This is my first posting in a long time, fans. I am sad to see that so few of you are on here with posts and talking about what is out there to stir the blood and curdle the skin. This board gives me a lot of ideas and a lot of new ways to tell a story. I guess that you could say that i am upset a lot at the movie industry and their blatant lack of fresh ideas for horror. It seems like if you want to go mainstream - remake a classic. If you are original and want to go mainstream - you end up direct-to-video. One of the things that really upset me was the news that there is going to be a remake of Stephen King's "Carrie", a movie that has stood on its own, and not exactly one of my favorites. Dont get me wrong, folks, Carrie is a classic, and is among the greats of the genre, but i am sporting me own opinion. :)
I feel that there are many books from many authors that could use a screenplay. I wont go into them at this time, but im sure that many of you could come up with several. The one off the top of my head that needs a movie is Richard Laymon. I stay up many a night deep into the midnight hours and think to myself what a great thing it would be to see a movie made on one of Richard's classics like "In The Dark" which i honestly think would give "Saw" a run for the money, in terms of gaminess. But that will be for another day.
I am at work at the moment and there is a lot in the way of real-life horror here to fill a book. When i was a kid, i used to get chills all over me when i was taken past the Danvers State Hospital, and my parents would tell me all about the type of people that were in there. Now, as a member of the mental health field, it is interesting to see what goes on for real on a daily basis. It really stinks to be sick with a mental illness in this world.
I am going to be on the move again for a little bit, but i will be back to this board in a few weeks. Perhaps then i can share a little something that i wrote a few years ago with you. I hope you all are well and i will talk with you soon.
-Killer Klown
This entry was edited on August 27, 2012, 10:00 pm.
I recently watched the horror film Strange Behavior (1981) for the first time. Early in the film was a party scene that caught my attention initially because one of the characters was sporting a tuxedo-print tee shirt (I think there must have been an entire costume department dedicated to the tuxedo-print T-shirt in the 1980s). The bizarre choreographed dance party scene that followed really added a surreal touch to the film and got me thinking about moments of dancing in the horror films of 80s. I'm curious as to if any other decade had as much boogying in its horror cinema as the 80s did. Somehow, I doubt it.
After looking through my DVD collection and on YouTube for examples of dance in 80s horror films I began compiling a list. As I did this I couldn't help but compare the moments, creating a horror dance competition. I also broke the competitors into three categories, group dance (3 or more dancers), pairs and solo performance. I did include a few horror-themed comedies because the list just wouldn't have felt right without them. So, without further ado, I present Dancing With the Scars!
Group Dance
Runner-up: Teen Wolf (1985)
Hey, another movie featuring a tuxedo-print tee shirt! Let's see, silly dance, cheesy music complete with robot voice, popular kids scowling at the hero as he dances and at least one guy dancing with hat, red bowtie and slim sunglasses... yup it's an 80s film alright! Gnarly, Dude!
Runner-up: The Howling III: The Marsupial Werewolves (1987)
Another dancing werewolf! I'm not much on ballet, but the end of this dance number is awesome. I love the face the guy makes just before getting his head bit off. This scene would have place higher on the list had it involved roller disco instead.
Runner-up: Once Bitten (1985)
I watched this movie far more than I should have as a teen. The entire plot of the movie can be summed up in this dance scene. I wish I could dance like Jim Carrey.
Third Place: Strange Behavior (1981)
This party scene has an unsettling staged-feel before the dancing even starts. It feels as though the characters haven't entered a costume party but rather a trap disguised as a costume party. That sensation worsens once the dancing starts. It appears as though teens at the party have spent at least one prior evening choreographing an awkward dance to perform together. This clip scores extra points for the girl wearing that creepy buck-toothed Pippi Longstocking mask and the dude dressed like Hoss from Bonanza even though he doesn't dance (he just vomits in a sink).
Second Place: Near Dark (1987)
This is really just a series of dances, two solos and a pairs dance, but I couldn't separate them. The whole moment has a choreographed feel from the moment the vampires enter the bar. Their entrance is timed so perfectly with the music beginning, you'd swear Jesse made the others wait with him just outside the door until his vampire hearing picked up the sound of the jukebox about to play just the right song. Dancing-wise we have Severen's spinning chicken dance accompanied with wolf-howl, followed by a tender dance between Mae and an unlucky bastard who just can't allow himself to enjoy (I'd jump out the window if I was offered to Adrian Pasdar too, even if he wasn't a vampire), lastly the bar scene finishes with Homer's swaying little dance upon the bar as the joint burns down (sadly not featured in this clip).
Winner: Night Train to Terror (1985)
It took the transformation and combination of three other failed horror films to create this Voltron of crap. Night Train to Terror is literally sewn together from the corpses of other grody films and the stitches used to hold the pieces together are scenes of god and the devil talking interspersed with this music number being performed on a train. The same song is repeated over and over like a music video from hell, when the train finally crashes it is relief and not horror that is felt. To make it even worse, the song taunts the audience for watching the film, "Everybody's got something to do! Everybody but you!"
Pairs
Third Place: Prom Night (1980)
I love 80s movies that feature gum-chewing jocks who look like they just smelled something bad. Oh, it even has the characters dancing to a song with the title of the movie in the chorus... and there's another tuxedo-print t-shirt! Totally excellent! It's amazing how this high school was able to provide their students with the set from Saturday Night Fever to dance upon in the gymnasium. That damn chorus lingers with you long after. "Prom night! Everything is alright!" DIG IT OUT OF MY BRAIN!
Second Place: Night of the Comet (1984)
Two sisters dancing around in a shopping mall in a montage set to Cyndi Lauper's Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun! Eightiesgasm! I bet this scene had George Romero slapping his head and wishing he'd condensed the entire second act of Dawn of the Dead into this montage.
Winner: Fright Night (1984)
I'm straight, but it's definitely Chris Sarandon who is making this dance scene sexy and not Amanda Bearse. He could have been seducing an aging Roddy McDowall out on that dance floor and the scene still would have been sexually charged. Hell, the vampire's seduction of Evil Ed in the alleyway isn't far off.
Solo Dance
Runner-up: Ghoulies (1985)
Oh, it's 80s crazy sunglasses bestfriend-guy again! What a wonderful stock character he was! In this scene, he has a seizure and the crowd cheers. Nobody tries to stop him from biting his tongue off. They only show concern when all the tic-tacs fall out of his shirt pockets.
Runner-up: Cat's Eye (1985)
I need a room like this in my next house. Sure, I'd love to hear all about the vacuum/encyclopedia/religion that you are selling. Just wait in this room here and I'll be right back. Oh, never mind that grate on the floor and please take off your shoes...
Runner-up: Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning (1985)
What the hell is up with the character Violet in this film? She's some sort of New Wave goth-type and yet she is robot dancing. It is perhaps the most angsty robot dance I've ever scene. She looks so intent doing it. Unfortunately for her, Jason's temporary scab replacement does not like robot dancing.
Runner-up: Night of the Demons (1988)
This is closer to how a goth girl dances, though she's usually shaped more like the girl from the last clip. Oh, there's a guy with a mullet in this scene!
Third Place: A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
While Chris Sarandon made me a little bit gay with his dance in Fright Night, Mark Patton's dance sends me screaming back to being straight. Oh man! Dig those sunglasses though! What teen boy hasn't been caught by his mom and girlfriend dancing with a tiny baseball bat in front of his crotch? Here New Line has a horror franchise that was being embraced by metal fans and for the second film they gave us a hero dancing to some sort of Debbie Gibson clone. Bogus, Man!
Second place: Return of the Living Dead (1984)
I didn't have porn as a teen. I had this moment from Return of the Living Dead instead. To this day I have a thing for punk girls with unnatural red hair (even though Linnea Quigley was clearly wearing a fake-looking wig). Thanks to the use of a flesh-colored crotch patch to cover Linnea's nethers, anyone can convert a Barbie doll into a Trash doll and have it still be anatomically correct. Warning: Not safe for work.
Winner: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Even though he is technically dancing with someone, Crispin Glover wins in the solo category. His dance is so totally tubular that the girl he's dancing with just disappears. His awesomeness becomes a spotlight. I think there should be an Internet campaign to get Crispin a contestant spot on Dancing with the Stars.
Thank you for reading the blog. Apparently everybody has something to do... everybody but yooooooouuuuuu!
This entry was edited on December 10, 2010, 2:02 am.
When I was a child my family had a tradition of traveling to Watertown, New York to visit relatives for Thanksgiving. We'd stay at a dairy farm owned by my mother's cousins and have the Thanksgiving feast at my great aunt's home. Thanks to this tradition I always associate Thanksgiving with the smell of hay, the birth of baby cows (a calf always seemed to be born during our stay), milk fresh from the cow and movies featuring giant apes. Wait, what was that... giant apes? Yes, giant apes.
My childhood spanned the 1970s and 1980s. Back then WWOR-TV had a tradition of showing a Thanksgiving marathon of giant monster films, particularly those featuring King Kong. Under the name Holiday Film Festival, the channel would typically show Mighty Joe Young, King Kong and Son of Kong on Thanksgiving afternoon. For a kid who had no interest in watching football and a complete obsession with monsters, this was a godsend. Blissed out on turkey, stuffing, and my grandmother's plum ketchup I would would hang out with my brother and cousins in the playroom, watching giant apes and dinosaurs on a small black and white television while the grownups gathered around a color TV in another room to watch a football game and talk their boring grownup talk.
WWOR's Holday Film Festival ran from 1976 until 1985. My family's tradition of visiting the Watertown relatives ran out only a year prior to WWOR's movie festival ending. It wasn't until recently that I found out the story behind the Holiday Film Festival. In the later years of its run, the festival extended to the day after Thanksgiving, usually including an assortment of Godzilla films. Apparently, I never caught the second day of the festival due to my family usually being on the road back home on Friday afternoons.
It also wasn't until recently that I discovered that the WWOR Holiday Film Festival wasn't just limited to the broadcast area around Watertown. WWOR reached Ohio and New Jersey as well as New York. The association between King Kong and turkey dinners was not limited to me! There are a number of blogs, message board posts, web pages, YouTube videos and even a Wikipedia entry devoted to WWOR's long-past Thanksgiving tradition. You can always count on the Internet to feed your nostalgia!
For my part, I have tried to keep the tradition alive with my own family since 2005. That year, thanks to the release of Peter Jackson's remake, a collector's tin DVD set featuring King Kong, Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young was released just days before Thanksgiving. It was a coincidence, but I took it as a sign that it was time to bring back the giant ape movie marathon. We've played with the tradition a bit over the years, showing other classic films in place of Mighty Joe Young and Son of Kong. My daughter's increased ability to communicate (she was a newborn in 2005) and preference for Godzilla movies has led to Japan's kaiju creations becoming a regular part of our Thanksgiving.
Okay, it's not really Bill Murray's mansion; it's the house in Georgia that was used as the fictional home of Bill Murray in the film Zombieland (2009). I should also mention that you will need at least a few million dollars for your down payment on this very large home. The actual owner of the mansion, Lee Najjar, has put the house on the market with an asking price of 25 million dollars.
In Zombieland, the main characters (portrayed by actors Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin) spend a memorable night in the mansion just prior to the climax of the film at Pacific Playland amusement park. The scenes for Pacific Playland were actually shot at Wild Adventures Water & Theme Park in Georgia, nearly four hours away from where the mansion scenes were filmed (see Wild Adventures Water and Theme Park).
Silver Shamrock Novelty Co. Recalls Halloween Masks; Possible Evidence of Product Tampering
SANTA MIRA CALIFORNIA - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the Silver Shamrock Novelty Company, today announced a voluntary recall of their popular line of Halloween masks. The masks, bearing the likeness of a skull, a witch and a jack-o'-lantern, have been found to contain a strange microchip device as well as dangerous levels of Stonehenge fragments. In tests on lab mice, fragments of the ancient Stonehenge ruins have been shown to cause inner-cranial growth of insects, arachnids and reptiles, leading to severe injury and/or death.
Images of the masks being recalled.
Conal Cochran, the CEO of Silver Shamrock, was unavailable for comment. An official statement was issued from the company's public relations department, stating that the company was investigating how the microchips and pieces of Stonehenge had gotten into their masks. With the ancient ruins of Stonehenge lying more than 5,000 miles away in the United Kingdom it is unlikely that the foreign pieces of rock were accidentally introduced into the Silver Shamrock masks. That coupled with the fragments placement directly with the unexplained microchip located underneath the company's trademark button on each mask, has led some to believe that the masks were deliberately tampered with.
Authorities in Santa Mira have stated that they are conducting an investigation with the company's full support, but have not turned up any evidence of criminal activity. This is the second time that the Santa Mira police have investigated Silver Shamrock this year. Back in May, authorities investigated reports of "killer robots" employed by the novelty company. The brief investigation reportedly turned up nothing. There has been some criticism of the investigations due to the police department being run by Conal Cochran (who also runs the local hospital out of his factory). The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has tested other company products, including other popular gag items such as Silver Shamrock's sticky toilet paper, dead dwarf gag and soft chainsaw. All other products tested negative for Stonehenge.
To receive a full refund, customers should contact the company directly through their Web site. It is possible to remove the trademark button from the mask, but caution should be used not to poke it with a hair pin, as this could have disastrous results.
Happy Halloween!
This entry was edited on August 23, 2010, 5:13 pm.
