Over the holiday weekend I paid my first visit to the Monster Mini Golf franchise. Didn't realize they set the mood with black light, otherwise I'd have worn my Dr. Strange t-shirt, which would have been glowingly awesome. The mini golf is tricky because they force you to do a lot of bank shots, but the graphically-inspired environment is superb for horror fans. Here are some shots I took of the more saliently spooky highlights.
Forget the naughty and nice list and point Santa (and his helpers) to your Amazon* wish list instead. I did, and made out like a bandit; a nice bandit, that is. Here's what Santa brought me this year.
American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny Boxed Set, edited by Peter Straub, is two volumes of wonderful. I grew up well fed on the classics of horror in both literature and cinema, but reading the printed page is like listening to a fantastic tale on the radio: your imagination must cement all those alphabetical bricks into unique architectures best suited to your personal fancies.
Start building with the From Poe to the Pulps volume, where authors Derleth and Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, mingle their scarescapes with the likes of Chambers, Hawthorne, Melville, and Madeline Yale Wynne. Don Robert Bloch's The Cloak before you traverse Bierce's The Moonlit Road on your way to the next volume, From the 1940's to Now.
Collier, Lieber, Capote, Bradbury, Bixby, Ellison, Wandrei, King, Oats, Matheson, and a host of others provide enough of the weird from the 1940s to now to keep you nervously looking over your shoulder well past midnight, when you should be sleeping snug as a bug in a rug. But can't.
Both volumes contain biographical and text notes, and, at this time, American Fantastic Tales is not available on Kindle. The set is digest-sized, however, so is rather easy to carry around with you, one volume at a time.
Horror Films of the 1970s two volume set, written by fellow LOTT D'er John Kenneth Muir, is a reference work I wanted to add to my shelves. The 1970s were a transitional time for horror movies, one not always productively creative or entertaining. The supernatural and Gothic traditions, with their folkloric, superstition-based topos, lost hold early in the decade to mutated, socially and politically mucked up, neoclassic monsterness, barely stitched together with self-indulgent grooviness.
I blame the 1970s, mostly, for removing mainstream audiences from horror cinema: the decade's sub-genres evolving from sexual terror, sadistic artifice, and nihilistic excess split remaining audiences into pre- and post- fans, with few straddling the middle (pay a visit to any horror forum and you will see what I mean).
I have a love-hate relationship for the 1970s because of this; but for every Andy Warhol Dracula or Frankenstein--the pinnacle of the decade's misguided horror debauchery--and the folly of Blackenstein: The Black Frankenstein, there were chilling movies like The Omen, Jaws, and The Exorcist.
Muir provides cast and crew information, a synopsis, and summary commentary for each movie. He covers conventions used (such as vampires, germs, bad dogs), lists his top fifteen movies (The Exorcist is number one), recommends a viewing order (see The Exorcist, then watch Stigmata and Lost Souls, for instance), and gives some notable taglines ("Today the pond, tomorrow the world!" from Frogs).
Although I would have preferred getting Horror Films of the 1970s on Kindle, an eBook edition is not available yet. McFarland's reference books would be a great fit for Kindle editions (as long as they priced them reasonably). Are you listening McFarland?
I didn't have this on my wish list, but being an avid MythBusters acolyte, I'm skippy with joy Santa brought me an Adam Savage bobblehead anyway. Big boom! Big boom! Big boom!
I'll be adding the Jaime Hyneman bobblehead and Muir's Horror Films of the 1980s to my wish list next, since my birthday is just around the corner. Hint.
*I link to Amazon only for your perusal convenience. Although I use their Kindle Blog Publishing, and buy mass quantities of books and other doodads from them, I don't use adwords, adverts, or any ad this or that. So clicking on these links brings no renumeration for me.
Just received my first Christmas Card! It comes from Penny Dreadful and the Shilling Shockers Gang at NBTV95. Looks like Santa has his hands full. Between you and me, it also looks like getting on the naughty list can be more fun. Love the antlers, Garou.
Bedlam (1946) photograph courtesy of Professor Kinema.
Now this is fascinating. It's like merging Halloween makeup and costume frights with traditional Christmas delights. Click the pics to read more about this bizarre tradition.
Krampus is a mythical creature. In various regions of the world – especially Austria and Hungary – it is believed that Krampus accompanies St. Nicholas during the Christmas season, warning and punishing bad children, in contrast to St. Nicholas, who gives gifts to good children. Due to German and Austrian influence, the myth of Krampus is also prevalent in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, and northern Italy. (Wikipedia)
And you thought zombies are scary? For a fat, jolly elf that climbs in through chimneys anywhere he damn well pleases, carries a big sack full of lord knows what, doles out coal like candy if you get on his naughty list, and likes chilly weather so much he lives at the North Pole year round--at an undisclosed address--he's pretty frightening. Maybe that red suit's red on purpose, you know what I mean?
Click the pic of the death ray-eyed Santa for a top ten list of Scary Santas.
Here are a bunch of Easter eggs Mr. Bunny won't be bringing to you in his basket this holiday. I've indicated the sources I pulled them from as best I could, but please use 'comments' to correct or add to the list.
From the Horror Forum on DVD Easter Eggs...go to the forum to find more...
Hellraiser: Deader DVD -- "To view the short - No More Souls: Go to the second page of "Special Features" and highlight "Play Movie" (but don't click it), press "down", then press "right" and "The Lament Configuration" will be highlighted and "No More Souls" will play. Gary Tunnicliffe plays Pinhead."
The Beyond -- "Cat In The Brain" trailer: From the main menu, go to Extras. Click on "Images From The Beyond". Go down to Extras, then left arrow, to highlight symbol. Press enter to see a trailer for Lucio Fulci's film Cat In The Brain. Also watch the original US Opening of The Beyond: From the main menu, go to Audio Setup. Go down to Resume, then arrow left to highlight symbol. Press enter to access the original opening of the 1981 US version of The Beyond, entitled Seven Doors of Death, directed by Louis Fuller, which is one of the pseudonyms Lucio Fulci used in the US."
Critters: The Ultimate Collectors Edition -- "On the first film there is a hidden alternative ending. To get it you have to light up the critters eyes on the menu page using the arrows."
The Ring -- "As soon as you're on the main menu, keep on moving the arrow on your remote until, on the screen, there's nothing highlighted and press enter on your remote control. Now you'll be able to watch the exact video everyone in the movie was watching and after they watch it, the phone rings. You know the premise behind it. But you'll be able to watch it for yourself."
Fearnet Picks Their Favorite Horror Easter Eggs...lots here to savor...
Killer Klowns from Outer Space – "Highlight the words “Play Movie” in the special features section and press up – click the hidden popcorn kernel to see "Klown Auditions", which show how the actors playing the klowns practiced their ridiculous walk and stride in this cheese-ball classic!"
Rocky Horror Picture Show -- "Works on either the 25th Anniversary Edition or Standard Edition. At the main menu screen press left on your remote until a pair of lips are highlighted. Press enter on your remote and you'll get Richard O' Brien's original vision of RHPS."
Scary Horror Movies hardboils a whole bunch just for you...
Alien 20th Anniversary Special Edition -- "From the main menu highlight Extra FeaturesScene Selection then press right. Press enter and you'll be taken to the 'USCSS Nostromo flight plan' complete with crew manifest...Jump to the Extra Features menu. Arrow down to the Main Menu selection and press down once again. A hole in the floor will highlight, then click. There's an in-depth analysis of the Alien Lifecycle. If you've never seen the movie before leave this one hidden till last. It's certainly a spoiler - complete with warning!"
Halloween -- "This egg only works on the regular edition, not the special edition and it's only on the Widescreen side of the disc. Play TITLE 4 and you'll see all of the death scenes in the order of their appearance and when it's done it'll bring you to a KILL EM ALL menu with a creepy picture."
Digital Retribution decorates some nice ones...
Snakes On a Plane -- "From the ‘Special Features’ menu go into the ‘TV SPOTS’ sub-menu and highlight ‘SPECIAL FEATURES', then click ‘right’ on your remote followed by ‘Enter’ to play an airline safety video which tells passengers what to do in the event of an in-flight snake attack."
Santa's Slay -- "On the 'Special Features' menu highlight 'HoHo Ho's' and press the 'Right' arrow key on your remote control and a face will appear. Now press 'Enter' key to view an alternate ending and outtakes."
Ghost Hunting Theories provides some nifty ones...
Thirteen Ghosts (new version) -- "First, go to the "Special Features" menu. When it comes up, Go to "Ghost profiles". After Cyrus is done talking to you, select the object that is a jaw bone. Cyrus will start telling you about the Jackal, and in it you will see several scenes from House on Haunted Hill."
There's certainly many more. Which are your favorite eggs?
ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good (but weird)
Okay, sing along with me now to the tune of Jingle Bells: "Run like hell, Run like hell, Screaming all the way. Oh what terror it is to hide, as whack'o-crazy killing Santa comes your way. Hey!"
Christmas Evil, or as originally titled by the director, You Better Watch Out, is a weirdly magical holiday film filled with enchantment; once you get past the whack o' crazy amateur Santa dealing death from his bag of deadly toys, and the torch-wielding neighborhood villagers chasing him, and the depressing Jolly Dream toy factory, which may remind you of your own place of employment.
When did you find out that Santa Claus was not real? Hopefully it was at a later age than poor Harry Stadling (Brandon Maggart). He finds out the hard way during Christmas Eve while young and still impressionable; and that impression left him yearning for the real Santa and the real Christmas Spirit. His cramped apartment is filled with Christmas memorabilia and he sleeps in Christmas pajamas and a red cap (nicely trimmed with white fur).
His obsession colors his life the wrong way. He's lonely, creepy, and spies on the neighborhood kids with binoculars, writing down all the nasty or nice things the kids do in his Good Boys and Girls and Bad Boys and Girls notebooks. But this Christmas season is different. His fetish for red gets the better of him, and soon he's trying on white beards, and sewing a holly-jolly Santa suit; he even paints his van with a sleigh. He desperately wishes he had "super magic", and since this is a holiday horror movie you know what usually happens to people who wish for things.
ZC Rating 2 of 7: Fair
As another year begins its slide into posterityI suppose I should at least write up some resolutions I can judiciously ignore throughout next year. I’ll make my first resolution to do that — perhaps next week.
I recently watched Jack Frost on DVD — hey, there's an important resolution right there: make sure to watch more GOOD horror movies. Now that was easy. I made the mistake of listening to Yahoo Group members' recommendations on this one and — wait a minute, there’s my second resolution: do not listen to movie recommendations garnered from trolls in chat groups. My word, coming up with New Year resolutions is easier than I thought.
While the idea of a serial-killing snowman may be novel-looking on paper, its execution, which could have been on a par with Shaun of the Dead in wit and visual humor, falls far short; and you can't blame it on budget limitations, either. In the hands of a Roger Corman or Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman, low budgets ignite creativity with cheap but imaginative set pieces and self-indulgent—wink, wink-- scripting. That didn't happen here.
Whenever you combine the elements of comedy and horror you have to decide how far to go in each direction. Should it be a parody, a satire, tongue-in-cheek, or a mix of these approaches? What visual framing will tone your choices and how will the characterizations and actions move the story to highlight them, and keep funny-bone chuckling and shinbone trembling with fright?
Uncle Henry’s inappropriately risqué bedtime story voiceover to his young niece sets the mood. As he horrifies her, we, very slowly, look at ornaments on a Christmas tree, pausing to see the movie’s credits written on each one. At first a novelty, it becomes tiresome as it drags on. Uncle Henry's story introduces Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald) the criminal as he’s conveyed to his execution in a van aptly titled with Troma-like subtlety, "State Executional Transfer Vehicle."
A collision with the also aptly titled "Genetic Research" truck reveals the miniscule budget: quick cuts cover up the absence of showy car-explosion pyrotechnics. Jack gets doused genetic research liquid, turning him into a wise-cracking, not very jolly, serial-killing snow cone with a button nose. A pseudo-scientific explanation is later given by one of the Genetic Company’s agents to explain this transformation, but it’s all intentional nonsense unintentionally witless.
Now to Snowmonton, a small town where an annual snowman contest-- hey, wait a minute, there’s that budget drain again: no snow! There are scant piles of flaky fake snow here and there, but the few snowmen in the contest look pitiful. How the townsfolk made them is bewildering: there’s no snow in Snowmonton. This might have been funny if directed with that thought in mind, but director Michael Cooney’s thoughts are on rote murder instead. We don’t see the first murder, just the victim’s discovery, with us looking from behind the old man’s spiked-hair-frozen head at three dismayed police officers. They are looking down at his icy body seated in a rocking chair. One of the officers absent-mindedly rocks the chair with his foot. That’s funny.
No reason for why this poor local yokel was murdered is given, but being a horror movie, who needs reasons, right? Only escalatingly gruesome and growing body counts matter. Jack Frost the snowman makes his appearance in a flaky-fake foam rubber suit. His oddly designed facial features don’t do much for either the comic or horror mood he’s trying to project.
I admit to the guilty pleasure of finding humor in the second murder, where Jack cuts off a bullying boy's head with a sleigh, but his grieving parents’ acting is so bad the humor is quickly lost. Luckily that acting doesn’t go on for long; mom is viciously dispatched by Jack using a Christmas tree’s string-lights and broken glass ornaments to shut her up. The attack starts funny, but heavy-handed direction turns it into a nervous laughter situation--something that looks funny but isn’t. Watching her face repeatedly mashed into the shards of glass while Jack makes merry quips IS NOT FUNNY. When her body is discovered, we see the three, still-bewildered, police officers through the blinking string-lights wrapped around her. The humor falls flat because we suffered through her sadistic murder. The movie’s tongue-in-cheekiness, its balancing of humor and horror, tips out of sensible control after this, becoming a slasher-formulaic catastrophe without focus.
A convenient plot device to make Jack more mobile has him change from snow to water as needed. How he moves along in the snow without legs is still a puzzler. Using his solid to liquid trick, he commits a rape and murder. I assume the scene looked awfully clever in the script, but to watch it made me scratch my head wondering what they were thinking. When Jack starts shooting icicle daggers from his body to gleefully kill, I found it difficult to keep watching. Cooney loses his street-cred completely at this point, making Jack Frost a movie for people interested in novelty killings more than coherent story-telling or characterizations. Sadly, the horror genre is full of such fans. Jack slaughters an entire family while cracking sarcastic one-liners all the way, then goes after Sheriff Tiler (Christopher Allport), the man who sent him to prison. More mayhem follows. The Sheriff’s habit of losing keys at critical, key-needed-urgently moments becomes tiresome, aerosol cans and hair dryers magically appearing in quantity to fend off Jack is humorless, and the preposterous, but imaginative, climax involving an anti-freeze filled truck bed and amazingly good timing to save the day doesn’t make up for the time wasted leading up to it. The townsfolk bury the anti-freeze bottles that now contain Jack Frost; of course, Jack will return in an even more cheaply conceived sequel.
While this is not a good horror movie by any worthwhile stretch of critical assessment, it does provide an excellent primer for budding scriptwriters on what you should avoid when attempting a horror comedy. This movie doesn’t deserve its cult status because it simply doesn’t earn it.
