As has been unfortunately the case in recent years, Turner Classic Movies has again disappointed me with their line-up for the 30th and the 31st. Don't get me wrong, they've got some great movies (DEAD OF NIGHT, CAT PEOPLE) and some entertaining not-great ones, but it's all either stuff that I've seen many times before, isn't monster- or even horror-oriented enough (GASLIGHT? NIGHT MUST FALL?), or otherwise doesn't excite me. So my friend Kat and I have put together our own Halloween Monster Movie Marathon. Not sure of the order, but we plan to watch:

CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN/MALDICION DE LA LLORONA. I saw this for the first time ever last year, but that was in a crappy looking dubbed-only public domain DVD that I found at a yard sale. I just acquired the Casa Negra version and am looking forward to seeing a superior presentation.

GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN. This was probably the first Universal monster movie I ever saw from beginning to end, one Saturday morning on Sunrise Theater when I was very young. The DVD also includes SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, which was actually the first time I ever saw the Monster on screen, as a couple of Saturdays before I saw GHOST, I got up just early enough to see the last 30 minutes of SON. SON is the better movie, of course, but I've seen it three or four times in recent years, first when TCM still had the rights to the Universal horrors, then on AMC. I don't think I've seen GHOST since I was nine or ten. (I don't need the excuse of Halloween to watch either the original or BRIDE, so those classics are not on the list).

THE MANSTER. I suspect the cheap DVD I found on sale at Borders features a mediocre (at best) transfer, but I've not seen this since catching it on Dialing for Dollars when I was around ten years old, and still have vivid memories of it.

NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF. Everyone says it's one of Naschy's best. The only Waldemar Danisky movies I've seen are FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR (when I was in my teens) and ASSIGNMENT TERROR (on late night TV when I was in grad school).

NIGHTMARE CASTLE. I've never seen any of the censored/cropped/badly transferred versions released on VHS or DVD, and never caught it on late night TV when I was younger, even though it seemed to play there a lot (along with CASTLE OF BLOOD and BLOOD DEMON). This is the restored 2009 release from Severin Films. Kat has never seen a Barbara Steele movie.

We'd actually add another movie or two to the list, but Kat and I are starting this on Friday afternoon (after we pick up gorditas and tacos and Mexican cokes from the Carniceria el Mercado down the street, which sells the best Mexican food in Greensboro at its taco window), and at 10:30 p.m. we're going to have to knock off so she can help me get into my costume and makeup for DEAD ALIVE at Midnight Madness at the Carousel Luxury Cinemas here (I'm going as the post-zombified Father McGruder, who used to kick ass for the Lord, but is now a different sort of father -- I plan to take a Baby Selwyn doll with me and gripe about Lionel's incompetence at a babysitter in my "best" Kiwi accent).

I'll be visiting my nephews and nieces. They range from 9ish-16 so I'm having to be a little picky. Plus the little one's won't sit through subtitled foreign films anymore. Plus I'm making it semi-educational (film history wise).

Universal
DRACULA
WOLFMAN
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

Hammer
DRACULA
QUATERMASS AND THE PIT
THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

AIP
HAUNTED PALACE
PIT AND THE PENDULUM
PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES

Misc (horror comedies)
SHAUN OF THE DEAD
HOT FUZZ
FIDO
EVIL DEAD
EVIL DEAD II
ARMY OF DARKNESS

Misc misc
ISLAND OF TERROR
WOMAN IN BLACK
GHOST WATCH
KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE

Animated
CORPSE BRIDE
NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS
MONSTER HOUSE
CORALINE
WARD 13 (short)
HELLBOY: BLOOD AND IRON
RESIDENT EVIL: DEGENERATION

I gotta get the Universal FRANKENSTEIN one of these days. Obviously not going to watch all of them, but this will be a good sample to select from. I'll probably end up taking a few more that will probably catch my eye while I'm pulling the ones already named.

HOT FUZZ?

No question, I've decided weeks ago to show DRAG ME TO HELL and TRICK 'R TREAT. I'm getting old so two movies is about as much as I'll get to watch after trick 'r treating with my 3-year old.

"gorditas...and Mexican cokes" - I had to look these up as I'd never heard of either. Gorditas sound fantastic and look mouthwatering. Mexican coke is just coke made from sugar instead of corn syrup? I think it's made with sugar here in Europe but I must check. American food doesn't have a good rep here and someone just brought back Hersheys chocolates and twizzlers today from a Florida business trip. It's been a long time since I've seen confectionery include artificial colours and flavours. Hershey's chocolate tastes rancid - literally like gone-off milk - maybe it's the heat over there?

Victor

Yes, HOT FUZZ. Maybe it straddles the line, but there's sufficient horror elements, even if it does veer off into fantasy action land in the last quarter or so.

If you have MGM HD, their 2-day marathon has some incredible offerings, including some way obscure pictures (one of them I couldn't even find on IMDb) and long-awaited hi-def premieres of films not even available on DVD in the U.S.

Saturday, October 31st

* The Burning
* Company of Wolves
* Troll 2
* Beyond the Door III
* Panga
* Blood and Chocolate
* Asylum
* The Believers
* Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf
* Deranged
* Last House on the Left
* Crawlspace

Sunday, November 1st

* Revenge of the Zombies
* The Tomb
* Grave of the Vampire
* Twins of Evil
* The Vampire Lovers
* Vampire Circus
* Return of Count Yorga
* The Last Man on Earth
* Raw Meat
* The Video Dead
* Predator: The Quietus

I'm very excited for HD prints of VAMPIRE CIRCUS (I love this Hammer film) and TWINS OF EVIL (which I've never seen). Whoever thought an early Fred Olen Ray movie would get the HD treatment (Michelle Bauer in hi-def? Heck yeah!)? And what the hell is PREDATOR: THE QUIETUS? I know it ain't a PREDATOR film. For that matter, what the hell is a quietus??

To answer Victor's question, Hershey's uses sour milk. Yes, on purpose. And no, I don't know why. I don't like it, though it's what I grew up on. Europeans generally say it tastes like "baby vomit" or the more kind "yogurty."

What, they're so over reading already? :D

My class topic on Tuesday is "Gender Issues in Anime and Manga," so this Halloween weekend I have to view episodes from "Sailor Moon," "Ranma 1/2" and "Nana" as well as the feature, MILLENNIUM ACTRESS. At least "Sailor Moon" has horror imagery in some episodes.

Wow! Thanks for the clarification. I was searching for a flavour comparison today and baby vomit is exactly what it's like. Wouldn't have said "yogurty" and I do love yogurt. And they do this on purpose? I was afraid to eat it because I thought it was tainted, maybe by the hot or bad storage.

I think Ian's post has me totally in the mood for some Mexican food but not on the night. Here in Ireland we have a traditional dish for Halloween called colcannon which uses a fairly tough type of green cabbage (leafy, not like a football-type cabbage) that noone seems to eat any other day. It's boiled and mashed together with potatoes and chopped onion and we always serve with fine sausages. I literally have this once a year - Halloween - and if there are kids in the house, coins are wrapped in foil and mixed in to encourage them to eat it. The more they put on their plate, the more chances they have of winning extra pocket money.

Victor

Victor, if this link works, there's info on Hershey's sour taste here.

More like they've learned to read, but they can't keep up with the subs on screen yet, and it annoys them enough that they won't try. Plus, I think they actually like the English dubs on most anmie *SHUDDER*

Still the older ones watch the HK sub only movies I send them on occasion, so I know the younger ones will probably come around in time.

One of the segments in the SuperS Special — "The Return of Haruka and Michiru! The Ghostly Puppet Show" — is one of the spookiest of all sentient ventriloquist dummy entertainments! The vampire short after that, however, does not even rank in its respective subgenre.

Victor, here in Greensboro, NC, we've had an influx of Latino immigration and the quality of Mexican food has gone up hugely, to a degree unimaginable a decade ago. Of course, you have to get it at diners and grocery stores where Latinos eat and shop, not at the chains that cater to gringos. And yes, Cokes and other soft drinks bottled in Latin American use real sugar instead of corn syrup, and also taste better because they're in glass bottles.

A few years ago, I was dating a writer who lived in L.A. She visited and was struck by A) how green everything is here, and B) how good the Mexican and Vietnamese food was. She claimed that we had her hometown beat where these cuisines were concerned, and that we came came close to matching the quality of LA's sushi, although she took some comfort in the fact that our Chinese food is miserable and that our Thai, while decent, couldn't match what she got at home (at the time, she lived at the intersection of Thai Town and Little Armenia).

The Vietnamese food is good for the same reason that the Mexican stuff is, waves of immigration, ever since the war (the officer executing the prisoner in the infamous photo used to live here, and the government settled lots of Montagnards here in the 80s).

I recently picked up the trilogy of Daiei Yokai movies released by the now out-of-business ADV Films for about $10 recently, so I might might watch those on Halloween. If those don't sate my old-school J-Horror appetite, I might also put on my DVD-R copy (recorded from IFC) of the completely berzerk House (1977).

There's a supermarket where I live that has Mexican Cokes. They're pretty good, but there are other Mexican soft drinks I like more.

I need you to PM me a list of local superawesome eateries stat.

Thanks.

Well, I'm officially "old". Trick 'r Treating with my son in the damp night and a big fill of colcannon had it's toll on me and I couldn't watch more than one movie before calling it a night. I got through TRICK 'R TREAT and to be honest I didn't love it. It was a good choice because it certainly evoked the spirit of Halloween but boy was it bereft of any real originality. At 81 minutes or so, it dragged and the stories were very slight and underdeveloped.
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At least the USUAL SUSPECTS/PULP FICTION fractured narrative gave the movie the appearance of depth but there were so many holes in the story it was a bit demeaning to the audience. Like why did the schoolkids choose that night for revenge? What was Sam's story? If noone survived the schoolbus dunking, how did the girl know what happened inside the bus and the fate of the driver? Or was Ruth the driver's daughter that somehow influenced the whole expedition she tagged along with? Wasn't her lantern-festooned garden the same as the drivers? I'd have to rewatch to confirm - certainly his garden had an abundance of lanterns and he was too curmudgeonly to do that - but I'm not up to it right now.

Victor

I watched THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE on Blu-ray, as well as one of the documentaries. It's just the second time I'd seen the film and the first since a VHS viewing in 1985! Not much I can say about the film that you don't already know. It's brilliant and downright freaky with a tremendous music score.

After an aborted shot at the original DAWN OF THE DEAD (love it, but it didn't feel right), and a quick buzz through "Father's Day" and "The Crate" from CREEPSHOW, I finally found my horror groove and settled into a nice British Horror TV rut, watching "Baby" from BEASTS, THE STONE TAPE, GHOSTWATCH and finally "During Barty's Party" from BEASTS - and a stage-bound, actorly Halloween was had by all (or by me, at least!)

I ended up not watching the Daiei Yokai movies I had vague plans to watch. I did watch a couple of vaguely Halloween-themed cartoons like "The Skeleton Dance" and "Swing you Sinners!" on YouTube and I put on my DVD-R of House (or Hausu if you prefer) at about 11 pm. That was only the second time I had seen it (the first time was when it was on IFC about a year ago), and I wasn't quite as impressed with it this time as I was before. I felt like the director's apparent attempt to cram in as much random WTF wackiness as possible really undercut it as a horror movie. When I watched it this time, it felt sort of like an unsuccessful attempt to make some kind of crazy David Lynch/Dario Argento hybrid/pastiche (of course, I know that the David Lynch of the 70s probably wasn't much of an influence on this film).

Doran,
Although you didn't watch the Yokai films, your post prompted me to order them before they become unavailable so thanks for that. I'd recently posted about HAUSU here and noted that I couldn't get it out of my mind and would likely revisit it often. As it happens, I did squeeze in another viewing of the first 30 mins on Halloween night before havinf to go out, and I loved every minute of it. I agree it's very self-consiously stylised but it's a very infectious movie that creates a unique dread in it's juxtaposition of jolly music and early-cinema trickery with the underlying themes of lost innocence, adolescent sexuality, creepy teachers and fractured families. I do hope Criterion's forthcoming release is fully loaded with some learned commentary and an insight into it's production as it is a "must have" for me.

Victor

Criterion is actually releasing it? I knew that they had been sitting on the rights to it for a while. I would definitely pick up a Criterion Hausu disc if they released one. I agree with you that there is a lot of fun stuff in there, I'm just not sure that it holds up well over multiple viewings. Maybe I just wasn't in quite the right frame of mind for it.

I would be interested to know how much the director was influenced by Eurohorror/Euro genre cinema in general since I detect a little bit of an Argento influence (there may also be a little of influence from Fulci too, but I'm not sure since most of the Fulci films I've seen are from the 80s). The fact that he namechecks Leone and Morricone fairly early in the film suggests to me that he had at least a passing familiarity with it. Interestingly enough, he actually directed one of the leads from a Leone film in a series of cologne ads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8bqVL0VXrE

Since I had the weekend off, and had nothing better to do, my personal Halloween DVD marathon ended up being much bigger than expected; starting just after midnight on 10/31, I watched:

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)

--sleep break: 5 hours--

TV Episode: BEWITCHED - "Trick or Treat" (1965)
TV Episode: BEWITCHED - "Twitch or Treat" (1966)
TV Special: IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN (1966)
BLACK SABBATH (1963-Italian, subtitled version)
NIGHTMARE CASTLE (1965-Italian)
WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953)
Cartoon: SPOOKS (1931, Ub Iwerks' Flip the Frog)
TV Episode: ROUTE 66, "Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing" (1962)
ARSENIC & OLD LACE (1944)
HORROR OF DRACULA (1958-British)
CURSE OF THE DEMON (1957-British, the shorter U.S. cut)

--and into the early hours of 11/1, thanks to caffine and the additional hour provided by Daylight Savings Time--

THE H-MAN (1958-Japanese, dubbed version)
THE TINGLER (1959)
THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD & MR. TOAD (1949, animated)
THE WOLF MAN (1941)
THE WITCH'S MIRROR (1960-Mexican)

--I hit the sack around 5:45 AM Sunday morning......... what? :blink:

Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!!!

Who can you be calling that has the power to turn off commercials on three different networks? Why aren't you telling the children immediately in front of you to take off their masks? Aren't you worried about other time zones?

Ah, and therein lies the beauty of HALLOWEEN III.

Marty, you made me laugh so hard it brought bugs to my eyes!

He is calling THE PRESIDENT!

My biggest question about HALLOWEEN III is why are they still manufacturing masks the night of the big giveaway? And why is Tom Atkins a dirtbag to his kids? And why does he only pack beer on his trip?

If you're watching HALLOWEEN III and the words "how" or "why" come to your mind at any time, be prepared for a long battle with logic that you will lose.

And why is Tom Atkins a dirtbag to his kids?

That's why God made fathers, babe. That's why God made fathers.

:lol:

I actually got that. Awesome. Tuck in!