Trick or Treat, a guilty Halloween Pleasure

Every year I have a guilty pleasure when Halloween is concerned. I love to pull out the old 1986 movie Trick or Treat. I’m not talking about the new Trick R Treat, but a completely 80s movie celebrating both Halloween and the heavy metal spirit.

Rock star Sammi Curr dies. High school student and #1 fan Eddie Weinbauer (played by Marc Price, the guy who played ‘Skippy’ on Family Ties) is devastated. Upset, he goes to his local disc jockey friend, Nuke (played by real rock star Gene Simmons from the band KISS and his own show Family Jewels, plus the 80s movie Runaway). Nuke gives him a one-of-a-kind pressing of what would have been Curr’s next album, the only copy of it anywhere. Soon Eddie is rocking to the album, but he soon discovers that when he plays the record backwards Curr actually talks to him from beyond the grave. Eddie quickly realizes that Curr was a Satanist who is trying to live forever through his music. Eddie has to set out to stop him, any way he can .

The story leads through some funny moments, some real thrills and chills, and even Ozzy Osbourne playing an activist reverend! It’s a fun heavy metal ride including some catchy tunes by rockers Fastway (yes, I own the soundtrack on cassette). If you like metal and want a fun little trip to Halloween land, check it out.

Ghostbusters: I Ain’t Afraid of no Ghosts!

“He slimed me!”

And thus the tone is set for 1984’s hugely popular Ghostbusters.

This movie trumped them all, uniting so many stars and soon to be stars in one wild romp through New York City. Let me give you the list first, just so you can see who I mean. Bill Murray (Saturday Night Live, Caddy Shack, Stripes, and many others) reunites with Dan Aykroyd (Saturday Night Live, Blues Brothers, Spies Like Us). throw in some Sigourney Weaver (the Alien series, Gorillas in the Mist, Avatar), Harold Ramis (SCTV, Stripes, and the writer of Animal House), Rick Moranis (SCTV, Spaceballs, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids), Annie Potts (Designing Women, Pretty in Pink, Toy Story), Ernie Hudson (The Crow, Miss Congeniality, and Oz), William Atherton (Real Genius, Die Hard, The Pelican Brief), and even some notoriety for David Margulies as the mayor of New York (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Law & Order, The Sopranos).  And don’t forget director Ivan Reitman of Stripes and Kindergarten Cop fame.

Beyond the great list of comedy actors, the story and the writing is really what made Ghostbusters fly. Indeed, it has spawned so many one quips which so many people now popularly recognize: “Cats and dogs, living together,” “Don’t cross the streams,” “Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back,” “Ectoplasmic residue,” Are you the keymaster?” among others!

The story is this… Part-time scientists discover a large psychokinetic energy is building within New York City. This energy force os raising the dead and creating havoc downtown. These scientists soon form the Ghostbusters, a group of four men running around town and becoming famous for catching and detaing the ghosts. Of course, some people don’t like them and end up releasing all the ghosts in one big cataclysmic event. Soon, the Ghostbusters are fighting an eternal demon god known as Gozer and end up fighting the Stay-Puft marshmallow man, an advertising gimmick brought to life several stories tall.

Altogether the cast, writing, story, and great comedic presentation, along with some spectacular effects of the day, presents us with a wonderful and funny ride. It’s certainly one you want to check out, especially now because a new Ghostbusters III is ready to drop next year!

(Sequels: Ghostbusters II, Ghostbusters III)

Hellraiser: Pinhead is raising Hell

(I’ve fallen a few posts behind because of work, so I’ll be posting a few extra posts in the next few days to catch up)

One of my favorite horror movies of all time has always been Hellraiser. It’s a lower budget British film from 1987, the era of the Jason and Freddy movies. It was written and directed by Clive Barker, one of the most popular horror authors besides Stephen King.

This film spawned one of the most creative serial killers of any horror film: Pinhead (played wonderfully by Doug Bradley who creates a performance and character so commanding you believe he IS Pinhead). But Pinhead is different. He doesn’t kill you unless you “call” him using the puzzle box, an antique toy puzzle cube which, when opened, calls forth demons from hell (hence the title Hell-Raiser). Also different about Pinhead, he doesn’t really kill everyone, he takes them to Hell and creates demons out of some. He’s a more refined killer with discriminating tastes. What does put him in the same category as the other movie serial killers of the time is his look. His name is apt. When he was taken into the puzzle box, his face was lacerated and several nails pounded into his head, points out.

So, now why would anyone want to open the puzzle box if demons come and take you away in more and more ingenious and painful ways: the most common being chains which fly out of nowhere and rip you apart? Well, some people believe they will gain the powers of hell. Of course, it never works out as in this, the first in a series of 9 Hellraiser films.

The story of this one: A woman (Clare Higgins) who is cheating on her husband (played by Andrew Robinson who also achieved some fame in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series) attempts to hide her lover, the husband’s half-brother (played by Sean Chapman) in an upstairs room of their house. Sounds tough to do, but the lover is also dead because he opened the box and had it ripped away by Pinhead and his legion of Cenobites (demons, or as Pinhead puts it, “Demons to some, Angels to others”). What can give his body back? Blood, of course. Very soon the wife is killing other people to bring her  lover back to her. The thorn in her side? The husband’s daughter who discovers the betrayal and gets in the way (Played by Ashley Laurence who also returns for the next two Hellraiser sequels).

How does it turn out? Well, you will just have to watch it to see, but considering there are many sequels and that the demons are already dead, you know Pinhead and his Cenobites will survive. It’s a great film in the style of slasher killers, but with a definitive twist which will want you wanting more. (The immediate sequels also stack up pretty well, some of the later ones don’t turn out as well.)

(Sequels: Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, Hellraiser: Bloodline, Hellraiser: Inferno, Hellraiser: Hellseeker, Hellraiser: Deader, Hellraiser: Hellworld, Hellraiser: Prophecy, Hellraiser: Revelations)

Creepy, Kooky, Mysterious, Spooky… The Addams Family

We’ve looked at The Munsters in our Halloween review and if we’re going to do that we better look at TV’s other Halloween family The Addam’s Family.

And everyone knows the theme, and not just the words, but the double finger snaps also.

The Addams Family is that mysterious family who lives down your block. They’re not monsters (though their relatives may be and if they ever encountered them they would be extremely happy!). The Addams live the creepy life, but the best thing about it is they never even realize how different they are. Indeed, the Addams take ‘dysfunctional family’ to a whole new level and revel in it. This IS normal for them… and we love it. Every episode is a whole new experience in strange. And strange is funny. They make us laugh and want more of their creepiness in our live. I can still recall being a young child and wishing I could stick a light bulb in my mouth and make it light up!

Family patriarch Gomez, played by the laughable and lovable John Astin (well recognized for many appearances in several different TV series), leads the craziness by hitting golf balls off the roof, standing on his head and blowing up his toy trains… “Why else would a grown man play with toy trains?” Morticia is the matriarch, played beautifully by Carolyn Jones (also appearing briefly in many series). Morticia spends her time knitting (mostly things with three arms), growing hemlock plants which are one hundred times more threatening than Venus Fly Traps. And don’t forget Uncle Fester! (The light bulb nut) Jackie Coogan started early in life in Vaudeville even playing Tom Sawyer in the 1930’s movies of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Uncle Fester is perhaps one of the oddest characters, playing with knives, waxing his bald head, and sleeping on a bed of nails. Round the cast off with Lurch, Frankenstein type butler, and Pugsley and Wednesday, the Addams children (and Wednesday’s headless doll) and you have a wonderful fun time in the house of weird. (Oh, and never forget the final member of the family who tends to hold it all together… Thing! A body-less hand who is very handy to have around the house!)

The series lasted two full seasons, but also spawned two major motion pictures in the 1980s starring Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, and introduced young Christina Ricci. The Addams let us know the strange family down the block is strange, yes, but maybe strange isn’t so bad. The whole family will love and laugh at the entire spooky series.

The Munsters! TV for Halloween.

I love movies. But I like TV too. There are many similarities between the two. You could even claim TV is just a series of short movies. So, why not include some quality TV in our look at Halloween. And The Munsters is quality Halloween TV.

This 1964 series played off the classic monster movies. Classic comedy actor Fred Gwynn had just come off a successful run in the series of Car 54 Where Are You? Even by that time, he was no slouch to TV. he had worked in several other series before then and even more since. One of his most famous rules was as the judge in the comedy movie My Cousin Vinnie with Joe Pesci. His ‘long’ face lent itself to play Herman Munster (yes, even the name leads to comedy gold). Herman is the head of the Munster family, a comedic hodge podge of other classic monster stereotypes. His wife, played by Yvonne De Carlo (with her own impressive list of movies and TV behind her), was more in the style of Frankenstein’s bride, but without the crazy hair. Follow these parents up with young Eddie (Butch Patrick), a definite vampire take-off, and the teenage daughter Marilyn, who somehow is born virtually normal, though she loves her family and gets mixed up with all their monster hi-jinx. Added for flavor, Al Lewis, also a Car 54 alumni, portrays the older grandfather, also in the Dracula style. The series also featured several cameo appearances: Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny amd many more), Paul Lynde (America’s favorite center square on the original Hollywood Squares and Bewitched), Harvey Korman (Carol Burnett Show, Blazing Saddles), and many more.

Episodes involved many problems of ‘scary’ monsters living in the ‘burbs. It put a new spin on the everyday life with mayhem quickly ensuing. The family was strange to us, even to the point of housing a pet dragon under the stairs, but in reality, we knew the family was more like us than on the surface. It really showed us, beauty is only skin deep and underneath it all, we are all the same.

Return to some of the old episodes and you will see the comedy is timeless, the acting wonderful, and the Munsters are cool. And bring the kids!

Psycho… Yes, Thank you.

Psycho. That’s all you have to say and millions of horror fans wax nostalgic about black and white film, scream-queens, and the Bates Motel. Then, thousands of those same fans will check the walls in their motel rooms for little “eye holes.”

Director Alfred Hitchcock became famous for his thrillers including Rear Window, Vertigo, and North by Northwest. His hands in a film rarely ever failed. Such is the same with his 1960 accomplishment, Psycho. As much as his direction made this film a success, the actors he employed also added the final touches to a thriller masterpiece.

Anthony Perkins, though not in his first role, but definitely his most memorable, plays Norman Bates the owner of a small, out of the way motel. (Since this movie the “Bates Motel” has become synonymous with really crappy, down-and-out motels some see by the roadside.) He lives with his constantly harassing mother on top of the hill in the scary mansion. Soon, Marion shows up, played by scream-queen Janet Leigh (and mother of Jamie Lee Curtis of Halloween fame). She’s running away from her life with $40,000 stolen from her boss. She stops to spend the night at the Bates Motel, where she meets Norman. Thus sets up one of the most memorable scenes ever filmed in a movie… the shower scene. It was so simple, yet so fantastic that even people who have never seen the movie, know that scene.

Knowing Marion is in the shower, because you see the eyeball peeping at her through a hole in the wall, a motherly figure sneaks into the bathroom and stabs her. Hitchcock plays it brilliantly so as you never see the actual stabs on the body, but you do see the downward strokes of the large knife, Marion’s hand grasping the shower curtain and pulling it off its hooks, and the blood running down the drain. Not only do these visuals add to the suspense of the scene, but the music Hitchcock overlays with the scene makes it so much more dramatic. It’s just a simple screeching of violin strings with each downward stroke of the knife making us cringe each time the blade hits home.

A police investigation, sparked by Marion’s sister, soon begins leading the police to the Bates Motel. I don’t want to give away the key points of the movie like who killed Marion and what is Norman’s nagging mother is really like, but the ending is a complete surprise and a must see for any movie fan.

(This film spawned several sequels and even a remake of the original in 1998: Psycho II, Psycho III, Psycho IV:The Beginning (a prequel), Psycho (1998) )

a little movie named Halloween

It only makes sense, when talking about Halloween and movies, to talk about the holiday’s namesake, Halloween. It is one of the genre’s turning points. Halloween became the first mainstream, box office success of horror movies.

The formula was so good, it was used over and over for not only it’s own sequels, but an entire slew of slasher flicks for years to come. One dark and stormy night… a great, scary start if you ask me… Mike Myers, locked away in a mental institution for killing his sister on Halloween night when he was just a young kid, escapes from a mental institution. The movie follows his movements as he returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, dons a plain mask, and begins to kill a string of people. Of course, many of the people he kills are teenagers who decide to have sex spawning the notion that virgins will not be killed (as spoken in the first Scream movies). Eventually, his psychiatric doctor, Dr. Sam Loomis played by Donald Pleasence, a classic British actor with over 200 screen credits, brings him down… supposedly. This film started the trend of scary serial killers who can never truly die. They just go into hiding until they can recuperate and come back after those pesky teens.

Of course, the person who really sparks Myers interest is teenager Laurie, played by Jamie Lee Curtis (daughter of actor Tony Curtis and scream-queen Janet Leigh, the unfortunate young lady to meet her demise in the shower of the original Psycho movie). This is Jamie Lee’s first major role and the movie that really put her on the map. It also began a short list of other scary movies for her including: The Fog, Prom Night, and other movies in the Halloween series.

Director and writer John Carpenter employs several great horror movie techniques which keep us on the edge of our seat: a lot of voyeuristic shots giving the creepy stalker feeling, background music simplistic yet eerie, inventive, new ways to die, and dark and shadowy scenes. But probably the one thing that keeps us on the edge is the killer. Mike Myers, and the many serial killers of horror movies to come, is a tall, dark, and imposing individual. And we never truly see his face. This simple technique just makes us more interested in this individual and keeps us wondering about him. It also makes him more mysterious and, intentionally, scary.

The odd and completely mind-boggling question for the whole series is… what happened with Halloween 3? The Halloween series has had ten movies including two official remakes of the first two films, yet number three has nothing to do with Mike Myers! Besides the fact that they get away from the successful formula of the first two, the third movie was very poorly written and with cheesy effects. If you decide to watch the others, don’t even bother with this one.

Halloween is a film which keeps us coming back for more. From the popular actors to the tried and true horror format we want to experience that fright again and again. Indeed, it’s a horror classic!

(Sequels: Halloween II, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, Halloweeon: The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, Halloween Resurrection, Halloween (2007 remake), Halloween II (2009 remake) )

What is your favorite movie of the Halloween season?

Hey, while I blog every day this month about a different Halloween movie favorite, I want to know: What movie do you want to watch every Halloween? Is it a horror flick, a slasher, a thriller, a comedy (yes, there are Halloween comedies)? Tell us and maybe I’ll take a look at your favorite Halloween movie too. Happy Halloween! 🙂

Frankenstein! (…sort of) Abbott and Costello meets Frankenstein

Looking for a family fun Halloween film which even the children can watch? Want something different than the same old Nightmare Before Christmas? Check out the classic film Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein!

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello continue to be their zany selves as they portray baggage handlers in this 1948 film. They are thoroughly haunted throughout the film as Universal Pictures re-creates it classic monsters in a humorous way. Indeed, the original actors (under strict contract with Universal Pictures as most actors were in those days) reprise their roles as Dracula (the splendid Bela Lugosi), the Wolfman (Lon Chaney, Jr.), and Frankenstein’s Monster (played by Glenn Strange reprising his role from House of Frankenstein, which is less fulfilling than if they had the original Boris Karloff, but it’s still good ). All three monsters are together in one film… a monster film lover’s delight! Not only that, they are wreaking havoc on poor Costello’s nerves and bladder. Costello plays it so well as the bungling, but lovable character he made famous in so many movies and routines. Abbott plays the straight man to the “T”, never realizing or believing what is really going on until we get deep into Costello’s neurotic behavior. (His mimicry of the monsters is so much fun to watch.)

Abbott and Costello was one of the premiere comedy teams of their time. Everyone knew their names and everyone recognized their faces from the movie shows. They made dozens of films and a few TV series too. Combining them with the monster movie format was basically a stroke of genius. But combining them with the original actors (playing it straight) is divine.

The monsters are fantastic and the comedic routine is perfect. It’s just the right mix of scary creatures, suspenseful plot line,  and funny moments for a family Halloween movie night or to just introduce the youngsters to the thrills (tame as it may be) of  the horror/monster genre.

Zombies! Night of the Living Dead

“They’re coming to get you Barbara!”

You want zombies? You got zombies! The original zombie flick: Night of the Living Dead. No, I’m not claiming that the old flick White Zombie and a few others were not the first, but that Night of the Living Dead was the foremost film to bring zombies to the big screen in a big way.

Through the eyes of now legendary director George Romero (also famous for Creepshow, TV’s Tales From the Darkside, and even producing the new version of The Crazies after directing the original in 1973) zombies came alive for several generations of horror movie watchers. And it was almost believable too. In 1968, people knew of Vietnam, Agent Orange, and the affects it had on people. People feared the ever increasing presence of the Cold War and the effects of nuclear radiation . And people watched in awe, wonder, and a little trepidation as the space race, full of its rockets and ever increasing satellites, gained full steam into a whole new realm. What would scare us more than a combination of all our worst fears… throwing in some walking dead for good measure.
The story? Simple, yet brilliant… a military satellite falls to earth and mysteriously causes the dead to rise from their graves. Was it a virus from beyond? A military created agent? Radiation? We never really know, which is the brilliance of it all. The reason almost gets overlooked as we cower on the edge of our seats, watching as our friends and family slowly turn into the walking dead… one by one. The black and white effects (even in a 1968 film) show the stark contrast between wrong and right, living and dead, night and day. Surprisingly, the fact that the actors were barely known only adds to the effect because you’re not familiar with them. And Romero gives us the inevitable zombie cause, one bite and you’re as good as gone. Ever since then, this has been the primary way to become a zombie. It even featured the first black actor in a starring role in a horror film, Duane Jones.

I have to admit, originally being from the Pittsburgh area, NOTLD holds a special place in my heart. I grew up on this movie and all the sequels it spawned. There are so many places and people I personally recognized. My favorite story is from hometown newscaster Bill Cardille (also known to us as Chilly Billy, the host of a long running local tv series showing monster and horror movies: Chiller Theater). Cardille was a news reporter at the time covering the “little” movie shoot for the local, channel 11, news. As he and his cameraman were shooting their news footage, they were asked if they wanted to play a newscaster and cameraman in the film. Seeing a great opportunity and lots of fun, they quickly agreed.

The movie is a great scare (tame by today’s movies) and a standard in the horror movie database. It has inspired a string of sequels, remakes and even AMC’s new hit, The Walking Dead.

So, grab your popcorn, hold your loved ones tight, and watch the beginning of the zombie apocalypse with Night of the Living Dead!

(Sequels spawned: Dawn of the Dead (filmed in the Monroeville Mall!), Day of The Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, and Survival of the Dead… and inspiration for so many more!)