Happy Halloween!

...Or All Hallows Eve. October Thirty-first. One of my favorite days on the calendar.

Next year will mark the 35th anniversary of John Carpenter's immortal "Halloween"; The definitive film on the holiday. Aside from being recognized as one of the most successful independent films ever made, "Halloween" has the honor and distinction of birthing the slasher. Hardcore horror buffs will debate that "Halloween" is not the first in its family tree, but a descendent of other genre pictures such as "Peeping Tom," "Psycho," "Black Christmas," and any number of Italian Giallos. But if "Halloween" didn't invent the formula, it certainty did perfect it.

As has been extensively and exhaustively documented, "Halloween" facilitated filmmaker's attack on every other holiday from April Fool's Day to Valentines. "Halloween" itself spawned 7 sequels and 2 remakes. Yet despite the holiday's seemingly infinite profit potential, few have ventured outside the confines of that franchise to explore it, and even fewer of those have succeeded.

Well it took nearly 30 years, but in 2007 someone finally made a movie worthy of being a companion to "Halloween" on this night of scary movie viewing. That someone is Michael Dougherty (whose previous credits include scripting several superhero flicks) and the movie is "Trick 'r Treat."

In five short years "Trick 'r Treat" has already achieved cult status. In spite of its lack of a formal theatrical release, it has found a home in most horror geek's libraries with its DVD and Blu-ray releases (I double-dipped and bought both). But on the off chance you haven't been introduced to this beauty...
Scary movie lovers, I give to you...

Trick 'r Treat

Release Date: 2007

Rating: * * * *

By John Engell October 31, 2012

 I'm going to keep this short and sweeter than a pillowcase of Halloween candy. "Trick 'r Treat" is an anthology film, in the tradition of "Creepshow." Four interwoven tales with a wraparound story. The chronicles concern a school principal who takes his love for the holiday too far, a lonely young lady looking for the right man, a clique of adolescent pranksters whose latest stunt results in tragedy, and an old man whose checkered past has finally come back to haunt him. The tales all take place on Halloween night and are brilliantly atmospheric. The animations, the cinematography, the music, are all tops and the talented Anna Paquin ("True Blood" and "Scream 4") is featured prominently in one of the story arcs. It is hard to review a film you consider a masterpiece and it would be a disservice to anyone who hasn't yet had the pleasure of seeing "Trick 'r Treat" to reveal anymore. So suffice to say "Trick 'r Treat" should be on your short list of essential holiday viewing. After watching it countless times myself, my only complaint... at only 82 minutes long, it's over too soon.

Waxwork (1988)

Waxwork

Release Date: 1988

Rating: * * *

By John Engell October 24, 2012

7 more days till Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...Yours truly has been busy carving pumpkins and gorging myself on candy, and writing reviews of course. This treat I've been saving for just the right time.

                              (My 2012 pumpkin- Sam from "Trick 'r Treat")

A precursor to and perhaps a prototype of “Scream” and the savvy self-aware horror film, “Waxwork” (1988) stars Zach Galligan of “Gremlins” fame, in his second most recognized role. Galligan hams it up as Mark Loftmore, a wealthy prima donna who agrees to accompany his friends to the premiere of a new wax museum. David Warner (“The Omen”) lends some credibility to this budget production with his performance as the proprietor of the exhibit.

The waxwork features 18 scenes depicting the genre’s most storied characters. Incidentally each display has the ability to teleport any patron who ventures past its velvet ropes, to the place and time it illustrates. Two of the visitors quickly disappear including Tony, (Dana Ashbrook from tv’s “Twin Peaks”) who enters one of the sets in an attempt to retrieve his lost lighter and ends up in a dark wood, mauled by a werewolf, played by John Rhys-Davies AKA Gimli from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

The surviving pair, Mark (Galligan) and Sarah (Deborah Foreman who starred as Muffy/Buffy in the slasher parody “April Fool’s Day”) search for their friends to no avail and hesitantly leave the waxwork without them. They become increasingly concerned the following day when they fail to reach them. Mark swears he recognizes the waxwork man and decides to dig up his family’s dusty newspaper collection that details his grandfather’s death. The clippings lead the pair to the old man’s former friend, a crippled codger named Sir Wilfred, who spins a yarn about helping Mark’s relation collect pieces from the evilest people who have ever lived; artifacts that were long ago stolen by a man named Lincoln AKA the museum man. He apparently plans to use them in conjunction with the souls of his hapless victims, to bring his creations to life. Hope that wasn’t as convoluted to read as it was to watch and write.

Regardless “Waxwork’s” plot serves only as a means to an end, which in this case is a monster brawl in the museum between the resurrected villains and a geriatric army intent to stop them.
Kane “Jason” Hodder was responsible for stunts on "Waxwork" and apparently the film’s original script made numerous references to the Friday the 13th franchise and other horror mainstays, which were ultimately cut for legal reasons.

Still “Waxwork” was a pleasant surprise and thanks to Lionsgate it is now readily available. The company released the film as part of its infamous Horror Collection 8 Movie Pack earlier this year. More on that set next week!

31 Days of Halloween

I've been so preoccupied with this month's festivities that I forgot to publish last week's Wednesday post. Halloween truly is the "holiday season" for horror fans. Now is the time to shop for your collection.
Best Buy, FYE, and one of my personal favorites Big Lots!, are all stocked with horror DVDs and blu-rays, from new mainstream fare to the downright obscure, but all at deeply discounted prices!
Today alone I snagged some serious swag- a couple Craven flicks, "Deadly Friend" and "The People Under the Stairs," and an old out-of-print release of "Pumkinhead," all for under $20.

I have such a large library of movies that I frequently find I'm too indecisive to choose something to watch, particularly this time of year! That is why I determined to collaborate with my father and create my very own
"31 Days of Halloween." A spinoff of what's on TV, only featuring the films I actually wanted to see.
A movie every night for the entire month of October.

And for my inaugural lineup...

1.) "Friday the 13th Part 3D"
2.) "Cabin Fever"
3.) "Poltergeist"
4.) "Salem's Lot"
5.) "Child's Play"
6.) "Halloween Town" (A childhood favorite)
7.) "Urban Legend"
8.) "An American Werewolf In London"
9.) "Night of the Living Dead"
10.) "Pet Sematary"
11.) "Hostel"
12.) "Friday the 13th Part 4"
13.) "The Strangers"
14.) "Hocus Pocus"
15.) "Saw"
16.) "Halloween Town 2"
17.) R.Z. "Halloween"
18.) "Mulberry Street"
19.) "Halloween 3: Season of the Witch"
20.) "A Nightmare on Elm Street"
21.) "Sleepy Hallow"
22.) "Scream 4"
23.) "John Carpenter's Halloween"
24.) "Terror Train"
25.) "The Fog"
26.) "Dawn of the Dead"
27.) R.Z. "Halloween 2"
28.) "Trick 'R Treat"
29.) "A Nightmare On Elm Street 2"
30.) "Halloween 2"
31.) "Halloween H20"

 What are your Halloween traditions?
And I suppose there's no better time to ask...What's your favorite scary movie?

The Reef (2010)

The Reef

Release Date: 2010

Rating: * * *

By John Engell October 3, 2012
  
The shark movie; a niche in the horror genre characterized by a classic. There hasn’t been a shark movie released in the wake of Stephen Spielberg’s “Jaws,” that has survived the inevitable and unfair comparison to that film. To make a serious shark movie is an unenviable undertaking. By their very nature they are condemned as inferior copycats. In 2004 “Open Water” scored well with the critics earning favorable reviews from many mainstream publications, even receiving “Two Thumbs Up!” from Ebert and Roeper. Many moviegoers however, smelt blood in the water and tore the film apart. “Open Water” currently owns a pedestrian 2.7 star user rating out of a possible 5 stars, on Amazon.com.
    
“The Reef” however, made much less of a wave. In fact I was unaware of its existence until I went on a “Jaws” kick recently, which led me to Barnes and Noble to purchase its sequel and to Google to search for similar shark movies. It’s a foreign film, shot on location in the waters off Australia, with homegrown actors. “Open Water” looked like an inexpensive documentary (shark snuff if you will). “The Reef” maintains that voyeuristic perspective, but (through excellent editing) gives the viewer the rather uncomfortable feeling of being one of the victims rather than a casual onlooker to the carnage. The cinematography is breathtakingly beautiful and the filmmaker’s decision not to use animatronics (“Jaws”) or stock shark footage (“Open Water”) makes “The Reef” feel infinitely more real. In fact the shark attacks (I don’t assume that is a spoiler. Of course there had to be at least one shark attack in a shark movie) are so real I purposely didn’t watch the dvd’s "making of" feature because I didn’t want to know how they made it look so damn good. 
   
The set up- four friends and a sun kissed sea salt, decide to mix business with pleasure and set sail on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Our lead Luke, played by Damian Walshe-Howling (Yes, his name is awesome), has been contracted to deliver the vessel, but he has brought along his on-again off-again girlfriend Kate, her brother and his best mate Matt, and his fiancé Suzie for a bit of a holiday. But after drinking a few brews and catching some rays, their boat hits the reef and capsizes. After the group scrambles onto the boat’s severely compromised hull, they must make a dreadfully difficult decision. Either stay put on a suspect ship that may sink and let the currents drag them out into the open ocean or swim for it. Prior to the accident the group had been bathing on a small island that Luke is convinced is only 10 to 15 miles back. But the waters are shark infested, which the hired skipper/deckhand ominously points out to the ship’s petrified passengers before they take the plunge. That is really the extent of the plot. Then it's shark time. 

So what is it about shark movies that make them so popular? For me it's that pure and primal fear of the unknown. I find the thought of drifting in cold, dark water that seems endless and bottomless, completely exposed and vulnerable to its killing machines, to be more terrifying than any masked serial killer. What do you think?