6 Weeks of Halloween

This was originally going to be a week chock-full of slashers, but despite an excellent start on that front, things gradually got less-and-less slashery. As it turns out, all three movies are bona fide members of the horror class of 1981, a year in which changes in distribution and low-budget independent filmmaking conspired to release an explosion of horror movies on an unsuspecting populace. Much of this was driven by the slasher craze, but horror in general was booming in the early 80s and particularly in 1981.

Naturally, I’ve already seen a lot of the classics from that hallowed year, but there were a few high profile movies I’d missed out on for whatever reason, so here goes:

• Thursday the 12th (Robot Chicken)
• Thanksgiving (fake trailer)
• Scanners (trailer)
• Happy Birthday to Me – Someone is offing the cool, smart kids (but I repeat myself, heh) at a prestigious prep school, but who? There are approximately a gajillion red herrings in this film, as the mysterious killer takes out each of the “Top Ten” students, and Ginny keeps having weird flashback to past trauma. Lots of suspicious characters, including one of the Top Tenners that specializes in… taxidermy? This leads to amusing puns along the lines of “Hey, stuff it, dude.”

  

  Happy Birthday to Me!

  Directed by J. Lee Thompson (who made the well regarded Cape Fear), this is one of the more fun examples of the teen slasher genre, with creative deaths (including a neat scarf in the motorcycle wheal death, a death-by-barbell, and the most famous weapon, death by shish-kebab) and a series of goofy, Scooby Doo-like twists at the end. There’s even a grand unmasking as the true killer is revealed. Clocking in at 110 minutes, it’s one of the longest slasher movies ever made, but it’s still a lot of fun. Not quite top tier, but certainly top of the middle tier. ***

• The Evil Dead (Japanese trailer)
• My Bloody Valentine (trailer)
• Driving Lessons – Halloween Deleted Scene (short)
• The Funhouse – This is a film that’s generally lumped into the Slasher sub-genre, but in the end, I have my doubts. It certainly starts off by totally aping Halloween and Psycho, but it winds up being a practical joke, not a real shower-murder scene. As the film progresses, things certainly get tense, but it’s still not quite like a traditional slasher, as the villain seems to have more in common with monsters like Frankenstein (whose mask the killer wears for the first half of the movie or so) than the past-tragedy-inspired killers of your typical slasher. Unlike most killers, this guy evokes a certain amount of pity, even if he’s terrifying and deformed.

  

  The plot revolves around a bunch of stupid kids who elect to spend the night in the titular Funhouse of their local carnival, only to find said deformed monster murdering a fortune teller over an expensive handy. Naturally, all the doors are locked and the carnies can’t leave any witnesses… hijinks ensue. This one certainly takes its time, but once it gets going, it’s pretty solid. It’s atmospheric and tense, featuring much less gore than you’d expect for a movie of this era, but it gets the job done. Not one of director Tobe Hooper’s best movies, but a worthy effort nonetheless. Probably somewhere in the middle of the middle tier of slashers, definitely worth watching if you like that sort of thing. **1/2

• Jason’s Deceiving Speed (Robot Chicken)
• The Prowler (trailer)
• The Burning (trailer)
• Bloody Birthday – And this one wound up being very light on the slasher elements, probably better classified under the realm of Kids are scary and hate you! movies. In this case, said kids were all born during an eclipse, thus making them into psychopaths who begin exploring their murderous tendencies starting around their 10th birthday. Lots of foreshadowing, as people who deny the kids what they want get their inevitable comeuppance. Not a lot of gore, but they make up for it with lots of boobies. It’s not scary or even very tense at all, but it winds up being great fun, as it seems to recognize just how silly it is, and it revels in making you hate those sneaky little shits as they engage in their murderous shenanigans. Kid actors in movies are usually a precarious thing, but here, those eclipse kids are kinda awesome, always smirking and looking all smarmy and evil. Overall, not really a noteworthy film, but I had fun with it. **1/2

So there you have it. Not really sure what next week will bring, perhaps some stuff currently in theaters, or maybe just a week with no discernible theme. Stay tuned!

Tales from the Crypt was one of those shows I was vaguely aware of, but never really watched much. Let’s just say that I was young and foolish and didn’t appreciate the Crypt Keeper’s puns. Now? I value a good pun. Is that value ironic? Oh God, am I becoming a hipster? Well, whatever, I figured it was worth revisiting this show, and since the first season was only six short episodes, it wasn’t too much of a time investment. It’s funny, but I never quite realized just how much talent was involved with this show. In this first season alone, we’ve got episodes directed by Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, and Richard Donner. And that’s not even considering the familiar actors and writers. Plus, the episodes are a relatively short 25-30 minutes, so even if you don’t care too much for an episode, you don’t have to put in that much time. So let’s see how the first season fared. There were only 6 episodes, so I got through them pretty quickly:

• The Man Who Was Death – So what happens when an executioner (the guy who throws the switch on the electric chair, to be specific) loses his job because the state outlaws the death penalty? Why, he simply starts freelancing his executioning, that’s what.

  

  This was actually a great start to the series; well acted and visually interesting with an appropriately ironic outcome. Lots of longish takes and breaking of the fourth wall, and well written too. Like The Mad Executioners from this past weekend, this one also has shades of Dexter, as the executioner punishes folks who are getting away with murder… I really enjoyed this one, and it set the tone rather well for what would follow.

• And All Through the House – Regular readers know of my affinity for Holiday Horror, and this tale of murder, greed, betrayal, escaped mental patients dressed as Santa, and general mayhem makes for a fine addition to the pantheon of axe-wielding Santas (of which there are surprisingly many).

  

  Santa!

  Directed by Robert Zemeckis, this seems uncharacteristic for him, but the episode’s got a goofy sensibility that seems appropriate. Series is two for two so far!

• Dig That Cat… He’s Real Gone – A bum is endowed with 9 lives and attempts to get rich at a carnival sideshow by using up his lives as Ulric the Undying. Basically, he kills himself on stage, and people pay boatloads to see it. Great central performance by Joe Pantoliano and you know what, even Robert Wuhl is pretty great as the sleazy sideshow showman. Again we get lots of fourth wall breaking as Joey Pants explains how he came to acquire his 9 lives (let’s just say that it involved a mad scientist and a cat), and overall, this is the third straight great episode.
• Only Sin Deep – Well, I guess they can’t all be winners. This tale of a gold-digging hooker who sold her beauty to a pawn shop so that she could seduce a rich dude is fine for what it is and certainly better than a lot of other horror anthology episodes I’ve seen (I’m looking at you, Fear Itself!), but it’s a distinct step down from the first three episodes. For a series whose premise essentially boils down to “Isn’t it fun to watch bad people get their comeuppance?”, it’s hard to say that I just didn’t like our main character here, but I really just couldn’t see much redeeming quality to her character. In the first three episodes, the main characters had at least some likable traits, however minimal. This lends a certain pathos to the tragedy. Here, we’ve got nothing. And she’s pretty dumb to boot. Not horrible or anything, and the premise could work, but I wasn’t a big fan.
• Lover Come Hack to Me – Rich but meek Peggy marries handsome douchebag Charles. Aunt Edith is wary of Charles (assuming he’s just marrying Peggy for her money), but Peggy just wants to have a nice honeymoon. But, of course, the road is blocked and they’re forced to spend the night in a spooky house. Hijinks ensue. Interesting change of pace for the series so far, and a nice series of reversals make this one an improvement over the previous episode, but perhaps not the best of the series so far. Still, I liked this episode quite a bit.
• Collection Completed – Ah the perils of retirement. The great M. Emmet Walsh plays Jonas, the new retiree who doesn’t seem to enjoy spending time with his wife and all of her pets. Naturally, he takes up a… hobby. Heh. Solid episode, but a little on the melodramatic side, which ain’t really my thing. Still, it’s fun enough. Not quite the strongest finale for the season, but a worthy episode nonetheless.

So the quality seemed to fade a bit towards the end of the season, but it was all enjoyable enough that I immediately added season 2 to my Netflix queue.

One of the more obscure sub-genres of film is the German Krimi, which translates to “crime” or “mystery thriller”. Interestingly, these movies all had their origin in the crime novels of ridiculously prolific British author Edgar Wallace (dude wrote somewhere on the order of 175 books). I had never heard of these movies before, but J.A. Kerswell devoted a short chapter to this movement in his Slasher Movie Book.

…the krimi was at its height of popularity from the end of the 1950s to the mid-1960s (although it was still being made into the early 1970s). Mostly filmed in Germany, the krimi films fetishized England and presented a decidedly Germanic idea of Englishness, which produced an otherworldly, alternative reality. …These krimis are typically peopled by dastardly villains in outlandish costumes – featuring everything from a green skeleton in a cape to a whip-grasping monk in a red habit and pointy hat.

Increasingly flirting with the horror genre, the krimi satisfied the conventions of the crime caper as well as Teutonic farce.

By today’s standards, these are pretty tame films, and as the description above might imply, they’re not out-and-out horror, though they have leanings in that direction. There are some key horror conventions on display here though, including POV shots, macabre mad scientists, masked killers, and, strangely, a lot of throwing knives. I’m glad I tracked these down, but the overwhelming reaction I had to all of these movies was that they had some interesting ideas that weren’t quite fully developed. This was perhaps due to the time they were made, but hey, if you’re looking to remake movies, these seem like great candidates to me. Anywho, let’s get this party started:

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Murder (short)
• Night of the Lepus (trailer)
• Frogs (trailer)
• Fellowship of the Frog (aka Face of the Frog) – Adaptations of Edgar Wallace novels were produced as early as the 1920s, but the heydey of the krimi began in 1959 with the release of this film about a mysterious criminal mastermind known only as “the Frog”, who peppers his daring heists and robberies with the occasional murder. Hot on the Frog’s tail is Scotland yard, with an assist from an amateur American detective (and his British butler). The Frog’s costume, featuring a mask with gigantic glass eyes (lending the impression of a frog), is actually somewhat effective, if a little on the outlandish side.

  

  The Frog

  His dastardly scheme winds up being pretty silly though, and I’m not quite sure I really understood what he was getting at with his plan. Basically, he wants to win the affection of a pretty lady… by terrorizing her brother and father? There’s a nice Scooby-villain unmasking at the end of the movie too. There’s a lot of neat elements here, but nothing to really pull it together into a great film. I actually really enjoyed the amateur American detective guy, he’s kinda like Batman without the costume: embarrassingly wealthy, fights crime in his spare time, has a British butler, fancy car, and wacky gadgets. And the Frog has the makings of a great villain. He leaves a neat little calling card after each heist, and he brands his loyal minions with a little frog symbol too. Cool elements, but alas, the film settles for something less than satisfactory. I’m glad I watched it, but it’s not a particularly accomplished film. **

• Final Destination 2 (trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror XIV: Reaper Madness
• The Life of Death by Clive Barker (short story from Cabal)
• The Mad Executioners – This film was made a few years later, while the krimi was enjoying great popularity, and the story here fares much better than Frog, though there are still some odd components (which we’ll get to in a bit). The story begins with a mysterious hooded society passing judgement on a criminal who thought they had gotten away with their crime. We later find out that there’s been a series of executions by this society, each victim a criminal who was “beyond the reach of the law” (shades of Dexter here, perhaps this movie was an influence?) Each body is found with a file detailing all the evidence, and the victims are hanged with an infamous hangman’s rope, stolen from a museum. Soon, we see copycat societies taking up the cause, and a mysterious rash of gruesome beheadings has claimed the sister of our heroic Scotland Yard detective.

  

  A Mad Scientist

  This movie is an improvement over Frog, but some of these elements don’t quite fit together. In particular, the side-story about the mad scientist experimenting on decapitated heads seems kinda tacked on, like it was from another movie or something. On the other hand, there’s a lot of red herrings, which always kept me guessing, and while the tale may be a bit disjointed, both of the main threads are intriguing enough on their own… It all comes together in the end, and I found it a reasonably enjoyable experience, but again, it feels like these ideas could be more fully developed. **1/2

• Stephen King’s It (trailer)
• The X-Files: “Humbug” (tv show)
• Tales from the Crypt: “Dig That Cat…He’s Real Gone” (tv show)
• Circus of Fear (aka Psycho-Circus) – This film was made as the krimi was winding down, but it’s also probably the best of the films covered in this post. The movie opens with an extremely well filmed heist. I particularly enjoyed the way director John Llewellyn Moxey cut between the various groups of criminals by employing imagery of watches and clocks. Anywho, the heist doesn’t go quite as well as planned, and a guard gets shot. This leads the crooks to split up, one of whom heads towards a creepy circus, where he quickly runs into the business end of a throwing knife.

  

  POV Shot

  Other crooks become suspicious and start looking for the body and money he was carrying. The film is actually populated by well-respected actors of the likes of Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski, and some nice dynamics at the circus keep things interesting. Of course, Scotland Yard is also on the case and as the bodies start to pile up, the suspects seem to be piling up. There’s lots of fun to be had here, including a masked lion tamer and a scheming little person. Once again, I don’t know that the movie fully delivers on its various ideas, but I found it to be the most enjoyable of the three, and the most visually interesting as well. **1/2

Apparently latter krimi pictures were coproduced in Italy and released as giallos there… Italian Giallo films had emerged and evolved alongside the krimi, but quickly overtook the German sub-genre in terms of visual style, violence, and mayhem. I found this to be an interesting exercise, but I’m a much bigger fan of Giallos and quite frankly, these aren’t really horror films. There are some horror elements, but for the most part, they’re probably, at best, thrillers.

The leaves are turning, the wind is gusting, little plastic corpses and bite sized candy are showing up in grocery stores, along with graveyard themed decorations and mutilated pumpkins. It’s my favorite time of the year, and as usual, it’s time to celebrate the season by watching lots of horror movies. As usual, Kernunrex has gotten the festivities started off in style, and gives as good an introduction to the concept as one could hope for:

Halloween, the high holiday for horror geeks, has no equal. When is the science fiction fest? Which day do comedy kooks celebrate? Would there ever be a spaghetti western wingding? No, horror is special; it’s primal and emotional, tapping into the deepest parts of our psychology and yanking at those uncomfortable pieces we normally pretend do not exist. Something this unique deserves more than a mere day of honor at the end of October. I say: let Halloweentime last for six weeks!

Hell yes! Six weeks of horror movies and pumpkin beer, let’s get this party started. Stock the Netflix queues, batten down the hatches, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Every year, I start off the season thinking to myself: self, you should probably become more familiar with silent-era filmmaking, why not spend a week doing so? Then I promptly forget as I tear through a bunch of trashy slasher movies or Giallos or what have you. Well not this year!

My experience with silent horror films is pretty much limited to a viewing of Nosferatu not that long ago. I guess you could also consider Hitchcock’s silent film The Lodger as horror too. The silent era of film is a bit of a blind spot in general, so it’s definitely something I should be making myself more familiar with, and this provided a good excuse. So it was a quiet weekend, if you take my meaning. Let’s see how much choices were:

• Grindhouse: Don’t (fake trailer)
• The Haunting (trailer)
• The Others (trailer)
• The Cat and the Canary – The original tale of relatives brought together in a haunted house for the reading of a will, this thing seemingly presages, well, every horror movie ever made. Haunted house, check. Escaped lunatic, check. Prowling POV shots from the killer’s perspective, check. Scooby-like plot to manipulate the will, check. Goofy, incompetent cop, check. Creepy housemaid, check. Indeed, the cat-and-canary analogy itself could describe the way killers stalk their victims in countless horror films (though I guess it’s more frequently referred to as cat-and-mouse).

  

  The atmosphere of this film is quite effective, but the creaky old manor, filled with cobwebs and secret passages, is yet another horror staple that we’ve all seen dozens of times. As with most of my experience with silent films, this one moves a tad slow and the acting style of the era was one of overemphasized motions and theatrical gyrations. As visual storytelling goes, though, this one is actually one of the better examples that I’ve seen. A must watch for students of horror, but perhaps not something that would thrill general viewers. ***

• Shining (fake trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V: The Shinning
• The Shining (trailer)
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – This is another movie that sorta foreshadows a lot of the genre that would come later. In particular, a case could be made that this is the first slasher, though the film also seems to have been a major influence on Noir films as well. In terms of it’s visual style, it’s a most striking example of the German Expressionism style, with a set design that is very angular and thus somewhat unsettling. Expressionistic films are not usually this overt or bold, but this film really does get in your face with that sort of distortion of reality. The story itself is somewhat pedestrian. Dr. Caligari sets up shop in a local carnival to exhibit a Somnambulist, a man he claims has been asleep for decades, but who walks and talks in his sleep. The Somnambulist is kept in a coffin (aka the titular cabinet), and Caligari breaks him out and has the crowd ask questions. One unfortunate soul asks “When will I die?” and the Somnambulist’s reply is “At first dawn!” Sure enough, the next morning at dawn, the man is found dead.

  

  More hijinks ensue, and there’s a few reversals and twists towards the end, but the thing that really sets this movie apart are its visuals. Really, it’s just the set design, with it’s discordant, angular lines, that is most memorable here. There is basically no camera movement at all, apparently the result of a low budget. This makes the overtness of the film’s expressionism a little more explainable, as that’s how they sought to make the movie visually interesting. Alas, the film has a preponderance of intertitles, making this rather textually heavy despite its silent origin. Again we get slow pacing and melodramatic acting histrionics. It’s another influential and important movie, but I liked The Cat and the Canary much better… **1/2

• Monster Realty (Robot Chicken)
• House Of Wax (1953, trailer)
• House Of Wax (2005, trailer)
• Waxworks – Perhaps the least horror-like movie of the bunch, this nonetheless has some unsettling, weird elements that at least go in the right direction. The story concerns a writer hired by a wax museum to create backstories for the various wax figures. This makes the film into a sorta anthology as the writer concocts tales for three figurines. Harun al Raschid is a Caliph who gets caught up in a squabble between a baker and his wife. Ivan the Terrible thwarts attempts at his life, only to go mad when he thinks that one has succeeded. And Spring-Heeled Jack seemingly threatens the writer in the wax museum! Each story is shorter than the last, though, making this a somewhat lopsided affair, with the grand majority of screen time focused on Harun al Raschid and Ivan the Terrible. Fortunately, all three tales are worthy and interesting, even sometimes incorporating surprise twists. There’s a cleverness here not really present in the other two films I watched this weekend, and despite not being horrific, it’s still pretty entertaining. That being said, it’s got the same pacing and acting ticks that I notice in most silent films. It’s a fun film, well worth checking out for film buffs… ***

Well there you have it. I still can’t say as though I’m in love with the silent era, but I do find some of these movies fascinating, if only because of their influence and historical value. Next week, I shall return with some proto-slashers, including a German Krimi film and whatever else I can scare up.

Update: Rex posted some thoughts on The Cat and the Canary.

Again Update: Bonehead XL is also writing about The Cat and the Canary. It’s all Cat and Canary, all the time on the internet! You should watch it too! Ok fine, he’s got a bunch of other reviews too and his site promises to be another 6 weeks of Halloweeny fun.

I’ve done this before, so I won’t go over why so many slasher films are centered around holidays and dates, but yeah, they are. I don’t know that I’ve seen every holiday slasher, but there are certainly enough that you could create a calendar of events throughout the year, with at least one or two slashers per month. Fortunately, there are some holidays that are still open, so if I were to actually make a slasher, Flag Day is still available (perhaps I could combine it with jellyfish and crocoroids). Anyway, in visiting the calendar this year, it’s become clear that I’ve exhausted most of the good holiday slashers, and am in the distinct second or third tier. But no matter. Slashers are like cinematic comfort food. So let’s get on with it:

• Thursday the 12th (Robot Chicken)
• My Bloody Valentine (trailer)
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Murder (short)
• Mother’s Day – Made not too long after Friday the 13th, this one was still early enough in the popularity of slashers that it doesn’t strictly adhere to all the tropes the way a lot of movies afterwards did… It turns out that this was a Troma video, which basically means it’s really weird and ultra-low budget (and it’s worth mentioning that low budget in 1980 is way worse than low budget in 2011 – these movies look pretty bad these days). So pure B-movie exploitation here. The movie is basically about a trio of women who go camping every year, only this year they chose to camp near an old lady and her nefarious sons, who have a habit of kidnapping and raping girls at the behest of their mother.

  

  So there are some elements of the slasher here, but it’s arguably not a slasher. It’s also somewhat unpleasant and it doesn’t really make a ton of sense. It probably goes on too long too. On the other hand, we’ve got a little old lady in a neck brace who is pretty awesome, and I have to admit that I loved the last shot in the film, which kinda left me with a better opinion of the film than it probably deserves from any objective evaluation. Only really for genre completists, but maybe some others would get something out of it… **

• Halloween (trailer)
• Thanksgiving (fake trailer)
• Hardly Working: Slasher (Short)
• Graduation Day – Ah, now this is more like it. Another Troma movie, but this is textbook slasher material right here. We’ve got a tragedy from the past (though not quite the distant past) and a mysterious killer seemingly avenging that tragic death. The film centers around a track and field team (cue obligatory team photo, with members crossed off one by one as the killer makes the rounds). One of the members of the team died of a blood clot earlier in the year, and now other teammates are dropping like flies. The potential suspects are numerous. It seems that everyone is sporting a gray sweatsuit and black gloves (and a stopwatch), just like the killer. The weaponry tends towards the bladed variety, including that badass fencing helmet (good idea for the mask, though its only used a few times). As a whodunit, it’s not lighting the world on fire, but it gets the job done. The budget is still super low, and it shows during the kill sequences, which are somewhat creative, but which also would have benefited from some more expertise on the special effects side. They try to get around it with clever camerawork, and sometimes even succeed, but there’s only so much you can do with that. Ultimately, this hit the spot much better than Mother’s Day did, though its ending isn’t quite as great and it’s clearly not on par with the best examples of the genre. **1/2
• Uncle Sam (trailer)
• Silent Night, Deadly Night (trailer)
• April Fools Day (trailer)
• New Year’s Evil – Probably somewhere between the previous two films in terms of hitting the slasher tropes, the thing that struck me the most about this movie is how much better it looks. I’m certainly not talking blockbuster stuff here, but it clearly had a bigger budget, and you can see that in every aspect of the filmmaking. Though it doesn’t hit all the right conventions of the slasher, there are some interesting things going on here. The film takes place on New Year’s Eve, where a radio/TV host is counting down New Years across the time zones. She takes a phone call, and a guy calling himself “Evil” informs her that he’s planning to kill someone every hour, on the hour. At first, everyone thinks it’s a crank call, but then dead bodies start showing up. It’s actually pretty fun, and unlike a lot of slashers, you spend a lot of time with the villain. He seems frighteningly normal and even charismatic (and he’s a master of disguise! Look at that porno ‘stache!), again quite unusual for slashers.

  

  There’s way too much 80s rock music and the film unravels towards the end. There are some interesting twists, but I don’t think they really figured out a great ending. Well, I shouldn’t say that, as the last shot works well enough, I guess, but everything leading up to that feels kinda rushed and disjointed. Ultimately, still a second-tier film, but one probably worth watching for fans of the genre. I actually quite enjoyed it. **1/2

Well there you have it. I can’t believe Halloween is tomorrow. This whole season flew by. I’ll probably post my typical Speed Round post on Wednesday, as I’ve seen a bunch of movies that didn’t quite fit with previous weeks’ themes. And quite frankly, I’m still in the mood for horror. We may just need to make this the 8 weeks of Halloween or something. Have a great Halloween!

Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I’m excited to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, Professor Severus Snape, and Professor Ed Avery, are also available… But now, here are my answers to the sinister Dr. Phibes:

1) Favorite Vincent Price/American International Pictures release.

It is perhaps dreadfully uncool to pick the film the entire quiz is named after, but my pick is honestly The Abominable Dr. Phibes. It’s a fine film by itself, but it’s also much more influential than most of its contemporaries, influencing the likes of Seven and even Saw (not to mention the franchise that spawned and the whole torture porn sub-genre).

2) What horror classic (or non-classic) that has not yet been remade would you like to see upgraded for modern audiences?

This is quite a difficult question. For one thing, a lot of movies that get remade have no real need of a remake – they’re perfect the way they are. So what does need a remake? Well, there are some movies, no matter how great they are, that are just products of a different time, and could use some updating. There are some movies that just don’t have enough of a budget or production value, and they could also benefit from a remake. Finally, there are movies that have a really neat premise that fall down when it comes to execution. That last one is especially difficult because they’re not normally good or beloved, and thus are unlikely to be greenlit by a studio exec. But for the purposes of this question, there are no studios or commercial concerns, so what movie to pick? Well, when it comes to classics, the obvious choice would be Creature from the Black Lagoon – the only of the old Universal monsters that hasn’t been updated and redone ad nauseum. The reason for the Gill-Creature’s lack of remake probably has less to do with the popularity of the character than to the fact that it was one of the few Universal creature features that was totally original. Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy (which is mildly arguable, but I’m including it anyway) are so popular because the characters are in the public domain (Universal owns some aspects of the appearance of the various monsters, but that is easily avoided because the characters themselves are not). Because of this, characters like Dracula can be continually reinterpreted and reinvented for new audiences and generations. Indeed, Dracula has racked up over 200 appearances in film – one of the most portrayed fictional characters in all of cinema. But the Gill monster? It will never be as popular because Universal had so tightly controlled the copyright… at least, not until the film enters the public domain. On the other hand, maybe it’s a silly movie that wouldn’t survive a reinvention. But we won’t know unless we get someone talented to give it a shot, and it’s probably worth trying.

3) Jonathan Frid or Thayer David?

Well, I’ve never been much of a Dark Shadows kinda guy, so I’m afraid I can’t really give a good answer for this, except to say: Jonathan Frid. Because I feel like it.

4) Name the one horror movie you need to see that has so far eluded you.

There are a lot of questions like this in these quizzes, and my answers tend to fall on a particular era of film: Silent Films. In keeping with that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is probably the one classic horror film that has so far eluded me. Along with several hundred others, but I keep thinking to myself: Self, you should really become more acquainted with the Silent Era. And then I promptly ignore that impulse. Indeed, for this year’s 6 Weeks of Halloween marathon, I had originally intended to devote a week to silent films (including Caligari), but there’s only one week left, and I really want to watch me some slasher films. But I will get to silent horror at some point. Oh yes.

5) Favorite film director most closely associated with the horror genre.

A truly difficult and tricky question. Does someone like David Cronenberg count? He spent the first decade or so of his career putting out solid or even great horror films, but he has since moved on to other genres (mostly). How about John Carpenter? He’s made two of my favorite movies of all time (Halloween and The Thing), but he’s also made some stinkers and he hasn’t even made a decent movie in over 15 years (though I have yet to see The Ward). Maybe it’s just that I’m bad at picking favorites. Names are just coming to me. Mario Bava. Don Coscarelli. Alfred Hitchcock (does he count?) Sam Raimi. Wes Craven. Jeeze, we could be here for a while. I’ll stop now.

6) Ingrid Pitt or Barbara Steele?

Hey, I’m actually mildly familiar with these two. Mildly. I’ll go with Ingrid Pitt, because I’ve seen her in more things, but Barbara Steele is no slouch…

7) Favorite 50’s sci-fi/horror creature.

A tough one. The Gill Creature kinda qualifies (is that really sci-fi?), but in the interest of variety, I’ll go with The Blob. There’s something just so great about the inhuman, unfeeling nature of the blob.

8) Favorite/best sequel to an established horror classic.

Aliens is the first to come to mind, but while it’s quite a tense affair, I don’t know that I would call that a horror film (though the Alien certainly was) so much as an action/adventure/thriller. The other obvious choice is Bride of Frankenstein, a film many believe is better than the original (though I’m not with them on that, it’s still among the best sequels). And while I wouldn’t call anything in the Friday the 13th series “classic”, I do have an inordinate fondness for Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI. Yeah, did I say I have trouble picking favorites? Because I do. Oh, and Phantasm II. And definitely Evil Dead II. Ok, I’ll stop now.

9) Name a sequel in a horror series which clearly signaled that the once-vital franchise had run out of gas.

This one’s really hard, because there are so many horror series, all of which run out of gas from time to time, only to be revitalized (even if only for a short time). There are probably a bunch of Dracula movies that would fit that mold. But what the hell, I’ll just say A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, which just stopped the series in its tracks (not that it was soaring so high at that point, but still) and I don’t think it ever really recovered…

10) John Carradine or Lon Chaney Jr.?

These two actors have over 500 films to their credit. Yikes. I’ll go with Lon Chaney Jr., for The Wolf Man alone.

11) What was the last horror movie you saw in a theater? On DVD or Blu-ray?

Last horror movie I saw in the theater was Paranormal Activity 3 (I was surprised that the series had not worn out it’s welcome – I generally enjoyed it). On DVD, it was Lucio Fulci’s goretastic The Beyond (fun, but not much to it other than gore, which I will grant, is pretty awesome in that movie). On Blu-Ray, it was Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, a mildly diverting film that was enjoyable enough, though again, nothing special. On Netflix Streaming, it was The Sentinel, a decent 70s haunted house film that is nevertheless kinda sloppy and disjointed and very weird. Interesting, but nothing to go crazy about.

12) Best foreign-language fiend/monster.

The most obvious answer would be Godzilla, though I’ve never been a particularly huge fan of those movies. The “fiend” part of the question does indeed open this up to probably too broad of a category, so I’ll just leave it at Godzilla.

13) Favorite Mario Bava movie.

Oh, this is a difficult one, but after a microsecond of thought, I’ll go with Blood and Black Lace. Impeccable.

14) Favorite horror actor and actress.

Oh, this is an easy one, right? Cause there aren’t that many actors or actresses that do a lot of horror films, right? RIGHT? Ok, fine, I’ll go Boris Karloff for the actor, and Jamie Lee Curtis for the actress.

15) Name a great horror director’s least effective movie.

John Carpenter’s Vampires and Ghosts of Mars. Another question that could probably have a thousand answers, unfortunately.

16) Grayson Hall or Joan Bennett?

Again with the Dark Shadows? I decline to answer. Ok, fine, Joan Bennett. There. You happy now?

17) When did you realize that you were a fan of the horror genre? And if you’re not, when did you realize you weren’t?

When I was in fifth grade, I hated horror films. Or, at least, I was terrified of them and avoided them at all costs. Then, one halloween, I spent the night at a friend’s house, and we watched Halloween. Nothing like peer pressure to get you to watch something you wouldn’t normally watch. And I was shocked to realize that I loved the movie. I was hooked. I started watching all the 80s slashers that came on TV (through my fingers at first, then when I realized that it wasn’t that bad, I really started to eat up horror films), and now I watch nothing but horror movies for the six weeks leading up to Halloween every year. Not to mention all the other horror films I watch throughout the year.

18) Favorite Bert I. Gordon (B.I.G.) movie.

I can’t say as though I’ve seen a lot of his movies, but Empire of the Ants comes to mind.

19) Name an obscure horror favorite that you wish more people knew about.

This is a hard one because “obscure” can be a relative term. What constitutes obscure for a horror fanatic? It’s difficult, because horror fanatics watch a lot of obscure movies just for the hell of it. But my pick will be Mute Witness, a movie that I rarely hear about, even in horror film circles. I won’t ruin it by talking too much about it, but it’s about a mute woman who witnesses a murder and then has to escape the clutches of the murderers, even though she’s in a remote area and can’t speak.

20) The Human Centipede– yes or no?

Yes. Look, it’s a disgusting concept, but I have to admit that the first film is reasonably well made and even restrained. It was nowhere near as bad as I feared. On the other hand, the sequel is pretty foul. But even that is well shot and there’s something interesting about what he chose to do in that movie. These are films I would probably never recommend to anyone, but if you’re inclined to watch disgusting movies, these are fine.

21) And while we’re in the neighborhood, is there a horror film you can think of that you felt “went too far”?

The aforementioned IMDb – The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence is certainly a candidate, but the one that came to mind after that was Martyrs, a film I have a lot of respect for, but which also made me wonder what the hell I was doing watching this thing.

22) Name a film that is technically outside the horror genre that you might still feel comfortable describing as a horror film.

Genres are inherently fuzzy. That’s part of their charm! That being said, a couple examples would be Blue Velvet and The Silence of the Lambs and maybe even Se7en. Did I mention that I’m bad at picking just one film?

23) Lara Parker or Kathryn Leigh Scott?

Alright, Jesus, I’ll watch Dark Shadows, ok? Just stop giving me these choices!

24) If you’re a horror fan, at some point in your past your dad, grandmother, teacher or some other disgusted figure of authority probably wagged her/his finger at you and said, “Why do you insist on reading/watching all this morbid monster/horror junk?” How did you reply? And if that reply fell short somehow, how would you have liked to have replied?

I haven’t been around too much of this sort of attitude, so I don’t really have an answer prepared, but I’m sure I could come up with something about the nature of fear or something. And quite frankly, anyone who’s so lacking in empathy that they can’t understand why someone would *gasp* like something different than them, is probably not worth responding to…

25) Name the critic or Web site you most enjoy reading on the subject of the horror genre.

Brian Collins and his amazing Horror Movie a Day. I don’t know how he does it.

26) Most frightening image you’ve ever taken away from a horror movie.

A difficult one, as the most frightening stuff, for me, is the stuff that’s not shown. But just to answer the question, I’ll say Phantasm has quite a few shots that haunt me…

27) Your favorite memory associated with watching a horror movie.

Well, I’ve already mentioned my first viewing of Halloween, so I’ll call out my first viewing of Paranormal Activity. Before it got hyped to high heaven, it was just a small film, struggling to get a release. The filmmakers managed to wrangle some midnight screenings (and later used footage of the crowds in their trailer), one of which I got to attend. It was a big and fun crowd, there were lots of scares, and as a midnight showing, I didn’t get home until around 2:30. And if you’ve ever seen the movie, you know that all the bad things that happen… happen at around that time. Let’s just say that I stayed up for a while after that.

28) What would you say is the most important/significant horror movie of the past 20 years (1992-2012)? Why?

Two films come to mind. Scream‘s postmodern approach made it ok to make horror movies again. I know a lot of people don’t like it or love it, but it is an important film, if only for the influence it’s had on the genre. The other film would be The Blair Witch Project. It wasn’t the first found footage, mock-documentary film (nor was it even the only one made that year!), but I think it might be the most effective one, and given the strength of the format over the past decade or so, I think that deserves a callout.

29) Favorite Dr. Phibes curse (from either film).

“Death of the first born” from The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Ironically, an quasi-unsuccessful curse, as well. But it was elaborate and horrifying, moreso than most of the others.

30) You are programming an all-night Halloween horror-thon for your favorite old movie palace. What five movies make up your schedule?

Well, at least you didn’t say I could only pick one movie.

• Trick ‘r Treat – Gotta kick things off with an ode to the holiday itself…
• Dead Alive
• Shaun of the Dead
• Frankenstein
• Halloween – How can we have a halloween movie marathon without it?

Are you sure I can’t pick 10 movie movies? Or maybe 20? This is hard, but I’ll leave it at those 5, as I could be here all night tweaking the list.

And there you have it, another great quiz. I’m already looking forward to the next one!