Archive for October, 2008
Deader Country Exclusive Stills
Straight from our friends at Merk Film comes these exclusive Deader Country stills. Check them out!!! Stay tuned for more…
Plot: Whilst wagging school, two teenagers stumble across a strange hybrid creature, a beast that is half man, half alien and all zombie, which has managed to make its way unseen across desolate countryside to the town of Pleasance.
The Box Film Info
Norma and arthur Lewis are faced with a terrible dilemma when a mysterious glass box turns up at their door. If they press the button inside the box, they’ll get enough money to save their ailing son, but in exchange, someone, somewhere in the world will die. When the temptation to save their beloved son becomes too much to bear, Norma pushes the button. Immediately, a gunshot rings out somewhere nearby. Consumed with guilt, Norma must do everything in her power to solve a murder she has knowingly caused.
Horror Films: Lock The Doors, Dim The Lights, Enjoy!
This year, for the first time since 2003, Halloween isn’t on a school night, so if you and your friends want to stay up until dawn watching horror movies, there’s nothing stopping you. So after the little ones have watched the “Great Pumpkin” and gone to bed, bring out the really creepy movies. These are guaranteed to keep you awake for a long, long time:
The Thing — John Carpenter’s 1982 thriller, starring Kurt Russell and Wilford Brimley, takes place in an American research station in Antarctica. The staff rescues a stray dog from being shot. The dog turns out to be something entirely other. The “thing” that invaded the dog’s body then moves into people. Explorers panic, and the body count rises. The movie’s tag line is “Man Is the Warmest Place To Hide.”
Alien — That line could apply to Ridley Scott’s brilliant 1979 shocker. While investigating an SOS, the crew of spaceship Nostromo finds some mysterious eggs. One opens, and a creature leaps onto John Hurt’s face. It’s all downhill from there.
The Blair Witch Project — Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s 1999 cinéma vérité is terrifying for its trembly faux home-movie camera work and because nothing specific is seen. It’s fear of the unknown. It tells of three friends who go deep into the woods to investigate rumors of a witch. They get lost, find some odd structures, and then one of them disappears. The ending (“Mike! Mike! Mike!”) is haunting.
8 Scary Movies – Horror picks sure to keep you up all night
The fun thing about Halloween is that you never know what you’re going to get – a trick or a treat. The same can be said of the scary movies that folks will break out on All Hallows Eve. From traditional classics such as the “Friday the 13th” series to newer slasher flicks like the “Saw” franchise, it’s hard for viewers to know whether they won’t be sleeping that night out of terror or frustration.
But, considering the trick-or-treating, the candy-eating, the age-inappropriate costume wearing and the spirituous imbibing that happens during the festive occasion, the quality of the scary movie usually isn’t enough to ruin a good Halloween.
So, keeping that in mind, we’ve decided to offer up eight off-the-beaten-path horror movie picks that will either provide Great Pumpkin-like tricks or chilling Crypt-Keeper worthy treats. It’s up to you to separate the treats from the tricks.
Happy Halloween!
1. CANDYMAN (1992) – We dare you to say his name five times while looking in the mirror. Virginia Madsen stars in this horror about a Chicago urban legend known as Candyman, the son of a former slave murdered because of his love affair with the daughter of a white plantation owner. Not to be confused with Christina Aguilera’s “Candyman” or the children’s game “Candyland,” though personal preference will determine which of the three is the scariest.
6 Frightful Sites for Free Halloween Horror Shows
Halloween wouldn’t be complete without a good old-fashioned scream fest. But why worry about battling crowds at video stores when plenty of classic horror flicks are available for free online viewing?
From modern zombies and Japanese monsters to campy classics like Rocky Horror’s “Time Warp,” Wired.com’s ghastly guide will walk you through scary fare on the web.
Hulu: The video site’s “Huluween” offerings include an impressive slate of terrifying tales. Watch the flesh-hungry undead run rampant around London in 28 Days Later. Or take in campy cult classic The Toxic Avenger or 1988′s gelatinous remake of The Blob. A quick glance through Hulu’s regular collection turns up additional fright-night staples like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Blacula, Ghostbusters and more.
Top 5 Horror Comics
With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I’d follow the lead of ever other blogger out there and talk about horror comics. What I present to you below are the 5 greatest horror comic books ever produced. Although this list is based entirely on my personal opinion, I’ve never known me to be wrong. Here we go folks, grab some popcorn and hold onto your hats!
5. Haunted #20
For those of you who like a tale with a Lovecraftian feel to it, you will absolutely fall in love with Haunted #20 from Charlton. Most Charlton horror books from the 70s feature a real mishmash of 5-8 page stories, but for some reason editor George Wildman allowed Tom Sutton to run wild for 23 pages. And run wild, he did! This is heaven for Tom Sutton fans (and if you’re not one, you should be) as we’ve got a great gothic mansion, a portal to hell and a nosy estate lawyer. Sutton ensures that the ending is not 100% happy. Reprinted in Haunted #44.
10 best Horror Movie Taglines ever
I guess the most significant questions concerning the tagline is what does it do for a film? And does it actually work? One little blurb, usually written on the film’s poster, is somehow supposed to sum up the theme of the film, or brand the film in question even further into our collective memory. I’d point out that with a movie like Alien and its mythical tagline In space no one can hear you scream the tagline transcends its position in the game of movie marketing, and does become something greater than just a blurb. Alien’s tagline is so good in fact that I left it off the following list because it’s just too easy and obvious.
In the business of taglining film no other genre is more crafty, or more sleazy than the horror movie genre. So I searched the net high and low, (mostly low) to find 10 great horror movie taglines. These are the lines I appreciated the most…
10) Sleepy Hollow- Heads Will Roll… Simple. Direct. To the point. In fact more to the point then anyone waiting to see this 1999 Tim Burton film could have ever possibly imagined. Many more heads rolled in this horror movie than most of us thought Tim Burton had in him.
9) Zombie Honeymoon- In sickness and in health… That about sums up this nice little film about a young bride coming to terms with her new husband’s sudden overpowering hunger for human brains. Great little zombie movie, great little tagline.
Frankenhooker- A Terrifying Tale of Sluts and Bolts… Nice work tagline team! I’m sure the movie is gold-plated crap but that tagline sure sells Frankenhooker to me.
7) The Thing- Man is the warmest place to hide… Most people assume this is the tagline for Brokeback Mountain. Let me finally be the one to set the record straight, no pun intended. John Carpenter’s The Thing is the origin of this fantastically perverse tagline, and if you have seen this 1982 film it does indeed make sense.
Got gore?: The slasher films
That gift of the ‘70s just keeps on giving, and will keep giving with remakes of the slasher classics either fairly recently released or in production.
I again offer that Stephen King quote: “I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.”
And, of course, shame and Hollywood don’t go together any more than Leatherface and personal hygiene.
I consider “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974) the daddy of the slasher genre (the constant screaming toward the end tends to get on my royal nerves, though). The typical slasher-film formula has evolved, but the basics of “Chain Saw’s” story continue to be picked up, most notably in Rob Zombie’s “House of 1000 Corpses” and “The Devil’s Rejects.”
Let The Right One In Review
I just had to see Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of the John Ajvide Lindqvist novel, Let The Right One In, as soon as it hit American theaters this past Friday. There had been such fervent buzz about how good this film was that I, as a fanatical follower of the vampire genre, could not ignore the opportunity to see if the film lived up to the hype.
Well, having seen the film and already scheduled a second viewing, I can tell you that Let The Right One In deserves every amount of praise it’s earned: it sets new standards for what a vampire movie should be, and how horror movies should effect us.
Read the rest of this entry »
SCARY MOVIE LINES: ‘THEY MOSTLY COME AT NIGHT. MOSTLY.’
(Warning: Possible spoilers for a whole raft of movies ahead. You have been warned!)
I love Halloween, and I love scary movies, as you’ve probably noticed.
We’ve talked about scary movies that don’t rely on gore, and we’ve also discussed horror movies where the victim films the events as they happen. Now, let’s talk about the lines that make those movies so scary.
So much goes into a good fright flick. To me, it’s all about the suggestion. Your own mind can always create a scarier monster than anything the special effects department can dream up with latex. Movies that create a sense of true dread, that set up a scenario where you can feel the fear without being overwhelmed by monsters and gore, will win me every time.
I feel that one of the most overlooked elements of a great horror movie is the dialogue. Dramas and comedies are expected to have eloquent or snappy dialogue, but horror-movie lines often get lost in the avalanche of fake blood. Yet a great horror-movie line can chill you to the bone and stay with you for months. It can also break your heart.
