It's like a comic book that you watch....

 Tales of Halloween

     Despite all our annual visit from the usual Halloween baddies like Pinhead, Mr. Kruger, and Mr. Voorhees, we sometimes overlook one of the progenitors of the season: Anthologies. Truly, it started with comic books from Gold Key and E.C.  A natural evolution would be the move to movies and for the most part, I've always enjoyed them. Some great, some boring, but all were short stories so they didn't pound on you for 90 minutes. The biggest hindrance to this mini-regurgitation is...well...FFS, there's 10 stories! 10!!! There's no way I'm going through every one of them but here's a taste:

     This is a violet movie and clearly not meant for kids. I worried that it was a bit like R. L. Stine but the first story was bloody as hell and that was a great relief. A lot of the characters make cameos throughout the movie, dipping into other stories. I'm not sure if there was supposed to be an end result or if that was just a bunch of Easter eggs for our enjoyment. There's a lot of dark humor and spoiler: The killer pumpkin was the best! Please observe:

Nom. Nom. Nom.

Money shot. Giggity.

     The cast is also surprising:

Adrienne Barbeau

Barry Bostwick

John Landis...

.....OK, maybe not THAT impressive, but still a lot of very familiar faces and reeks of an attempt of a big big budget box office take on a Kia budget. I would not be annoyed with a sequel...

Wed-nes-day: DIE, HIPPY, DIIIIIIIIIIEEE!!!!!

Paulie & Giles?!? How?!

 Repo: The Genetic Opera

      After an organ failure epidemic, a genetic mega-corp arises from the ashes and offers organ transplants, but at a price: Money. Yeah, it's that simple. You need, they replace, and there's finance options! Specialized "Repo" men are employed to retrieve the organs in the lest hygienic manner and don't get me started on how unsterile the methods were. I know what you're thinking: Wasn't that a movie called RepoMen? The short answer is yes, but this is an OPERA. Is there nothing a horror film can't expose us to? Get some culture, bro!

     I should mention that this is really low budget and mostly done by outdated CGI & greenscreen. The songs are written by people that don't know how to write for opera, and sung by people that aren't singers. For example, why the hell did they let Paris Hilton "sing" in this film? Whatevs, her face falls off...literally. But the biggest surprise is Paul Sorvino: A real actor and a real singer. From real movies! Good ones, even! Anthony Head? Did things go that far south after Buffy ended? And for some reason...Ogre From SkinnyPuppy? Yeah...I didn't get it either. Seeing his character made even less sense:

No awkwardness at all.

     Overall, it's terrible. The songs are basic and simple, nobody can sing, and the 'rock' guitar sounds like they ripped off Trans-Siberian Orchestra but still managed to find a way to half-ass even that!! It's like a collective of goths put this together and created a piece of crap.

Seriously, ease up on the goth, Sparkle Farts!!!

    

     I've sat through some really weird horror films in my day, but this...this is in the top 10 at the very least! If you LOVE musicals or opera, you'll hate this movie. If you HATE musicals or opera, you'll hate this movie. If you LOVE movies, you'll hate this movie. Basically, you'll hate this movie.

Tuesday: Time for a good 'ol anthology....

      

So did you ace the test, big guy?

Final Exam (1981)

Anyone else see the bowl cut?

      Hot on the heels of other soon-to-be classic slasher films, we're treated to a slightly boring, uninteresting dry hump featuring another nobody-type slayer that looks like Anton Chgurh from No Country For Old Men. It also reinforces the 'all serial killers drive vans' stereotype which was really more about function over form.

     Small college in Somewhere Statesota, typical early '80s Animal House wannabe college students fuck around and do frat stuff. And of course, all the women in college seem to care about is boys, boys, BOYS!!!....clearly not concerned with a career. We all know it's an asinine portrayal so we'll ignore it and move on. Some dude in a van starts creeping the college co-eds and does us a HUGE favor and starts offing all the really annoying students (which is ALL of them) and some damn fun-hater kills him off in the end. Pity. I liked his work. 

The man was an ARTIST!!!

Sadly, the kill count wasn't as high it should have been and it only included stabbing and strangulation. He needed more time to hone his craft but mistakes cost him everything. Such wasted potential.

Monday: Um....I was less confused about Disco Exorcist...

Bingo Is Hell...

 Bingo Hell

    Don't fuck with old people and their bingo night. Never do that....

     Lupita is a elderly resident in a neighborhood in the mid-throws of gentrification. She really doesn't like how the new coffee shops & microbrews are starting to move in and how the young people follow. Her group of friends, also getting old, are just living day to day, in the ever changing landscape of their 'hood. All seem to have a bit of animosity towards the path their neighborhood is going, but none so much as Lupita. When we're introduced to her, she's clearly moving towards becoming damn near militant and that's just what happens when you get old. Things change, the golden years are behind you, and you react negatively to said change despite the fact that a new golden age may be upon you, just not your generation. Basically, you're getting old and you refuse to adapt like the Golden Girls did. Personally, I feel they did it right and Lupita is failing and displaying her steadfast resistance and subsequent ignorance. But then....someone fucked with her bingo parlor, and that's when the flip of the switch happens.....

A new bingo parlor opens and promises huge riches with almost no risk. It's a bad business model, and Lupita smells a rat. The rat in question is an out of towner with teeth that he's super proud of.

I want to call him Capt.Woodchipper

   

    It turns out this new bingo parlor owner is very clearly evil. He offers riches and death. Everyone who wins the jackpot dies a horrible death. Well how the hell did you think this story was going to go?!?

     After a couple of her friends die, it's time for Lupita to correct things....with a boom stick.

"Take that, you bastard bingo parlor owner!!!"

     If you expected some comedic movie with doddering old people placed in an extraordinary situation, you, much like me, were mistaken. What you get is a horror movie that takes itself a little too serious and flounders. Badly. No silly scenes, not witty one-liners....just people with a-typical home lives and ends with the same pile of rubble that it started out with. The only new additions would be a couple of new blood and green slime splatters. I'll chalk this one up as a missed opportunity.

Sunday: Oh shit, finals on a small midwestern college in the early '80s?!?! That's totally harsh, man...

    

Turn Down The Lights....

 ....mmmmmaybe grab some snacks and something to drink because I've got 31 awesome terrible horror movies to watch over the month of October 2021. Yes, you'll notice the late start, but that's because of the most realistic horror movie of them all, LIFE. Anythoo, I've got my list and I'm starting off with....

Willy's Wonderland 

    Oh how I missed Nick Cage when he did movies like this. When he didn't care as much about bankability as he did being in a cool movie. To me, Face/Off was his shark to jump, and jump he did. Then he did a string of bad 'good' movies and he settled to the bottom...and also nearly went broke. Now, it appears he's hungry again and thankfully dropped this steaming pile of fucking awesome in our laps. I'm damn proud of him....

    True, the plot is thin and videogame based: Speeding down the road in a bitchin' Camero, our hero runs over a set of tire spikes and has to be towed by a redneck local that treats meat sticks like cigars. I waited for 90 minutes for him to light that beef stick, but I was let down. He's given the repair estimate and told that to help with the bill, he could do maintenance at a local child's amusement facility, Willy's Wonderland. All he has to do is an overnight stint and he'll have his car in the morning. Little does he know that this facility is housing some animatronic 'animals' that are haunted by a suicide cult of former employees, including the former owner, and they need blood or souls to be placated. The whole town is in on it and they feed them randoms like our nameless hero so they don't murder the whole town. Like I said, 'thin'. Helping him (sorta) is a group of young residents that are aware of the pact and want to bring it down. Spoiler, they're all stupid and only one survives, along with our hero. Super thin. Our hero fights off each and every one to the robot soul harvesters between breaks, and does an amazing job cleaning up the place. It really isn't much more complicated then that. But watching it....fun as hell. Old Nick Cage is back and if he spent the rest of his life doing films like this, he'd die a winner. However...

There's no fucking way...

...I'd ever have stepped foot...

Into this creepy fucking half-assed Showbiz Pizza with entertainment-bots that looked like this.

     Fun fact, Nick never utters a single word throughout this movie. And his breaks are far more important then helping anyone in need:

"Here to kick ass and.....ehm....

"oh snap...um...sorry..."

"...breaktime. Be back in 5"

Saturday: Nothing stops bingo night. NOTHING......

It's basically The State, but where the hell is Kerri Kenney?!?

Hell Baby

     An expecting whitebread couple purchase a fixer-upper in The Big Easy and soon find out the house has a certain 'haunting' quality about its character and charm. Soon the expecting wife becomes partially possessed and is gestating a demon baby in her big 'ol baby bin. Two super-priests are sent by the Vatican to investigate and exorcise.

     Wacky hijinks ensue and trust me, if you watched The State in the '90s, or Reno 911 in the early aughts, you'll like this movie. It has all the markings of that writing team and cast, as well as help from Rob Corddry, Keegan Michael Key, and a VERY naked Riki Lindhome (full frontal, just saying. Did you know she landscapes? I do now.)

And that does it. Another 31 "movies" in the books. It was full of sharks, Stephen King, cubes, and a LOT of general trash. Maybe I went a little light this year due to our current reality being the real horror just outside our front door. Though in contrast, I'm starting to wonder if I'm running out of good horror films. Let's do this again in a year. I'm going to go read a book or something...

Meh...prima donnas, the lot of them....

What We Do In The Shadows

     Here's a fun little film from New Zealand that's, simply put, a mockumentary about the secret culture of ancient vampires. The story revolves around (roughly) 6 main characters and all their idiosyncrasies of their daily life. 

It's really hard to give much detail about the story considering it's mostly linier yet lacking in any sort of story arc. As with most mocumentaries, the crowning jokes are mostly subtle, deadpan, and bordering on absurd despite what could be reality.

     That's really the hallmark of a mockumentary and probably why I'm drawn to them. I'm going to put this down as a must-see. There's also a regular TV series based on this, but I'll have to get to that some other time.

Saturday: Final/Endgame/Last one/See you next year...