Halloween Movie Night #7 - A Nightmare on Elm Street

I don't think this one really needs an introduction. We all know Freddy Kruger. Tonight I watched the 1984 Wes Craven classic A Nightmare on Elm Street. It's not hard to understand why this movie has stood the test of time. Even by today's standards, the special effects they accomplished back then are pretty amazing. Did they even have CGI back then? I'm guessing most of what they did was practical by necessity.

Legendary Robert Englund brought to life one of cinemas scariest villians. It's a shame that they decided to "reboot" this series with a re-imagining of the story this year. A new actor took on the role of Freddy and, while I've read he did a good job, he just wasn't Englund. I think it would be like someone else playing Forrest Gump instead of Tom Hanks. I tried to rent the remake through Netflix, but they are required to put a month-long hold on the movie which means I won't be able to rent it until after Halloween. BOO!

Oh well, the classic is enough for me. You've got horror master Wes Craven, one hell of a creepy bad guy and.... ah yes.... Johnny Depp! *sigh*

Halloween Movie Night #6 - Trick 'r Treat

Tonight's Halloween movie was Trick 'r Treat. A friend who is reading my blog suggested a list of Halloween movies and specials and this one was on it. I happened to see it at Best Buy for $10 on blu ray and after reading some reviews (and seeing that True Blood's Anna Pacquin is in it) I ended up buying it. Thank you, Ryan! This movie was awesome!

So far the movies I have blogged about have been Disney fare, cute Halloween movies and specials that really pose not much of a threat. But Trick 'r Treat? This is the EXACT opposite of anything Disney (unless you count the horror or Eisner's last years, which come pretty close).

The film involves four stories with no real link except a kid wearing a burlap sack over his head and an orange jumpsuit. We never learn his name, but Wikipedia told me he is Sam. Okie dokie.

I can't even begin to explain the stories. Saying anything about them gives away the fun of experiencing them as they happen. Just know that they are sick, twisted, terrible and REALLY awesome! They are laid out in such a way that characters major to one story are shown in the background for others, to help establish the timeline. I love this kind of story telling where you see the same story from different vantage points.

On the blu ray's cover, there was a promise that this movie is "The best horror anthology in years." If it isn't, I don't know what is.

Halloween Movie Night #5 - Mickey's House of Villians

Tonight's Halloween special is Mickey's House of Villians and comes from the early 2000's when Disney had the show Disney's House of Mouse. The concept of the show was a showcase for Disney cartoon shorts, both old and new, with a small story-line running between them at Mickey's happening club, The House of Mouse. For those of you who were growing up in California, it was a lot like The KCAL Kids, which featured three kids running around Disneyland having adventures in between Disney cartoon shorts, only Disney's House of Mouse was all animated and featured newly produced shorts.

For this halloween dvd, Disney's villians take center stage and take over Mickey's club at midnight. Of course Mickey, with help from Minnie, Donald, Daisy and Goofy, foil their plans, all while showing some classic and new halloween-themed cartoon shorts.

What I love about the House of Mouse concept was that people who are fans of lesser-shown Disney-animated characters might have a chance to glimpse them because Mickey's Club is popular with all of Disney's animated characters and Disney tried to show as many as they could during wide-angle shots.

I also love the classic cartoons shown in this Halloween DVD - Trick or Treat (featuring Witch Hazel who helps Huey, Duey and Louie trick back Uncle Donald in a spooky way) and the classic Lonesome Ghosts (where ghost hunter Mickey, Donald and Goofy are summoned to a haunted house to deal with some mischevous ghosts). There are also a couple newly produced cartoon shorts, including one that sounds like it was written by Dr. Seuss in which Mickey deals with a mechanical house of horrors! Another called "How to Haunt a House" shows "dearly departed" Goofy trying his best to teach the audience how to be a haunt, only Donald won't cooperate. I love this return to the classic "how to" Goofy cartoons. Also enjoyable, is the fun little song that the villians sing as they take over Mickey's club.

Halloween Movie Night #4 - SNL Halloween Special

Tonight's halloween special was a look back at the years when Saturday Night Live was fun to watch. Okay, that's not fair - it's sometimes fun to watch current episodes (I have higher than normal hopes for Jane Lynch hosting this weekend), but these sketches all came from the years better SNL years.

Hosting the special were Wayne and Garth, bookending the special with top ten lists. The skits varried from spoofs on The Twilight Zone to a gay vampire starring John Travolta. Like a typical SNL show, the skits were hit and miss - and they often ran too long past the initial joke.

Chris Farley made an appearance as the motivational speaker Mike (you know, the guy who lives in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!) trying to teach a couple of unruly teens how inappropriate it is to pull Halloween pranks.

Another classic was Anna Gasteyer as Martha Stewart, giving advice on how to fashionably toilet paper and ex husband's house. Hilarious. And of corse, the opening skit featured Landshark, the classic bit where Gilda Radner is afraid to open the door as 2am on Halloween Night. "Unicef man? Oh, well that's different!" LANDSHARK!!

For me, the worst skit of the special was Adam Sandler (as himself) with halloween costume ideas. With such ideas as "crazy man with a pickle for an arm" or "crazy eye man" it's hard to understand why the audience was actually laughing. It's probably just me. I've never really been a fan of Adam Sandler's humor. I know most everyone thinks that he is hilarious, but is it really comedy when the funniest line in the skit is at the end when Kevin Neelon takes out a cigar, holds it up to his chin and says "Hey! I'm crazy cigar-chin guy" and Sandler says "Once again you topped me again, Neelon!" It just isn't very funny to me.

Halloween Movie Night #3 - Pornography: A Thriller

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking: is this movie really about what the title suggests?

Yep. It is.

It was one of those odd movies that was suggested to me on Netflix; one of those "based on your interest in these movies, we think you'll like..." kind of suggestions. It arrived in my mailbox on Saturday and since the word "thriller" was in the title, I figured it would work in my Halloween tradition.

Pornography: A Thriller (2009) is told in three acts.

The first part deals with the last days of a gay porn star who disappears around the time that he's trying to get out of the business. He is offered a private "job" for $40,000 and he realizes that this may be his last chance to get out of pornography for good, so he takes it.

Fourteen years later, the second part of the movie continues. Michael is a writer who is working on a book about the history of gay porn. In his research he comes across the name of Mark Anton (the gay porn star from the first act) and little by little, he starts to learn more about the horrible truth surrounding Mark's disappearance.

The third act deals with a porn star named Matt, who looks an awful lot like Sylar from the TV show Heroes. He apparently dreams the first two acts and hammers out a script for a "thriller porn" that he wants to direct. He takes the idea to his porn company and they agree to let him direct if he stars in it. As he begins the process of filming, he finds out that there really was a porn star named Mark and he gets finds himself getting deeper into the mystery.

Reviews I read compared this movie to something by David Lynch and it basically is. The story is confusing, the ending is bizarre and the reality in the movie is ridiculous. Also, there is a lot of male nudity.

I'm not sure I fully understood what the movie is about or, for that matter, what really happened. The events at the end really don't clear anything up - much like a David Lynch movie. The production value of the movie is far superior to other low-budget movies I've seen, but it carries with it the stink of pretentiousness.

Halloween Movie Night #2 - Mr. Boogedy

For Halloween Movie night #2, I take a nostalgic look back on my childhood. Back in 1986, Michael Eisner revitalized the Disney movie night by hosting original made-for-TV Disney movies on (if I remember correctly) Sunday nights.

One of my favorite of those movie events involved a movie called Mr. Boogedy (1986). Eisner's introduction to the movie showcased the wizards of special effects and I remember several items from his desk floating up into the air.

Well, I was doing some exploring on the internet yesterday and discovered that someone had made a torrent file of a DVD they made of not only Mr. Boogedy, but its sequel, Bride of Boogedy. Naturally I was VERY excited, since I hadn't seen the movie in years. After 12 long hours, I had the complete file downloaded and was able to burn a copy of the DVD.

Tonight I had a rare Saturday field trip (the pay for Saturday trips is overtime pay, so they are a literal gold mine!) so I took my laptop with me so I could recapture a small piece of my childhood. For some reason, I remember Mr. Boogedy being a longer movie, but it only clocked in at around 45 minutes.

The story tells of a family moving to a creepy old house in a very devilishly named town. Soon, they are hearing evil laughing, creeky steps and... someone sneezing. Despite a not-so-subtle warning from their Realtor, they stay in the house and are soon

There are some surprisingly big names in this movie. John Astin (best known for playing Gomez Addams on the Addams Family TV show) has little more than a cameo in the movie (But OH what a role it is!) and some funny, if not corny, moments.

80's teen star Kristy Swanson stars as the family's oldest child and she delivers some dated pop culture lines such as "I bet nobody hear has even heard of Bruce Springsteen!".

As the youngest child in the family is Benji Gregory, best known for his role as the son on the TV show ALF. As I remembered from watching this as a kid, he was pretty adorable.

The biggest surprise that hit me tonight as I watched Mr. Boogedy was the fact that the middle son was played by none other than a VERY young David Faustino best known for his role as Buck on the TV show Married With Children. I never realized that until tonight - probably because we weren't allowed to watch Married with Children when we were kids. Oh, how deprived we were!

Mr. Boogedy provides some VERY corny, but great Halloween fun. If you are lucky enough to find a copy of it, enjoy!

Halloween Movie Night #1 - The Scream Team

It has become a tradition for me to watch a Halloween or Horror movie every night during October, but this will be my first year blogging about it.

For Night #1, I chose a movie called The Scream Team (2002). I had recorded the movie on Tivo last year, but never watched it, so I killed two birds with one viewing - I watched the movie and made room on my usually full Tivo.

There were some well-known actors in the movie, my favorite being Kathy Najimy from Sister Act fame. Her part wasn't huge in the movie, but she was, as always, funny. Eric Idle played an aging ghost (is that even possible?) and comedian Tommy Davidson played his sidekick.

The story involves a brother and sister who arrive at a town plagued by a pyromaniac ghost who died 300 years ago. Their grandfather has recently passed away and they quickly discover that his spirit hasn't moved on. Worse still, their grandfather is kidnapped by this pyromaniac ghost and his soul is used to help fuel the revenge the pyromaniac ghost is seeking for his sullied bad name in the town.

It was a goofy yet very cute movie.