31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Tales of Halloween

October! It couldn't come fast enough for me this year. I generally look forward to the "Month of Halloween," but it's been a crappy year overall, and I've attached way more anticipation and expectation to 31 Days than I probably should have. You can't put that much on a month and have it all turn out well - so I'm trying to temper things now that the blessed event is actually here.

But instead of taking things easy and watching one film to start off, I decided Sunday still counts as the weekend and am jumping in with a themed double-feature! So without further ado:

Dark Comedy Anthologies With a Holiday Theme

There are generally two types of horror anthologies (to make a gross generalization). The type that takes both the genre and the tales it tells with utter seriousness (I'm thinking Trilogy of Terror or V/H/S) and the type that approaches the genre with tongue firmly in cheek (like Trick 'r Treat or Creepshow). My preference between the two depends on my mood at the time, but if I had to choose I'd probably come down on the side of the anthologies that include a sense of humor. I'm not sure I can articulate why, beyond the fact that I loved reading old horror comics when I was a kid and they generally had a wicked sense of humor to them.

Tales of Halloween (2015)

I can't remember who first recommended this film - probably Calliope towards the end of 2015's thread. I know it's been mentioned several times since, and it's been on my list since 2015. Somehow, I've never gotten around to it. When it popped up on Netflix months ago I actually made myself wait on it, with the hope of watching it for this thread. Yay for self-control!

The Format

As mentioned, it's streaming on Netflix. It looks pretty good , but the cinematography isn't such that you'd need a higher quality presentation. I do think I'm going to have to find the Blu-ray, though, for the extras. (Including some additional short films, including an early one by Neil Marshall.)

The Film

There's no real framing sequence for Tales of Halloween, but the pieces are connected - they all take place in the same town and the voice of Adrienne Barbeau (reprising Stevie from The Fog? I like to think so) as the local radio DJ is often heard in the background. Some characters also appear in multiple stories, often in the background. This isn't as tight as, say, Trick 'r Treat, but it's fun to pick out the various repeat characters and guess where this puts each piece in the timeline.

"Sweet Tooth"
An urban legend about a child with an... all-consuming love of sweets, turns out to be more than just a legend. It's just okay and is really more of a one-note horror joke than a real story. It's nicely gory, although the effects are pretty low-budget. I was a little worried about the movie at this point, because I expect the initial story in an anthology to set the tone, and this was a little lower quality than I had expected. It wasn't bad, just a bit threadbare.

I told you candy would rot your teeth!

"The Night Billy Raised Hell"

Now I'm starting to get an idea of how this is going to go. This is actually one of my favorite pieces, with a 'trick' on a neighbor going horribly wrong for one Halloween-loving kid. Barry Bostwick is hilarious as the 'devilish' neighbor and most of the fun in is his expressions and various mannerisms. I found the fun to be a little let down by the over-use of sound effects and generally broad humor, but it's still a standout.

Second most gratuitous use of Adrianne Curry in a film.

 

"Trick"

I wanted to like this one more than I did. The beginning is promising, with a lot of unexpected violence and the sense that all of the kids in town have gone mad. Things aren't quite what they seem however, though you might be forgiven if you're confused as to what's really going on. The effects and the production are flat and cheesy and visually confusing. There's something there, but it seems half-baked.

"The Weak and the Wicked"

Another half-developed idea that seems rushed. I like the characters and the basic premise has a long pedigree (a demon summoned for revenge), but parts seem to go on too long (the chase) and other parts don't last long enough to satisfy (the end). This is also the least humorous segment - or if it's trying to be funny, it fails.

"I was told this was a sequel to Donny Darko."

"Grim Grinning Ghost"

Really, these are all just vignettes so far. They're short, with a limited plot, characterization and time frame. This is another bog-standard idea - the thing that follows you that you must not look at. The acting is fine and I like the framing and cinematography better than most of the other stories. I also laughed at how they managed to get the main character to lose her car AND her phone - two things that would have severely truncated an already short story.

"Ding Dong"

Things really start to improve with this one. The humor - though very broad - is more wicked and on point. (Particularly the kid dressed as Hansel.) Pollyanna McIntosh is a little too cartoonish in her role as a woman who REALLY wants kids in the worst way (And holy cow is this vastly different than her Walking Dead role), but overall this works for me as a piece better than some of the previous bits.

Just me and my wife on Halloween, greeting the trick or treaters...

"This Means War"

A bit of a step back. Another vignette with a thin premise - modern horror vs classic horror in a literal fight to the death over yard decorating. It's... fine, I guess. Some fun bits. Doesn't overstay it's welcome at least. John Skipp is one of the directors.

"Friday the 31st"

Over the top, but in the most entertaining way. A lot of fun taking the premise of the disfigured serial killer (in the Jason vein) and the final girl and adding some alien abduction and splatstick comedy. I enjoyed the hell out of this segment, even if the humor remains very much of the loud guffaw variety. I actually wish this segment was a bit longer and was disappointed that it was over.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest never dressing as the 'slutty' version of a beloved
movie character. It's just asking to be in a slasher flick.

"The Ransom of Rusty Rex"

Two hapless loser kidnap the wrong rich kid. I enjoyed this one as well and - despite some slapstick - it's one of the more restrained stories. Awesome cameo by John Landis and good work by Sam Witwer and Jose Pablo Cantillo anchor the shenanigans. Witwer in particular has fun with his role and has great expressions.

"Bad Seed"

Super fun, and my favorite of the bunch. Playing with the cop thriller tropes and the super-silly 'animated vegetable' sub-genre. This one is written and directed by Neil Marshall and - while still being super-low-budget - manages to squeeze quite a bit of what little money they had. This is another piece I wish had been a bit longer. Had the most laughs for me.

"Nobody move! All you gourds are suspects in a murder investigation!"

The Bottom Line

I think I expected more of Tales of Halloween than it could reasonably provide - I'd been hearing about it and thinking about watching it for too long and my mind made it into something it couldn't live up to. The segments suffer from being very short and very low budget, but its exuberant sense of humor makes it enjoyable despite that. You get the sense that everyone involved was having a good time and definitely getting into the Halloween spirit.  It's fun, and overall is a decent addition to the list of horror anthologies.


FYI - looking like I might not get to watch AND write up the second film, so look for Holidays tomorrow.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

This may have been the first Halloween movie I ever saw. Probably on HBO in the 80's. I remember enjoying it a lot - especially the scene with the kid in the pumpkin mask. It added the requisite amount of 'ick' in a relatively bloodless film. The androids also reminded me of Maskatron - a villain from the Six Million Dollar Man series, always a plus.

In the years since first watching the movie I, unfortunately, bought into the prevailing opinion that Halloween III was something of a misstep, a mistake on the part of Carpenter and Hill. Season of the Witch, this line of thought goes, is simply a mid-tier horror film unfortunately slipped into the middle of a classic slasher series. Something that would have disappeared with nary a ripple in the cinematic landscape had the Halloween name not been attached.

But I still, secretly, in my heart of hearts, sort-of liked the film. I liked the masks, I liked the creepy town, I liked the androids. I even liked the title sequence, with its digital play on the previous installments use of a jack o' lantern. I hid that from my fellow horror fans, however - like I hid enjoying The Fixx from my heavy metal friends.

The Medium

It's been a long time since I last saw the movie, but I've been thinking about re-watching it for 31 Days since 2012 (when I watched Halloween II for the first time). I'd been hoping it would show up on Netflix first, as I didn't really want to shell out money for what I'd come to think of as a crappy movie with some good bits. A recent discussion about it got me to finally make the decision to buy a copy - and my local Bullmoose had a used copy of the Fear Factory blu-ray.

It's probably not necessary to buy Halloween III on blu-ray, to be honest. The picture is good, but it's not a showpiece of cinematography and a DVD should hold you fine.

There are some nice shots, though.

The Movie

I really like the opening sequence. I've got an interest in the use of mundane locations for horror, so the underpass, the junkyard, the gas station - public places that we all pass by or interact with every day - being presented in a horror context was right up my alley. (Alleys are creepy regardless of time of day.)   Older guy on the run from mysterious pursuers, cornered in a junkyard where he manages to pin one of the men - all of them in business suits - between two cars. He flees to a gas station where he collapses, muttering "they're going to kill us all."

Oh yeah, that's the stuff! Nicely ominous opening, followed up by a hospital sequence that is also pretty horrific. One of the pursuers finds the old man, now in a hospital room, still clutching a Halloween jack o' lantern mask. And then proceeds to kill him by putting a thumb and forefinger into the old man's eyes and pulling his skull apart. Though not particularly gory it's genuinely disturbing to watch. The murderer is pursued into the parking lot by the doctor on staff, Dan Challis (Tom Atkins), but douses himself in gasoline and sets himself on fire while in his car. Which explodes. Because every car in every movie is extremely flammable and full of explosives.

Pretty much everything is flammable and full of explosives.

The rest of the film concerns Dr. Dan and the old man's daughter, Ellie Grimbridge (Stacey Nelkin) trying to find out what happened. This leads them to the small town of Santa Mira, California. (You may recognize the name as that of the town in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers.) The elder Grimbridge ran a toy and novelty shop, and had driven to Santa Mira to pick up an order of Halloween masks from the Silver Shamrock Novelties factory.

Except for Ellie and Dr. Dan hooking up (I didn't buy it in The Fog either, Atkins), I love everything about the parts of the film that take place in Santa Mira. The way townspeople stare out of shop windows at outsiders driving by. The mysterious men in business suits who are so disturbingly similar. The whispered warnings of the town drunk (shades of The Shadow Over Innsmouth). The fact that Jamie Lee Curtis is the voice on every telephone. The 'misfire' when one of the masks turns a woman's head into insect-laden mush.

"No, she's not my daughter. Not my granddaughter either, geez!"

Ellie and Dan manage to finagle their way into a tour of the factory and meet the mysterious owner, Conal Cochran. The tour studiously avoids the 'Final Processing' area of the factory, however. And then Ellies sees her father's car in a storage area - despite being assured that he had shown up, picked up his order, and left. She's blocked from seeing further by more of those business suited guys and she and Dan decide to try and bring in the authorities. Of course it's already too late for that, and by the time Dan realizes that all the phones are out of order Ellie has been taken to the factory.

The movie, which has done a great job of building mood and tension up to this point, falls down a bit at the inevitable 'and now I reveal to you my cunning plan' part of things. Dan is captured and Cochran explains his intent to use the masks - incorporating a piece of Stonehenge in every tag - to... well, firstly to turn children's heads into a mass of snakes and insects, which is demonstrated for Dan in a scene that still grosses out, despite not being quite as nasty as my memory of it. After that... well, not sure, really. Lots of dead kids and some dead parents later they'll have, what, exactly? I think it's supposed to be some kind of sacrifice, to pay homage to the old gods of Samhain. It's not clear though, and because of that the film loses some of its oomph.

"Watch out, it's got a laser lasso!"

I've heard that the original story (by Nigel Kneale, of the Quatermass films, The Stone Tape and lots of other good stuff)  had Cochran be revealed as a 900 year old demon, using the mass deaths to open a gateway between the old gods and the world they once ruled. Which would have been awesome.

"No, no larger story. I'm just looney-tunes."

The battle with Cochran and his defeat is also confusing - I think Dan activates a bunch of the chips somehow, causing a short circuit between the Stonehenge fragment and the computers. The fight with Ellie-ganger seems extraneous and tacked on and once again slows down the pace. The final scene, with Dr. Dan screaming into the phone for some network guy to shut down the television show that will activate all the masks is pretty good though, and is especially fun when watching at home, because the actual final shot is of him screaming at YOU to turn it off, please God just TURN IT OFF!! As if you're responsible for what happens next!

Snakes and bugs, that's what happens next.

Bottom Line
I think this movie would have done alright if it had been allowed to stand on its own. I know Carpenter and Hill had hoped to widen the franchise with this, but they miscalculated the popularity of Michael Myers. Maybe in some alternate universe Season of the Witch succeeded and instead of a series of slasher films of variable quality there's a series of Halloween themed films... of variable quality.

I'm glad I bought this, as I think it's a really good film, much better than I remembered. If you approach it as its own creature rather than a part of the Halloween series then there's a lot to like.

Short-short horror: The Old House

A few things on a forum I frequent - a thread about inspirations and prompts from images, a short horror poem and and a thread that encourages people to post scary Youtube movies - have been percolating in my head. I've wanted to combine the ideas (in Frankenstein fashion) and write short-short horror stories/scraps/sentences based in photos (or illustrations, pieces of music, that weird shadow in the corner where the light doesn't reach in the basement). I'm hoping to post something every once and a while - feel free to join in, if you want!

Here's my first one:

In the weed-filled backyard the final count was 17 vehicles of various models and ages - including the rusted out hulk of a Model A Ford truck. Some were found to have been registered to people listed as missing, but others were never positively identified as belonging to anyone. The house itself was unremarkable, an aging farmhouse with crumbling plaster-and-lathe walls, rotting floors, and decades of dust, spiderwebs, and silence. The basement was fieldstone with a dirt floor and smelled of motor oil and rotting fruit. No one had lived in the place for ages - though the newest car in the backyard was a 2012 Prius that had belonged to a missing New Jersey couple.

No bodies were ever found.





This is a real house I used to drive by often. It's on Route 1, just north of Searsport, Maine. You can see it on Google maps if you want.

The actual photo above is by a guy named Bob Adams and can be purchased as a print or poster here:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/baphoto54/works/9936708-homestead-searsport-maine