Tag: Halloween

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Yay! John Carpenter Returns to Halloween Franchise!

In case you missed it, Blumhouse has announced that they have brought John Carpenter back to the Halloween franchise.  He will be producing the next installment in the series, set to release in October 2017.

I love this.

As you all well know, Carpenter is the man responsible for first bringing Michael Myers into our world back in 1978, effectively giving birth to the slasher boom of the 80s.  Even after all these years, Halloween is just as good today as it was when it was released (I assume, anyway: I was -2 at the time of its release).  It looks amazing, the acting is incredible and it features one of the best theme songs in horror history.

Carpenter wrote and produced Halloween II (one of the best horror sequels ever made) and produced Halloween III: Season of the Witch.  He had success outside this series as well, with an insane filmography that includes The Thing, The Fog, Escape From New York, Prince of Darkness, They Live and In the Mouth of Madness, to name a few.

Meanwhile, Rob Zombie’s Halloween series has slowly withered and died.  They didn’t do terribly in the box office (Halloween II brought in $39.3 million on a budget of $15 million), but interest waned with each passing year since the release of Halloween II in 2009.  All we had were rumors.  Zombie is coming back.  No he isn’t.  Scout Taylor-Compton is coming back.  No she isn’t.  The script has been written.  There is no script.  The movie is a go.  It’s not.  It is.  It’s not.  And on it went, until Dimension finally lost the rights.

I didn’t hate Zombie’s Halloween series.  I think saying that I “enjoyed” them might be a bit much, but I liked them both.  I didn’t really care about Myers’ childhood, but, for the most part I thought the first movie was a perfectly fine slasher movie.  The second one wasn’t as good, but I found it the more interesting movie of the two.  It mainly dealt with the fallout from the events of Halloween, and attempted to answer the question of what happens to a person after they experience such intense psychological trauma.  It’s not all sunshine and roses after the credits end; there’s pain and suffering and fear, and those feelings can completely reshape who a person is.  It wasn’t necessarily handled with the nuance it deserved, but it at least took on that subject.  (This is the movie that inspired my short-lived What Comes Next series.)

Still, it felt like Zombie’s Halloween had run its course.  It was time to bring the series back to basics.  And if anyone could do that, it would be John Carpenter.

I think the world is finally ready for another Halloween movie.  It’s hard to shock audiences nowadays, especially with a silent, masked killer.  But Halloween doesn’t need to shock.  It needs some tension.  It needs Michael Myers lurking in the shadows and a synth chord ready to hit at the best possible moment.  We all knew Michael Myers wasn’t gone forever.  He was always going to come back.  Who better to take the reins than Carpenter?  And in the month of October, no less.

I’m fully on board.

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31 Days of Horror: Halloween

Halloween - Poster

And so we find ourselves at the end of our journey.  It’s cold and rainy here in Lexington, KY, which means there will be precious few trick or treaters out there.  Those that brave the elements will get large handfuls of candy from yours truly.  “Shine on you crazy sugar-loaded monster.”
Over the course of these 31 days, we have watched a lot of great horror movies.  (I actually watched The Babadook this past week and was going to include it, but, since it’s not out for mass consumption, I held off.  I didn’t want to brag too much.)  Let’s look back at some fun times in this series:
We witnessed a minor breakdown.  Wasn’t that fun?  That was fun.
I ranted about my hatred for Peyton Manning, which makes no sense in a horror column, but whatever.
I told you to watch Dracula 3D, laughed about it, promised a post later in the day and didn’t follow through.
I rambled on (yet again) about originals vs. remakes.
And more!  So much more.  31 posts in 31 days.  That’s a lot of writing, even if I barely talked about the actual movie sometimes.

Michael Myers waiting for me to start talking about this movie.
Michael Myers is waiting for me to start talking about this movie.

What’s there to say here?  Halloween is one of the best movies ever, horror or otherwise.  It’s certainly one of the best-looking movies I’ve ever seen.  (I recently bought the 35th anniversary Blu Ray, and it is absolutely stunning.)  It’s a simple tale of a man with the blackest eyes (the devil’s eyes) and his boogeymanning ways, roaming around Haddonfield with his knife.  Will he kill children?  Absolutely not.  Does he have a killing code?  Kinda, but not really.

Halloween - Myers in closet

He’s a silent, murdering psychopath stalking through a peaceful community on Halloween.  Rob Zombie gave him motivation for his actions, but who needs motivation?  Isn’t his murder spree scary enough on its own?  I don’t need to know why he is like he is: I just need to know that he is.

Halloween - Laurie

Gather around, hold your loved ones tight, throw on Halloween, and have an exit strategy in case this is the year Michael Myers shows up in your town.
Have a great Halloween, everyone!  Stay safe.  Have fun.  Leave comments telling of your adventures.  Thanks for sticking with me for these 31 days.  For the most part, it’s been a blast.

"We're not smoking weed or anything. Nope. Not even a little."
“We’re not smoking weed or anything. Nope. Not even a little.”
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Archives Book Reviews Kay Nash

Best Night of the Year: Book Review

Best Night of the Year Cover

The Best Night of the Year by Gerald Dean Rice

It’s that time of year again! October is my favorite month, and The Best Night of the Year delivers three spooky short tales of Halloween horror.

Synopsis:

The Best Night of the Year contains 3 tales of terror from the author of Fleshbags. Two police officers make a routine yearly stop and get a treat that will last them the rest of their lives. A man trying to bond with his stepson while trick-or-treating welcomes a lone child to join them. A gravedigger discovers a trick that puts his life on the line. Stick around ‘till the end for an excerpt of the upcoming novella, “Axe to the face.”

“Mona” kicks off the collection. It seems the women of the Echols family have a history of bad behavior on Halloween night, and two deputies show up to do a welfare check.  Carl and Wendell are just doing their jobs, but given the history of the house and the owner, they can’t very well just say “hello” and move on. True to the spirit of the night, Mona makes an offer. Is it a trick or a treat? You’ll have to read it to find out.

“They all know what your mama did. And her mama. And her mama. So on and so forth, like ‘at. You’re already guilty by virtue of your last name.”

“The Best Night of the Year” takes us into the mean streets of trick-or-treat. A man and his stepson work the neighborhood and pal up with a kid who is door-knocking by himself. They flee the spoiled brats and grumpy adults in search of candy. Who is the real monster here? The children hiding in their costumes or the adults who only pour out bounty to the beautiful?

“Where’s your momma?”

He turned his whole body to face me. “Momma didn’t bring me. I came by myself.It’s the only day I get to come outside and I can stay out aaaaalll night as long as I want. It’s the best night of the whole year!”

“Do Not Dig” completes the trilogy. Gravediggers have a rough job, and who would mind if they take a nip or two while they work? And if n one is around at night, well, the boss isn’t really going to care what goes on as long as the work gets done. One of the team takes a side job, and the money is very, very good.

I leapt back when I saw the broken locks on the open coffin and Mr. Alvo’s arm hanging out. His body had been moved. Like the whole works had been dropped in there instead of being carefully lowered.”

“He was moving, sir,” Munroe said, standing at the lip of the grave.

I’m giving this collection a thumbs-up for a dark Halloween read. The setting of the haunted house, the dangers of trick-or-treating, and whistling past the graveyard are all time-worn favorites. The stories aren’t quite turn-on-the-lights scary, but they do add a good dose of creepy seasonal fun. I particularly liked the title story, where I was certain that the real monster was the one in the tiara. My least favorite was “Mona” simply because I never understood the motivation –the what was there, but not the why. It seems that a chunk of the story was missing and it just hinted at something more sinister without delivering on the history of the family or the house.

I recommend this book to Halloween enthusiasts who like a good Creepshow-inspired tale to spice up their favorite holiday. And remember, give out the good candy to all the kids, no matter how freaky their costume. The collection costs less than a buck, so drop over to Amazon and pick up a copy for your eReader.

 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Originally published at www.bookie-monster.com

 

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Archives Book Reviews Brent R. Oliver Posts

End of Summer: Book Review

End of Summer Cover

End of Summer by J. Tonzelli is a book that tries really hard. It wormed into all my comfortable places and I wanted to like it. The thirteen short stories it contains are centered on Halloween, which is a soft spot for most of us in the scare industry. Cool weather, changing leaves jumping off trees, longer nights, kids in costumes: all these things warm our jagged little hearts. This is my favorite time of year and I read End of Summer hoping it would evoke seasonal feelings in me.

The introduction was promising. Tonzelli tries to explain his own love of Halloween and falls a bit short, though in an admirable way. For those of us who love this holiday, the reasons are often ineffable. There are some concrete things, of course, but for the most part, we just fucking adore Halloween. It speaks to something inside and, as clichéd as it is, if it requires explanation, you’re probably not going to get it. Tonzelli captures this perfectly in his intro and I read on optimistically.

Turns out that was my favorite part. Everything after that felt like it was a rehash of an existing story, idea, or theme. Nothing felt original and many of the stories were the same tired old critters we drag out and pet on Halloween.

The opener, “Stingy Jack,” features a typical smooth-talking, tantrum-throwing Devil trying rather lamely to corral the soul of a drunk. Despite being the Devil, he seems at a loss to outsmart the drunk, tripping over a couple of tricks older than apples. Will he eventually win out? Probably. We’ve read these things before.

The final offering, “Dumb Supper,” is a generic Halloween yarn. It’s the sort of thing that appears in every collection of dark tales and would be right at home on the YA shelf. It takes place in the kitchen where a wife is reluctantly hosting her dead husband’s grumpy, asshole spirit for dinner. He can only come once a year, they have to be quiet and sneaky, he’s obviously escaped some dark force for the moment…you know the drill.

The eleven stories between these two are equally exhausted and worked over. It’s material that needs a fresh angle or wide streak of novelty to be interesting again but we don’t get that. Instead, it’s just business as usual. We’ve got our regular-ass, plain old haunted house. There’s a reluctantly evil couple sacrificing their young niece to ensure a bountiful crop. Let’s see, a man who killed his hated wife but is tortured by ghostly visions of her. Oh, and there’s the guy that watched his best childhood chum burn to death on Halloween. He didn’t set the kid on fire himself but he was sort of indirectly responsible and he’s been plagued by guilt ever since. That guy gets revisited by his friend’s smoky spirit every year on Halloween at exactly 12:37am.

While it seems obvious that Tonzelli wants to pay affectionate tribute to the motifs of Halloween that we all love, he seems unconcerned with breathing any fresh life into them. They remain as they were: antiquated; trite; worn at the seams; ready for retirement. Tonzelli turns a few innovative phrases occasionally to spice things up but these are few and far between.

End of Summer certainly isn’t the worst thing you could read this month. If you like curling up by the fire with a warm glass of cider, listening to your spooky sounds CD, and relaxing into comforting familiarity, this is your book. However, if you’re looking for something outside the box, go ahead and skip this one.

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24 Hours of Horror Movies for Halloween

A good friend of mine posed this question to me this past weekend: “If you wanted to watch movies for 24 hours on Halloween, what would your list look like?”  For the sake of ease in this, he told me to assume every movie was 2 hours long.

I really loved this question, so I thought I would put together a viewing list for Halloween.  24 hours of horror movies.  What could be better than that?

One note before I dive in: this does not double as my list of favorite horror movies.  Rather, this is a list of movies that put me in the Halloween spirit.  I had to leave plenty of great movies off this list.  Some day, I’ll put together a list of my favorite movies.  This is not that day.

Feel free to add your own viewing lists in the comments.

Halloween
12:00-2:00 AM
What better way to kick off the day than with a viewing of the John Carpenter classic?  Beyond being a perfect way to set the mood, it also gives you a lot of tips of what not to do in case the boogeyman decides to show up in your small, nondescript town.  It also reminds us that everyone – even a cynical old codger like Dr. Loomis – is entitled to one good scare.  Use it wisely.

The Orphanage
2:00-4:00 AM
The atmosphere throughout this entire movie is perfect for late-night (or early-morning) viewing.  It’s a beautiful and spooky little ghost story.  It’s not uncommon for mist to rise around this time of day, which would be the ideal setting to watch this.

Evil Dead [2013]
4:00-6:00 AM
I realize this might seem a bit early for such a gory, intense movie.  But I believe in you.  If you’re willing to watch 24 hours of horror movies, you can deal with watching the insanity that is this movie at 4 in the morning.  I may just end up watching this every morning when I get out of bed.  Better than a cup of coffee.
Anyway, this movie is amazing.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
6:00-8:00 AM
The sun is starting to come up, so we need to move to some lighter material (mainly because it just doesn’t feel right watching some movies when the sun is out).  This seems like a good way to kick off this portion of the day.  It’s a smart, funny, perfect deconstruction of the slasher genre, while still managing a few scares.  This is one of my favorite modern horror films.

Drag Me to Hell
8:00-10:00 AM
Sam Raimi’s return to the horror genre is a ton of fun.  Dancing goats and gypsy curses and horrible, horrible things happening to an adorable blonde.  Justin Long is terrific, and David Paymer even makes an appearance.  More like Christine on the hoof, amiright?  Anyone?

The Monster Squad
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
I hadn’t seen this movie since elementary school, and wondered how well it would hold up.  As it turns out, it holds up wonderfully.  It’s The Goonies with monsters.  It’s funny and odd, and it’s everything I wanted to be a part of as a kid.  And now.  I would totally be in The Monster Squad right now (although it would probably look like Mystery Team at this point).

Return of the Living Dead
12:00-2:00 PM
Crazy, bloody fun, with Linnea Quigley dancing on graves as an added plus.  It’s a fun addition to the zombie genre.  It’s extremely funny, and I find something else to love about it every time I watch it.
It would’ve made sense to watch Night of the Living Dead before watching this, but I just couldn’t find room for it so early in the day.

Ghoulies
2:00-4:00 PM
I don’t know what it is about this movie.  This series doesn’t get overtly goofy until the second movie (and that goofiness really hits hard in the third and fourth), but this movie is pretty unintentionally goofy.  The effects are pretty bad.  The Ghoulies look ridiculous.  But there’s just something I love about this movie.  It doesn’t feel like Halloween until I watch it.

May
4:00-6:00 PM
As we transition to dusk, it’s time to get away from the lighter stuff and back into the darker side of the genre.  May is a perfect fit.  It’s a darkly funny movie, but it has a heavy dose of gore and creepy moments as well.  It’s The Bride of Frankenstein or Pieces, as lived through an awkward girl who wants nothing more than to fit in.  It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking movie.  I’m always left wondering whose side I’m on.

Night of the Living Dead [1968]
6:00-8:00 PM
This movie may not be as terrifying as it was when it was first released (and violence against women is generally frowned-upon these days, even if they are in a state of hysterics about how the walking dead killed their brother), but it still holds up extremely well.  An air of creepiness surrounds the entire film.  This is still my all-time favorite zombie movie.

Sinister
8:00-10:00 PM
The day is winding down.  It’s time to get uncomfortable.  This movie is less scary than it is deeply unsettling.  It has a great story and atmosphere to it.  And, while there are a handful of moments that I would cut (the “children dancing in the hall” scene was downright laughable), it never quite lost me, and it drew me back in immediately afterwards (this is in stark contrast to Insidious, which lost me fairly early and never regained my trust).  This is a dark, twisted movie that will stay with you for long after the credits have rolled.

Trick R Treat
10:00 PM – 12:00 AM
Our day ends with Trick R Treat, which takes 5 stories (all taking place on Halloween in a small town) and weaves them together through the use of interacting characters and Sam, an undersize pumpkin-man who seems sworn to uphold the ancient traditions of Halloween, enforcing them with swift justice and a sharp lollipop.  There really isn’t a likable character to be found here, but I love the stories and the feel of the movie.  If nothing else, it’s pretty good justification for staying inside on Halloween and watching movies.  It’s better than being a disturbed principal’s human jack-o-lantern.  Just make sure to keep that pumpkin lit.

And there you have it.  Twelve movies to fill up 24 hours of your day on Halloween.  Of course, limiting myself to only twelve movies assures that some terrific options were left off.  Also, in looking at the actual running time, these would not take up the full 24 hours.  So feel free to plug any of these into the list.  They just narrowly missed the cut, anyway.

Psycho [1960]
Cabin in the Woods
Amityville Horror [2005]
The Haunting [1963]
A Nightmare on Elm Street [1984]
The Bride of Frankenstein
Poltergeist
Scream
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1974 or 2003]
Shaun of the Dead
Final Destination
Paranormal Activity