My family will attest to the fact that when I am visiting Ohio for Christmas, I always end up watching A Christmas Story at some point. The 24-hour marathon on the Turner cable channels has been a blessing for the holidays, as far as I am concerned. My family recalls the days when broadcast television would play Miracle on 34th Street or It’s a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve. I’ve never held those films in that high regard. For me, Christmas entertainment nostalgia will always rest with Ralphie and crew, and no one else. Not even Frosty the Snowman. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”
Tag: Horror Flick
October Horrorshow: Return of the Living Dead Part II
The Return of the Living Dead, the Dan O’Bannon film from 1985, is my favorite zombie flick. It was the product of a messy divorce between George Romero and screenwriter John A. Russo. Their creative split meant Romero went one way with his Dead films, and Russo, another. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Return of the Living Dead Part II”
October Horrorshow: Predator 2
Predator, the 1987 film from director John McTiernan, is among my favorite action and sci-fi films. It’s one of those dumb 1980s action flicks that it’s easy to turn one’s nose up to, but which is actually pretty damned good. I would like to try making an honest effort at not comparing the sequel unfavorably to the original, but that’s just going to be too hard. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Predator 2″
October Horrorshow: Carnival of Souls
Who the hell is Herk Harvey and what is Carnival of Souls? Well, Herk Harvey was a filmmaker from Kansas whose directing career spanned three decades encompassing no less than 46 titles. His IMDb page lists such titles as What About Juvenile Delinquency? and Exchanging Greetings and Introductions. It’s not typical Hollywood fare. The vast majority of Harvey’s work consists of short educational films for schools and businesses. A few can be found online for the curious, and they’re just what one would expect. The sole feature film in Harvey’s career is Carnival of Souls, which he directed and wrote (with John Clifford) in 1962. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Carnival of Souls”
October Horrorshow: The Hallow
The woods can be a scary place for some people. The strange noises, the closeness, the environment being the antithesis of cities or suburbia — being in the woods can be weird. Maybe that’s what makes the woods a great setting for horror films. That, or the woods is just a convenient setting when budget dictates plot and cast have to be small. Either way, the forest primeval is an oft-used setting in the horror genre, in both good and bad films. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Hallow”
October Horrorshow: Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead
Here it is, the first zombie flick of this year’s Horrorshow, and it’s a good one.
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is an Australian film from 2014, written by Kiah Roache-Turner and Tristan Roache-Turner, and directed by Kiah. Taking place mostly in the middle of nowhere, Roache-Turner used a tried and true method — isolation — to stay within the bounds of a very small budget. But one of the great things about film in the 21st century is that budgetary constraints mean a whole lot less than they used to. Wyrmwood had a budget, as reported on the internet, of only $160,000. That’s extraordinarily small for a feature film, akin to films such as Clerks and Paranormal Activity.
In rural Australia, something is amiss. After a spectacular late night meteor shower, people begin to turn into flesh-eating zombies. But not everyone, of course, otherwise there would be no movie.
The opening scene stakes this flick’s place in the zombie subgenre of horror. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead”
October Horrorshow: Dead Silence
I like James Wan. I like Leigh Whannell. I like them both when they work together, even though the duo is responsible for the execrable Saw franchise. But after seeing what they are capable of in the ghost subgenre of horror, I can write that it is good for horror when they collaborate. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Dead Silence”
October Horrorshow: Intruders
Holy crap! This flick is so obscure that as of this writing (March 2016 — I like to get a head start on the Horrorshow) it has no Wikipedia page. It also has a common title. A quick search in the tubes turned up no less than three films titled Intruders produced from 2014-2016, not including this one. Some more digging has revealed that this Intruders was originally titled Shut In, and under that title there is a Wikipedia page. So all is well with the universe. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Intruders”
October Horrorshow: Indigenous
The Darién Gap is one of the more interesting natural locations on earth. It’s an area of forbidding jungle and swampland straddling the border of Panama and Colombia. The terrain of the gap is so treacherous that its expanse marks the only break in the Pan-American Highway’s 19,000-mile length. It’s a land of native tribes and Marxist guerillas (truly a land outside of time — who still wants to be communist?). The Darién Gap is also the setting of today’s film, Indigenous. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Indigenous”
The Empty Balcony: 10 Cloverfield Lane
10 Cloverfield Lane, from director Dan Trachtenberg, was billed as the spiritual successor to Cloverfield, from 2008. The filmmakers, including producer JJ Abrams, have been coy about exactly how this newest film relates to Cloverfield, and this ties in well with the general air of mystery that has surrounded the films’ promotional campaigns. But in actuality, how the two films are related is an impossible question to answer, so the people involved have to be cagey. 10 Cloverfield Lane was developed independently of Cloverfield, and other than the title, has no relation. Linking the two films together was a bit of smoke and mirrors on Bad Robot’s part to give the new film a leg up at the box office. It’s disingenuous, sure, but luckily it doesn’t matter. There are plenty of genuine sequels out there that are terrible films. If a good one wants to latch on to a successful film like a remora, that’s fine with me. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: 10 Cloverfield Lane”