More Movie Reviews -- Hellboy and Chris C'tan!

Got some more horror movie reviews for ya folks. One in the theaters (Hellboy 2: Attack of the Puppets), and one fresh outta production and straight into Netflix Watch-it-Now (Undead or Alive).

Hellboy 2

Let's start with Hellboy, which I just came back from this fine Sunday morning (I like my horror in early morning matinee form). Don't worry, I won't post (m)any spoilertz.


So how is it? Well, its better than the first one, by far. I'm not really a Hellboy fan, I certainly don't collect the comics, and I'm not really into the cartoony/Men-in-Black way in which they present the Cthulhu mythos. I do like Ron Perlman punching giant muppets though, so that's what gets me to the theater for these movies (who am I kidding, I'd watch just about anything if it even remotely suggested the presence of Yog-Sothoth).

However, two things bothered me with the first Hellboy movie that made me almost not go see this one (which would've been unfortunate):

1) The regenerating Hellhound creature(s). So you're going to make me watch Hellboy fight a mutant dog. Fine, that's pretty cool, I can't wait to see what he fights next!
...again with the mutant dog. Oh wait, yet ANOTHER identical mutant dog. Then an hour into the movie: The exact same mutant dog! Wheeee! We don't even get a tentacled horror until the last five minutes, and it was only after seeing sixty more mutant dogs.

2) Secondly, the "Love story." For some reason Hollywood thinks a seven-foot 240 lb demon man stalking a 115 lb goth chick is "cute." Guess what, its not cute. Its creepy. Also: Boring. The love story BS in the first movie was so painful to watch (not "Attack of the Clones" painful, but painful) that I started to hate demon-spawned heroes, which really shows how bad it was.

Now, in Hellboy 2 there's some love story, but for Hellboy its the troubles of a couple arguing over living together and not the in-your-face "stalking chicks is cool and will totally work to win her over" as the last movie. However, they decide to go in a different direction with the love story-shoehorning in this one, and have fish-guy get a crush on a fairyland elf chick (oh stop whining, its hardly a spoiler, they'll choke you with it before the end of the movie anyway). I'm not sure how they'd explain that coupling though, I mean, how would they "do it?" Does he think he'll just release his gametes into the swimming pool and then she'll do the butterfly stroke or something? What's the attraction there for her? Its a stupid and forced love story. Moving on.

The good news is, the monster fights are excellent in this one. Lots of puppets. Instead of Nazi demon-summoning of the last movie, they went with dark Germanic fairytale-style monsters. Its like the Bureau of Paranormal Research decided to invade the Muppet show, Labyrinth and Fraggle rock all at the same time. Plenty of Gorgs everywhere for Hellboy to punch. Big monsters, little monsters, you name it. They really upped the ante with the monsters here and I appreciate their efforts. I especially enjoyed the "tooth fairies."

The movie was a little funnier than expected. While I don't like the government-coverup/Men-in-Black humor of the Hellboy genre (and there was a lot of it in this one), there is some stuff to chuckle at in this movie. Also the guy who plays the villain looks just like Tom Cruise. IMDB says his name is Luke Goss, but I'm pretty sure its really Tom Cruise. So if you want to see Tom Cruise do ninja backflips and get punched in the face, this is your movie.

Final analysis: Twelve-thousand regenerating mutant Hellhounds out of fifteen-thousand regenerating mutant Hellhounds. Easily worth a matinée ticket.


Undead or Alive

This movie just came out on Netflix's watch-it-now, and I actually highly recommend you watch it now!

Its a western zombie comedy (A "Zombedy") starring Chris Kattan and the guy from Desperate Housewives. Basic premise is this: Desperate Housewives guy is a hardened ex-army desperado, and Chris Kattan is his bumbling sidekick. Geronimo (the Indian warrior/druid) summons up a mystical zombie disease to kill all the white invaders. Geronimo's indian princess niece gets caught up with the duo as they battle the zombies.

This movie was stupid, as in stupid-funny. Chris Kattan plays the exact same character he plays in every SNL skit he's ever been in, and says a lot of funny stuff. There's plenty of old-west cliche's and silliness, especially with Kattan's character. You can tell that each actor knows how ridiculous the movie is and puts forth at least a little effort to make it even more ridiculous. But most importantly there's plenty of gore. Far more gore than you'd expect of a movie with SNL people in it (there's cameos by some of the other lower-ranking SNL people from the '90s as well -- mostly as zombies). I'm not sure how they ever convinced these actors to make this movie, but I'm glad they did. Its even got the kind of twist ending that are the reason I watch low-budget horror.

Final analysis: Seven Corpses out of Ten. For a free flick to watch on Netflix, its worth every penny. Highly recommended!

Scantabuviews: Shaky-cam Edition

I watch a shit-ton of bad horror movies. In order to make the world a better place I review them to better help you, the horror movie fanatic, to make good bad horror decisions.

So what did I watch this week? Let's begin!

Cloverfield

Yep, right out the bad horror gates is a really expensive horror movie with a high level of CGI directed as if it were a low-budget Indy film.


Basic premise: Extremely attractive group of successful twenty-somethings hang out together in New York at a big party. One guy is in charge of recording the party on a hand-held camcorder. Then a 40-story Godzilla monster appears and smashes everything in sight. Camcorder guy tapes it all Blair Witch-style.

Does it work? Sure. The actors ain't too bad, compared to what I'm used to with these kinds of movies, but then again they're getting paid an order of magnitude more money than those in the 'spring class project' horror movie realm, so they should be fair-to-good actors. Plus there is more than the one monster/creature in the movie so there's a lot of room for tension even when they're hiding from the big bad, though the protagonists do always seem to be within three square blocks of the Godzilla beast throughout the movie.

Its got the monster tension of the original Jurassic Park, which was a really fun movie to watch, though this one doesn't promise family-friendly deaths (Hey kids look! The T-rex ate the stuffy lawyer, Ha ha ha!). Most of the protagonists do stupid stuff that you'd never think you'd do in real life, but that's what bad horror is all about and why we watch it. Also, this movie also has nearly Transformers-level military battles, meaning that you've got army dudes wildly shooting bazookas every which way throughout the movie, which I wholeheartedly endorse.

Final analysis: Six Mothras and a Godzilla Junior out of Seven King Ghidorahs! Go watch it!

Diary of the Dead

George Romero is back from Land of the Dead with one-sixteenth the money! Hooray!

Basic Premise: This movie is about a group of college kids (*groan*) shooting a horror film for class (*yawn*) in a spooky forest. After spending far too much time in the forest arguing about their particular problems with eachother (I guess this is character exposition?), they hear about the zombie outbreak over the radio and decide to head back to campus to see whats going on.

The whole movie is again shot in Blair-Witch style, only in this one they really only have the budget for the one camcorder. All the iconic college character classes are present: the athlete, the film geek, the computer nerd, the southern gal, the tough Jesse Spanno gal, and the drunk english professor. And they all give a Sci-Fi channel original movie level performance, which is to say, very craptacular.

This movie movies really, really slow. When the zombies do show up they are in fact legit Night of the Living Dead zombies, but by that time you don't even really care, you just want the college kids to die. Especially the jackhole with the camera. And in order to deal with the problem of making the plot move forward in a medium that requires the camera to be involved with the action, they take the route of a lot of loud noises just off-screen and then exposition by the actors (usually covered in a new spray of blood) about "what just happened" and "what the camera guy just missed." There are some sweet old-school Savini-style zombie deaths, but they don't make up for the 70-year old college professor shooting zombies (off camera) with a compound bow and acting cool about it.

This movie makes me sad Romero was involved, though I'm glad he's still working at least. And its better than The Dead Hate the Living, if that means anything to you.

Final analysis: Rotten and falling apart. Avoid if you aren't a hard-core zombie movie fan! If are a hard-core zombie movie fan, then there's probably something in there for you about the fall of society and how the National Guard always end up being dicks in zombie movies.

Krull: A Synopsis

Since Dr. Girlfriend and I have split our netflix lists into two separate queues, I have taken it upon myself to educate the good doctor in all of the epic 80s movies she missed as a little girl. We already went through the entire Indiana Jones Trilogy, in preparation for the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...

So now we've moved on to 80s fantasy, and I am happy to report that while she didn't appreciate the Dungeons and Dragons-esque 1983 movie Krull, I found it better than I remembered (though, for the record, I remembered it being pretty bad). Here's the synopsis (super spoilertz!!!1!!).

Krull is the story of a happy medieval kingdom of magic and wonder on a far away world, and what happens when that world is invaded by a deep-space faring Satan who flies around in a spaceship castle.

At the beginning, a young prince with sweet chin-stubble and 80's-hair princess are getting married in order to unite the two warring kingdoms under one banner. This is so the relevant kingdom's armies can unite and fight off the "Beast's" alien armies. They make it pretty clear that the alien armies are right on the two kingdom's doorstep, but they still won't fight together until the kids are married. This is some really sticky politics the world of Krull has, and it costs them bigtime, because during the ceremony the aliens attack the castle (with freaking blasters that shoot blue laser beams!) and, with the exception of the prince stubblefield and princess Joan Jet (who they kidnap), kill every single person. Thats every person in the whole castle. Both kings, every knight, every squire, every peasant, every chambermaid.


The prince, fortunately, is just knocked out. On the bright side...hey, new king!

"Old Wise Guy" saunters down from the mountain and nurses the prince back to health. The prince is keen on getting his sweet lady back, but Obi-Wan tells him he can only defeat the big bad guy with the legendary "Glaive." Here's where my first recollection was off. I thought the Glaive was called the "Krull," but Krull is the planet, not the bladed thing. The name Glaive is a little misleading, because from my years of reading D&D manuals I know for absolute certain that a glaive is a huge blade on the end of a pole that orcs and cosplay dorks swing around.

You're welcome Paul.

In any case, the Glaive in Krull is a throwy knife-thing.

The origin of the Krull, shit, "Glaive" is completely glossed over. Its just an ancient weapon from ancient times with ancient power over evil. It doesn't seem very hard to get, as Prince Beardy waltzes up to a cave, sticks his hand in some hot lava, and pulls it out. I don't know what the deal is with the fire-resistant hand, but he gets it again later for no reason.

In any case, he gets the Glaive and you won't see it again for another hour and fifteen minutes. In the meantime Luke Beardwalker and Obi-Wan Bore-nobi start their journey toward Castle SpaceJump. Oh yeah, did I mention the evil guy's castle/spaceship teleports to a random destination on the planet Krull every morning at dawn? Well, it does. So they gotta find out where it'll be before they can go attack it and be completely overmatched by aliens with BLASTERS, so they obviously decide to head to the "Old Seer," so they can go off and get killed storming the castle.

This is where it gets wacky. Like every 80s movie and most early 90s fantasy movies everywhere, a plucky stupid JarJar-style sidekick is required by law. So of course they cross paths with a Monty-Python style clutsy magician who I hated throughout the movie.

Other 'joiners' to the Kingdom of the Sideburns included a group of Bandits (featuring Liam Neeson!), a little kid, and a spear-wielding cyclops named Rell. Rell threw his spear no fewer than four times, hitting dudes who were about to backstab someone every time with perfect accuracy. This kind of throwing accuracy is amazing because Rell shouldn't have any depth perception at all.

In any case, the old Seer gets killed off by Beastie McGee, so they gotta go see an evil spider-lady who can see the future. This is probably the part of the movie everyone with even a remote fear of spiders remembers, because of the awesome-looking white spider that hunts Old Guy as he tries to cross the webbing.

Old guy dies and they find out from the evil spider lady that the castle will appear in the "Iron Desert" in the morning, where it will remain for a day. The party of adventurers shows concern as they inform us that the "Iron Desert" is over 1000 leagues away! I felt it was interesting that nobody pointed out that the "Iron Desert" isn't a very specific location. That's like saying "Know ye prince, that the Castle of the Beast will appear in Kentucky, and stay there for only 24 hours! You must hurry!" If I'm going to kill off my Obiwan Kenobi character for some directions they'd better be given in latitude and longitude.

Fortunately they rope some some super-fast horses and are able to zip to the castle just before it re-teleports. They get inside where just about everyone dies. One thing that is great about the movie is the alien soldier deaths. When stabbed, the alien soldiers die in a very cool way, as they give out the exact same scream noise that R2D2 gives when he's shot by a blaster, and then a worm jumps out of their neck-armor and tunnels into the ground. Totally wierd. The movie is worth a rental just to see that.

Anyway, Sir Beardsalot fights the "Beast" with the Krull, which with he uses the force to make it telekinetically cut the creature a bunch of times. But then it gets stuck in the Beast's body and he can't retrieve it. Oh noes! Now he's powerless! How will he ever fight the Beast now?!

True fucking Love is how. I shit you not. On this crazy planet, somehow when people get married they can form flames in their hands and they trade them in some sort of ceremony. Well, Princess-in-Distress hands her flame to Hiro B. Protagonist and he shoots like a flamethrower out of his hands, melting the beast. Then he proceeds to shoot through the walls of the collapsing castle with his flamethrower-hands, destroying shit everywhere. It really is as surreal and out-of-nowhere as it sounds. True Love = 3rd degree burns. So, basically, newlyweds are the most dangerous people on the planet.

I give it seven Glaives out of nine!

Scott Bakula - Esoteric Investigator

Two things on the Scantabulous Technodojo today. First, I wanted to link to this excellent highly scientific and totally rad article on how a zombocalypse is just around a corner.

Here's an intro snippet:

"We found out recently that if you try to leave a little kid in a graveyard late at night, he'll freak out. Even if you offer to leave him a gun to protect himself. Why? It's because on some instinctual level, all humans know it's just a matter of time until the zombies show up."

Also, I wanted to quickly give props to a horror movie that didn't make the Halloween list, but would easily make the best horror movies list here on the Scantabulous.

Lord of Illusions (1995 - Clive Barker)

This movie has got it all, Lovecraftian horrors, non-time-jumping Bakula with a sweet eldrich tattoo, and the best cultists of all time. That's right, I said it, the best cultists of all time. Its worth watching this movie just for the scene where the cultists are "called home." Highly recommended.

Sam Beckett, no Al
Floating wizards and demons
Shoot him in the head!

Top Ten Halloween Horror Movies!

Its finally here. The votes are tallied, the movies watched, and the judgments have been passed. I hereby present to you the Scantabulous Top Ten Halloween Horror Movies of All Time!

Here's a recap of the 5 rules of this list:

1) No comedies.
2) No one-hit wonders.
3) No legacy votes.
4) Supernaturally-related.
5) Recent viewing required.

Now here they are!
(presented in reverse order for climactic build)

10. House of 1000 Corpses (2003 - Rob Zombie)

This movie is gruesome. Gruesome and great. It squeaks in at number 10 because of its insane premise, its quality 70's setting, and Captain Spaulding. After watching this movie you'll be concerned about your stability of mind, and wonder whether you can ever live your previous life again, as it will cost you sanity points to watch (in a good way).

Hey Captain Spaulding
Take me to Doctor Satan
Run run rabbit run

9. The Shining (1980 - Stanley Kubrick)

Okay, this movie wasn't even on my radar for the top ten, as I remembered it being extremely long and boring up until the last 10 minutes. Upon recent review, I found that this is still somewhat true, except that Jack Nickolson is terrifyingly fantastic during that time. As most of the book takes place in Nickolson's head, it makes for a difficult film to shoot, but Jack's eyebrows angle slowly shows his decent into madness. Once he starts talking to Lloyd the ghost bartender though, you know its on. This oldie-but-goodie definitely survives the times.

All work and no play...
Andy's scared Mrs. Torrence
...makes Jack a dull boy

8. Creepshow (1982 - George A. Romero) / Creepshow 2 (1987 - Micheal Gornick)

This excellent Halloween-party movie consists of short Tales From the Crypt - style horror stories, most of which don't turn out that great for the good guys. Good stuff for a crowd, as long attention spans are not needed. Both Creepshow 1&2 are listed as they are really a combined Halloween attack, and should be watched as such. Stories of particular note are "The Crate" in the first Creepshow and "The Raft" in the second.

Don't open the crate!
Don't take a bath you lunkhead!
Don't go in the lake!

7. Fright Night (1985 - Tom Holland)

Rarely are vampire films any good nowadays. Regular-looking goth dudes sipping wine and charming women with their smoldering eyes is not exactly horrifying. But this movie takes the basic vampire premise and actually runs with it. Sure, there's the eye-charm and the handsome dude, but there's also half-werewolves, zombie caretakers, a washed-up van Helsing, and a sidekick vampire punk named "Evil." Plus its got Fangoria-style effects, so you know its good. Honestly, this is a great old-school vampire flick.

My neighbor is weird
He sleeps with a lot of chicks
Also he eats them

6. Silver Bullet (1985 - Daniel Attias)

What are inherently cooler than vampires? That's right, werewolves. Especially when a paralyzed Cory Haim and a drunk Gary Busey team up to fight them. This movie, like most 80s movies, starts off a little slow, but the suspense of a kid in a wheelchair fighting a werewolf with a bottle rocket more than makes up for it. The werewolf itself is a little too human-looking for my tastes, but it is still scary (for the best werewolf costumes in a movie, see Dog Soldiers).

Wheelchairs get me down
Gary has built a new one
Shoot it in the eye!

5. 30 Days of Night (2007 - David Slade)

This was a surprise contender for the top ten, because I didn't expect any vampire movie besides the aforementioned Fright Night to be any good; but this movie was great! Nosferatu-style monstrous vampires (not a single bottle of wine in this movie), combined with the siege of an extremely cold Alaskan town trapped in darkness for 30 days makes for a suspenseful flick. The fact that every Alaskan person in the world owns a shotgun helps to give an excuse for some very cool gunshot wounds.

Sunlight hurts undead
Alaska is really cold
Board up the windows

4. Dawn of the Dead (2004 - Zack Snyder)

That's right, the remake is better than the original (at least for Halloween). The Dawn of the Dead remake has the best horror movie opener I have ever seen. About two minutes of blah blah blah character development and then the best two hours of suburban zombie siege ever! Completely different story from the original making it super worthy of a viewing, even for the Romero purists. Plus, Ving Rhames and FAST ZOMBIES!

Quick, get to the mall
The zombies are really fast
Watch through the credits

3. The Thing (1982 - John Carpenter)

Kurt Russel at his finest outside of Jack Burton, and yes I include Snake Plisskin in that analysis. Normally I don't like movies where the monster/alien can take human form, as I consider it a way that producers cut effect costs (see Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation). But in this case when the alien is exposed the effects are so gruesomely awesome and insane that its totally worth it. Decapitated heads grow spider legs and walk around, dogs turn into giant tentacled beasts, and even blood samples have a nasty attitude. Plus the antarctic seclusion factor makes for the best Lovecraftian horror. Two tentacles up!

The Swedes are crazy
The dog just wants to be friends
And infect your blood

2. Aliens (1986 - James Cameron)

"Oh but Cory, the first movie was more suspenseful!" Yeah yeah, shut up. Aliens beats Alien, simply for the Newt factor. The first movie was scary with the alien running around, and maybe should deserve a co-opt place with this one much like the Creepshows, but in the second movie you not only have to save yourself, but you gotta protect Newt from the facehuggers. Newt's presence in the second film make it an extremely suspenseful movie, even with a squad of space marines with autocannons, due to her being so vulnerable. Good cast, good beasties, and great dialogue make this movie #2 on the Scantabulous Halloween Horror List.

Get the flamethrower
They mostly come out at night
Seventeen minutes

1. Night of the Living Dead (1990 - Tom Savini)

Its no secret that here on Scantabulous we find the Zombocalypse to be the scariest scenario ever. This remake of the ever-popular 1968 NotLD beats out the original in almost every category. Tony Todd kicks ass as the male lead, while Barbara's role gets a huge makeover from the original, giving her a lot more depth. Mr. Cooper is still an asshole though. The ending of the movie is great, and completely different from the original. Overall, Tom Savini (the special effects artist from the original) takes what made the original NotLD and gives it a booster shot in its zombie butt. I am proud to announce Night of the Living Dead (1990) as the BEST HALLOWEEN MOVIE EVER!

You better run, they're
Coming to get you Barbara
Give me back the gun!

-----

Honorable mentions:

Science Fiction: Event Horizon (1997)
Modern Thriller: The Omen (2006)
Gothic Monster: Dog Soldiers (2002)
Other Monster: The Descent (2005)

Halloween Harvest Haikus!

The movie marathon continues! All this horror is making me loopy. Its been suggested I change the reviews into something more coherent for the reader, like Super Mario Bros enemies (the tougher the better). Also, how about some horror haikus!

Jump to comments

--------------

30 Days of Night (2007)
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Nosferatu-style vampires, Alaskans
Watched: Sunday, Oct. 21st, 2007

Sunlight hurts undead
Alaska is really cold
Board up the windows

Surprise contender for the top ten! This movie really came out of nowhere, I had no expectation for it being at all good, but it was awesome. Zombie-style siege of a town mixed with creepifyin' rooftop crawlin' Nosferatu vampires (not human look-alikes like in most movies). Solid acting all around, and the movie really does a good job of making it look really cold in Alaska. Excellent helicopter-view of the town-wide melee at the initial attack. Great build-up and good ending. Spooktacular!

30 Days of Night final score: ---Hammer-throwing Bowser---

--------------

Hellraiser (1987)
Starring: Pinhead (Doug Bradley), fat cenobyte, chompy cenobyte, open-neck cenobyte, and 80s girl with shoulder pads
Watched: Saturday, Oct. 20th, 2007

Creepy uncle Frank
Big demon rat on a string
Watch out for the hooks

Its just an old-timey romantic story: Woman moves into creepy old house, woman falls in love with skinless blood-resurrected misogynist, woman steals husband's skin and then tries to sacrifice stepdaughter. They would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling Cenobytes!

Hellraiser final score: ---Winged Red Koopa Troopa---

--------------

The Omen (2006)

Starring: Liev Schreiber, Julia Styles, the son of the Devil
Watched: Friday, Oct. 19th, 2007

Little kids scare me
Final Destination deaths
Don't hire the nanny

Da Vinci Code meets a good editor. Replace long-hair Tom Hanks with CSI guy and a more plausible scenario, complete with disfigured albino priests. Good ending.

The Omen final score: --- Double Hammer Bros. ---

--------------

Candyman (1992)
Starring: Tony Todd, Gillian Anderson Virginia Madsen
Watched: Friday, Oct. 19th, 2007

Ghetto murderer
Gratuitous nipple shots
101 Noyes Lab

Plucky grad student investigates Candyman for her graduate thesis at Noyes Lab at UIUC. Tony Todd does all sorts of weird stuff, mostly involving bees attacking people and jumping through mirrors. More of a thriller than a horror flick. The last scene in the movie is the best part of the film. Overall pretty good mainstream flick.

Candyman final score: --- Lakitu, Spikey Dikey ---

--------------

Phantasm (1979)
Starring: Angus Scrimm, Bill Thornbury, and Micheal Baldwin
Watched: Wednesday, Oct. 17th, 2007

Terrible acting
Silver ball has no purpose
Midgets eat the girls

How does a David Carradine look-alike who can transform into a mildy-attractive woman and leads a group of jawa cultists and a flying metal ball sound? Pretty good, right? Wrong. This move should be called "Bore-tasm." Avoid.

Phantasm final score: ---Triple Goombas---

--------------

Hellraiser II: Hellbound (1988)
Starring: Everybody from the first movie
Watched: Tuesday, Oct. 16th, 2007

Don't open the box
The cenobytes aren't that bad
Hell looks like detroit

In this not-as-good-as-the-original continuation of the Hellraiser series, come see a flashback recap of the entire first Hellraiser movie as well as the first plot completely repeated, with the exact same actors, in Hellraiser II:Hellbound; except this time Pinhead dies...or does he?! CENOBYTE SHOWDOWN!!

Hellraiser II final score: ---Green Koopa Troopa---

--------------

Pumpkinhead (1989)
Starring: Lance Hendrickson, ugly kid from Jerry Macguire and a giant anamatronic puppet
Watched: Sunday, Oct. 14th, 2007

Witch is in da houze
Teens die in fabulous ways
Flamethrower should work

Come see an undernourished Lance Hendrickson on his knees yelling at the sky about the injustices inherent in the system for an hour and a half. Once the demon gets going though, it gets pretty good. Fast forward to the witch's cabin if you give this one a go.

Pumpkinhead final score: ---Bullet Bill, Piranha plant---

--------------

Cemetery Man (1994)
Starring: Snotty British Dude
Watched: Saturday, Oct 13th, 2007

Zombies at the door
This ain't no Dead Alive flick
Worst movie ever

Cigarette-smoking frenchy cemetery caretaker is forced to regularly shoot people with bad make-up in a sad attempt at cashing in on the Dead Alive fans. Pure shlock (and not good shlock, very bad shlock).

Cemetary man final score: ---Goomba---

--------------

If you want to see the list of all the movies we're going to watch before Halloween, see the previous post (below).

Halloween Movie Marathon

(updated daily until the list is complete)

Don't go into the light! (Jump to comments)

Thought I'd update everyone on how the list is coming along. Before Halloween, I plan on watching the following movies suggested to me by movie fans of the site, either for the first time, or again to determine their placement (if any) on the Top Ten Halloween Movies of all time:

Pumpkinhead
Cemetery Man
Phantasm
Alien
Candyman
Carrie
Children of the Corn
Event Horizon
The Omen
Waxwork
Waxwork II
Hellraiser
Hellraiser II
Poltergeist
Rosemary's Baby
Lord of Illusions

The above films are in contention for the top ten along with the following movies that I know for certain are Scantabutastic for Halloween watching, and I highly recommend them for any ghoulish get-together:

The Thing
Fright Night
Aliens
House of 1000 Corpses (may be too scary for the sensitive-types)
Night of the Living Dead 1990 Remake
Dawn of the Dead 2004 remake

Crafting a List of the Best Halloween Movies Ever

So in the last week I've been asked a surprising number of times, both in person and through email, what are the best Halloween movies? I am honored that everything believes me to be an authority worth listening to on this subject, even if the rest of the year nobody takes my movie suggestions seriously.

With that in mind, I have decided to make a list of the top ten Scantabulous-recommended Halloween movies. Unfortunately, with so many (good?) choices out there, I can't just spout off the original "horror" films and expect everyone to approve, saying "Hmmm, yes, Exorcist...what an artful choice!" when I don't even really like the Exorcist that much, even though it has some great parts (The power of Christ compels you!).

So we need to make some stipulations for this list to abide by, because invariably someone will suggest 'Shaun of the Dead' as one of the top 10, and while it is an excellent film, I have decided right off the bat to not consider comedies on the list. This, sadly, negates my favorite movie of all time, ARMY OF DARKNESS, which I consider more comedy and less horror. But I'm sure Bruce understands. Anyway, here's the my caveats to the 10 Best Halloween Movies List of All Time:

1) No comedies. While the movie can have funny parts, it must remain primarily a horror/thriller film (Slither, Fright Night; not Killer Clowns from Outer Space).

2) No "one-hit wonders." Even though a movie could be good the first time you watch it (Blair Witch Project, Final Destination), it must withstand the test of repetitive showings (28 Days Later).

3) Originals are not necessarily better than their remakes. Recommending movies should be determined on their individual merit, not on who originally came up with the plot idea (Dawn of the Dead 2004).

4) The movies must deal with something related to the Supernatural, Otherworldly, or to Halloween itself. Halloween is about being afraid of the slavering beasts in the dark forest, it is not about Kevin Spacey cutting off his fingertips and forcing a dude to eat spagetti-o's until his gut ruptures (although that was pretty horrifying).

5) You can't name a movie as in the top three until you've watched it again to make sure. Just because you may have made out with Sally Sexpot in 8th grade while watching 'Friday the 13th part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan,' does not mean that that movie is probably as good as you remember.


With all that in mind, I will now list what I consider contenders for the top ten Halloween movies of all time, in no particular order. I welcome commentary on those movies, comments giving your own lists, and suggestions for other movies to better refine my list, and will present the results after all the top contender movies have again been watched.

• - Night of the Living Dead 1990 Remake
• - The Thing
• - Candyman
• - Fright Night
• - Hellraiser
• - Lord of Illusions
• - Braham Stoker's Dracula
• - Children of the Corn
• - Poltergeist
• - Aliens
• - House of 1000 Corpses
• - Evil Dead
• - Dawn of the Dead 2004 Remake
  

Movies I need to see because I don't remember whether I've seen them, but people seem to love them:

• - Cemetary Man
• - The Omen
• - Night of the Deamons
• - Pumpkinhead

Whew! I've got a lot of watching ahead of me, thank goodness for Netflix's online "Watch it Now!" Any other suggestions out there?

ITS A SECRET TO EVERYBODY - NES Illustrator Challenge

Its time for another NES Adobe Illustrator Challenge! Where I draw a screenshot from one of my favorite NES games and people attempt to guess what it is. Also remember that I accept NES Illustrator submissions as well.

As I'm running out of games from posting over the year(s), I am forced to delve into the more obscure games I played. This little number is an Adventure of Link-style "rpg" that involved cleaning magic water and saving a giant tree people lived in from a disease. It was very hippie. You bought stuff and it was super hard. I remember the jump controls sucking balls. But it was one of the first games in which you could buy stuff and the stuff actually appeared on your guy. Unfortunately you started with an extremely crappy dagger, which is shown below. Also in descriptions of the game in Nintendo Power it would talk about how the game was "very atmospheric," which evidentially is game reviewer code for "drawn completely in grays and browns."

The back cover of the game's packaging provided us with this sweet introduction to the plot:

"You are the elves’ last hope. Outside the town walls lurk monsters with the power to destroy anything in their path. Inside the walls, water and time are running out. Soon the ancient elf town of Eolis will vanish into eternity. Only you can save Eolis. No one else dares to venture beyond the walls, onto the World Tree, where towns and fortresses precariously await the whims of fate at the hands of the Evil.

You are searching for the water source and for an antidote to the poison that makes the water undrinkable. To find them you’ll need gold and food and magic, speed with a sword …and luck!

Every town holds a new mystery, every fortress a new danger. Merchants will sell you magic and valuable tools, but it’s up to you to figure out what you need. Long, secret mantras help you slip through the mists, but will you survive the next challenge?

This is xxxxxxxx the legend, the adventure – the incredible journey on the World Tree."

This is a super-hard one. So, for 100,000 Scantabupoints, what elf-lovin' game was this?


-------

MOVIE MADNESS!

As a bonus treat to today's post, I will give one-sentence reviews for movies I've recently watched:

Resident Evil: Extinction -
Telekinetic-powered high-kicking sexy super-soldier Milla Jovovich doing super backflips over all three zombies in the movie. 1/10

The Bourne Identity -
Amnesiatic Good Will Hunting goes ballistic in this over-rated 24-esque CIA obvious-plot thriller! 4/10

Wild Hogs -
Tim Allen goofy comedies are hilarious to people over 50 and under 10, not hilarious to anyone else. 2/10

Flags of our Fathers -
Ha ha, you thought this would be like Band of Brothers, but instead its a documentary about how poorly the US gov't treated Ira Hayes. 3/10

Letters from Iwo Jima -
Not depressed enough yet after Flags of Our Fathers? 3/10

Pan's Labrynth -
Jim Hensen meets Tim Burton in Madrid, puppets die. 5/10

Blood Diamond -
You haven't seen such a terrible fake accent since Nick Cage in ConAir. 4/10

Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End -
Enough stuff explodes to create a decent-enough trailer to trick Cory into wasting three hours of his life watching this pile of crap. 2/10

Dragon Wars

Only three short weeks left until 500-ton reptilian awesome is unleashed upon Los Angeles!



I've been wanting a movie like this since the empty promise that was Reign of Fire. I guess sometimes something better than annoying anime does come out of Korea once and a while.

Hat tip to Thiel-o-vision.

Live Free or Die Hard

I don't know if you are all in on what's crapinin', but Die Hard 4 comes out soon, starring not only the unbreakable Bruce Willis, but also Tim Olyphant from Deadwood. I love Die Hard, as its like the show '24,' except turned up to 11, and then it explodes. I was recently invited to an upcoming Die Hard 1-3 marathon party, which I will attend, but I wanted to post this music video as a refresher cliff-notes course for those not willing to dedicate the time and commitment of watching Nakatomi Plaza get blown up again, or the icicle eye-stab kill, but who still want to prepare themselves for the awesome that will be Live Free or Die Hard.

Macintosh Guy: "You just destroyed that helicopter with your car!"

McClane: "I was out of bullets."

Holy Breaking News Flash!

This couldn't wait and required to get a post of its own. SFX Magazine has polled 3,000 people to rank the top ten greatest sci-fi movies of all time, and #1 sci-fi movie is...

SERENITY!

Even beating out Star Wars.

Here's the list:
1) Serenity
2) Star Wars
3) Blade Runner
4) Planet of the Apes
5) The Matrix
6) Alien
7) Forbidden Planet
8) 2001: A Space Odyssey
9) The Terminator
10)Back to the Future

Some gorram congratulations are in order. A shot of whiskey for Serenity! Shiny! I could go on and complain and say "Alien" wasn't as good as "Aliens" or somesuch but I'm just going to let this one ride.

Serenity FTW.