October Horror Halloween

Horror Journal

The theme is Halloween night and the celebrations, dressing up in costumes, going trick or treating, watching scary films and telling spooky stories.

Satan’s Little Helper

This low budget thriller has a dark sense of humour. It’s set in a town on Bell Island which only has small police force so really isn’t able to cope when serial killer comes to the island. A young boy  Dougie Whooly (Alexander Brickel) is obsessed with an electronic game called Satan’s Little Helper is really excited about Halloween and his mother Merrill (Amanda Plummer) has made him a costume just like the character in the game. His older sister Jenna (Katheryn Winnick) is coming back to celebrate Halloween with him. Young Dougie seems to have problem with the difference between reality and fantasy that might be normal in a younger child but he look about 8 or 9. He thinks Satan is real and just like the character in the game but later Dougie thinks real murders are part of a game.

When Jenna brings home Alex (Stephen Graham), a boyfriend from college, Dougie is jealous and storms off in a huff to look for Satan. He spots a figure in an impressive devil mask putting dead body out on porch seat and thinks it is just an impressively realistic prop. He follows the Satan man (Joshua Annex) and sees him laying out another real body in a garden but still thinks it is another prop.

Satan man is very happy to go along with Dougie being Satan’s Little Helper when they boy invites him back to his house. Satan man slaughters his way through the locals while Dougie thinks it’s all just a game and his family think the man in the mask is really Alex. When they realise the truth they have to battle to escape the silent unknown killer.

Halloween

Eight year old Michael Myers stabs his older sister to death on Halloween night. Sixteen years later Michael escapes the secure psychiatric hospital where he had been kept and returns to his home town of Haddonfield to kill several teenagers and terrorise Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).

Michael’s psychiatrist Dr Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is only person who seems to recognise how dangerous Michael is and he tries to alert to local police but they seem helpless or hopeless and Laurie has to battle Michael for her life until Loomis arrives.

I like that they don’t try to explain Michael at all – he is just  an evil malevolent force that can’t be killed. The isn’t very much gore in this film that inspired so many violent slasher films but there is plenty of suspense.  

Trick ‘r Treat

I loved this anthology horror film set on Halloween night from the first time I saw it and I’m surprised that it seems to have treated so poorly by the company that produced it. It celebrates everything that the day is about which is not just one thing

There are four stories in this film, all blended together so that characters and events from one are seen during other stories.. Through them all is little Sam Hain (Quinn Lord)  a round-head kid with a simple creepy mask made of sackcloth who is guardian who is the spirit of Halloween.

Sam is brutal when protecting Halloween traditions when they are disrespected  but he’s not the only one since there’s a serial killer living in town and he just loves Halloween. There’s as grumpy old loner who hates people and especially Halloween trick or treaters. There are kids out for good time telling  creepy stories and trying to scare each other and of course there’s the group of college girls out hunting for boys to take to a party later. I don’t really want to give to much away but the film has a vampire, werewolves and  the dead coming back to tear the living apart

This is just a fantastic film and I’m glad to hear that it is getting a sequel so maybe word of mouth is ensuring that this film gets the audience it deserves..

 

 

 

October Horror Day 1

Horror Journal

This year rather than trying to do a full review every day I’m just going to post a diary with short summaries of the films I’m watching this October.

Frankensteins Army

There are some concepts that no matter how badly they are done I’m going to be watching them so I was eagerly anticipating the release of Frankensteins Army which promised to glory in the excesses of mad science. A group of Russian soldiers come across a German village where everyone is dead and underground they discover a mad scientist, a descendant of the famous Frankenstein, who is creating monsters out of fusions of machines and human flesh. The creatures are every bit as effective as the concept promises and Karl Roden is great as the titular Dr Frankenstein. The downside is that the film is more spectacle than story and the film is without a protagonist and feels bit aimless. It is shot in the found footage style and this leads to a lot of confusion during the action as the camera shakes around and it was only when thing quietened down that I could tell what had happened. Overall the film was fun and Frankenstein’s Army would be amazing in a computer game or as a theme for Halloween haunted house attraction, which nicely leads into the next film I watched

Jack’s Motel

On IMDb this film is called “Six Degrees of Hell” which has the benefit of being similar to a line in the dialogue. I mainly picked it up because Corey Feldman‘s name was across the top of the box but his part seems to be a later addition since he only interacts with one other cast member in a kind of wraparound story. This story is set around a Halloween haunted house attraction called Uncle Jack’s Hotel (not a motel like in UK DVD title). Jack gets some powerful magic relics from psychic to decorate the attraction but with these relics comes a supernatural force that brings the horror to life. This one is okay for low-budget horror and it makes great use of the haunted house setting and its cast of actors. I did get a bit confused because some the cast look quite similar which made it tricky to tell what was going on

The Last Exorcism Part II

This sequel continues the story of Nell, the girl who was possessed in the first film. She is determined to create a normal life for herself so she moves into a halfway house and gets a job but the past will not go away and she must face the demonic forces closing around her once more. It’s a very typical horror with nothing to really make it stand out from the crowd but the lead performance is very good.

Texas Chainsaw 

Another sequel, this time to the Tobe Hooper`s classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I was fully expecting this film to be dreadful and while it never approaches the fever-induced nightmare of the original, the story was okay. Apparently after the first film a group of locals laid siege to Leatherface’s family home and killed everyone except a baby and Leatherface . Two decades later and the grown up baby Heather learns she has inherited what looks like a massive plantation house in Texas from her grandmother. Heather goes there to check it out with her boyfriend and a couple of friends and soon the chainsaw engine is roaring again. There is certainly plenty of gore buthat doesn’t substitute for pervasive atmosphere of horror that he original did so well. At least they seemed to mainly use physical effects but it’s a bit vanilla compared to the original and won’t change the genre. It has mainly left me with a desire to see the original again.

 

Halloween Weekend Horror Marathon

This started on Friday evening and I have watched quite a few films since then but I’ve getting the films watched more than getting them reviewed so there will be a bit of a backlog of reviews

Friday I watched  Halloween 5; Lord of Illusions; Prince of Darkness

On Saturday I watched Tales of Terror;The Sentinel; The Resurrected; In The Mouth of Madness: Hellbound –Hellraiser 2; The Howling: Nightmare on Elm Street 3:

I’ve still got a bit to go but I’ll try to get the reviews up as fast as I can but I still have a backlog from the rest of October to work through too:- Grave Misdemeanors; Cirque Du Freak – The Vampires’s Assistant;  The Monster Club; Vampire in Vegas; The Fly (1986); Nightmare on Elm Street (1984); The Fog (1980); Alien; The Caller; I Madman; Episode 50; Army of Darkness; Scanners; Lawnmower Man; Dracula(1931); The Wolf Man (1941) 

I’ve had great time watching these films old and new and I hope you are having a great spooky season too 

 

Review: Night of the Demons (1988)

October Horror

I saw the remake of this film recently and thought it was a cheesy fun film but I hadn’t seen the original Night of the Demons since it was released on VHS. It really didn’t stick in my mind and I hadn’t realised it had developed a cult following until I saw it mentioned regularly on IMDb message boards. The film is a cheesy fun Halloween story and has the usual cast of high school students going to a remote place to party and stumble upon a supernatural evil that wants to kill them and possess their souls. While not a very original story there’s is a bit of twisted originality in the execution

It’s Halloween and a group of high school students are going to a party held by Angela (Amelia Kinkade) at an abandoned funeral parlour called Hull House, scene brutal murders in its past. Rodger (Alvin Alexis) and Helen (Allison Barron) are riding with Stooge (Hal Havins) in his beat up old car. As they pass a grumpy old man Stooge climbs out of the window and moons him. Another teenager Sal (Billy Gallo) startles the man with a rubber rat, causing him to drop his groceries. When Judy (Cathy Podewell) stops to offer help to old man she gets a mouthful of abuse instead. This nasty old man is so evil that later we see him putting razor blades in the apples his wife bought to give to the kids

Judy goes home to get ready for her high school Halloween party and while getting changed she gets a call from her date Jay (Lance Fenton) who wants to take her to Angela’s party instead of high school. Judy is not too sure but Jay insists. When Judy opens her closet her little brother Billy jumps out wearing a monster mask and he takes the chance to perve on his sister before she chases him out of her room. Downstairs he answer the door to Sal who is Judy’s sort of ex-boyfriend. Billy enjoys telling Sal that Judy’s already got a date but Sal manages to bribe Billy to tell him where they are going. Jay picks Judy then drives to pick their friends Max (Philip Tanzini) and Frannie (Jill Terashita).

Angela is at the grocery store with her friend Suzanne (Linnea Quigley) who is dressed up as a slutty little girl and our first sight of her she is bent right over giving the store clerks and the audience a view of her arse barely covered in skimpy panties. The clerks are so distracted by Suzanne’s arse that they are oblivious to Angela filling a sack with party snacks.

Judy, Jay, Max and Frannie get to Hull House first and it’s an abandoned mess with coffins left lying around. They see another car coming and Jay suggests getting in the coffins to scare whoever it is. When he opens a coffin Sal is already there and he leaps out scaring the crap out of Jay. Jay is pissed at Sal and wantds to start trouble but Judy points out that Sal only did what was Jay planning to do. Angela and Suzanne arrive with the party supplies and then Rodger and Stooge arrive with Sal’s cooler of beer and a large ghetto-blaster. The party gets started with roaring fire in the fireplace and candles to light the place up. Everyone gets dancing to some nice 80s rock and someone switches on a strobe light. Just as the party is getting going the ghetto-blaster cuts out

As a party game they decide to play mirror seance where they all sit in front of mirror and wait for it to go black. I’m sure it was mean to be trick but the lights come on by themselves and they all start bickering at each other and miss the image of a rubber demon. Helen looks in the mirror and sees the demon and sees a vision of herself dying and freaks out. Everyone is wondering what happened. In the cellar something escapes and we see a POV shot as it leaves the cellar and comes up to the room where they are and we see it enter Suzanne.

Now its time for the fun to start with the party splitting up to make them easier to kill. Helen and Rodger just want to leave because Helen got really freaked out by the mirror stunt and Rodger is scared, Jay, Judy, Max and Frannie go exploring the house. Suzanne passes the demonic infection onto Angela with a long deep kiss then she leaves with Stooge to look for a toilet.

Sal starts getting freaked as Angela starts moving and jumping and writhing around. Music starts playing on the ghetto-blaster Stigmata Martyr by Bauhaus and Angela dances to it then the strobe strsts and Angela’s dancing really starts getting bizzare. Sal thinks Angela’s acting weird and things are getting too strange so he leaves the room. Just then Stooge comes back without Suzanne who disappeared in the toilet. Angela kisses Stooge and bites off his tongue with her sharp demon teeth.

Max and Annie leave Judy and Jay on their own to look for somewhere private. Jay tries coming on to Judy but she is just too freaked out and scared by the house. She then finds out Jay is just a creep who is dating Judy because he mistakenly thought she was easy because she dated Sal. He storms off in a huff slamming the door behind him and this jams the door tight so Judy can’t get out.

Helen and Rodger are also having problem getting out. They can’t find the gate in the wall around the house and  as Rodger desperately tries to find it Helen disappears. Rodger gets into Angela’s car  to wait and eventually  falls asleep. Upstairs in the house Sal finds Suzanne sitting in a room playing with her lipstick and she has drawn over herself like a clown. Salthinks she’s tripping and he has had enough wierdness and wants to leave. When he’s gone Suzanne take the lipstick and pushes right inside her nipple where it vanishes .

Back outside Rodger is wakened by the car shaking and he gets out thinking it’s Stooge messing with him and discovers Helen’s body on the top of the car. He runs back into the house where he narrowly avoids Angela and runs into Sal.

Jay has come across Suzanne and he is feeling horny. They have sex but Suzanne goes all evil face and pokes her finger into Jay’s eyes. Evil Stooge  is wandering the halls and he tries the door to the room Judy is stuck in but he can’t get it open so he wanders off. Max and Frannie are trying to have sex in a coffin but are finding it better in theory than in practice. Stooge comes in and snaps Frannie’s neck. Max tries to get up but Stooge slams the lid down on him trapping Max’s arm. Stooge keeps slamming down the lid till Max’s arm breaks off and Max somehow dies.

Sal and Rodger find Judy and Sal breaks the door down. Evil Angela is cruising the hallways and Rodger flees so Sal and Judy duck into another room. Unfortunately evil Suzanne is in there with Jay’s head in her lap and his eyes gouged out. Rodger Sal and Judy get chased around the house by the their demoniacally possessed friends. Rodger manages to get out of the house but while saving Judy from Angela Sal falls to his death.Judy reckons that they have to climb the wall to escape, meanwhile all their dead friends are coming after them. Rodger manages to get over then he helps Judy over too.

There’s as a nice little touch in an extra scene at the end when the grumpy old man from the start of the film gets given an apple pie his wife made from the apples he bought for kids for Halloween and he gets killed by the razor blades he put in the apples

This film is very cheesy and is just a fun film made for Halloween. It even has a cheesy Halloween animated title sequence. I thought the music was very well done and it is a nice choice of Bauhaus for the creepy music during Angela’s dance. It was nice to see some different characters from the usual and the story moves the plot along without relying too much on characters acting stupid except for Stooge who was already established as brash and stupid.

Rating 7.0/10

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