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If It’s Halloween; It Must Be Werewolves In Siberia!

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Chris Cavoretto a.k.a. Werewolves In Siberia has been steadily putting out high-quality, endlessly listenable, horror synth music for the last few years. He’s been able to keep things fresh and exciting within a seemingly limited medium.

In addition to new music, he has created Halloween mix tapes that he releases through his Bandcamp page each October as well as some fantastic covers of John Carpenter’s “Halloween theme” and The Misfits’ “Halloween” and “London Dungeon.”

The latest from Werewolves In Siberia, which goes live on Friday the 13th this October, is The Thing That Goes Bump In The Night, eight tracks to score the great horror film in your head. Like with preceding albums, listening to The Thing makes me thirsty to write the screenplay for whatever story is unfolding in my ears. I’ve left the album playing on a loop for hours and it’s still playing now.

Chris takes you by the hand and calmly, but forcibly, brings you through the door with the title track opener, filling you with tension and dread before shifting gears into violent exploitation territory with “Strange Visions.” “Day Dreaming” and “He Watches You While You Sleep” seem like companion pieces that call to mind something like Phantasm. One of my favorite tracks, “The Chase Is On,” instantly provide visions of someone running down a dark, empty street in Rome, pursued by a black gloved killer with a razor blade.

“Voices In The Wall” is a gorgeous, haunted, ambient track while “The Last Stand” is the sort of big, cinematic piece that really defines Werewolves In Siberia, communicating many different ideas, moods, or scenarios at once. “Home Again” closes the album. It’s the longest track, breaking the four-minute mark, with an insistent, thudding rhythm, that despite the hopeful title, doesn’t give you a sense of being safe at all. It’s like waking from a dream only to find yourself in a nightmare.

As a bonus, to be released on the same day, Chris will have two new covers available on his personal Bandcamp page; an acoustic cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic “Bad Moon Rising” and the ’80s Phil Collins hit “In The Air Tonight,” which yeah, sounds like an odd choice, but man, it works.

Check out Werewolves In Siberia’s Bandcamp page HERE for a plethora of stellar synth rock.


Filed under: Halloween, horror, music, reviews, Tim Murr Tagged: Bandcamp, Chris Cavoretto, horror, Music, reviews, The Thing That Goes Bump In The Night, Tim Murr, Werewolves in Siberia

31 Days Of Horror: Halloween III

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The Halloween franchise is near and dear to my heart as Part 4 was just coming out at a time when I was jumping into horror with both feet. Michael was on the cover of Fangoria and I read my friend’s copy with much excitement. I was least familiar with Halloween since I’d only seen Part 2 on TV in pieces, but still I felt that The Return Of Michael Myers was a pretty big deal and I’d need to rent it the moment it hit my local video store. In the meantime, I had three other films to catch up on.

I feel like Halloween is a story you almost know even if you don’t. Its reach and influence are so thorough throughout pop culture you’re already familiar with the mute, unstoppable killing machine and the pretty, vulnerable, but wholly capable babysitter. I’m not here to talk about that today. I’m here to talk about the third film, the one that defied expectations and bombed because of it.

Halloween III; Season Of The Witch takes place outside of the Myers reality. In fact, Halloween is just a film inside of Season Of The Witch and that’s just the start of how far removed III is from II. Series creators/producers/writers John Carpenter and Debra Hill didn’t want to do another Myers story. Carpenter thought Halloween would have been better served with a completely different story for each sequel, independent of what came before. I think he was both right and wrong.

I love Season Of The Witch and always have, and would love to know what could have followed if it had been a success. At the same time, I wouldn’t want to give up parts 4 through 6. Unfortunately, fans overwhelmingly disagreed. It’s not Halloween without Michael, they’d say for years, practically forcing Myers to return and become a slave to the tropes he’d once innovated.

Season Of The Witch‘s reputation has done a 180 in the last decade, with more and more people coming to its defense and praising not only the excellent performances of Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, and Dan O’Herlihy, but also the creepy and atmospheric direction by Tommy Lee Wallace. It’s a lean movie that covers a lot of ground across it’s 98-minute run time, but maintains a deliberate, slow-burn pace. It marries science fiction with pagan folk horror and seamlessly integrates creepy automatons, ancient rituals, and the threat of mass human sacrifice.

Tom Atkins plays Doctor Daniel Challis, a divorced, drunk doctor that stumbles into a weird conspiracy when a new patient is assassinated in his hospital and the killer then seemingly kills himself. The patient’s granddaughter, Ellie Grimbridge (Nelkin), comes to the hospital seeking answers and Challis can’t help but get involved; after all, the murder happened on his watch. Their investigation takes them to a small, creepy California town and toy factory that manufactures Halloween masks with a dark secret.

Season Of The Witch isn’t without its fair share of problems. There are plot holes and leaps of logic, to be sure, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that it has a fairly high concept for a horror film. There are huge stakes if Challis fails to solve the mystery and stop what comes next. There are also great performances, pretty decent kills, and a scope that the other Halloween films (save for Part 6 The Producer’s Cut) lack.

If it had been released as simply Season Of The Witch with no ties to Halloween I believe the film would have fared much better. Even in 1982 when a lot of the slasher tropes were still being filled out, people were generally resistant to such a radical departure. At this point though, I think Carpenter, Wallace, the producers, cast, and crew have started to be vindicated while Season Of the Witch becomes more widely regarded as the holiday classic it always was.

25 more days till Halloween, Halloween, 25 more days till Halloween… Silver Shamrock!

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31 Days Of Horror: The Wednesday Run Visits Spooky Riverdale With The “Archie Halloween Spectacular” & More

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Riverdale can be a pretty scary place.

Well, maybe it’s just growing up that can be scary at times.

Depending upon what you’re reading (or watching these days!) and between boyfriends and girlfriends, bullies and gossipers, teachers and principals, moms and dads, and all sorts of mischief by friends – Riverdale, home to Archie and his pals, can be a pretty scary place (especially in October!)…but it’s also a pretty interesting and fun place to visit alongside your best fictional pals!

The adventures of Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead and all the others continue in amazing popularity with kids and adults – over seventy five years after they first saw publication, way back in 1941!

And, keeping up with trends and interests of a twenty-first century fan-base, Archie, like us at Biff Bam Pop!, loves the Halloween season.

Continuing with our month-long 31 Days of Horror theme, that’s why this particular column is focusing on Archie Comics today…and their release of the Archie Halloween Spectacular #1!

 

Archie Halloween Spectacular #1

Written By: Alex Simmons, Paul Kupperberg & Dexter Taylor

Illustrated By: Pat & Tim Kennedy, Jim Amash, Jack Morelli & many others

Published By: Archie Comics

 

At 24-pages long, the Archie Halloween Spectacular (wouldn’t it have been more fun to call it the “Spooktacular” or is that just too obvious a pun? Scaretacular, then? No?), out at your local comic book shop, only costs $2.99. That’s a pretty good price point for multiple stories of decidedly warped, but always humorous, fun.

Here, Archie and his pals star in multiple tales of Halloween-themed hijinx, including “Scary, Scary, Doooo!” and “Giving Up the Ghost”, written and drawn by a whole haunted house of Archie talent.

The Archie Halloween Spectacular #1 is great comic book fun for any fan of Archie Comics – regardless of age. Pick it up, read it, and hand it over to your kid for their own Halloween amusement. Use it as a stuffer for Trick-Or-Treat bags and gifts – it’s a great way to get into the spirit of the season!

But that’s not the only October-themed release from Archie Comics this year!

As a double fun pick-up, you can grab the Betty and Veronica Halloween Annual #237, also out today! Written and illustrated by Archie stalwart, Dan Parent, this comic book is a hefty 192 pages at $5.99 and contains numerous short stories including “The Many Loves of Archie Andrews” and “Lodge of Terror”!

 Visit Riverdale…for a scary fun treat!

Make the Wednesday run to your local comic book shop and pick up the Archie Halloween Spectacular #1 and the Betty and Veronica Halloween Annual #237 and celebrate October and Halloween like they should: with lots of spooky-themed fun!

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31 Days Of Horror: Tomb Of Dracula: The Complete Collection Vol. 1

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The fall season.

It is a time when the leaves turn shades of red and yellow and brown, then die and pile forlornly on the ground below. It is a time when the wind blows sharply stronger while the sky turns a gray overcast. It is a time when the days become shorter and the nights become longer and malevolent shadows seem to lurk around every corner.

Every day of October, and especially the last day of the month, deserves a dose of classic horror! Whether you’re a fan of film, television, art, music, books, or comic books, there’s something for everyone’s thirst for the darker elements of pop culture mythology this time of year.

During the early part of the 1970’s, comic book publishers pushed and pulled and railed against the yoke of the Comics Code Authority – and horror-themed comics were on the front lines of that war, growing increasingly popular by readers.

With Tomb of Dracula, originally published in 1972, Marvel Comics brought horror to the masses! Drawing upon Bram Stoker’s classic character, here was a comic book version of Dracula like no other: creatively cinematic in scope, dreamily horrific in the telling, Dracula was an antagonistic and charismatic title character that a reader could both fear and root for!

And now, Marvel Comics publishes those classic tales again in a new paperback volume called, appropriately enough, Tomb Of Dracula: The Complete Collection Vol. 1!

This is not the first time the writers of Biff Bam Pop! have chronicled their love for the Tomb Of Dracula series.

Staple contributor and BBP! editor, Glenn Walker, gave a wonderful historic account of the Tomb Of Dracula series back in 2012. Appropriately, it, too, was published during that year’s sequence of 31 Days Of Horror pieces! You can read it here.

BBP! contributor ,Jason Shayer got in on the horror act that same year, with another historical  look at Tomb of Dracula in the Tales From The Longbox column. Along with the series’ historical relevance, there’s some interesting trivia in that particular piece by Shayer, which you can read right here.

On a personal note, I’ve purchased and read the collected three hardcover volumes of the Tomb Of Dracula Omnibus, published by Marvel Comics from 2008 through 2010. They are weighty tomes, indeed, each as heavy as a coffin filled to the brim with unconsecrated earth, with each book containing nearly 1000 pages of comic book brilliance (and horror). Originally, they could each be purchased for approximately $100, but the first volume, now in scarce supply, can fetch upwards of $500, with some sellers asking for exorbitant prices as high as $3500!

That’s absolutely ridiculous, maddening even, if you’re in the market for your very own Omnibus copy! It, does, however, make the great series virtually unobtainable to most people – and this is a series meant to be enjoyed, much like Dracula himself, for countless generations!

But as Dracula tells those attempting to put a stake in his dead heart in the first issue of the Tomb of Dracula series: “I promise you, foul daylighter…Dracula is not so easily dispatched…for long.”

And this week, we get a new softcover trade paperback version of Tomb of Dracula: the Complete Collection Vol. 1 at the much more affordable price of approximately $25.

Here again is the delicious tale of Dracula, hunted by those who would see him dead in a more <ah-hem> permanent fashion, including: Frank Drake, Dracula’s living descendant, and the vampire hunters Rachel Van Helsing and Quincy Harker. And of course, there’s the incessant and deadly vampire hunter, Blade, who is after Dracula as well.

Tomb of Dracula: the Complete Collection Vol. 1 is written by industry luminaries such as Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Gardner Fox and Marv Wolfman, and cinematically illustrated by the atmospheric pencil work of the legendary Gene Colan. Joining Colan are the big names of Alan Weiss, Rich Buckler and Neal Adams! It’s truly a who’s who of illustrative talent that graces the 512 pages of this first volume of blood suckers, monsters, hell-crawlers, wizards, voodoo queens and gargoyles!

Treat yourself to a fabulous scare this Halloween season – pick up and read Tomb of Dracula: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 by candlelight, with the cold October wind blowing through leafless limbs, as they restlessly tap against your bedroom window!

It’s the perfect setting for such a perfect read!

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31 Days of Horror: Halloween Haunt at Kings Dominion

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Halloween Haunt at Kings Dominion 2017

I enjoy amusement parks. Being more of a dedicated New Jersey beach comber, however, it is easy for the whole season to slip by without my ever getting around to heading to Great Adventure or the quaint and homey Clementon Park. Except for a short day trip to Point Pleasant, it seemed that missing out on amusement park fun was inevitable again this year. Then I got a very cool invitation. An old friend invited me down to Virginia to join her for a day at Kings Dominion.

We spent our daytime hours at Kings Dominion checking out more than a few of its over 60 attractions – I decided to sit out some of the more extreme roller coasters like The Anaconda and The Intimidator. Those were among my friends’ favorites, though I was more a fan of the gentler coaster, The Avalanche, along with the old school bumper cars, the view from the Ferris wheel, and visiting the PokéStops all over the park.

Pokémon GO at Kings Dominion - Tyranitar rules a Team Mystic gym
Tyranitar rules a Team Mystic gym

But it was in the evening that the real fun started. At 7 PM, fog began to rise from the ground. We noticed people gathering in groups to witness the entrance of another type of Kings Dominion visitor – It was time for the ghouls’ grand entrance. Before we knew it, the crowds were infiltrated with the undead, bizarre-faced creatures in tattered attire, and all manner of monsters.

Aside from never knowing when a freaky being is going to pop out and scream in your general direction, Halloween Haunt boasts eight mazes, five scare zones, plus haunted rides and Halloween-themed shows. Blood on the Bayou had us on edge in the best of ways as we wove through the old New Orleans voodoo mansion, complete with scenes of mock murder and sinister magic. I had as much fun trying to stare down and weird out the weirdos as I had being startled by them. One of my favorite things about haunted houses is being in the midst of other people’s reactions. A nervous kid shouting out to his friend, “Stay with me, bro!” in the maze confusion was a memorable moment.

Blood on the Bayou - Kings Dominion Halloween Haunt

We happened upon a witches’ dance, though it was hard to see through the group of onlookers that had gathered around. Later, we caught the performance of a New Orleans funeral band giving a lively performance of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

The little kids’ area, Planet Snoopy, super cute by day, morphed into the sinister Feary Tales. The transformation made for one of the creepiest areas, as distorted music box tunes played familiar nursery rhymes. Kings Dominion advises parental discretion for these evenings from late September through October, which may be too much for most young children. The very young and the timid may prefer to opt for The Great Pumpkin Fest, a scare-free autumn alternative.

There is something to reaching deep into childhood memories and twisting them just enough. My favorite haunted attraction of all was Zombie High. Its bloodied walls, classrooms, lab, and locker room, had more than a few students who had seen better days. Combined with intense lighting effects, Zombie High got into my psyche in all the right ways. I would have eagerly gotten in line to go through again.

I am so glad my first trip to Kings Dominion came during the Halloween season. Tricks of light, dry ice, makeup, and over-the-top acting still work their fun and spooky magic. The many freaky characters throughout the park – and there are a lot of them – create an atmosphere of edgy adventure full of nervous laughter. Make the journey to Doswell, VA in the Richmond area to see for yourself. Halloween Haunt continues Fridays through Sundays, ending on October 29th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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31 Days Of Horror: The Wednesday Run Goes BOO! With “DC House Of Horror #1”

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We’re literally six sleeps away from one of the best times of year!

And with all the little ghosts and ghouls and goblins (and, let’s face it, superheroes) ringing your doorbell and asking for tricks or treats next Tuesday evening, you may want to shake things up a bit.

Instead of the usual candy and chocolate bars and chip bags handed out on Halloween, why not a comic book as a loot bag stuffer?

It’s a great idea: the gift of four-colour literacy! Of pop culture personified! Of imagination and excitement!

Then again, it can get pricey handing out all those comics.

So, treat yourself (or a select few) to some comic book scares this Halloween with the just-released, over-sized, frightfully awesome, completely fun, and altogether appropriate, DC House of Horror #1!

 

DC House Of Horror #1

Written By: Various

Illustrated By: Various

Published By: DC Comics

 

Despite all the silver age shine that is currently making the DC Universe stable of comic books shimmer, this time of year brings long shadows and a sense of eeriness to every superhero’s cape, mask and cowl.

But it’s not all dark and ominous – it’s also a fun time to be a comic book reader! Who needs tricks? As a Halloween treat, DC Comics is publishing an immense 80-page comic book of Halloween-flavoured stories, featuring all of their top characters: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash, plus many, many more!

Written by a number of new talents to the industry (including Mary Sangiovanni, Nick Cutter, Brian L. Keene, Edward Lee, Bryan Smith, Weston Ochse, Ronald Malfi, Wrath James White, whew!) and illustrated by just as many comic book greats (including Dale Eaglesham, Scott Kolins, Howard Porter, Bilquis Evely, Rags Morales, whew!), and joined my master storyteller Keith Giffen, the DC House of Horror #1 (there’s only going to be one issue – it’s a seasonal special, after all!), has got a lot going on!

Martha Kent fights for her life against an alien creature from a landed spacecraft! A young woman is possessed by the spirit of a murderous Amazon warrior! And the last surviving member of the Justice League faces a horror beyond imagining! Plus more – a whole lot more!

DC House Of Horror #1: These are the kinds of stories that make comic book reading fun – your favourite characters put in oddball circumstances that celebrate the season, as much as they do our reading of the art form!

Trick or treat, indeed!

Make the run to your local comic book shop today and pick up the DC House Of Horror #1 as a Halloween treat for yourself – or as a fun “Boo!” for a youngster in your life, dressed up in a great pop culture costume!

Happy Halloween!

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31 Days of Horror: Lift Your Halloween Spirits with a New Video from Belle Ghoul

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Belle Ghoul’s Bandcamp notes that they hope to “provide a part of the soundtrack to your life.” The band’s latest video, for the delightful track “Lift Me Up,” is perfect for the Halloween season.

It’s a ridiculously clever and charming homage to silent films, puppetry, and one of Halloween’s all-time heavyweights, Count Dracula.

Belle Ghoul is comprised of Christopher Tait, Jesse Paris Smith, Matt Van, Zach Shipps, and Mike Alonso.

For more info on the band, check out their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/belleghoul/

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The Week In Horror: Toy Fair ’18, Halloween, Serpent and the Rainbow, Predator

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Toy Fair 2018 is on this week and there’s been a number of exciting announcements for kids and collectors, but for horror fans, NECA has added two figures to their retro line of Mego style figures: Captain Blake from John Carpenter’s The Fog and Herbert West from Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator. Amok Time toys had announced a small line of Re-Animator figures a few years ago in a six-inch line, but the only one that ever came out was a four-inch Herbert that came with Dr Hill’s severed head. It’s a great figure, perfect for experimenting on GI Joes captured by Cobra for unethical bio-medical practices, but in this day and age of high quality, detailed collectibles, it was disappointing not to get a larger, more detailed version.

NECA’s retro line has had a number of great figures, with amazing head sculpts and an array of accessories. My Friday the 13th Jason is one of the jewels of my horror collection. The NECA West figure beautifully captures Jeffery Combs’ likeness and comes with some gruesome accessories. Captain Blake is an even bigger surprise, especially since NECA tends to avoid things that are too niche because it can be a financial gamble. After saying no to figures from The Thing, getting a ghost pirate zombie from The Fog is out of left field and looks equally amazing.

The countdown to Halloween and Halloween begins as Jamie Lee Curtis has completed filming her scenes for the upcoming David Gordon Green/Danny McBride direct follow up to the original John Carpenter classic, which drops this October. According to Curtis, “it’s terrifying.”

This month marks the 30th anniversary of Wes Craven’s voodoo classic, The Serpent and the Rainbow. For my money, it’s Craven’s best film. As much as I love A Nightmare on Elm Street or The Hills Have Eyes, Serpent is just scarier (partly because its based on an actual investigation into voodoo practices by Wade Davis), more exotic, surprising, and beautiful. Scream Factory has a collector’s edition Blu-ray available at their website, highly recommended.

Excited about Shane Black’s upcoming Predator sequel?  Well, it’s been pushed back from August to September, which isn’t as extreme as the New Mutants getting pushed back nine frigging months, but still, doesn’t it feel like we’ve been waiting a while for a new Predator film?

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Trailer Time: ‘Halloween’ 2018

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Michael Myers is one of the most recognizable horror icons of all time, a seemingly unstoppable masked killer with a penchant for babysitters and family members. But with all the sequels, reboots, and retcons, fans of the Halloween franchise have been through the wringer. Is Michael actually part of a cult? Is Laurie Strode really his sister? Why did the producers bring Busta Rhymes into this whole mess?

When the news hit that Danny McBride and David Gordon Green were making a new Halloween film, reactions were mixed. Fans weren’t too enthused about another entry in the series. Then Jamie Lee Curtis got involved, and the creator of the original film, John Carpenter, came aboard as both executive producer and composer. That got some noses open.

Now, we have a full trailer for the new film, also titled Halloween (a small change from the working title, Halloween Returns). It seems to take place directly after the first film, ignoring the events of the sequels. There is the dispelling of myths, the return of some familiar music, and teeth. All the teeth.

Check out the trailer for the new Halloween and let us know how you feel about the latest entry in the Haddonfield Multiverse.

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TIFF 2018: The Midnight Madness Lineup Is Revealed!

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You know that summer’s coming to the end here in the city when details of the Toronto International Film Festival start trickling out. Even more than when the big Galas and Special Presentations (McConaugheys and Moss’s and Gagas, oh my!) are announced, the reveal of the Midnight Madness lineup, that dark corner of bloody and weird fare, hand-selected by programmer Peter Kuplowsky, is like Christmas to me. Films like Saw, The Grudge, Dazed and Confused, Insidious, Martyrs, and then-unknown directors like Ben Wheatley, the Spierig Brothers, and more all got their starts in the Midnight lineup, and maybe one of these films will end up becoming a classic as well. Here’s what Peter has on tap for us this year:

The Predator (Opening Film) 
Oh you’ve heard of Predator, have you? Maybe you remember it from such despicable acts as blowing a hole in Jesse Ventura, or ripping off Apollo Creed’s best punchin’ arm. Either way, director Shane Black’s vision of the alien hunter has a killer cast, including Yvonne “Serena Joy” Strahovski, Sterling K. Brown, and Keegan Michael Kay. I’ve had my eye on this sequel for a couple years now, so my expectations are high. Let the hunt begin!

Assassination Nation 
Between Open Windows, The Den, and the Unfriended movies, internet horror is extremely on trend right now, but Sam Levinson’s Assassination Nation indicts our online presence in a more direct way. In the town of Salem, some internet fuckery causes an entire town to turn into something resembling The Purge. Starring Suki Waterhouse, Odessa Young, Hari Nef, Bill “Pennywise” Skarsgard, and Joel McHale, Assassination Nation looks like a crowd pleaser and exactly the kind of movie that the famously-rowdy Midnight audience will lap up.

CLIMAX
Provocateur filmmaker Gaspar Noe is known for his ability to shock, and Climax looks to be no departure from his perfect record of dark and controversial (to say the least) projects. Whether it’s 1998’s I Stand Alone, 2002’s Irreversible, 2009’s Enter The Void, or 2015’s LOVE, each of Noe’s films plays like a pipe bomb being dropped into a multiplex, spraying shrapnel and changing the lives and the outlook of everyone it touches. With Climax, Noe puts us in the centre of a hedonistic orgy that gets turned into a psychedelic nightmare with a few hits of acid. This one is not for the faint of heart, or the weak-willed.

Halloween 
What do I need to say about Halloween? Nothing, that’s what. But early buzz is that this sequel to the original Halloween , from two writers (David Gordon Green and Danny McBride) that are best known for comedy, is a serious banger. With Jamie Lee Curtis back in the fray and a trailer that has been giving me goosebumps over the last month, Halloween is certain to be one of the most memorable horror experiences this year.

In Fabric 
I adore Peter Strickland’s vision. His films Berberian Sound Studio and The Duke Of Burgundy (both of which screened at TIFF) are like nothing else I’ve ever seen. They’re dark, for sure, but have a lush beauty to them that conceals that darkness. You can call In Fabric the sinister cousin to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, but that movie didn’t feature a haunted dress, now did it?

Nekrotronic 
The garish Wyrmwood should have been a warning to us all about what was coming next from Kiah Roache-Turner. That blood-soaked, ultraviolent zombie actioner was over the top, even for an Australian genre film. So how do you top that? Well, for starters, I guess you can cast Monica Belluci as the Queen of The Demons. Like it’s fellow Midnight entry Assassination Nation, this is an irreverent tale about the evils of the internet, though Nekrotronic is much more hellish story, in the literal sense.

The Standoff At Sparrow Creek 
This is where Midnight Madness puts on its serious face. A gritty feature debut for Henry Dunham, Standoff At Sparrow Creek looks like an intense bottle story about one night, a lumber warehouse, and some very harsh interrogation techniques. It’s got some great character actors on board and a distinct visual style. If you’re a little worn out from supernatural fare, this could be your jam.

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The Wind 
Midnight Madness features only one woman behind the camera this year. Emma Tammi’s horror western, The Wind, reads like a study in loneliness and isolation and the madness and doom that go with it. Set in the 1800’s, nothing says being driven insane like the pioneers and their clackety wooden teeth. Tammi is better known for her documentary work, so her first fiction piece will definitely be something to keep an eye on.

The Man Who Feels No Pain 
Midnight Madness’s first foray into Bollywood looks like a total riot, with Vasan Bala’s tale of an invincible man who must defeat a hundred foes, presumably using karate or something similar. Bala’s Peddlers played TIFF in 2012, so it’ll be an auspicious return when he graces the Ryerson stage for Midnight Madness.

Diamantino 
I don’t quite know how to explain Diamantino, and I’m not sure that I’ll be able to do any better a job with that once the credits roll either. Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt’s mockumentary about a famous, self-obsessed soccer player – kind of like Ben Stiller’s Zoolander – has a strong political message underneath. All signs point to Diamantino being something truly surreal, existing somewhere between Spinal Tap and a twisted Sasha Baron Cohen project. It’s been getting rave reviews since it’s screening at Cannes, so I’m looking forward to this Midnight Madness closer to end the festivities with a resounding, ‘huh?’

So there you have it. Ten off-the-wall Christmas presents to open, each containing something to transport you to places you can’t, or maybe don’t want to, visit outside of a darkened theatre with a thousand of your closest friends. Ten straight nights of Madness kick off on September 6th. See you there!

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The new ‘Halloween’ Trailer Brings The Pain

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I’m so psyched for the new Halloween film. I can’t wait to see it at TIFF this Saturday night. To whet our collective whistles, a brand new trailer just dropped for this direct sequel to John Carpenter’s original, and it delivers everything you’d want.

Halloween arrives October 19th, 2018.

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TIFF 2018: ‘Halloween’ is a Superior Sequel

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40 years after the original Halloween was unleashed and became not only one of the most successful independent films of all time, but a touchstone and influence on the entire horror genre, a new sequel premiered at TIFF, and laid claim to the title of best sequel in the series. Hell, for me, it may wind up becoming my favourite of the entire franchise.

Considering the film’s general release is still a few weeks away, I’m going to avoid spoilers for the most part. And really, to appreciate what co-writer/director David Gordon Green and co-writer Danny McBride have come up, you’re actually better off going in cold. On that note, here are some point form thoughts on what Halloween (2018) delivers:

  • An Oscar worth performance from the incredible Jamie Lee Curtis, who has never been better. Curtis’ portrayal of Laurie Strode is a fierce take on how someone deals with severe trauma (a word Curtis used many times in the after-film Q & A). Blumhouse should get their “For Your Consideration” ads ready, because the actor certainly deserves at least a nomination for her iconic work.
  • Great performances by all the other actors involved, including Judy Greer as Laurie’s daughter, and newcomer Andi Matichak as Allyson, Laurie’s granddaughter. This is undoubtedly a film featuring strong women, and it is a movie for the times.
  • Seriously sadistic kills by Michael Myers. This is a hard-R movie, with blood and guts to spare. If you love The Shape, you’re in for a treat.
  • An unrelating final third that utilizes sound, light and tension to deliver a memorable and violent final act.
  • Throwbacks and nods to previous films. Halloween is a direct sequel to the original, discarding all subsequent entries. However, there are lots of easter eggs, subtle and not so much, that tip their hat to what came before. There’s also a score comprised of music both old and new, courtesy of John Carpenter, his son Cody, and their collaborator, Daniel Davies.
  • Lots of humour. This aspect of the film may be a dealbreaker to some fans (I did hear some grumbling as I walked out of the Midnight Madness screening). The laughs in Halloween are genuine, which may not fly  with those who want their Michael Myers film to features purely visceral violence. The jokes worked for me, and there was lots of laughter in the theatre, but how much the humour appeals to you will likely impact your final thoughts on the film.

Halloween was greeted with a standing ovation before it even began, and it earned the one that came as the lights went up. For me, it’s a superior sequel, and one of the best movies I’ve seen all year, horror or otherwise. It’s a return to Haddonfield that’s well worth making.

Halloween opens in theatres October 19th.

 

 

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31 Days of Horror: Tim Murr on ‘Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers’

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It’s an old story now, but everyone except John Carpenter, Debra Hill, and Tommy Lee Wallace, were wrong about Halloween III: Season of the Witch and the concept of turning the fledgling franchise into an anthology series died. It was inevitable that Michael Myers would stalk once again, especially in the golden age of slashers that Halloween had nearly single-handedly birthed.

We’d seen The Shape, Michael Myers, and his burdened and driven caretaker, Doctor Loomis, go to their fiery deaths in Halloween 2. But by 1988, we’d seen Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger return from the dead a number of times in Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street respectively. Even Leatherface, who hadn’t been seen since 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had re-emerged by then. Producer Moustapha Akkad was intent to bring his own masked madman back from the apparent grave.

Originally, Carpenter and Hill were on board for H4 and brought in Dennis Etchison, who had written the novelizations for parts 1 and 2 (and are required reading for any Halloween fans!) to write the script. But Akkad didn’t like the cerebral, supernatural approach and wanted the story to both return to its roots and up the body count and gore to compete with the Jasons and Freddys. So Carpenter, Hill, and Etchison were all out, but Etchison did stay on to write the novelization of 4.

The directing task went to Dwight H Little, while the story was developed by no less than four writers; Dhani Lipsius, Larry Rattner, Benjamin Ruffner, and Alan B McElroy. McElroy would go on to write the screenplay. The number one task would be to explain Myers’ return in a believable way. Easy; Myers and Loomis both survived the fire in the hospital. Loomis suffered major burns, but returned to work eventually, while Michael’s injuries were far more severe. He wound up in a coma, locked in the basement of a mental institution. For reasons that would only make sense after watching Part 6, Myers was scheduled to be transferred just before Halloween night, ten years after his brutal rampage through the quiet town of Haddonfield. During the trip in an ambulance, the attendants chat about Myers and mention his niece, the daughter of his now deceased sister, Laurie. It’s all the motivation Michael needs to wake up and kill the four-person ambulance crew and and head for home.

We find Michael’s niece, Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris,) an orphan living with a foster family and haunted by visions of her uncle even before he finds her. At school, all the kids know that Jamie’s uncle is the boogeyman and they torture her endlessly as Michael closes in on her, with Loomis in hot pursuit.

Overall, Return is successful as a sequel, if not occasionally silly. It has one of the absolute best opening sequence of the franchise and some genuinely tense moments. As a standalone film though, its hardly more than a retread of the first two films. However, it is strengthened in the context of the next two films, creating the Jamie Trilogy or the Thorn Saga. I’ll get into that when we look at The Revenge of Michael Myers and The Curse of Michael Myers.

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31 Days of Horror: The Cheese Stands Alone in ‘Halloween III: Season of the Witch”

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Poor Halloween III: Season of the Witch. The bastard son of the franchise, it was a grand experiment that failed in its initial purpose. Really, it was a bad idea to begin with. Audiences already associated the Halloween movies with the iconic Michael Myers. Suddenly turning it into an anthology series with different standalone stories, all somehow based around Halloween, was bound to be confusing. It would be like taking the Friday the 13th franchise and turning it into separate spooky tales based in an antique shop.

But if I were to say to you, “Listen. This isn’t a sexual thing at all, but I want to show you a movie. It’s got an army of murderous robots that dress like Young Republicans. It’s about Halloween masks that can be activated by a television signal to kill anyone who wears one. Also, it stars the glorious Tom Atkins.” That would grab your interest, wouldn’t it? Would you care what the title was?

As it turns out, a lot of people are invested in what Halloween III is called. If only they had referred to it as something different. If only they had kept the revered name of Halloween away from it. Maybe it wouldn’t have taken so long for audiences to discover the unadulterated B-movie joy of Halloween III. But I’m not here to defend this movie, because I don’t think it needs defending. It may be a little cheesy, with its giant computer banks and bizarre concept, but Halloween III is one of the best second-bill drive-in sci-fi/horror movies ever made. It explains nothing. It apologizes for even less. And if you don’t like it, Halloween III has got two words for ya: Silver Shamrock.

That commercial for the Silver Shamrock mask company is the recurring theme for the entire film and, much like the original Halloween music, it has taken on a life of its own. Happy, happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween… that catchy little ditty is probably more famous than the film it comes from. It pops up in memes. Kids who have never seen the movie walk around humming it. It’s become a Halloween carol.

But that’s not the finest thing Halloween III has to offer. Look no further than Ed O’Herlihy’s fantastic portrayal of Conal Cochran, the mad maskmaker who has enacted a plan to kill as many children as he can. It’s all part of an ancient ritual for Samhain (a word O’Herlihy pronounces correctly, which Donald Pleasence does not in Halloween II). He’s talking about sacrifices, appeasing the gods, possibly even listening to XTC.

We can’t overlook the aforementioned Tom Atkins, one of the horror genres best tough guys. He’s a flannel-wearing, hard drinking, babe-shagging doctor, and he’s going to get the bottom of this whole mystery because that’s what he does. He plays the whole thing perfectly straight, even when the script itself can’t explain how things work.

Somehow, Cochran has stolen one of the standing stones from Stonehenge and placed a sliver of it into each of the masks. Those are what cause the masks to melt when exposed to the proper frequency. Whoever is wearing an activated mask gets their face torn apart by bugs and snakes that suddenly materialize inside their heads. It’s magic! Hell, that’s technomancy, and that is some next level operating. Cochran never reveals how they got the stone to the Silver Shamrock company, either. He doesn’t have to. “A good magician never explains,” Cochran says, and that’s all you get. You take that and you accept it.

It sounds ludicrous, but so did pod people or an amorphous hunk of aspic that could ooze its way into a movie theater. It may sound bold to compare Halloween III to such classics as Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Blob, but the movie deserves that place. What it doesn’t deserve is being hated for its title.

This is a movie about Halloween, but it isn’t a Halloween movie. Instead of a masked killer, the killers are the masks themselves. There are young people in peril and an unstoppable force, but that thing is television, not Michael. There are similarities then, between Halloween III and the rest of the series, but this film is the one thing that is not like the others.

Despite being marketed under a brand with expectations it couldn’t live up to, Halloween III has taken on a life of its own. It has transcended. This is a good thing; it deserves to be seen and appreciated for the wonderful blend of mad science and modern horror it is. Cheesy? Sure. But it’s the good cheese, the kind you get in little restaurants that doesn’t come in individually wrapped slices.

There may still be some Myers purists who reject the film for being Shape-less, but those folks are doing themselves a disservice. Halloween III is the right film with the wrong name, the square peg in the round hole. If you want Michael, you literally have ten other movies to choose from. Go on, then. Scurry off back to Haddonfield. The rest of us will be singing that damned Silver Shamrock song and grinning like fools.

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31 Days of Horror: ‘Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers’

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Picking up with the closing moments of Michael’s death scene in Return, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers continues Michael’s fall in a hail of bullets, crashing into a mine. A deputy throws dynamite down the shaft, but we see Michael crawl out of a cave and float down river. He then makes his way to the shack of some lakeside homeless man with a pet parrot, before collapsing into a coma that lasts until the next Halloween. The opening has inspired eye rolls among some fans, but I always thought it was a nice touch from writers Michael Jacobs, Shem Bitterman, and writer/director Dominique Othenin-Girard. A throw back to the old days of the cliff-hanger when at the end of one chapter we see there’s no possible escape for our hero who has gone to certain death, only to see a different perspective at the beginning of the next chapter showing their inexplicable escape. And the old man in the shack taking Michael in is a nice call back to James Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein, when the monster befriends the old blind man.

The movie moves quickly to the following year’s Halloween, where we find Jamie in a mental hospital with a deep psychic connection to her now waking Uncle. On top of that, we find out that the people of Haddonfield believe that Jamie is destined to carry on her uncle’s work after she tried to kill her adoptive mother the same night Michael “died.”

Overall, it’s a good set up and the movie moves at a fast clip, playing like a proper continuation of Return, without ever slowing down for lengthy re-caps or exposition. Revenge has a more frenetic pace than 1,2, or 4 and also marks the beginning of ‘The Thorn Saga,’ when we see (for the first time) the vertical line with a triangle on the side tattooed on Michael’s wrist and the arrival of ‘The Man in Black,’ who arrives in town via bus, wearing cowboy boots, black hat, and a black duster. Building off 4, when Michael is inexplicably transferred, the tattoo and The Man in Black are unresolved narrative threads until Part 6, and this is another point where the films are heavily criticized: were they just making it up as they went along? Well, yes, that’s often how storytelling works.

One thing that often hurt all the big slasher franchises was the fact that none of them were planned past part one. Carpenter didn’t plan to reveal Laurie was Michael’s sister. Cunningham didn’t plan for Jason to emerge as a hockey mask wearing brute, and Craven didn’t plan for Freddy to one day face The Dream Warriors. But the public wasn’t satisfied with a one and done, they demanded follow-up chapters and, in the absence of their creators, new writers and directors had to build deeper and deeper mythologies. Some sequels worked better than others. Halloween 5 isn’t a deep narrative by any means, and perhaps could have benefited from another rewrite, but as connective tissue in the Jamie Trilogy/Thorn Saga, it works very well.

Robert Draper’s cinematography is really strong, as is Alan Howarth’s score. KNB EFX Group aren’t given much to work with though, as the film is goreless with almost no blood, despite a respectable body count. Not that Halloween ever depended on blood and gore, but I have to wonder if the team wasn’t hired just to have their name sell tickets. One thing that brings Revenge to a screeching halt is the tone-deaf comedy elements provided by two bumbling cops who get their own clown theme in the score. It is never funny or welcome. Probably the biggest mark against the film is Michael’s mask. The de-evolution of the mask from Halloween 2 is famously bad, with part 5 being the second worst look after the ridiculous H20. Another glaring error is the Myers’ house. That’s not the Myers’ house. I assume Othenin-Girard was once again going for a more gothic, classic ode, but it’s a step too far, unfortunately.

Cast wise, Danielle Harris continues to do good work as Jamie Lloyd and Donald Pleasance has his most demented, Ahab moment in the climax. Don Shanks did double duty as Michael and The Man in Black and cuts an imposing figure, but doesn’t distinguish himself much from Nick Castle or Dick Warlock. The rest of the cast are fine, likable enough, and no more annoying than any other group of teens lined up for slaughter in one of these films.

The Revenge of Michael Myers works best when it’s focusing on the dramatic triangle of Michael, Jamie, and Loomis. Everything else, for better or worse, is filler. To me, the movie has aged pretty well, though, but works best when watched with 4 and 6 back to back to back. And in our next installment, I’ll tackle both the Theatrical and Producer’s Cut of The Curse of Michael Myers. 

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31 Days of Horror – Tim Murr on Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers Producer’s Cut

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Let’s get something out of the way right now; this is the second time I’m writing this article after my first one got mysteriously deleted. The first time around I took time to break down the differences between the Theatrical Cut and the Producer’s Cut, what went wrong behind the scenes, and why the Producer’s Cut is the only one you should bother watching. Well, not this time buster. Now I’m in a bad mood and I’m not feeling super fair, so let’s be blunt…

The Theatrical Cut (which I re-watched in preparation for this piece) is a dog shit movie, directed, edited, and released by people who hate movies, but love a fast buck. This is the Halloween film that marked the beginning of the Dimension/Miramax era-you know, the folks famous taking pre-existing non- Hellraiser screenplays and shoving Pinhead into them to keep rolling out Hellraiser films. They’re responsible for the hideous mask in Halloween H20 and the fact that Busta Rhymes tried kung fu on Michael in ResurrectionCurse hit theaters and was no less a cluster-fuck than the aforementioned films. Producer Paul Freeman and director Joe Chapelle ignored the script and ignored Moustapha Akkad, who had been Halloween’s producer since the first film and had hired Carpenter and Hill to make the film in the first place. Freeman and Chapelle instead dealt directly with Dimension, rewrote the script on the fly, changed everything about the beginning and end, and had to rush extensive reshoots to finish this cold turd on golden plate. Their changes left a number of confusing threads through out the film and the hack job editing meant losing helpful dialogue and creating scenes that contradicted each other. And then when we finally get to the part where the bad guys’ plan is ultimately revealed, we get a bit of inaudible dialogue followed by a woman saying “it’s based on Dr Wynn’s own research.” before they go into a surgery that is never explained or shown and has nothing to do with any of the characters we’ve been following throughout the film. The only part in the whole film worth watching is the scene that immediately follows, when Michael enters the surgery and hacks everyone to death, before pursuing Paul Rudd and company down a tunnel that looks like it was lit by Dario Argento.

The thing is though, The Curse of Michael Myers never had to be a bad movie and in fact there was a legendary work print that existed on a rough bootleg, which circulated among fans for years. When a special edition Blu-ray box set came out in 2014, it included that version of the film and it was called the Producer’s Cut, referring to the vision Moustapha Akkad wanted for Curse when he hired screenwriter Daniel Farrands to craft it. Farrands was a big Halloween fan and really knew the Franchise by heart, but he also knew the novelizations of part 1, 2, and 4-all written by Dennis Etchison. Farrands went to his first meeting with Akkad with a ‘bible,’ that included the family trees and timelines of the series, with a screenplay that pulled together the disparate thread of 4 and 5 and bridged them to 1 and 2, with a nod to 3 in the Cult of Thorn, which, similar to Season of the Witch’s Conal Cochran, believed Halloween or Samhain had strayed too far from its original purpose and looked to bring the holiday back to its bloody roots.

The Producer’s Cut has a lengthy intro, taking us back to the end of part 5, where we see the Man in Black slaughtering the Haddonfield police and breaking Michael out of jail. We see cult members load Michael into the back of a van and kidnap Jamie. They make a fast get away, then we jump a few years into the future and see Jamie ritualistically raped by Michael (it’s the most fucked up thing in the franchise, fortunately it’s more suggested and we’re not subjected to anything graphic), another time jump and Jamie is pregnant and going into labor. Her baby is to be Michael’s final sacrifice, as a new boy has been chosen to take Michael’s place.

In the Theatrical Cut, most characters seemed like throwaways, including some of the main characters. Why they even existed within the narrative or why we should care is never revealed. In the Producer’s Cut, those same characters become integral to the story. Donald Pleasance returns, despite being in ill-health, for one more run at Michael, and Paul Rudd takes the lead role as the PTSD suffering Tommy Doyle, who has grown into an obsessed young man, devoting his life to unlocking the secret of the bogeyman that scarred him for life on that fateful night back in 1978. We see shades of his trauma in Laurie when she returns in both H20 and in this year’s amazing reboot. What the Producer’s Cut successfully accomplishes is completes the story arc started in part 1 and sets up the franchise to go in a new direction with what could have been part 7. But as we know, the extensive tampering with the script and the fact that no one thought it was important to make a good film, much less one that made sense, led Dimension to turn Halloween H20 into a cheap Scream clone with Friday the 13th alum Steve Miner in the directors chair.

 

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31 Days of Horror: Rob Zombie’s ‘Halloween’ and ‘Halloween II’ Family Values

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In 2007, Rob Zombie did what for many was an unthinkable cinematic no-no. He made a remake of John Carpenter’s 1978 groundbreaking film, Halloween. A masterclass in indie filmmaking, Carpenter co-wrote, scored and directed the movie that introduced audiences to the embodiment of evil, Michael Myers. A giant of a man, clad in a William Shatner Halloween mask, Myers unleashes terror on the town of Haddonfield, killing babysitters and boyfriends, until he’s finally (though temporarily) stopped by his psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) and the one who gets away, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).

Of course, nothing could really stop Michael, who would go return in a series of sequels (some good, some not so much), that in many ways numbed the impact that character and the original film had made. By the time Rob Zombie was offered a chance to reboot the series in the mid 2000’s, Michael Myers had joined the pantheon of horror villain like Jason and Freddy Krueger who, while iconic to the genre, just weren’t that scary anymore.

To give Zombie the keys to the Halloween kingdom was a bold choice for Dimension Films and producer Malek Akkad. Neither of Zombie’s previous film’s, House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devil’s Rejects (2005), had been big moneymakers by any stretch of the imagination. However, what they had done was demonstrate Zombie’s skill behind the camera, and his place as a visionary horror director. Now, many genre fans hate Zombie’s work (pre and post-Halloween) – they say it’s too dirty, too violent, too Southern Rock. Depending on your tastes, those aren’t necessarily wrong assessments, especially with the case of The Devil’s Rejects, a more grounded, serial killer sequel to the twisted horror funhouse ride of House of 1000 Corpses. You can feel the grit and grime seeping into the frame when you watch The Devil’s Rejects, and it’s certainly not a pleasant film. It is, however, chilling and contains strong performances from his cast, along with the best usage of the song “Freebird” outside of the final encore of a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.

It’s this style that made Rob Zombie an interesting choice to reboot the series. After getting clearance from John Carpenter to work on the film, with the famed director encouraging Zombie to make the movie his own, Rob wound up creating a screenplay that took many of the best parts from the original, and merged them with a backstory for Michael Myers, something that the original had never given the character (though the second film established Laurie Strode as his sister, and other sequels gave the character connections to the occult).

In the first half of the film, we watch how Michael, played by Daeg Farch, has developed clear psychotic tendencies prior to his initial murderous actions, killing his pet rat and then asking his benevolent and oblivious mother Deborah (Sherri Moon Zombie) for another. Michael is surrounded by a verbally (and most likely physically) abusive step-father, played with white trash glee by William Forsythe, and an older sister who barely acknowledges him. There’s enough alarm bells at school that the Principal calls in noted psychologist Sam Loomis (played by Malcolm McDowell with an unbridled angst that Donald Pleasence never allowed in his role) to talk with Deborah, and suggest that Michael’s troubles are deeper than anyone suspects. Michael’s rage plays out when he unapologetically and violently kills a bully who had been picking on him at school, and then on Halloween night, murders his stepfather, sister, and her boyfriend. Zombie directs these scenes with as much violence as he can muster, and for a mainstream horror film (which this Halloween was definitely released as), it was significantly more graphic than the usual season releases. From there, we watch as Michael, committed to Smith’s Grove Psychiatric Hospital, regresses from a somewhat charming kid to a near-monosyllabic monster who ultimately only wishes to hide behind a mask… and kill. It’s a sad story, and gives a real insight into The Shape, who could be the boy next door to you or I.

Rob Zombie

I’ve always found this to be what makes Rob Zombie’s Halloween a genuinely wrenching piece of horror. This isn’t the supernatural at play, here. This is a boy/man who ultimately has developed into someone powerfully evil (the full grown Michael is played by former pro wrestler Tyler Mane, huge and intimidating). When the second half of the film becomes a more brutal homage to Carpenter’s original, with Scout Taylor-Compton facing the unenviable task of stepping into the shoes of Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, knowing where Michael’s come from simply gives the story a greater resonance; it makes it more than just a simple remake.

The huge success of the 2007 film, which opened on Labour Day and still maintains the record for biggest opening gross for that weekend with $26 million, meant a sequel was inevitable. However, according to Rob Zombie, producer Malek Akkad told the director to go as far out as he wanted; he wasn’t beholden to Carpenter’s sequel. Having explored the psyche of Michael Myers in his first film, it made sense that this time out, Zombie would look at the mental impact that the events would have on Taylor-Compton’s Laurie. While Halloween (2018) is being rightly hailed for its depiction of trauma on Curtis’ character, Zombie’s Halloween II (2009) actually did it first. There are, of course, differences; Curtis’ Laurie is 40 years removed from her encounter with Michael Myers, while it’s only been about two years for Taylor-Compton’s character. The former cute and bookish Laurie is now alienated from her friend Annie (Danielle Harris), and is having unexplained visions of a woman on a white horse, visions she unknowingly shares with Michael, who is thought dead but who has actually been hiding. Throughout the film, Laurie has to deal with the anxiety and trauma of having lost her friends and, by the middle of the film, the revelation that Michael Myers is actually her brother. This fact sends her spiraling as she looks to numb her pain. Inevitably, Michael returns for a family reunion that leaves Laurie as the ultimate heir to the Myers legacy.

Upon its release, Halloween II was a huge critical and commercial failure. As someone who had loved Zombie’s first take, I was hugely disappointed walking out of the second film. The movie felt heavy handed and ridiculous to me, and the white horse moments exceedingly comical. When I talked with Zombie about The Lords of Salem in 2013, I mentioned to Rob how it seemed there had been a lot of meddling going on with Halloween II.

“Both Halloweens were nonstop meddling and fighting, all day long, every single day, on both movies, to a point where you kind of feel like you’re losing your mind,” he recalled. “It’s a really hard thing to explain unless you’ve been there, but it’s kind of like, you build a sand castle and every five seconds a wave destroys it. And every five seconds someone says, “Where’s the sand castle?” You just destroyed it! And that goes on month after month and you’re losing your mind. So with both of those movies, I don’t even know how I feel since they were both such miserable experiences to make. Funny thing, same with the cast. When we wrapped both those movies, the cast would come over and say, “Rob, I love you, but I’ve got to get out of here.” They were both really hard. There’s the parametres that it’s Halloween, it’s Michael Myers, you’re sort of locked into some expectations that people have.”

Years later, I rewatched both films back to back, and the director’s goals finally clicked for me; I managed to walk away with a newfound respect for Halloween II. Zombie was exploring new territory, the connection between Michael and Laurie as siblings who likely shared elements of the same psychological make-up. Both were victims in their own way; Michael, at the hands of his family, Laurie at the hands of her brother. It’s heady stuff, especially for a franchise that for many epitomized the jump-scare, violent focus of the slasher genre. Much credit is due to Scout Taylor-Compton; Zombie puts her through the wringer through both films, and she delivers bravura performances each time.

Taken together, Rob Zombie’s Halloween films were ahead of their time tales of psychological and physical trauma meshed with his stock-in-trade cinematic vision. While far from perfect, their maligned legacy (especially in the case of Halloween II) is worth reconsidering.

 

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31 Days of Horror: ‘Halloween: H20 – 20 Years Later’ Begins the Haddonfield Multiverse

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The producers seemed so set on making Halloween: H20 – 20 Years Later an event film, they couldn’t be bothered enough to properly name it. It’s a Halloween movie, here’s when it takes place, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael are in it. See the awful late 90s floating heads poster? If that isn’t enough to make you buy a ticket, then stay home, fellow kid. Your loss. Well, regardless of its place in the linear timeline, H20 isn’t a milestone. It’s a millstone, one of the lowest points in a series that skinned its knee on the bottom more than once.

H20 serves as a fine example of what we refer to as The Haddonfield Multiverse. This movie acknowledges the events of the first two films, but ignores Return, Revenge, and Curse of Michael Myers. The Cult of Thorn? Forget it. Never happened. Jamie Lloyd? What is that, some kind of mixed drink? She’s not involved with this. That all took place on an alternate timeline, in a Haddonfield somewhen out there. Even though you saw it happen, it never occurred. You were never there. You want to go home and rethink your life.

The big conceit here is that, at some point after Halloween II, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) faked her own death in an automobile accident. It is never explained how she pulled that off. Whose body did she use to stand in for her own? Doesn’t that make her a murderer? Was it even in this timeline? Using an assumed identity, her name is now Keri Tate, and she is the headmistress of a posh private school in Northern California. She has a son, John (Josh Hartnett), and a secret boyfriend, the school counselor (Adam Arkin). She also has nightmares, a drinking problem, and a full blown case of PTSD. All the students have gotten onto buses and have headed off for a weekend of camping in Yosemite. John and his friends, however, have decided to stay behind and have their own romantic Halloween party. Meanwhile, Michael, that clever boy, has discovered Laurie’s secret identity and where she lives. It’s October 31st, and Michael has some family business to attend to.

You can figure it out from there. H20 does nothing to escape from the slasher formula the series established for itself in 1978. If anything, this movie takes a decent idea and, twenty years later, has grown up to be a debaser. As much as I would love to sit you down and tell you every single thing that is wrong with H20, it’s important to focus on the main aspect the filmmakers screw up: Michael.

Michael Myers is the Boogeyman. That is it. End of discussion. But in the tremendous span of time between Rosenthal’s second film and David Gordon Green’s most recent entry, they have never gotten the mask right. See, the mask and the eyes visible beneath it work in hellish tandem. The only glimpse we as viewers get into the dead psyche of Michael Myers is those cold, black eyes. This is how we know he is a monster: there’s nothing there but the occasional glare of rage.

Chris Durand, who plays Michael in H20, is way too thin. He is lithe like a dancer. Unless Michael has spent the last two decades on the South Beach Diet, this dude is not Michael. There is also too much pale skin visible around his eyes. It is obvious how young he is. No wrinkles can be seen. He hasn’t earned them. There’s no character to this character. Even a child would be able to tell that this acrobat in Dickies has not survived a hospital fire, gotten both of his eyes shot out, and tracked his sister down from Illinois to California. This little twerp is lucky if he can make it home from the club without throwing up all the Ecstasy he took while the DJ was playing “Firestarter” for the fourth time that night.

This isn’t a William Shatner mask anymore. It’s a Frank Doubleday mask, and it doesn’t work. And when your Michael is wrong, your whole movie is wrong. He isn’t the Boogeyman anymore. He’s just some putz in a mask. He is generic and his lackluster presence sucks the movie into an abyss of blech it never arises from.

But does it matter? Is this even the same Michael we learned to fear twenty years prior? Which strand of the Haddonfield Multiverse are we in? Will Rick and Morty show up?

Let’s not even talk about LL Cool J as the security guard who writes romance fiction. Let’s not bring up the scene where Laurie dumps out a kitchen drawer filled with knives and begins hurling them at her brother, like she’s the lead performer in a shit circus. How are all those blades consistently razor sharp? I’ve got a knife like Michael uses, and I have to practically smash half a tomato to get one decent slice for a corned beef sandwich. Let’s also ignore the part where Michael starts slashing madly at a couple of kids through a wrought-iron gate. It’s a furious, animalistic thing to do, but we have learned that Michael is methodical. He doesn’t run. He is a shadow. This one little bit of business, this lapse of character continuity, is enough to betray the entire film as a knock-off of itself. H20 is a Halloween movie, pretending to be a Halloween movie that might not even be a Halloween movie.

Halloween: H20 – 20 Years Later cherry picks the elements it wants to emphasize and scuttles the rest. The Halloween franchise is famous for doing that. You didn’t like what happened in a particular story arc? No problem. Wait a few years and a new production team will kick it to the curb. In that respect, you can watch H20 and, in the end, it just won’t matter. The next movie, Halloween: Resurrection, retcons the events of H20. David Gordon Green’s film chucks damned near the whole lot of Michael’s tale. But H20 is a special kind of suckmonkey, so concerned with the surface appearance of pleasing the fans, that it can best be represented by one simple fact.

H20 is dedicated to the memory of Donald Pleasence. In the credits, where the memoriam is placed, his name is spelled wrong.

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31 Days of Horror: ‘Halloween: Resurrection’ Proves Some Things Should Stay Dead

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Most franchises have that one movie that’s so bad, you get to the end credits scratching your head and wondering if everyone else just saw the same travesty you did. You have your Jason Takes ManhattanPhantom MenaceMoonraker…all of which inspire one to exclaim, “What the fuck?” Halloween: Resurrection is right there, floating in the muck at the bottom of the barrel.

Directed by Halloween 2’s Rick Rosenthal, it’s a direct sequel to the previous film, Halloween: H20, so it continues to ignore parts 4-6, but it also undoes the ending of H20, which was honestly the best part of that film. No, not Laurie beheading Michael. I mean the end credits. I love the Halloween franchise with all my heart, but I can’t hide my distaste for H20 and Resurrection.

I went to see Resurrection the weekend it opened. I had actually skipped H20 based on the hideous trailer that made a Halloween film look like not a Scream knock-off, but a knock-off of a Scream knock-off. This wasn’t a great era to be a horror fan anyway. I don’t even remember why I talked my wife into go seeing a film I was fairly sure wasn’t going to be very good and it didn’t take ten minutes before I wanted my money back. And then it got worse.

The film stars rapper Busta Rhymes, who gets top billing, and runs a production company with Tyra Banks, called Dangertainment. It’s kind of a Fear Factor/Big Brother web show, where contestants wear cameras and act as criminal investigators. The latest episode is set to take place in the infamous Myers House, which has been wired with cameras and filled with props to scare the contestants. What the actual objective is, I don’t know. Is it a game show? Are people supposed to just watch a group of dorks be scared for hours on end? It’s not at all clear. Worse is the rest of the cast, six poorly written stereotypes, five of which we know will die as soon as we meet them and one, the smart sensible one, we know will be our final girl. The most famously bad part of the film is Busta kung-fuing Michael, and that’s the part that’s often brought up when discussing how shitty Resurrection is, but let’s be fair. Busta is given a mouthful of exposition and nonsense to spout in cluttered chunks, but he’s also the only member of the cast that seems happy to be in the film. His performance is bad, but I blame that on writing and direction, and as bad as he is, he acts circles around everyone else.

Like H20, Michael’s mask looks horrible, the actor isn’t the least bit imposing and, in fact, most of the scenes in the Myers House remind me of the Porky Pig cartoon, The Case of the Stuttering Pig. A good example is the scene where Busta is dressed as Michael and Michael is creeping behind him. Busta turns around, not knowing it’s Michael and starts yelling at him to go back to where Tyra Banks is and that the back door is unlocked (not joking). And Michael just walks off! Seriously, watch Resurrection and The Case of the Stuttering Pig as a double feature. This begs the question: was the movie supposed to be kinda funny? Probably not, but it plays like an Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein more than a horror movie. Worse, we have two sets of characters that couple up, each with a skeezy guy trying to get in the pants of a girl. When their scenes are back to back, we pretty much just watch the same scene twice. Not one kill is memorable, the overall saga of Michael Myers is not progressed an inch, and literally the only almost good line is Busta saying, “Happy Halloween, motherfucker!”

From the theatrical cut of part 6 to the laundry list of bad ideas in H20 to this abomination, I think the blame can be laid at the feet of Dimension Films, who absolutely did not care about the product (as I mentioned in my part 6 review, just look what they did to Hellraiser). Who watched Halloween: Resurrection and said, “OK?” I know there was some level of quality control, because there are three rejected endings on the Blu-ray (they’re all terrible), but this cold turd got served to theaters.

Sadly, this was the last of the series that long time producer Moustapha Akkad’s name appears on a Halloween movie. He and his daughter were killed in a terrorist bombing in Jordan. His son, Malek, took over for his father and let the franchise breathe a few years before handing over the project to Rob Zombie for his two remakes. As far as I’m concerned, Moustapha’s legacy was tarnished by the partnership with Dimension and I don’t hold him or Malek responsible for the quality of the films. Zombie, for whatever flaws you want to lay at his feet, made Halloween scary and serious again.

I don’t recommend watching Halloween: Resurrection unless you’re a die hard completist. If you do, don’t forget my double feature recommendation.

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31 Days Of Horror: Even Superheroes Get Scared In ‘Avengers Halloween Special #1’ On The Wednesday Run

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With today’s release of Avengers Halloween Special #1 (don’t expect a second issue any time soon!), you’ll see that even your favourite Marvel Comics superheroes can get scared at this time of year!

Trick or treat, indeed, true believers!

It’s not like horror and terror and things that go bump in the night is new to Marvel Comics. This is the company that has recently given us various publications of Marvel Zombies over the years. An undead Wolverine shambling across the grounds of Professor Xavier’s School of the (deadly) gifted! A decomposing Captain America staring into the (dead) eyes of D.C. congressmen at the nation’s capital!

Marvel Zombies was a beloved title…by those that, uh, be-loved such things. It was fun, after all, and caught the wings of the zombie-popularity that was, and still is, ruling the pop culture landscape.

Marvel Comics has never shied away from dark-themed comics. In fact, the comic book publisher has a rich history of horror publications; beginning in the 1950’s when Marvel was called Timely.

Under the Timely banner – and then Atlas – the world was given amazing comic books like Adventures Into Terror, Astonishing, Menace, and the fondly recalled, Journey Into Mystery. Later, Marvel Comics gave us some of the most well-known horror-themed titles in The Tomb of Dracula and Man-Thing!

You can read a brief and fascinating history of Marvel Comic’s horror themed publications right here.

Following that storied tradition, it’s a special treat to get a superhero-centric one-off special, like the Avengers Halloween Special #1 on the day of All Hallows Eve.

It’s a comic book that can be enjoyed by anyone of just about any age, and of any horror-themed disposition!

Avengers Halloween Special 2018 Marvel Comics comic book horrorAvengers Halloween Special #1
Written By: Various
Illustrated By: Various
Published By: Marvel Comics

Avengers Halloween Special #1 contains a number of stories written and illustrated by a plethora of talented ghouls specters and features characters, heroes and villains like Daredevil, Captain America and even the X-Men and Doctor Doom! From hauntings to cosmic horror, you’ve got it all in one volume – perfect reading for this very special day (and night)!

As a special bonus, Avengers Halloween Special #1 features the Marvel Comics writing debut of actor and screenwriter, Jay Baruchel (Tropic Thunder, This Is the End, Goon, and the upcoming horror film based on a comic book, Random Acts of Violence).

Make the run to your local comic book shop today – either for yourself, or for a friend, or a (slightly older) child, and pick up Avengers Halloween Special #1. It makes for perfect reading while eating all of those ‘Trick or Treat’ candies!

For a fun Marvel Halloween Reading List, one that‘ll keep you occupied well into the Christmas season, you can click here!

Happy Halloween!

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