31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Night of the Demon (1957)

"It's in the trees. It's coming!"

This has been recommended to me a few times, including just this past week. It's a film I've seen, but not for a while. I do remember being completely pulled out of the movie when the  above quote occurred, because it's in the intro to Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love" and I never knew where that came from.

This is a movie I never saw before I was an adult, and I've always been slightly disappointed with that. It looks and feels like a movie I would have seen on late night TV or a Saturday afternoon, something that should have been a part of my childhood like Them! or Day of the Triffids. I want to have a sense of warm nostalgia watching it. I want to remember the demon like a child would, all teeth and claws and eyes - like the way the Triffids always seem bigger and more menacing in my memory than they are in the film. Can you miss something you never had? Is this way too philosophical for a 50's era satanic-panic flick? Probably. Let's move on...

The Medium
So, yeah. I was keen on watching this movie tonight - I just felt in the mood for a classic, black and white horror movie. This didn't appear to be available on any of the streaming services for free, BUT it looked like both versions (the original, longer version, Night of the Demon and the US Curse of the Demon) were available in one rental on Amazon. So I rented it.

Unfortunately, it's only the US version, AND it's cropped to 4:3 for television. It's not a particularly good print either.

In the end, I did get to watch the original on another site. Technically the British version is in public domain, so I don't think it was illegal - but it sure wasn't in HD. There ARE restored versions, but none, that I know of, are available in the US. (Apparently the French blu-ray is region free, though.)

The Movie

Night of the Demon starts out with a desperate man in a car, racing down dark roads in the middle of the night. This is professor Harrington, and his destination is the house of Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). Harrington has planned to do an exposé of Karswell and his cult at a scientific convention. Karswell, an avowed Satanist and magician has set something monstrous in pursuit of Harrington, who pleads with him to call it off. Unfortunately, it's far too late, and after Harrington returns home something, some THING appears in the woods and chases him to his death.

"Hello? My car broke down and I'd just like to use your phone..."

This section of the film and a final one are additions by the producer against the strong objections of the director, Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, amongst others). Tourneur wanted a more ambiguous film, with the audience never being sure if the demon - or any other 'supernatural' incident in the film - was real, or only in the heads of the victims. That would probably be a creepy and interesting film on its own, but damn if that demon isn't effective! All teeth, horns, hair and eyes - it's really the most standout image of the film. Even with the slightly awkward walking effects (particularly in the opening sequence), it's still a horrific vision.

From there we're introduced to John Holden (Dan Andrews), Harrington's colleague and partner in the investigation of Karswell's cult. He's disturbed to hear of Harrington's death, but waves off any suggestion of the supernatural and vows to continue with the research and the exposé. During a research trip to the British Museum's library he meets Karswell who gives him a warning - and a little something extra as well.

"You'll find him under V for 'villain'"

The vast majority of the film is a kind of cat and mouse game between Karswell and Holden, only Holden refuse to believe he's the mouse. His dogged insistence in the rational - in Science! with an exclamation point - is never really the strength he thinks it is. His own colleagues urge him to keep an open mind, but he laughs at them.  Professor Harrington's niece, Joanna (Peggy Cummins) even shows him - through a diary - that Harrington himself had come to believe that something supernatural was after him. None of this makes an impact on the ablative armor of Holden's skepticism. Even a demonstration of Karswell's powers - a sudden windstorm at a garden party - is shrugged off, much to the black magician's annoyance. Karswell declares that Holden will die in three days.

Dammit, Karswell, stuff like this is why people hate clowns.

It's not until Holden breaks into Karswell's house (because nothing says 'rational actor' like a little B&E) that his steadfast insistence on rational explanations is shaken. Because there IS more than the a housecat on guard in the study. And there IS something more than swamp gas chasing him through the woods (he was warned!). Earlier in the film Holden discovers that Karswell has slipped him a piece of parchment on which are written several runic symbols. It becomes apparent - through reading the diary, a séance, and interviews with a family involved in the cult - that the parchment serves as a kind of death note. Anyone who has been given such a thing will die. And before he knows it, Holden's three days are down to just hours.

And it'll take him two days just to find his way out of this hotel.

Holden's understanding of the stakes - and his only chance at survival - become clear during a hypnotherapy session at the scientific conference. The subject is the only survivor of one of Karswell's curses and, before throwing himself out a window (in retrospect sodium pentothal AND methamphetamine was probably overkill) the poor man reveals the only way to survive is to return the parchment to the person who gave it to you. Holden rushes out of the conference determined to find Karswell - because it's already night, and the demon is about to appear again.

It's weird little details I like in this movie. In the opening scene, Karswell and his mother are playing cribbage. I THINK she's actually winning, which is interesting given how things play out. Any time Karswell works his 'magic' on Holden, Holden's vision blurs and distorts (an effect that also occurs when the demon appears). The way the parchment flutters and jerks through the air - it's fishing line, I know it is, but it works really well. And it's a simple dubbing effect, but I even like the way the medium's voice changes during the séance.

The singing? Not so much.

MacGinnis' Karswell is actually my favorite character, because he's such a baby. He's a man who's used magic to gain exceptional wealth and power, but he's also incredibly petulant and reactive when things don't go his way. He goes from childish glee at performing magic for children to another, pettier sort of glee at conjuring up the windstorm that ruins the same party. He's alternatingly didactic, annoyed, magnanimous, scared and arrogant. In other words, he's interesting - and as much as Holden is cast in the 50's science hero mold and Joanna is a strong, educated scientific mind in her own right, they're kind of flat in comparison. I like them - and I like Holden's scientific colleagues even more - but Karswell is just more complicated. Hell, Holden's smug arrogance for much of the film annoyed me almost as much as it did Karswell.

Also, all the good villains should have a cat, don't you think?

The film is really well made, shot, acted and edited. The only things I didn't like were small things - I've been to Stonehenge, for instance, and there are no runes upon those stones. (Of course we weren't allowed to go as close as Holden goes, so maybe I missed them!) There's a moment in the train when Holden appears to be writing something on a spare piece of parchment - as if he's going to do a double cross with Karswell - but it's not followed up on. (Maybe a leftover from the less supernatural version of the film.) They're minor things, though, and overall I was impressed with the film.

The Bottom Line

This is now my favorite Jacques Tourneur movie, even more than I Walked With a Zombie. It's got great mood, buildup and characters - and I know he didn't care for it, but I love the demon as well.

As an FYI - Night of the Demon is based on the short story "Casting the Runes" by M. R. James. If you're interested, the text is in the public domain and can be read via a number
 of sources. Libravox also has a couple of audio versions.

31 Days, 31 Horror Moves: Outpost 11

"You know I don't like spiders!"

Actually, to follow up that quote - there are a number of spiders appearing in this film, both large and small. Arachnophobes be warned. (My own arachnophobia has subsided somewhat after several years of working on it, but I was still badly startled by the first overlarge one on screen.)

I've been looking forward to watching Outpost 11 since Tom B recommended it last year. Something about the general concept - a group of soldiers in a remote, arctic outpost who find themselves in trouble - tickled my interest. (I've had a soft spot for arctic/antarctic based horror films since John Carpenter's The Thing.) There's also the alternate history angle, which doesn't get used often in horror movies. Whatever the initial pull was, it's been something I've been keeping my out for, and was pleased to see it available on Amazon Prime earlier in September.

Even if I wasn't pleased to see these guys.

The Medium
I watched this on Amazon streaming, which must have heard me badmouthing it in the previous review, because the quality was exceptional. It's not really that cinematic a film, but the occasional outdoor scenes are nicely shot and the interiors are cramped and contain enough detail that I was happy to have a clear picture. Even with the spiders.

The Movie
Outpost 11 takes place in a pseudo-steampunk alternate reality where 'we have always been at war with Prussia.' We're given the (scant) basic details by a British General broadcasting over an old TV set to begin with. To be honest, this was not an auspicious beginning. The production values made me think I was watching the opening cinematic to a lost Red Alert game and the details are incredibly vague. It's... I think 1955, and 'we' have been at war with Prussia for decades. (He calls it the "Second Hundred Years War"). I'm not sure how long it's supposed have been going on, but I'm guessing that in this reality the so-called Great War never ended.

After that, we're off to Outpost 11 - a remote listening post deep in the arctic circle manned by three soldiers. There's the young conscript, Albert (Joshua Mayes-Cooper) , the older vet, Graham (Billy Clarke) , and the commander, Mason (Luke Healy). A King & Country soldier of the old school, Graham has little tolerance for Albert and his lackluster soldiering. Mason tries to keep the peace and spends a good chunk of time hunting for small game. (Some of which the enemy seems to have rigged to explode.) Albert just tries to get through the near constant bullying from Graham and the endless, mindless tedium of listening to static all day, monitoring for enemy communications.

I love what they've done with the place. Very 'arctic chic.'

And then one day a red warning light begins to blink.

There's a certain utilitarian roughness to the rooms that I associate with pictures of British Antarctic expeditions and that I like a lot. The steampunk touches are minimal and confined, mostly, to a byzantine boiler room containing a bulbous, squatting hulk of equipment called "the Omega Machine" - capital letters readily detectable whenever anyone utters the name. It's some combination of boiler furnace and nuclear power plant and Albert, at least, is terrified of it. Occasionally spiders come out of it. Sometimes small. Sometimes less so.

Also, occasionally large fishing lures.

The red light is supposed to signal an enemy attack, but in the absence of the accompanying warning siren none of the men is exactly sure what to do. This is particularly hard on Graham, who is a spit-and-polish, by the book military man around both Albert and Mason - although he is a chronic masturbator, secret snuff user and occasional closet weeper when he's by himself. As Mason tells Albert, Graham has been in the military his whole life and neither knows nor cares for anything else. The routine of war is all he has, really. The uncertainty of the red light, the isolation, and, most gratingly, the perceived weakness and un-soldierly conduct of Albert puts Graham on edge.

So when a coded message arrives, suggesting, in cryptic fashion, that the war is lost, things begin to fall apart. Strange events begin to occur - the spiders grow larger, a weird growth on Graham's hand produces a stone that somehow turns into yet another spider, and there are things moving around outside the building. When Mason heads to another outpost, looking for answers, Graham's tenuous grip on reality finally begins to slip. And his is not the only one.

"Permission to leave this chicken-shit outfit, sir!"

There's a lot to like, really. The soundtrack mixes with the banging and hissing noises of the Omega Machine, creating an oppressive, ominous atmosphere. Billy Clarke really carries the film with his performance as the alternating pathetic and overbearing Graham. The film plays with reality as it goes and you start to question what you're seeing, what elements are real, if any, eventually becoming just as unrooted and unsure as the characters themselves.

However it's all a little thin, a little slipshod. The production sometimes feels more like a TV show than a film. The performances vary from excellent to merely adequate - Luke Healy's Mason, in particular, is not as strong a performance as Clarke's, which lets down the scenes they share. The special effects are the same - with some stop motion bits being realistic enough to make me nervous and others almost laughably bad. I found myself annoyed by plot elements that seemed to be left undeveloped and distanced from the people by characterizations that were either too unlikeable or too cardboard.

And what the HELL was this all about, anyway?

I find myself having an opposite reaction to this film than I did to Housebound. I'm liking it more AFTER I watched it than I did during the viewing. It's got some cool things going on and I feel like it's an experiment, a story that could be done better with some more time, money and a different setting. The alternate timeline aspect feels wasted, really, and I find myself wondering if it wouldn't have worked better in a straight-up sci-fi setting instead - because it's familiar enough that the alternate universe bits that are used, serve only to throw me out of the story.

Which is RIGHT WERE THE OMEGA MACHINE wants me to be!
I may have made that up.

The Bottom Line

Outpost 11 is a bundle of good ideas and mood let down by some sub-par effects, production and performances. It reminds me of other interesting films that have similar issues, like Yellowbrickroad and Corridor. It's worth a watch, but it's not quite up to its own ambitions.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies 2016: Housebound

Time for the second movie in the Kiwi Comedy/Horror Double Feature!

Housebound

"You can't punch ectoplasm."

What is it about New Zealand and horror comedies? Part of it has to be the influence of Peter Jackson (Bad Taste, Dead Alive and The Frighteners), but it seems like there's a disproportionate number of Kiwi horror films that have a comedic bent. For every film like The Scarecrow we have a handful like Black Sheep, Deathgasm, or What We Do in the Shadows. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining - I enjoy a good horror/comedy and these are generally fun films - it just seems like New Zealanders can't really take horror seriously. At least not for long.

Which brings us to Housebound, a film that has all the trappings of a haunted house movie mixed with Rear Window (via Disturbia), but just can't quite keep from smirking and chuckling before letting out a single loud (and gory) guffaw.

The Medium

Housebound is on Netflix, and that's how I saw it. Streaming quality was uniformly good - something that's been a problem with some other streaming services lately (I'm looking at you, Amazon). The cinematography is excellent, but definitely not something you need to have on Blu-ray to appreciate.

The Movie

Housebound opens with an attempted heist of an ATM. It all goes hilariously wrong and as the female half of the criminal duo sits in the getaway car - stranded on a traffic bump, waiting as the sirens get closer - the expression on her face tells you everything you need to know about her life. Of course, her expression says, of course this is how it goes. This is how it always goes.

Thaat's the look. Or she has gas.

This is Kylie Bucknell (Morganna O'Reilly), our pugnacious (and pugilistic) protagonist. Sentenced to house arrest, Kylie is forced (and restricted by ankle alert bracelet) to move back into her childhood home with her taciturn stepfather Graeme (Ross Harper) and her decidedly NOT taciturn mother, Miriam (Rima Te Wiata). Kylie reacts as you'd expect a troubled, self-centered, angry teen to - she makes  life miserable for everyone around her - particularly Miriam.

"Do I actually have to say the words 'piss off,' or are you getting it from my body language?"

Even before things start to get weird we know we're not watching some family drama. The cinematography is all shadows and contrast. It's never sunny. The music is all moody and full of menace (a bit too much at times). Kylie's childhood home is eccentric and full of weird angles and too many doors. And there's the neighbor, who's a tad creepy - skinning animals in the backyard and giving Kylie the stink eye. Of course Kylie is no shrinking violet, and he gets the stink eye right back.

So when things do start to get weird, we're already primed. Kylie hears Miriam on a radio call in show talking about strange goings on in the house. Kylie is, of course, skeptical (and condescending), but she does start hearing weird noises. And then something grabs her ankles while she's in the basement and all her carefully managed skepticism vanishes. The police and her court-ordered therapist (who looks like a Kiwi version of Ted Cruz with a slightly less punchable face) don't believe her or Miriam, of course, but the duo finds a surprising ally in Amos (Glen-Paul Waru), the security officer assigned to monitor Kylie's ankle bracelet.

Ted Cruz by way of Hobbiton, maybe.

I like the main characters a lot and the film gives each of them enough space to become something more than one note caricatures. Miriam starts out seeming to be the worst sort of constantly rambling, clueless, Coronation-Street-watching mother figure, but it comes from a hope and belief that things will turn out okay, if we just look at the positive. Kylie is broken and awful to everyone around her and she doesn't want to care - because caring is how you get hurt. Amos is just as dry and matter-of-fact (and slightly goofy) with his ghost-hunting as he is about Kylie's ankle device.  He's got motion sensitive cameras and conducts recording for EVPs with perfect dead-pan seriousness, but he's also the kind of guy you can call for help in the middle of the night and he'll be there, only a few questions asked.

"Shh! I'm trying to look like the villain from the Star Trek movie."

A significant amount of the humor in the film comes from the interaction between Amos and Kylie:

Amos: What are you gonna do against a hostile spirit? You just gonna crack jokes?

Kyle: No, I'm gonna smash it in the face.

Amos: You can't punch ectoplasm.

"What if I punched  it in the..."
"KYLIE!"

Which is not to say that the film skimps on the horror elements. There's a talking teddy bear that stalks and attacks Kylie. She DOES respond by punching it in the face - several times - before tossing the croaking, creepy thing into the fireplace. There's definitely something weird going on in the house, which has a history of crime and violence. And there's that weird neighbor - who may or may not be involved.

Also has a punchable face.

Housebound is recent enough that I don't want to give away much of the plot, but it veers between ghost story, thriller, murder mystery and comedy with general deftness. There are a few missteps here and there and one character that veers sharply into unbelievable territory, but it remains a satisfying ride for the most part. There's also one extremely gory moment - played almost entirely for laughs - that's a bit of a shock in a movie that's kept the bloodshed to a minimum up to that point.

It was a surprise for everyone, really.

The Bottom Line:

 If it doesn't quite hold together in the end - if there are elements too fantastical or convenient - well, that's only something I started to think about after Housebound was over. While I was watching I bought in and enjoyed it for all of its elements - characters, horror, comedy and the occasional subversion of expectation. Well worth a watch.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Dead Alive

To start things off I decided to grab a recommendation from the first thread - the list from the first thread is actually pretty small, as I've seen a bunch of them already. However I saw that Dead Alive was on there and that I still hadn't watched it. I decided to combine it with Housebound - a recommendation from 2014 - to form a New Zealand Horror Comedy theme.

Looks like Housebound will have to wait until later today (and the writeup tomorrow), so here's the first writeup for 2016. I've been struggling with the worst writer's block for the last few months and the wheels are rusty, so I apologize if it rambles more than usual!

Dead Alive (aka Braindead)
"Singaya!"

I'm not sure when, exactly, I first saw Dead Alive. It was probably in '93 or '94 and was almost certainly rented at our local video store, Matt & Dave's Video Venture (a place I still reminisce about fondly). The cover was striking enough, but I'm fairly sure the reason I rented it was that I'd heard it was from the director of Bad Taste - some guy named Peter Jackson.

I LOVED Bad Taste. It struck a particular chord with its combination of extreme gore, shoddy production and terrible comedy. (We recently played a Pathfinder campaign where one of the character's names was Derek and whenever he got into combat I could never help myself from muttering "'Cause I'm a Derek. And Dereks don't run.") I even loved the fact that the video store in Millinocket had to cover up the alien hand on the cover, because it was giving the finger to anyone who looked at it.

So, director of Bad Taste, cool cover with a skull peeking through a woman's stretched out mouth and the quote "... the goriest fright film of all time!" at the top? A must watch, for me anyway.

One other detail that didn't hit me at the time, but was telling later - the tape had not been rewound. This was an occasional issue back in the VHS days, people returning movies without rewinding them. A lot of places eventually got machines that rewound films quickly, as it was super annoying to put in a tape and sit down with your popcorn, only to see the credits rolling and have to wait five minutes while your machine slowly rewound. I didn't always check and I remember when I put the tape in it started up in the middle of the movie. Actually, it was fairly early on, during the dinner scene with the representative of the Wellington Ladies Welfare League (the WLWL). It didn't mean anything to me in the moment (other than I had to wait for the tape to rewind), but later I realized that it meant someone had gotten that far and decided to turn the film off and return it. I guess the ear in the custard was the final straw.

The height of 1990's rewind technology.

I loved it, of course. I'd been a fan of splatstick horror since Evil Dead and Jackson seemed the inheritor of Raimi's mantle in that regard. If anything, Jackson seemed intent on out-doing Raimi, with more blood and more gags than any of the Evil Dead films. Since then I've cooled on the film somewhat - I tend to watch Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 every couple of years, but it's been a long time since I've viewed Dead Alive.

Still, Jackson was definitely a director to watch. I wonder if he's done anything of note since?

The Medium:
I've had a DVD of Dead Alive for a while, but I'm not sure I've watched it since I purchased it from Bull Moose years ago. There's still a price sticker (used) on the cover and I usually take those off once I've watched the film. Certainly I haven't seen it since the advent of Blu-ray, and I was immediately dismayed by the lack of clarity, color and detail. So much so I actually turned it off and - despite my limited budget this year - started looking for it in another format, either high-def or streaming. However, Dead Alive is both out of print AND unavailable for streaming. Seems all the rights have reverted to Wingnut Films and none of the Lions Gate releases are available - unless you feel like spending a hefty chunk of change or finding it in a less-than-legal manner. I didn't feel like either, so back to the DVD it was.

The Movie:

When the godfather of Italian gore, Lucio Fulci, says the gore in a movie is over the top you know you're in for something special. Dead Alive is a gory movie, an extremely gory movie. In fact, for the longest time I considered it the goriest movie ever made. Other movies may have since shown us more disturbing or more realistic gore - the remake of Evil Dead comes to mind - but Dead Alive remains on the top of the heap for - if nothing else - the sheer quantity of blood and guts. During the lawnmower scene alone they used 300 liters of fake blood per minute. (Roughly 80 gallons.)

The man who gave us this thinks you've gone too far, Mr. Oscar Winner.

At least the film is considerate enough to let you know what you're in for from the beginning. The opening sequence, with a Wellington Zoo employee attempting to bring back a Sumatran Rat Monkey from Skull Island, gives us some comedic Indiana Jones inspired moments before segueing into gory dismemberment when the employee is scratched by said monkey.

This is a Sumatran Rat Monkey. You do NOT want to know how they came to be.

It's not all blood and guts, though. The film, at its heart, is a period (50's New Zealand) romance, with star-crossed lovers and an overbearing, interfering mother trying to keep them apart. Lionel, our browbeaten, over-mothered hero, finds himself 'romantically entagled' with the shopkeeper's daughter, Paquita. He tries to keep it from his mother, Vera, but she follows the couple to the local zoo - where she's bitten by the Sumatran Rat Monkey.

This is Paquita. Something nice in all this horror.

Though there are further nods to the complicated nature of Paquita and Lionel's relationship things rapidly degenerate (literally) into a series of gore-filled gags. Vera starts to fall apart (again, quite literally) and develops a disturbing appetite for the strangest things. ("Your mother ate my dog!" "Not all of him." is still one of my favorite dialogue exchanges from the film.) Before long Vera has passed away and then rapidly come back, much to Lionel's consternation and embarrassment. He's forced to purchase animal tranquilizers to keep Vera sedated, which only works for a limited amount of time. Soon he has a basement full of zombies - Vera and her victims - and when his scheming Uncle Les shows up to try and worm his way into Lionel's inheritance it's only a matter of time until things go very, VERY out of control.

How out of control? That's a set of internal organs preening in a mirror. You decide.

The gory set pieces and individual gags are really what stand out, long after the plot elements of romance, family tragedy and buried secrets have been forgotten. The dinner sequence I mentioned at the beginning is nausea inducing in its mixture of food, secretions and body parts. The death of the nurse - and her subsequent appearances with her head on a flip-top neck - is funny and painful. Other memorable sequences include a kung-fu priest ("I kick ass for the Lord!") and a zombie dinner party in which a spoon is used incorrectly and zombie sex occurs.

THAT is how you suck face.
I'm sorry, I'll get my coat.

Yes. I said zombie sex. Which results in a zombie pregnancy. And a zombie baby. This is the film, you just have to roll with it.

Jackson says the sequence with the zombie baby in the park is his favorite. A late addition to the film - they had unspent money, so they added the scene - it's actually my least favorite. It's funny, yes, for a given value of splatstick funny, but it throws off the pace for me and I find it tiresome after the first few gags. And I know Lionel is exhausted and traumatized, but would he really take that thing out in public? (I know - I somehow let the concept of zombies having sex AND offspring slide, but this is my Rubicon? What can I say - some things make it past my inner critic unmolested and others cause it to get indignant.)

A face only a mother could... no, not even. Sorry kid.

Jackson throws a lot of things at the screen (again - literally) and not all of them work to the same degree. In addition to the baby sequence, scenes involving Lionel at his mother's funeral and a visit from his Uncle Les just don't work as well as others and are drags on the film's pacing. Some gore effects are purely gag-inducingly gross, rather than funny, and there are one or two too many scenes of Lionel essentially moping about, looking both insane and lovesick.

All is forgiven about two-thirds of the way through the film, however, when Uncle Les has a party (having successfully blackmailed Lionel with knowledge of that zombie filled basement). During the festivities Paquita talks Lionel into finally putting all the zombies down with poison - but it turns out to be mis-labeled animal stimulant. Soon the zombies are loose and the party degenerates into the goriest zombie attack ever put to celluloid. Intestines take on a life of their own, the top half of a head gets kicked around like a hockey puck, a lady's head is pulled apart and worn like a mask, and a baby is actually put into a blender. There are so many gore gags that if you blink you're liable to miss a couple.

"What I miss?"

All of it is mere pre-amble to the main event, however, a scene with Lionel and a lawnmower that must be seen to be believed - IF you can stomach it.

Least gory screencap of that scene I could find.

Even that is not the final horror - Lionel must finally face his mother and her secrets, before a (one more time, literal) return to the womb moment. Will his mother overwhelm him or will he finally be with the woman he loves?

The Bottom Line:
Dead Alive is an experience -gory, funny and even a little (weirdly) heartwarming. It's not consistently good and has pacing issues (though not Hobbit level pacing issues), but it's still a classic of the splatstick genre and  just amazingly fun and over-the-top. Well worth a view if you have an iron stomach.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies VI: The Self-Referential, Postmodern Update

For the last five years I've used October as a personal Horror Film Festival, trying to make sure I watch a horror movie a day and then - because I'm not that bright - I try and write a little bit about it.

The first few years I did this as a thread on Rpg.net - a gaming site and messageboard that I've been a member of for a long time. A couple of years ago I started cross-posting here as well, and I plan on continuing that this year!

The Rules!

1. It’s got to be a horror movie (straight sci-fi, thrillers and mysteries are generally out, though rules are made to be broken).
2. I have to watch one a day, but I might not get to write it up for a day or two.
3. No set watch-list. I’ll decide that day what I’ll watch. The only exception is if I get an itching for a particular film and I don’t currently have access – I’ll plan around when I can rent/borrow/buy it.
4. As has become usual, I'm planning to do theme weekends again this year. Creature Feature is the staple, and we'll see what we can come up with for the others (last year I did Spanish Language Time Travel Horror, Horror Comedies, and Vincent Price Movies With "Doctor Phibes" In The Title.)
5. Probably should go without saying, but there are bound to be spoilers galore.
6. NEW RULE! For this year, at least 5 of the movies each week will be chosen from recommendations made in previous threads on RPG.net. More info below.

So, every year I've done this I've gotten a ton of great recommendations - new films, classics, hidden gems and so-bad-its-good trash (and the occasional 'just plain bad'). I've watched a lot of them, but there are many more I just haven't managed to get to. When I was starting to think about this year's event I decided to work up a complete list of the recommended films that I hadn't seen yet (for the thread and blog, anyway). I counted any film that was directly recommended, that I specifically said "that goes on the list" or received a positive review from the person who watched it.  The final list ended up having over 250 titles on it!

Well, I thought, that's that then - for this year's thread I'll just watch films from the recommended list! Which was all well and good, but... As we got closer to October I started to hedge. I'd vaguely planned to watch Grizzly for the Creature Feature weekend this year, but it's not on the list. And there are a few more recent films that didn't make it either - I actually watched The VVitch recently because I thought I wouldn't get a chance this month. Then there's my general contrariness which sometimes rears its head with a childish 'I don't WANNA watch any of these!' Thus rule 6 and its caveat - at least 5 of the films in any week will be chosen from the list of recommended films. It might be more - I may even get through the month only choosing from the list - but I'm weak and wanted the wiggle room.

That's the plan this year - we'll see how long I can stick to it.

For the first time since I started doing theme weekends 31 Days is starting on a Saturday, which means it'll be a double-feature/theme to start with. With luck I'll have the first film written up later today. Hope you stick around, and enjoy the reviews!

New Short Story - FREE for a limited time!

I wrote up a quick short story set in the Monster War universe to give away for my birthday! Amazon doesn't let me set the price at 0 - even for a story as short as this one (1500 words). However, it does let me run a promo price, which is going on right now! Until May 3rd, 2016, "Tales of the Monster War: Apocrypha" is free! It might be good, it might be bad, but at least it's short! (There's also the first 3 chapters of The Monster War excerpted, so there's a little more to read if you want.)

LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Monster-War-Bob-Cram-ebook/dp/B01EX6CUYA

The inevitable 'crap, I've neglected the blog!' post

2016 and I've been off the writing wagon for a bit. Lots of stuff going on, but the bottom line is I fell off and need to get back on. I've got short stories at various levels of completion, a novel about 3/4 and I actually dug out an old screenplay to revisit.  All good, but I'm really feeling the rust and I think I need to bang around a bit with something a bit smaller and easier to get back into the rhythm.

So on that front, I'll be returning to doing a few horror movie reviews again (which is primarily what I've been posting here anyway). I'll be starting out small and probably rough with a re-watch of the Friday the 13th series. It's been a long time since I've watched any of the original run of films and I'm kind of interested in how they hold up for me now.

I'm hoping this primes the writing pump for the other projects, but also gets me back into doing more regular horror movie reviews, which I've always enjoyed doing.

Lending credence to the idea that love of horror movies is genetic, my cousin Nate is now doing horror reviews as well! He started off with a review of the recent film The Boy and then plunged headlong into an epic watch of all the Wrong Turn movies. Take a look, if you get a chance:

http://horrorforlife.blogspot.com/

More soon!

-bob