I don't know who is behind this riff on Jon McNaughton's 'One Nation Under God' painting, but this awesome image is now my new desktop background. This may be an even more apt commentary on the current state of our country than the original painting. Click the pic for a larger version.
This being the greatest month of the year, I decided to kick back last night and celebrate the October-ness of it all with a triple feature of entertaining flicks. I kicked off the evening with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, a movie that has never failed to captivate me ever since I saw it in its original theatrical run in small town Texarkana, TX. If you haven't seen this gem from 1988, now is a great time to check it out and learn how Elvira earned her 'Mistress of the Dark' title.
I followed up Elivra's ample talents with my brand spankin' new Blu-Ray edition of Trick 'r Treat. I've been waiting for what feels like forever to see this much-delayed Halloween-themed anthology flick. Was it worth the wait? Well...I'm gonna say 'yes'. The stories were interwoven in clever, if sometimes a tad predictable, ways and it has a handful of good scares in it. While it certainly was not breath-takingly entertaining, it was a quietly enjoyable horror flick (I guess maybe 'sleeper' might apply here?) that I get the feeling I'm going to enjoy more and more with repeated viewings. This is a good one that horror fans can share with their friends/family that are too feeble to handle the more hardcore stuff.
My final flick o' the night was the often-maligned Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Having no connection to the previous films beyond the title, this installment in the Halloween franchise is generally considered to be the worst in the series. Maybe it's because the first time I saw it I was still young enough for it to give me nightmares, but for whatever reason I actually like this film. I've taken my fair share of shit for saying so, but this one is a true guilty pleasure of mine. I'd say check it out if you've never seen it and decide for yourself.
Caught a late showing last night and I gotta say, Zombieland is one of the best flicks I've seen this year so far. It's certainly the funniest one! While the zombie theme certainly qualifies it for discussion here in my dark, dank li'l corner of the Web, it's not really a horror flick in the strictest sense of the word. There's plenty of over the top gore and zombie action but not a single real scare in the whole movie. But damn, is it a great flick! The opening credits alone are worth the price of admission. Horror Guy definitely recommends you stop what yer doin' and see this as soon as possible.
Happy October everyone!
...I caught Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 a few weeks back. I wish I could say I really enjoyed it, but Sheri Moon's presence in the film really got in the way. It would have been way creepier and much more entertaining if every scene with her in it were excised from the film. Other than this one big flaw, it was actually an interesting take on the franchise. I'll be interested to see if there is any sort of director's cut when this one comes out on Blu-ray.
...on a related note, Patrick Lussier (director of the delightful My Bloody Valentine 3D) was set to helm the next flick in the Halloween franchise, Halloween 3-D, but it looks like the Weinstein company has shuttered production on this one. They seem to think that production was moving way faster than they were comfortable with. I really enjoyed Lussier's take on Valentine, so hopefully we'll get to see this one completed at some point.
...Brian Keene's newest novel, Urban Gothic, is fantastic! It's similar in theme to Castaways, his previous paperback offering, but takes place in an urban setting rather than an allegedly uninhabited island. If yer into gory, intense horror fiction, you'll probably really enjoy this one.
...Frank Darabont is bringing Robert Kirkman's apocalyptic zombie comic book series Walking Dead to the small screen! If the themes and storylines from the comic are maintained, this is going to be a hit. If you haven't checked out the book yet, what're you waitin' for?!!?! Kirkman is crafting an epic tale of a small band of survivors that learn over the course of the story that there are worse things in their lives to deal with than undead flesh-eaters. Walking Dead is set to air on the AMC network, but no news of an actual date yet.
...HorrorFest 2009 is set for October 18th. If you are in the Portland area and would like to attend, drop me a line and I'll see if I can wrangle you an invite.
...my favorite fright flick of 2009 so far -- Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell, hands down. This is some old school occult horror with lots of fun 'jump-scares' and just the right amount of gore. If you missed it during it's theatrical run you can grab it on disc on October 13th. Don't let this one pass you by!
...there has been quite a bit of criticism regarding the number of horror flick reboots coming out of Hollyweird in recent years, but I gotta say that a good flick is a good flick; just because it's a remake doesn't mean I'm going to immediately dismiss it out of hand. Here's hoping that Marcus Nispel's remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the better ones. The recently-released trailer certainly looks promising. Check it out!
Howdy all you fiends and freaks! It's been a while (see my previous post), but I'm far enough along in school now that I've settled into a cool learning groove and can spare some time to blog about the genre I love so very much. I'm currently performing a few tweaks on this site and putting together a new 'Pieces' entry to catch up on some stuff that's gone on recently and in the past few months while I've been on a blogging hiatus. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer for Zombieland, one of my most eagerly anticipated flicks this year!
Yeah, um, sorry you guys. I know I've been a bit out of touch but I actually started a 14 month program at the Aveda Institute right here in Portland and it has been keepin' my ass busy. Hasn't been much time for my favorite pass time in a while but now that I'm thru the Freshman part, things might be loosening up a bit. Still, posts here on the blog might be few and far between until I finish up school in May 2010. I'll pop in and out of here as I can but you'll likely find me most often on Twitter (link right there in the sidebar).
Back to life, back to reality...
It's no news that the FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise of films is this Horror Guy's very favorite horror flick series and that I was very excited by the prospect of it being 'rebooted' for today's fear-starved audience. I had my doubts and my fears, but more than this I had my hopes. I was made even more hopeful by the fact that director Marcus Nispel had impressed me with his remake of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in 2003. After much anxious anticipation, I got the chance to see the re-envisioned FRIDAY THE 13TH this weekend and I gotta say it surpassed my expectations in every way! This is not to say it's a perfect film as there are a couple of things that just don't make sense, (I'll refrain from going into spoiler-ish detail) but overall as a modern horror flick, Mr. Nispel made this one work. It's been several years since I've felt moved to see a movie more than once during it's initial theater run, but I'm gonna try and squeeze it in again one day this week. Treat yerself to a fun scary time and check this one out!
Wow! I go away to the Hawaiian islands for a couple of weeks and all kind o' shit happens! A new president was inaugurated, that My Bloody Valentine re-do came & went and a cool new social network for fans and pros in the horror community was hatched. It's called The Haunt and it's pretty freakin' cool. The Horror Guy's very own Haunt 'badge' is displayed below and they've also earned a spot on the list of Horror Guy's Blood Brothers. Click on thru and have a look-see. Maybe you'll see me lurkin' around.
It all started with that blasted VH-1 reality show SCREAM QUEENS . If ya missed it, it was basically a handful of attractive young gals participating in various horror flick-related challenges in order to land a role in the upcoming SAW VI. I dug around on YouTube and found The Soup's take on a couple of clips from the show: [UPDATE: Sorry folks; looks like the vid had been removed.]
Anyway...I was really impressed with out-of-nowhere winner Tanedra Howard and was curious as to how she might do in the coveted role. I had only ever watched the original SAW and really didn't like it...but couldn't really remember much about it. So I loaded the first two in the series into the NetFlix queue (on Blu-Ray disc, of course) and then sat down with the flicks shortly after they showed up in the mailbox. I watched SAW and SAW II back to back...and was really impressed. I can't for the life of me figure out why I disliked the original so much on the first viewing. Anyway, I've now ordered the entire series on Blu-Ray and am looking forward to seeing Miss Tanedra in SAW VI later this year. I'm actually hoping she does really well and is successful in the industry as she seems really sincere and actually exhibits a bit of raw talent. Go Tanedra!