horror movies

For my Halloween viewing, I rented three movies I've been wanting to see: a) Drag Me to Hell, b) Grace, and c) Dead Snow.

Drag Me to Hell was fine. I didn't care for the protagonist (perhaps I wasn't supposed to like her, but I didn't even get to enjoy my dislike for her). The ending was obvious (at least to me) for the last 30 minutes of the movie, so it was a matter of just waiting for it to be over instead of enjoying the misdirection. Overall, I think the movie was pretty weak and have no intention to ever watch it again.

Having said that, the movie had a handful of great moments (especially the first physical scuffle between the protagonist and the gypsy, which I thoroughly enjoyed).

Missed the last two days on the Halloween countdown (bad blogger). Wasn't feeling too well and am totally swamped with Halloween projects. So I spent yesterday on the couch, painting eyeball plants and watching horror movies, including Friday the 13th parts one through three.

I'm sure there are many like me who haven't watched the earlier movies in a long time. And I forgot just how...real Jason used to be.

Sure we know him as the hulking form behind the goalie mask now. The unstoppable, looming figure that's ice-cold.

But back then, he was the size of a regular man. He wore overalls and a sack or pillowcase over his head. He moved at normal speed. He ran, stumbled and when he fell to the ground, he made an audible sound. An actual "oof" noise.

And when you hit him, he was hurt. Just like any other man, when Jason took one straight to the *cough* family jewels, he went down just like you'd expect him to.

He was human. He was desperate and determined in his chase.

And you know what? All these weaknesses - these human traits - made him scarier. Probably because I believed he was real.

So while everyone else can worship the hockey-masked, machete-wielding, supernatural killing machine, I'll save my shudders for the flawed, deformed man who grew up alone in the woods...who (everyone believed) drowned...who saw his mother killed...who wears a one-eyed sack over his head to hide his deformity.

Yetch and I headed down to the CBC building. One of the things I love about living in this city is one minute I'm at my desk, the next I'm in a studio audience waiting to see one of my favourite film makers.

There were a few undead mingling with the living (including the woman responsible for starting the Toronto Zombie Walk. She happened to be looking over as I snapped a picture of the sign). Dead or alive, everyone was excited.

I missed the big celebration on Saturday where Torontonians came out by the hundreds, dressed as zombies, to celebrate Romero's new film Survival of the Dead (see Fangoria's review) and his choice to become a Canadian citizen.

You can peruse some great photos of the event on torontoist.com. It looks like everyone had a good time, regardless of some of the more negative reviews of the movie itself (like this one from latimesblogs.latimes.com which is where I borrowed the image above from).

But don't cry for me, little Ghoulies. I have two tickets to be part of a studio audience and see Mr. Romero interviewed on CBC's The Hour today. Will report back with any goodies.

I was sure I'd have to wait for Trick R Treat to be released on DVD in October before I saw it. I'd come to terms with it.

I'd accepted the fact I'd be missing the screening at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, one of the few North American festivals that were showing the film to the public.

But life has a funny way of opening and shutting doors, and without going into the details of how it came to be, I found myself with two tickets and a window of time where I was well enough to go down to the theatre. The only thing between me and the movie was a tornado warning and a monsoon of a thunderstorm.

Yetch and I watched the walls of rain sweep in sideways from the safety of the porch, waiting for a break in the weather so we could head down to the theatre. Weird to think we were plotting our trek while all across the city power outages and fallen trees were making travel difficult (and homes just north of the city were having their roofs blown off, and cars were overturned on the highway).

I was suddenly determined to see this movie.

I'm not sure how the movie Grace flew under my radar, but a friend of mine brought it up to me today.

A different twist on an evil child movie, Grace has a plot that could be somewhat controversial (and possibly too emotionally charged for people who have suffered the agony of a stillbirth or a miscarriage). Essentially, it's about a woman in her final trimester who gets into a car crash. Although her baby dies in the accident, she decides to wait three weeks and give birth. Miraculously, her baby comes back to life.

If they ended the story there, I guess it would be positioned as the feel good movie of the year. Instead, it's not all rainbows and butterflies for this new mother as she slowly learns her baby has unique needs.

I posted the YouTube trailer above, but I would actually suggest you watch the trailer on the official website.

In my youth, my father worked at a movie store on the weekends. He eventually moved on to another job, but always maintained a friendship with the staff.

This meant we always watched movies, and my father was always coming home with movie posters and movie stands.

The posters would usually end up plastered across the ceiling of the "tv room", and eventually they covered the walls, edge to edge, like wall paper. Most of these posters were from horror films.

While visiting my mother the other day, I decided to poke my head into the tv room. She takes care of teenage girls, so she's kept the posters up over the years. A quick scan revealed an impressive collection. Here are pictures of the ones that stood out, but it certainly isn't all of them.

Upstairs in the main hall (there's a lot of space) are a number of movie stands as well, including a rather impressive Nightmare on Elm Street one with an almost life size Freddy on it. I know somewhere in that house is a smaller one that lights up.

One day, when I have more room, and my mother decides to clear house, I look forward to having some of these gems to decorate with.

I was visiting King Unicorn's blog and found a faux movie trailer that is worth mentioning. I imagine most of you have seen it, but it would be a shame if even one of you had missed out on the ridiculousness. I know it vanished from YouTube fairly quickly.

The Horribly Slow Murderer with Incredibly Inefficient Weapon is a short film constructed as a 10 minute trailer promoting a fake 9 hour movie that took 12 years to film. The protagonist is hunted and tormented by an evil that may drive him insane long before he is bludgeoned to death.

Learn more about the movie on imdb.com.

Enjoy.

There is talk of a director's cut of Nightbreed possibly being available, but only if there is demand for it. The studio executives aren't interested (in this extra 25 minute extended version or a Blu-ray version). If enough people write in, it might make them change their mind.

And this isn't simply idle chatter or horror rumour, it's coming from Clive Barker's website:

If there's a demonstrable audience for an extended Nightbreed then that could well influence a release as a pure commercial decision, but we need to figure out just how large that audience really is. A small but noisy group will not make a difference here - we need to see just how many people would actually put down their hard-earned money for this...

If you're interested in showing the size of audience or demand for an extended version of Nightbreed, please either e-mail them or send them a Tweet to @philandsarah. Just your name or screen name is fine but please feel free to add your country of residence and / or a sentence or two on why this would be a great idea.

Spread the word. I want my director's cut.

The dreaded remake. A hot topic especially in horror and sci-fi circles. The question I am pondering today is when is a re-make acceptable, even welcomed?

Here's my thoughts on it.

I often find myself immediately turning my nose up at remakes of movies that were made from about 1975 onwards. I suppose that means a block of about 40 years should have past before people even consider a remake.

If the original movie was well made, or has a cult following, the only apparent reason for remaking it seems to be someone's notion they can make money off an already-existing fan base (which is sometimes a poor assumption to make).

For example, consider Fright Night and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both are classic, corny, kitschy goodness. They were made at the perfect time, in a style reflective of the period. Fans love them for those specific reasons. What could possibly be achieved by remaking them (and both are being remade)? How will you improve on it? If you make them scarier, with less corniness (like say, Paul Reuben's extended death scene in Buffy), it loses the original appeal. Or if you plan to re-create it exactly as is, there's no point to remaking it.