Let the Sunshine In. Then Die.

Daylight Savings is a cruel calendar trick and a reason to distrust farmers, but we can be thankful for  one thing: sunshine. Bright, warm, orange hued illumination a whole 60 minutes ahead of schedule.

As I walked home this week and actually saw things, I started thinking about the effectiveness of daylight and its underuse in horror. Sure, there’s some primal fear and easy camera tricks to harvest in midnight cinema, but today, let’s take a look at films not afraid to let the sunshine in.

In rough chronological order:

1. The Wicker Man

Some of the earlier eeriness occurs in that sexy witching hour, when snails cuddle and Britt Ekland’s body double booty shakes, but Robin Hardy’s 1974 classic enigma truly comes to pagan life in its last terrifying act set during a beautiful fall early afternoon (well it starts in the morning, but those choral parades take forever). With the bright glare sometimes forcing you to look away, the film bypasses any of the tricks of night vision, letting all the weirdness of bunny masks, pancake makeup, and group singing hang out in full view. When (SPOILER ALERT) Sergeant Howie screams his final hymn from a blazing, goats a’fire filled sacrificial structure, the glory of the natural sun shines straight through to the audience.

2. I Spit On Your Grave

Brutal gang rape is horrifying any time of day, but this 1978 shocker is made all the worse by its fully lit cruelty. Filmmaker Meir Zarchi doesn't shy away from showing you the horrors experienced by lead Camille Keaton, filming her pale body with a matter-of-fact detachment that simply lets the crime speak for itself.

3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Spanning dusk to dawn, Tobe Hooper’s classic set the bar for all-out backwoods psychohorror. The introduction of Leatherface--silent, husky, and full of gutty grime--is shocking not just because of his untamed violence, but also due to the sudden appearance of such a grotesque human in full light. It’s fitting then that TCM ends on such a memorable, sun-lit shot as our chainsaw-wielding madman swings his roaring sword across a slowly waking Texas morning landscape.

4. Jaws

Quint’s account of the USS Indianapolis may be told in haunting shadow, but his lower half gets crunched on what may otherwise be a perfect July beach morning. 

5. The Brood

Generally, kindergarten days begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and one kid vomiting in the morning circle, but leave it to David Cronenberg to capture a different sort of start to alphabet games and adding practice. This 1979 chiller features many fine sequences, but it’s the schoolteacher slaughter that truly horrifies anybody with a pulse. A sunny winter morning turns exceedingly bloody as two evil gnomish creatures bludgeon Ms. Mayer with kiddie tools...right in front of a classroom full of 6 year olds. Time for milk and cookies yet?

6. Friday the 13th

A good deal of this series benefits from those summer days, fitting when the entire concept is based on camping. Since we already know what Jason Voohres looks like by Part III, there’s really no more point in hiding his face in the nighttime shadows (something the misguided remake didn’t seem to understand). All this sunny machete action began in its ‘80s glory with the initial film, where several counselors met their end before they got the chance to put on their pajamas. More notably, the 1980 hallmark of dead teenager movies ends with one of the best jump scares in horror history, when final girl Alice survives into the early morning, only to get a terrifying wake-up call with a dozen and counting sequel potential.

7. The Burning

Yes, George Costanza himself--with hair--handing out condoms to camp counselors intent on seducing underage high schoolers is reason enough see this not-so-good 1981 slasher, but the real highlight is a raft massacre of a dozen kid campers via sharp, rusty garden shears. A great scene of gruesome cruelty and refreshingly timed for all to see.

8. Day of the Dead

Not the best Romero installment by any means (or at least, mine), but it’s hard to argue with those opening five minutes, where scabby, rotting zombies shuffle through an abandoned Florida street on what could otherwise be a fine day for a jog.

9. The Devil’s Rejects

The perfect flip side to the rave-colored black-lit House of 1000 Corpses (look close enough and I’m sure you’ll find some velvety neon posters of wizards hanging on Dr. Satan's walls), Rob Zombie’s matured throwback followup is dripping with the sweaty grime from a hot southern sun. From the daytime hotel massacre and truck scramble to the slow-motion Freebird finale, The Devil’s Rejects makes you feel the heat, one stabbed banjoist at a time.

10. Dawn of the Dead

Zach Snyder's surprisingly spry reimagining of zombies gone shopping smartly avoids the better-in-the-dark style of so many other modern films by opening and closing with two beautifully spring-like sunny days...that just happen to include Olympian trained sprinting undead. Before Johnny Cash's Man Comes Around or Ving Rhames' cool rears its shiny bald head, Dawn of the Dead starts so innocently in a bland, postcard worthy suburb of middle America before waking up the next day to neighborhood shootouts and helicopter crashes. It's fitting that the film ends at its titular time of day as our survivors make their way to a new--probably very short--life sailing a yacht on what would otherwise be an expensive mini vacation.

11. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

Sure, the bulk of this still unjustly unreleased slasher takes place overnight on a blood-soaked ranch, but its grand finale gets the hot desert morning treatment, making its stunning twist all the more jarring. See it to believe it...when it actually gets legally put into theaters.

12. The Strangers

While the majority of this unofficial Ils remake occurs in the quiet midnight hours, the real horror is saved for sunrise. To avoid spoiling a fairly recent film, I’ll tread softer than the barely audible whispering of star Liv Tyler and simply say that in this surprisingly vicious minimalist slasher, the terror doesn’t end just because it’s time for waffles.

13. 28 Weeks Later

Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later offered a few effective AM shots, but it’s Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s underrated sequel that takes full advantage of the rare British sun with one of the most terrifying opening sequences of recent years. There’s a reason you have to seal yourself indoors in the event of an infected cannibal rampage, and all it takes is one open eyehole to let the chaos destroy any safety you’ve built with fellow survivors. Watching a horde of infected chase after Robert Carlyle, operatic classical music playing maniacally in the background, is enough to make you turn out the lights.

14. The Ruins

Most vacationing college students traveling to Central America want nothing more than to surround themselves with hot people and work on their tans, but that gets taken a little too far in this 2008 adaptation of Scott Smith’s novel. Five fresh-faced young folks find themselves trapped on a mysterious Mayan structure, battling the threat of homicidal vines and--cue the sound cue--each other. While the film’s screaming plants lurk inside darkened caves, most of the more disturbing action occurs under the dry, scorching sun to ill-prepared twentysomethings running low on water and high on tequila. Nearly everything is fully visible, and all of it horrific in a way rarely seen in your typical pretty-people-in-trouble flicks of the 21st century.

15. Carriers

Highly contagious disease is ravaging its way through America--and presumably, the world--but you’d never know it if you just glanced out your window. The gorgeous weather offers an intriguing contrast to the increasingly tense atmosphere of this 2009 thriller as humans die off and plague erodes the line between morality and survival. There’s something disturbing, and yet perfectly fine about nature’s continuance in the face of human obliteration, and Carriers captures it with sunshine to spare.

and a few Honorable Mentions via some fine folks on Twitter

Cabin Fever

The Crazies

Drag Me to Hell

Let the Right One In

Martyrs

Picnic At Hanging Rock

Rosemary’s Baby

plus & Recommendations I Haven’t Seen:

And Soon the Darkness

The Children

Curtains

Dead Snow

Advice, Entertainment, Jack Nicholson In Leopard Print & More!

Just cause...

Recommending films can be tricky territory, particularly when your cinematic love is on the line.

So you overhear your coworker talking about a horror movie they watched last night. Some darkly lit ghost story about cell phones stealing the souls of pretty college students, with the dude from Lost acting all broody and Kristen Bell looking cute. They can’t seem to express just how awful it was, as all the words that come out seem to be “It sucked” and “stupid” and “it’s a f*cking cell phone!”\

Sigh. 

Naturally, you feel the need to intervene. To cross cubicle walls and spread the word of just why the American remake of Pulse was so awful. The lack of location, bland visuals, neutered violence and simple fact that it took one of the less interesting aspects of its namesake--the basic plot--and juiced it for all the glossy PG13 J-by-way-of-USA-horror it could. 

You do one better. At the stroke of 6, you return home to your shiny pile of DVDs and wake up the next morning fully pleased with the good deed you’re about to do. You step into the office and casually lend Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kairo to that guy in accounting, accepting his thanks and nodding knowingly. “I’ll watch it this weekend!” he gratefully enthuses. You smile and start to picture the poetically haunting nightmares he’ll have after.

Come Monday, there’s that familiar shadow-filled case on your desk, classlessly decorated with a Post-It that says “Thanks.” You cruise to the water cooler expecting some wide-eyed recap about some Internet-plus-masking-tape inspired nightmare. Your co-worker refills his paper cup without making eye contact.

“Yeah, it was okay. Kinda slow.” 

Fool! You shout with coffee breath. How blind, how foolish, how utterly mistaken this disgusting acquaintance has proven himself to be. You can’t possibly put your name on the same lunch order or ever again borrow the pencil sharpener from a man with such poor taste.

Sadly you both have job security and the office isn’t getting any bigger. Shunning proves to be far more difficult than Dwight Schrute ever let on, so where do you go from here? End all conversations that don’t involve memos, or take up the challenge to make him a better man?

It’s never too late to save a cinematic soul, but it’s also way too easy to blow your chance at DVD redemption. Just because a casual acquaintance enjoyed Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead does not necessarily mean he’ll worship George Romero’s original

I know, I know. This man in question is an idiot and/or possible agent of Satan, but just because you and I may have grown up fighting over who got to play Peter (so what if you happened to be female and white; that’s why it’s called make-believe) does not mean that deservedly beloved classic will instantly register with someone still virginal in the sensuous ways of the undead. Modern viewers are not just bored by what seems like long stretches of actionless shopping or stiff acting; they’re sometimes baffled by why and how a two-hour opus about a handful of nobodies playing dress-up and occasionally shooting blue-hued zombies is considered your favorite movie of all time.

Taste is one thing, but every person--particularly a film lover--is fairly near-sighted when it comes to personal picks. It’s far too easy to alienate friends by forcing the wrong movies on them at the wrong time, especially when you genuinely want to introduce them to a particular genre. There are a few--okay, a lot--considerations one must take when sharing a video catalog. A few examples:

1. Sexual content

Obviously, you want to be wary of lending your officemate I Spit On Your Grave for fear of sexual harassment charges, but even milder films can rub some viewers the wrong way as soon as certain taboos take over the screen. At this point, there’s little David Cronenberg can really do to knock the monocle out of your eye, but someone who grew up blushing at Sharon Stone’s Basic Instinct leg crossover might be utterly speechless at the sight of Marilyn Chambers’ flashing her armpit vagina in Rabid. Baby steps is sometimes the key, so work your subject’s way up from tamer fare like eXistenZ. One day, medieval gynecological instruments and Jeremy Irons kinkiness might not be so shocking. Until then, save Dead Ringers for the identical twin within yourself.

2. Subtitles

Even the true cinemaniac needs to be in the proper mindset to sit through two hours of small, sometimes foggy font. At the same time, even the most book burning couch potato might forget the fact that he’s reading once those uzis start blasting away teenagers in Battle Royale. When recommending a foreign film to someone not accustomed to subtitles, some consideration is necessary. Let the Right One In may have topped international critics’ lists, but put the DVD on in an ambivalent viewer’s comfy apartment and don’t be terribly shocked to hear snores from the other side of the couch. 

3. Overhype

I still find it adorable that Frankenstein was to my mother’s nightmares what Pet Semetary was to mine. I also remember thinking anybody that called The Exorcist the scariest film of all time had clearly never seen Child’s Play. I know, what an insolent youth I was, but this is what happens when you force your love and fear upon someone not yet versed or invested in the same film canon. 

One day, I hope to assemble an epic guide to initiate the willing into the magical world that is horror, cult, and general genre cinema that I know and love. Then again, my taste is more questionable than how to pronounce Ellen Burstyn’s last name so who am I to judge what the world needs to see? 

Someone with a lot of DVDs, that’s who. 

So how do you approach recommendations regarding lesser known and more controversial films? Any tips or tidbits that beat the lesson I learned from my “hey! I’ll bring a scary movie to my friend’s teenage slumber party. Here’s an old VHS called Mother’s Day!” story of my eighth grade memories?

Franchise Fun

With the recent success of The Final Destination and the subsequent announcement that Halloween 3 (or 11, but who’s counting?) will be made, it seems the era of the horror franchise is being resurrected like, well, a Romero buried zombie digging his way out of a wormy grave. While the Jigsaw readies his costume for this year’s trick-or-treating and the behemoths of the 80s sharpen and shine their knives for glossy reboots, I figured it was time to take a quick glance at the current horror series returning to theaters.

Saw

Status: Monopolizing Halloween for the past 5 years, this infamously R-rated series will make its sixth outing next month

Killer Key Features: twist ending, gravely voiced villain, bicycle riding puppet, elaborate traps for morally flawed character actors, MTV quick editing

Fresh Faced Pre-Fame Victims: The cast tends to be composed more of dimming stars from the 90s than ingenues, but do credit the original for a heavily featured pre-Benjamin Linus, Michael Emerson

High Points: Whether it suits your taste buds or not, few could deny the impressive execution of the first film’s big reveal; Part IV breathed a little new life into the series by featuring the first likable hero

Low Points: The weakest work of Cary Elwes’ career; an increasingly mean spirited attitude most prominent in Part III; the convoluted plotting of Part V to essentially do little more than set up the next installment

Jaws Jump: When a VH1 reality show plays casting agent, the signs aren’t good

Influence: Credit does go to Saw for making studios allow their horror films to maintain hard R ratings, but providing an opportunity to smart fare like Hostel has also sullied horror’s reputation with messy drudge like Captivity. Whether you get off on torture porn, roll your eyes at Jigsaw’s exploits, or believe (as I do) that Saw is a decent, if underwhelming, collection of quick thrills, it certainly has made a lasting impression on modern theatrical releases.

Final Destination

Status: Producers have claimed that the recently released The Final Destination is indeed grammatically honest, but its huge opening weekend could certainly cause Death to overlook a few more accidents, only to then do some makeup work with wacky yet non-supernatural methods that would make Rube Goldberg seethe with envy 

Killer Key Features: massively violent opening scenes, luckily educational Googling, the number 180, sharp objects impaling their way through eye sockets, gentle breezes, 

Fresh Faced Pre-Fame Victims: Sean William Scott, pre-Heroes Ali Larter

High Points: Part 2’s opening pile-up remains one of the most terrifying car accidents in cinema history; The tanning bed dual homicide cleverly gave Part 3 a macabrely funny kick; Part 4’s NASCAR collapse captured the terrifying possibilities of lax building codes and frantic mobs

Low Points: A few two many explosions in the otherwise favorite Part 2, the general lack of depth to leads in any of the films

Jaws Jump: A 3D gimmick is certainly one way to deliver the same formula while still putting popcorn stained bottoms into the seats

Influence: On the surface, 1999’s Final Destination seemed like any other outing with pretty people in peril but due to high production values, a great concept, and an excellent sense of self awareness, each entry has packed enough humor and scares to leave audiences--especially the dedicated horror crowd--thirsty for more. While not a huge cash cow in the Saw league, the series has been profitable enough and yet thankfully, the creators have been responsible to not rush into each production. I only wish more franchises would take a few lessons from Death’s messy mistakes.

Halloween

Status: Despite a disappointing opening weekend, a third/eleventh film (depending on your numbering system) is slated for a summer 2010 release, this time sans two-time director Rob Zombie 

Killer Key Features: October 31st, slutty babysitters, very large kitchen knives, trenchcoats, scores featuring heavy use of minor keys

Fresh Faced Pre-Fame Victims: Jamie Lee Curtis making her mark as the nerdiest scream queen; Paul Rudd fighting a satanic cult in the best-forgotten Part VI

High Points: Carpenter’s masterful camerawork and even more impressive original score; Part III’s attempt to reinvent the franchise bombed but has since developed its own following; Rob Zombie’s first half of his reboot nearly succeeds at innovating a tired genre

Low Points: Much like the fifth F13, Halloween V cheats the dark ending of Part 4 and follows it up with nothing worth watching; Tyra Banks’ offscreen death and Bustah Rhymes mean kung fu moves in the Big Brother-meets-the-Internet dreck in Resurrection; Zombie’s messy followup not knowing what kind of film it wants to be

Jaws Jump: The Halloween series is one of the most uneven of any major franchise and is best separated in pairs of two, where every other entry tries to find a new hook. Chapter 11 will finally resort to what feels like a last resort: 3D

Influence: The 1978 Halloween is, in many ways, the birthplace of the modern slasher, expanding on Hitchcock’s Psycho with a careful borrowing of 1974’s Black Christmas. Norman Bates may be the grandfather of 20th century villains, but consider Michael Meyers as the oldest child that had to go out and pave the way for others to follow. 

Nightmare On Elm Street

Status: The upcoming remake will mark Freddy’s 9th outing to Elm Street, but for the first time, a new hand (Watchmen’s Jackie Earle Haley) will don the rusty glove for an April release.

Killer Key Features: Christmas sweaters, boiler rooms, nightmares, use of the word ‘bitch’, surprisingly abundant availability of “stay awake” pills in typical households

Fresh Faced Pre-Fame Victims: Patricia Arquette, Laurence “Larry” Fishbourne, Breckin Meyer, Jack Sparrow

High Points: Tina’s savagely violent wall death in the original; the surreal imagery of Dream Warriors; Part 2‘s underrated gay analogy, undeservedly panned by just about everyone; the Kafkaesque kill of Part 4; death by hearing aide in Part 6

Low Points: Freddy’s open mike night comedy routines in Parts 4-7; lazy character development; the smart idea but boring execution of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

Jaws Jump: The entrance of a child actor to any film can be detrimental. When said actor is put in a potato sack and cast as the unborn spawn of a heroine and/or demonic dream monster, the results are enough to make Part 5 the real beginning of the end

Influence: Did YOU have a Freddy notebook for math class in the first grade? Quite possibly, because while Michael gets the respect and Jason has the numbers, it was Freddy, with his janitor-meets-Sinatra style, that made merchandising a horror film a new market in itself

Friday the 13th

Status: The only franchise here to come one film behind The Land Before Time, a sequel to the ahem, reboot (if merely calling what’s simply another sequel a ‘remake’ means reboot, that is) is already in development

Killer Key Features: machetes, boobs, hockey masks, uptight surviving females, woods

Fresh Faced Pre-Fame Victims: Kevin Bacon, Crispin “So You Think You Can Dance” Glover, Corey Feldman, Kelly Hu

High Points: The twist of Part 1; the burlap sackhead of Part 2; some kickass and completely ridiculous kills in Jason X

Low Points: Aside from Parts 1-12, minus 11? Part V had a particularly sleazy haze, while my personal favorite (as a guilty pleasure), Jason Takes Manhattan, is laughably horrendous (yet wonderfully worth a watch for reasons I can’t explain in just a few lines)

Jaws Jump: By Part VII, Jason required a gimmick so telekinesis, tourism, soul-jumping, outer space, and the world’s best almost buddy comedy followed

Influence: Like Freddy, pop culture hasn’t quite been the same since Jason sliced  through his first non-virgin. The massive juggernaut that was (and still is) Friday the 13th can’t be dismissed. Browse through any 1980s catalogue of horror movies and note how many feature final girls, masked villains, and tepid sex. Jason wasn’t necessarily an innovator, but his persistence--both in the story and as a franchise--continues to fester its way into modern culture. 

...of the Dead

Status: After the ho-hum box office and fan-fueled distaste for George Romero’s Diary of the Dead, America’s favorite ponytailed director announced he would continue his series with a sixth film, Survival (not surprisingly) of the Dead.

Killer Key Features: shambling corpses, wooden acting, satirical undertones that become progressively more obvious

Fresh Faced Pre-Fame Victims: Tom Savini, genre favorite Ken Foree

High Points: the super savvy observations of 70s consumer culture in one of the greatest horror movies of all time; everything about Night; Day‘s opening shuffle

Low Points: performances that shoot dialogue out like BB pellets in Day; Land’s incongruous crispness; Diary’s stiffness

Jaws Jump: Although Bub is a lovable lug of a corpse, the humanization of the undead was continued a little too obviously in Land, which in turn made the return to newness of Diary feel that much more stale

Influence: Eh, nothing special. Just responsible for inspiring a few hundred zombie films, musicals, books, video games, comic books, Facebook applications, rock musician monikers, and...you get the point

Scream

Status: Ten years after the mild success of Scream 3, announcements have been made detailing the development of a fourth entry. Writer Kevin Williamson is working on the script, while a cast is mysteriously being collected. As of now, Courteny Cox, David Arquette, and Jamie Kennedy (because what else has he got to do?) are scheduled to return, with Neve Campbell’s presence still in the air.

Killer Key Features: trendy haircuts, teenagers with SAT acing vocabulary, stabbings, impressive cameos, squinting

Fresh Faced Pre-Fame Victims: While most of the leads were already semi-famous for television work, the series did help to give early breaks to Liev Schreiber, Portia De Rossi, and Emily Mortimer

High Points: The original’s opening was a tribute to 80s horror fans who knew the answer to Ghostface’s trivia; Rose McGowan’s garage-squished death was refreshingly visual for a studio film; Part 2’s script, with its witty cinema references and sequel-savvy wit

Low Points: Part 3’s overly Hollywoodizing felt pretentious, while most of the humor landed flat; the sparing of Dewey not once but thrice was clearly a cowardly plot move inspired by saddened test screening audiences

Jaws Jump: The attempts to tease us with a supernatural spin in Part 3, along with the convoluted, impossible to get ending, showed that the series was clearly in need of some new style

Influence: With theatrical horror undergoing a quiet hibernation in the mid 1990s, Scream successfully revived the slasher genre by welcoming new audiences while saluting loyal fans. Sadly few followups left much of a lasting impression on old or new audiences (although Final Destination and The Faculty maintain some well-deserved love). Young actors previously employed with the WB network (and currently for the CW) should certainly make daily blood sacrifices to Kevin Williamson for providing reliable employment opportunities for years to come. 

Personally, I prefer more unique stand alone films, but tradition is tradition and we all know we’ll fork over our cash for a few (or most) of these upcoming installments. Share which ones you’re excited for and which need to go the way of the Wolfman--oh wait. Scratch that. Just leave some comments.

And This Is How You Make a Mess

Like a good chunk of current horror fans, I rank The Devil’s Rejects as one of the best-made genre films of the last ten years, consider House of 1000 Corpses to be an obnoxious but not irredeemable scrimmage in filmmaking, and find the opening half of the Halloween remake to hold a pumpkin full of potential that gets squandered in the rushed second half. The news that Rob Zombie would be following up his 2007 film with a sequel that he once vowed to never touch was odd, but not unwelcome. Maybe, I thought, he needed to get the reboot homage out of the way to find his own vision for Michael Meyers.


Well. Perhaps he did, but that doesn’t mean it works. Halloween 2 (thankfully NOT called H2 in the actual credits) is, like its predecessor, an ugly, occasionally jarring, often annoying, and ultimately chaotic exercise in grisliness. It’s far more interesting than lackluster fare like the latest Friday the 13th or The Hitcher remakes, but ultimately, even the 2 hour running time--filled not in small part by quick shots of fake breasts, blasting music cues, and somewhere around 1872 uses of the word ‘fuck’--leaves us with a rough and confusing film without much to like.


Quick Plot: One year after surviving the return of Michael, Laurie Strode (the now more tolerable, if not quite sympathetic Scout Taylor-Compton) continues to be haunted by nightmares and bad fashion sense. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis (the always reliable genre stalwart Malcolm McDowell), is thriving as a minor celebrity about to release his second book detailing the Haddonfield attack. And Michael? Well, he apparently woke up somewhere that contains Rob Zombie style hillbillies and has been trekking across the country/state/town/universe (it’s never clear) slaying anybody that gets in his way of reuniting with lil sis. For company, he is occasionally visited by mom Sheri Moon-Zombie dressed up for Halloween in a dime store ghost costume and leading a white horse through snow. (For the record, Zombie has adamantly stated there will be no Part 3--which he also did regarding Part 2--but if there is, I’m dying for it to feature a showdown between Moon’s Pegasus and Brad Dourif on a black stallion).

Also returning is Danielle Harris as the healthy-minded Annie, a far more enjoyable presence compared to Laurie’s new slutty goth friends. In typical Zombie style, other veterans pop up for random cameos with mixed results. Eventually, Michael comes home, Laurie learns some secrets, and we try to figure out what the hell is going on.*

One of the reasons I’ve always preferred Ebert to Siskel is that Ebert reviewed a film for its intended audience, while Siskel would criticize its plot for not being the direction he would have chose. At this point, I’m starting to think my issue with Rob Zombie’s Halloween series is not necessarily his filmmaking, but the tease of character development he’s now given us twice. I was intrigued by the young Michael Meyers as a natural born psychopath with a soft spot for his mother and baby sister, and therefore, I’ve been nothing but disappointed with Zombie’s decision to fast-forward through adolescence and jump into Meyers, now a 7 foot tall indestructible killing machine. As a fan of Chucky, I’ve never had issues with the abuse of realism of horror, but I don’t understand how or why someone with as much talent as Rob Zombie would start Michael out as a person and suddenly transform him into a demon. I don’t want a Part 6 style supernatural explanation, but it feels, once again, like Halloween 2 wants to explore Michael’s psychology but can’t quite shake the limitations of making a simple and grisly gorefest.

High Points
Brad Dourif clearly holds a special place in my heart, and here, he dutifully carries out the role of a guilt-ridden sheriff and ends up being the most sympathetic character in the bunch

Casting Margot Kidder as a psychologist is all sorts of ironically fun


No spoilers here, but one of my favorite performers--goodness no, it’s not Chris Hardwicke--makes a stellar cameo beside McDowell


The final shot is quite haunting, but see my spoiler rant below for more explanation*


Low Points
One of the most effective aspects of The Devil’s Rejects is how truly terrifying scenes take place under the hot sun, so it’s quite disappointing to see the majority of Halloween 2 occur in the poorly lit nighttime

While I enjoyed McDowell’s performance, his entire storyline felt like plot filler--especially considering its thin resolution


Zombie has proven before that he can compose a great shot, but here, he randomly chooses scenes to make artistic. As a result, these slow-motioned moments feel pretentious and out of place, while the rest of the filming just looks ugly


Lessons Learned
Post traumatic effects of surviving a nightmarish chase with a giant killer may include developing a goth persona, not wanting to clean your bathroom, and building an impressive tolerance to hard liquor

Illinois is home to the new Chris Hardwicke talk show, conveniently located ten minutes from Haddonfield


If you want to survive a Rob Zombie film, never work in the sex or stripping industry


Black-and-white cartoons are known to inspire vivid nightmares


Another word for a Dr. Frank-N-Furter Halloween costume would be “chick dressing up like a dude who wants to be a chick.” I guess someone did not obtain the rights to the Rocky Horror Picture Show


Jewish people use the phrase ‘kosher’

D-E-A-D spells not dead


See/Skip/Sneak In
Sigh. Fans of Zombie’s first Halloween will certainly want to check out this installment, and some may even enjoy it more. The Saturday night audience I had the displeasure of sitting with hardly seemed impressed at the conclusion, although they certainly seemed jumpy throughout. Despite my fairly negative review, I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from giving Halloween 2 a chance if he or she appreciates this kind of roughness onscreen. Just remember to stop by with some comments on your own take. I'm incredibly curious to hear other thoughts on this installment, especially as word of mouth contains more expletives than the film itself.


**SPOILERS**
**SPOILERS**
**SPOILERS**


My understanding is that Laurie has simply snapped by the end, but my friend and I were both considering the fact that maybe she was the killer all along. The last few kills are committed with no witnesses. The cops can’t get a shot of Michael. The early murders have nothing to do with anything else happening onscreen and therefore could have simply been fantasies of a pre-aware Angel Meyers. If our theory was right, I’d have more respect for the film; at the same time, I’d also be annoyed that Zombie couldn’t commit to that idea. Either way, the ambiguity--and there’s a good chance dear Erica and I are the only ones that felt that--just seems, like the rest of the film, a big old mess.


**END OF SPOILERS***
**END OF SPOILERS***
**END OF SPOILERS***

Are We Dead Yet?

In a few days, I’ll be hopping in a car and driving down south with a few friends for a mobile summer vacation. I know what you’re thinking: how could someone so well-versed in horror films possibly risk such a journey unless she’s itching to be chased, violated, and eaten by prehistoric cave people or rabidly maladjusted children. Thankfully, it’s because of those countless hours spent in front of straight-to-VHS rentals that I’m confident I have what it takes to survive. To be sure, I’ve compiled a few key points to remember when traveling through unchartered (at least by urbanite) terrain in an automobile.

1. Focus on the road

I have an odd, yet justified hatred of any film--particularly horror--that spends too much time in the front seat of a moving vehicle. More often than not, such a scene will feature the driver irresponsibly turning his or her head towards the passenger to carry out a conversation only to then cut to the shocked partner screaming “Watch out!” as the car veers off the road to avoid hitting a stray animal, child, or ghostly presence. (See The Descent, Children of the Corn, and about a thousand other films featuring more than one character on a highway.) A variation on this lesson can be seen in one of the most popular recent entries in the road trip gone awry genre, Wrong Turn. Leave it to seemingly intelligent med student Desmond Harrington to make the fatal error of shifting his focus from the windshield to the radio. The result? A broken leg, busted Mustang, and deadly chase with cannibalistic inbred West Virginian mutants. Take heed, young viewers: as humans, most of us only have two eyes. Glue ‘em to the windshield and let no spatula pry them off.

2. No skinny dipping

Partially because most natural waters are littered with some very unnatural waste. Also, if my 9th grade biology teacher was telling the truth, August is the time for clams and other sea creatures to deposit their sperm in aquatic environments for the reproduction season. Personally, I’m not quite at the right time in my life to cross into Cronenbergian body territory as the woman impregnated by a mollusk. (I get the feeling such a process is far less fun than it sounds.) The most important reason to stay clothed in the water, however, is that skinny dipping is, by all rules of the horror canon, a sin punishable by death. Take the nice young ladies of Tourist Trap, none of whom partake in any visible sexual activity, all of whom experienced terrifying abuse at the waxy hands of a backwoods artist who got a fleeting glance of their young bodies when they made the fatal error of diving bare into a private lake. Sometimes, that's all it takes to then be strangled, stabbed, and molded into a loose-jawed mannequin.

3. No hitchhikers

What, you mean I shouldn’t pull over and open my car door to that dusty bearded hobo with suspiciously red fluid leaking from his sack? But what of my karma, you ask, with good samaritan glitter in your wide eyes. Keep a running tab and call Sally Struthers when you get a fews bars on your cell phone. Picking up hitchhikers is the surest ticket to a bloody chase at the wrong end of a chainsaw or pesky stalking courtesy of one of the truest psychopaths cinema has ever given us in the pristinely blond body of Rutger Hauer. Remember Leatherface’s skinny big brother? Or how about the gutty mess those unlucky pretty young people never got the chance to clean up in the 2003 remake? Not to mention the finger fries and torso tearing of The Hitcher . Sure, that obnoxious Franklin deserved a little stabbage, but then you (and by default, us) had to deal with his whinings all night. And yes, driving solo cross country can be a lonely, but that’s what obnoxious radio commercials and unfunny DJs were made for. Just remember to see Rule #1 and tuned into one station until the next red light. 

4. No sassing the locals

Sure, rural townsfolk are different, what with their soder pop and mustard on hamburgers (in New York, that offense will send you straight to Ryker’s Island Maximum Security Prison). Always remember, however, that those same bumpkins whose blackened teeth gave you a chuckle can lead you straight into disaster, such as the wrong end of a black market organ donation ring a la Turistas. Eli Roth’s comedic horror homage Cabin Fever is ripe with lessons on how to behave south of the Mason Dixon Line. A few I picked up:

a) Never force a friendship on shy children. Some are socially awkward, but more importantly, some are well-versed in kung fu

b) No thieving the mom-and-pop shops. Particularly when pop wields a shotgun.

c) Avoid peeping on married women. This is an especially bad idea when your friends are dying, you’ve blown up your car, and you may be infected with a flesh eating bacteria like silly little Ryder Strong, who loses his last chance of getting some help when he lingers a tad too long at a local’s window. 

5. No taking advice about off-the-beaten track attractions from locals

It’s not on a map. GPS has nothing to say about it. But that scabby clown dripping in fried chicken grease swears it’s the greatest place since Dollywood. That’s right folks, do not, I repeat, do NOT take traveling directions from suspicious locals, particularly when they survived Spider Baby to grow into older, rounder, and more vicious backwoods peddlers of local town lore like Sid Haig's Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses. This is a man who, along with his not-quite-fit-for-society family, is so evil he'd actually lure Rainn Wilson into death. You have to be pretty badass to take down Dwight Schrute, and/or really heartless to want Rainn Wilson exterminated. So. If you hit a rest stop littered with mutated skeletons and busting with whispers of a true roadside attraction detailing the life of one of the country's most brutal serial killers...

Oh who am I kidding. There’s no way in hell would I NOT take that advice. The only real question is at whose hands do I ultimately perish. Considering my lifelong complications with Barnum & Bailey's most ubiquitous entertainers, my corpse will probably be shipped home stained with white pancake makeup. But hopefully, I’ll experience enough adventure in those fleeting moments before my untimely death to crank out a few more blogs from beyond the grave.