, including a lot of comical gags and bad ass gore.

Drag Me to Hell almost plays like a continuation of the Evil Dead series, with Alison Lohman playing the Bruce Campbell part, though not nearly as snarky or tongue-in-cheek. The bank takes the place of S-Mart and Justin Long takes the place of Linda. That said, I wasn’t bowled over by this movie like I hoped I would be. It’s definitely entertaining, but I could have used either a lot more scares or a lot more of the Raimi off-the-wall style. Nevertheless, definitely check out Drag Me to Hell. It’s one of the more original horror flicks to be released in the last decade.

As a fan of the original series, even after it got old and stale, I took the news of a “reboot” with more than a bit of skepticism. That being said, Jason is an iconic killer and not one that I wanted to see disappear. If any series needed some resuscitation, it was this one. The trailers started rolling in and I got more and more interested. My wife and I saw this on Valentine’s Day (hey, we’re fucking romantic!) and walked out ecstatic. This is the best slasher film either of us had seen in years.

The reason this movie is so damn good is that it hits all the right notes: great – even spectacular – kills, hot chicks, a relate-able hero, an antagonist douchebag, a supporting cast of easily-killable characters, and an awesome setting. This time, the cast is back up at Crystal Lake, near the site of the old camp. The rich douche has a family cabin, and he takes his buddies up there to impress the girl. She, of course, falls for the lonely drifter, creating a rift. None of this matters, however, once Jason starts picking them off.

This series has been completely rejuvenated with this movie and I can’t recommend it enough. If you love the classic slashers like Halloween and the old Friday the 13th flicks, this is going to be right up your alley. Word has it that they’re working on a sequel and this time it’ll take place in the winter. I’m in.

This is a pretty entertaining flick. It mixes the “teens break down” bit with the “haunted house” bit, and adds in some zombie-ish scares for good measure. But Dead & Breakfast is more comedy than horror. Think of it as Shaun of the Dead, only not nearly as good…despite what Ain’t it Cool says on that poster over there.

So to sum up, a group of teenagers wind up staying at a Bed & Breakfast. Soon, the creepy owner and chef wind up dead and the teens are prime suspects. But that’s just the beginning. While they’re trapped in the small, redneck town, one of the teens accidentally unleashes some sort of supernatural spirit and before you know it, the whole town is possessed…and homicidal.

Dead & Breakfast isn’t a great movie, but it’s definitely worth the watch. It’s about on par with 2001 Maniacs, which we talked about a few days back. It’s got a few laughs, more than a few eye-rolling moments, and a handful of good kills. We’ve certainly talked about worse movies this month. Oh, and David Carradine is in it.

Let me begin by saying that the original Halloween by John Carpenter is my all-time favorite slasher movie. Hell, it’s my all-time favorite horror movie, period. As such, based on the grumbling of critics and internet nerds worldwide, you’d think I hate this movie, right?

Au contraire!

I actually enjoyed Zombie’s take on the origin of Michael Myers. I dug the fact that he tried to explore the reasons behind Michael’s murderous ways, throwing in a backstory involving school bullying, abusive parents, and exposure to some pretty disturbing shit. He winds up committing his first murder, getting a taste for blood, and it all goes downhill from there. The events of the first scene of the original don’t happen until about 30-45 minutes into Zombie’s version. After that he’s quickly whisked off to the booby-hatch and shit slides even further downhill. Dr. Loomis is played by Malcom MacDowell and comes off more as an opportunist than a caring doctor. Years pass, Michael breaks out, and…well…you know the rest of the story.

Again, this movie got a lot of grief from die-hard fans of the original and the nerdarati, but I found it to be an interesting take; not that the series actually needed a “reboot”. I have yet to see the sequel, but if you’re not all emotionally invested in the original and don’t participate in internet petitions every time a beloved movie gets reimagined, you may enjoy Zombie’s version of Halloween.

Well, what the hell? We talked about the rest of the series in SHOCKtober, we may as well include this one.

Return to Sleepaway Camp was released just a couple years ago and includes a few key members of the original cast, though sadly Pamela Springsteen doesn’t return. In fact, they seem to ignore the second and third movies entirely. The reason for this, apparently, is the guy who wrote and directed the first flick is back at the helm for this one.

Great.

So for this movie, we’re back at camp. The owner is – get this – “Big Pussy” from The Sopranos. Poor Vincent Pastore. But even funnier is the fact that they brought in the late Isaac Hayes – The Chef from South Park – to play…you guessed it…the chef. *sigh* But the story revolves around this big, fat, stupid, obnoxious douche named Alan. Alan’s a bully, an idiot, and the butt of everybody’s jokes. Alan is, in fact, the least likable character I’ve ever encountered in any movie…ever. In fact, I was rooting for the kids who picked on Alan, hoping that one of them would kill the prick. No such luck. Instead, the people who pick on Alan start getting picked off, one by one. Naturally, one would assume that Alan’s doing the killing. Well…you’ll just have to watch to find out. But considering the budget of this movie, you’d have to be an idiot not to guess the killer immediately.

So like the rest of the movies in this series, Return to Sleepaway Camp is goofy, poorly acted, poorly scripted, and ridiculous from start to finish. The kills are hilarious in their absurdity, but the pacing is almost painful. Still, I can’t help but recommend it to those who enjoy the stupidity of this series.

Alright, that poster says “October 5, 2007″, but I hadn’t heard of this movie until earlier this month…in 2009. And it just recently came out on BluRay and DVD. So yeah.

But this movie is really good, and unlike anything I’ve ever really seen before. Which is odd, since I would describe it as a movie that is purely “Halloween”. By that I mean that it’s not a slasher, it’s not a zombie movie, and it doesn’t fit into any of the genres we’ve discussed this month. Rather, it’s a series of spooky tales that all loosely fit together.

In a small town in Ohio, the citizens have a kick ass Halloween celebration. Seriously. I wish I lived in this town. Everybody’s dressing up, everybody’s having a great time, and every house is loaded with Jack O’ Lanterns, rusty gates, and spooky decor. As I mentioned, there are a few different stories at work here. In one, a school principal has an evil secret, in another an innocent girl is not at all what she seems, and in another a local legend turns out to be true…or does it?

Each of these stories are cleverly tied together throughout the night. Again, I’ve never really seen anything like this and the closest I can come are movies like the Tales from the Crypt flicks or Creepshow. The production here is top shelf and the acting is very well done; something we haven’t often been able to say this month.

Trick R’ Treat is a great flick to sit down and watch with family and friends. There’s some T&A here as well as a few genuinely scary frights, so the kids may not be a good idea. Mine loved it, though. Then again, I’m a bad parent.

This trailer is an awesome teaser. If you want to get a flavor of this film, hit play.

Here we go. This one has a special significance for me. 1) It was filmed in my hometown of Merrill, Wisconsin back in 1975. 2) I was in a band back in the early 90s and we used to rehearse at this production company’s film lot. As such, we saw lots of relics and props from The Giant Spider Invasion.

This was intended to be a return to the great monster movies of old. A black hole is opened near Gleason, Wisconsin and giant spiders emerge, intent on killing every human they see. This is a total MST3K flick, and was in fact featured on the show. Truthfully, the only reason I enjoy it is because it features landmarks from my hometown. And the last scene that takes place downtown near The Cosmo (the local movie theater) is hilarious and awesome at the same time.

But the rest of the movie is pretty dreadful. You’ll never feel scared, even when you see VW Beetle’s dressed up as giant spiders come lurching towards the screen. But somehow, they managed to get Alan Hale to be in the flick. You know…”the Skipper”? No Gilligan, though, which is a shame. Oh, and there’s a quick booby scene, so Mike’ll be happy.

The Giant Spider Invasion has become something of a cult classic over the years, meaning that if you look hard enough you’ll be able to find it on DVD. I found it contained in a boxed set of b-movies from the 70s for about $5. Small price to pay for hometown cheese.