Monday, December 25, 2006

HEART-WARMING HOLIDAY FILMS!

"Better Watch Out... Better Not Cry... Or You May DIE!"

It's Christmas day evening. You visited the family, exchanged gifts, and stuffed your face. Time to relax in front of the tube. You don't like watching Monday Night Football? Good, cos I got a load of cool Holiday's films you might wanna check out.

I was going load up the page with trailers but I happened upoun this video. This is a clip from an internet radio show called DeadPit.com. These guy's are horror hicks that did a show dedicated to holiday horror films...enjoy!


Also from DeadPit.com is an audio interview with Silent Deadly Night director Chuck Sellier.

Chuck Sellier Interview from DeadPit.com

Here's a list of X-Mas(and New Years) Horror films and tv shows. By no means is a complete list of holiday horror films.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: season 1 - Santa Clause and the 10th avenue kid
Amazing Stories - Santa '85 (not horror but fantasy)
Battle Royale II (2003)
Black Christmas (1974)
Beyond Tomorrow (1940)
Christmas Carol, A (?)
Christmas Evil (1980)
Christmas Eve (2001 Japan; dir. Toshiro Saiga)
Deadly Dreams (1988)
Dead End (2003)
Dead of Night (1945)-one of the first segments is during the holidays
Deep Red (1975)
Don't Open 'Til Christmas (1984)
DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD
Elves (1990)
Ghost Story (1981)
Gremlins (1984)
Home for the Holidays (1972)
Jack Frost (1996)
Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000)
Nightmare Before Christmas, The (1993)
One Hell of a Christmas (2002)
Rabid (1977)
Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1964)
Santa Claus (1959) - its a Mexican film, Santa vs the devil
Santa Claws (1996)
Santa's Slay (2005)
Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974)
Silent Night, Deadly Night 1 (1984)
Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (1987)
Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! (1989)
Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation (1990)
Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (1992)
Tales from the Crypt (1972)
Tales from the Crypt - And All Through the House [S1/E2] (1989)
Twilight Zone: Season 2, Episode 47 - Night of the Meek
Twilight Zone - there was a Christmas episode, something about a guy finding Santa's bag
Bloody New Year(1987)
New Years Evil(1980)

New Years Evil Soundtrack! There was never an offical New Years Evil soundtrack but you can dowload 2 tracks from soundtrack here...
NEW YEARS EVIL SOUNDTRACK MP3'S








Sunday, December 10, 2006

December Film And Music Playlist Part 1

So I was suckered into going to see that Horror Fest(8 Films To Die For) by those damn commericals that ran on tv since Halloween. I know...I know...what was I thinking? I knew the films would blow yet I went anyway. Namely cos I wanted to see Nacho(Aftermath) Cerda’s new full length film The Abandoned on the big screen. So on Saturday Nov 18th I and my buddy Devon ventured to the Crown Marquis Cinema in Trumbull CT to catch 3 of the 8 Films To Die for. First up The Abandoned. We were pretty pysched to see this one. Though I had my doubts about just how good this was going to be. Well, I came away a split opinion overall. I liked the atomsphere, Xavi Giménez' (The Machinist) cinematography, Russian shot locations, the rather good FX, and a surprisingly harsh screen in which an abusive father tries to feed his infant son to a pack of boars. What I disliked about the film almost immediately was the lead female actress(terrible acting), the story itself was rather average and typically looked and played out like the majority of the more recent modern American horror films. Lot’s of flashbacks, shaky camera editing, and music video lighting. I’m being honest when I say I wasn’t expecting Aftermath nor a Genesis. Though I was hoping Nacho’s long awaited “ghost story” would be more along the lines of classics like The Haunting or Burnt Offerings. I’m not even sure I would go as far as to say this is a “ghost story”. No, these characters are haunted by their undiscovered past not by a malevolent supernatural spirit...unfortunately. Nevertheless I can appreciate Nacho’s take on a “ghost story”. I still have faith in Nacho as a director and I hope the film does well cos I believe Nacho is a film or two away from the masterpiece we all know he can deliver.

The Abandoned trailer:

Penny Dreadful, was well...D
READFUL. Not in the good sense. No sir, the second film of the day was a dud. I’ll spare you an entire write up. Basically a young women suffering from anxiety and panic attacks accompanies her therapists on a retreat to the mountains to further advance her therapy sessions. They pick up a hitchhiker, hitchhiker is a crazed killer offing the therapist and a few others that get in way. Girl is trapped in car for the majority of the movie as the killer taunts and terrorizes her. The ending is a mess as I’d no idea how the killer actually knows the chick he’s been tormenting?We were thinking it may have been the girls mother. Honestly, who cares. Avoid! Oh, there’s a wasted cameo from Micheal Barryman(The Hills Have Eyes, Weird Science). Penny Dreadful was bad, but Grave Dancers was putrid! My god what an atrocity. I’m so glad we didn’t send money on this one. Yeah, we snuck in. Again, no way am I going into detail about this one. 3 friends attend a funeral for a close friend get drunk go pay a visit to his gravesite that same evening. Well these jackasses find a note on a miscellaneous gravestone recite the words on it and dance around on 3-4 nearby graves. In the day’s that follow each friend is visted by the nasty spirits that inhabited those graves. Yeah, sounds pretty gay. Well, it’s just that. Everything in this movie sucks. Cheesy actors, cheesy dialogue, amateurish FX and CGI. I swear it look’s like that borrowed the masks for some of the ghosts from Spencer Gifts. It’s a mess. You know how bad those Sci-Fi Channel movie are!? Well, this one that made it on the big screen. The only way I made it through this movie is cos my buddy Paul showed up and shit talked on the movie out loud. Had the a whole bunch of us cracking up. Also I should mention the projector kept on fucking up the film making it “jump” alot and causing “spilt screen” helping add to the absurdity. Normally I would be pissed at such events but I applauded in this case.

Calvaire (The Ordeal)- I’m rare
ly disappointed with a modern French movie. They always seem so well in tune with the human condition of the average person in dire and or extreme situations. Lo and behold Calvaire is a story of traveling entertainer falls prey to a disturbed recluse. Think Deliverance and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I really hate to give away too much when it comes to film write ups or reviews but perhaps what I’m about to write will be taken as a warning. So a heads up, if you will, cos this film does contain male on male rape and bestiality. Calvaire.

Calvaire
(The Ordeal Trailer):

Feast-I really didn’t expect to en
joy this one as much as did. Yeah, it’s cheesy and the acting sux(especially Henry Rollins...no, I’m not shitting you, he’s in it) but man this film is a lot of fun. Lot’s of gore and black humor. How can you go wrong with a movie that show’s a monster spew his monster goo in some chicks mouth. Brilliant shit! B-movie monster movie but grade A entertainment.

Feast Trailer:

Don’t Answer The Phone-Finally! I think everybody had that shitty cut-up R
ihno dvd that came out a few years ago. Well, this is certainly the version we’ve been waiting for(well some of us). To be fair though, this is not an outstanding movie by any means. The camera shots are less then innovative(though great use of a sleazy of late 1970s Hollywood Boulevard) The acting is horrible(check out the trailer) but oh so funny. Kirk Smith (Nicholas Worth) acting is skills are anything but horrible and pretty much saves the film and should be the only reason you must see this film is cos of him. Kirk Smith is a stocky, balding Vietnam vet photographer living in California, who spends most of his free time raping, mutilating and strangling beautiful young women, all because of his troubled childhood and an extreme hatred of the opposite sex. Trust me this guy is very misogynistic! Loads of nudity with plenty of lowbrow sleaze. Common now you know you gotta see it.

Don’t Answer The Phone clip:

Land Of The Minotaur-Hot damn a 70's devil worship flick starring Donald Pleasance and Peter Cushing! This is pretty crude but I can’t help but like it. I mean how can you not like a film about hooded Satanists who worship a half bull/half human idol!? The nostrail smoke breathing half bull/half hu
man idol is bad ass and even talks...hahaha. See I told ya this was cool. The story you ask? Very simply we are introduced to three young people go on an archeological find in a remote area in Greece and uncover a cult that worship and make sacrifices to a Minotaur. Pretty unimaginative stuff but like I said it has a certain charm. Like for instance Luan Peters, one of the sexiest of the British horror film heroines (she had small parts in Hammer’s LUST FOR A VAMPIRE and TWINS OF EVIL) gets to wear hot pants and screams a lot. Man, this girl is fine. Wait till you she her and her ass! Also of interest to fans of the greek film Island Of Death is the appearance of Robert Behling (or Bob Belling) who played the down right fucked(but oh so loveable)Christopher in Island Of Death as well as Jessica Dublin who played Patricia(you may remember her getting pissed on by Christopher) both make an appearance in Land Of The Minotaur.Which by the way came out a year later(1976)after Island Of Death. Great score by Brian Eno too.

Playlist:
Autopsy-Mental Funeral
Mercyful Fate-Melissa
Cirith Ungol-Frost And Fire
Assassin-Demo 1986 The Saga Of Nemesis
Cold Blood-Demo 1987(Hirax And Wargod members)
Disciples Of Power-Disciples Of Death demo 1988
Iron Man-Generation Void
Warpig-Warpig 1970
Count Raven-Destruction Of The Void
Transcendent Device-Immeasurably Deep Is The Signless Significance
Young Widows-Settle Down City
These Arms Are Snakes-Easter
Lycia-Burning Cicle Then Dust
Pentagram-First Daze Here
Fuzzy Duck-Fuzzy Duck 1971
Spirit-The Best Of Spirit