Vacation: Dark Delicacies

Hey, sorry I have been gone for so long.  Between traveling and my super demanding new job, I haven't had enough time for horror.  This has got to change.  I just don't feel quite myself lately.  On a recent trip I was lucky enough to visit Dark Delicacies, an awesome one-stop horror shop in Burbank.  Check out their website here.  If you find yourself in Southern California I recommend a visit!  I am going back in October when I visit Universals Halloween Horror Nights.  I will be fulfilling my fantasy of being chased by Zombies.  One more thing off the bucket list...

Opening Credits: Enter the Void

Obsessed.  Don't watch if you are prone to seizures.

Opening Credits: Saul Bass vs. Star Wars

I think I am going to start a new weekly feature about my favorite opening credit sequences.  I love the opening credits of film.  The Grandmaster Flash of opening credits is of course Saul Bass.  You will see him again in this space but lets start with one of my jazzy favorites, The Man with the Golden Arm:



Kind of better than the film.  I also found this loving tribute: Enjoy!

Return to Horror High

I have finally seen a film that makes less sense than Prometheus and it is Return to Horror High. How confusing is Horror High?  It contains flashbacks, flashforwards, dream flashes, scenes you think are real but are really just a movie being filmed (more on that in a minute), scenes you think are the movie being filmed that are real, flashbacks that exist is some kind of netherworld between the movie being filmed and reality, and a disappearing Clooney.

Yes, Mr. George Clooney, in what may have been one of his first film roles.  Spoiler alert: he dies first.

So here is the deal.  A film crew has descended upon Crippen high to make a movie about some grisly murders that took place there a few years ago.  The killer was never caught, but this seems to bother no one, because you would have to have a brain to be bothered, and I don't think anyone involved in this film had grey matter.

I think this is supposed to be a "horror/comedy" (it was released in 1987) but it features neither horror nor comedy.  It does feature Maureen McCormick as a nympho cop (another totally out of place element that convinces me they started shooting this trash without a script.)

The ending makes no sense whatsoever.  Turns out everyone you thought was dead was just pretending to get publicity for the movie.  However, the actual killer was hiding in the basement.  And Clooney might have really got killed.  I am not sure what happened. 

I usually really like this kind of stuff but seeing this so soon after Prometheus just really pissed me off.  The only thing I really liked about this film was the really weird sex scene that played like a Duran Duran video featuring welders.  Lookie!  I found it!  I just saved you the hassle of watching this film.  You are welcome.

The Year I Made Contact: 1974

Eric from The Movie Waffler is running a blogathon about films released the year you were born. I was born in 1974. Also born in 1974 was Christian Bale, Michael Shannon, and Amy Adams. 1974, as it turns out, might have been one of the greatest years for films. Released that year were such important films as Chinatown, The Conversation, The Godfather part II, and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Then again, it was also the year that gave us The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, Airport, Death Wish, and Herbie Rides Again. Big year for disaster, especially Herbie. Being that this is a horror blog, here are some of the non-natural disaster horror films released that year....

Vampyres.  Lesbian vampire horror at its most boring.  I am really not interested in any lesbian vampire film unless it stars Ingrid Pitt.  This does not, but it is a nice piece of Euro trash.

Flesh for Frankenstein, aka Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein.  I actually saw this in the theatre (a few years ago, not as a fetus.)  It is very trippy and weird, and really, really gory.  It stars Udo Kier as Baron Frankenstein, who is trying to create a master Serbian race.  Crazy bastard.

Black Christmas.  One of my favorites, if only for Olivia Hussey’s hair.  See my review here:  http://zombiesaremagic.blogspot.com/2011/06/black-christmas-1974.html

I have never seen It's Alive, mainly because the tag line says its "The ONE Film You Should Not See Alone" and I watch every horror film alone (my husband does not care for them, and watching it with my cat would probably make It's Alive a whole lot worse.)

Zardoz is not really horror but I love it with a passion.  Not only is Charlotte Rampling in it, but check out this beefcake:

Take that Magic Mike.  I can't even figure out what Zardoz is about, I only know that it is a gift from God and beautiful in my eyes.

Brian De Palma.  Written and Directed by.  If you have never seen Phantom of the Paradise STOP what you are doing (accidentally reading my blog) and go and watch it now!!  It has everything: A Paul Williams sex scene, Jessica Harper singing badly, some guy you have seen on a thousand soap operas playing a singer named Beef, drug use, drag queens, disco, it is PERFECTION!

Seriously, besides Black Christmas, 1974 is the year that is best known for giving us (horror fans) Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  I am proud to have been born the same year as this instant classic.  Still one of my favorite films ever.

On the non horror tip: two films that have had a profound effect on me were released in 1974.  What is amazing is that they are by the same director.  Chew on that Spielberg: Brooks did it while you were still in film school!

I am so excited to watch this!  The whole thing is available on You Tube.  Thanks to my friend Dwido for giving me the heads up!  My dream film, the one I want to see before I die, is At the Mountains of Madness.  This is a start.

The Innkeepers

I finally saw Ti West’s The Innkeepers, upholding the longstanding “Zombies are Magic” tradition of seeing new releases long after everyone else has!  That way, people can read my blog and think “She is only now seeing this?  Does she live under a rock?” 

Starring Sara Paxton and Pat Healy as a couple of slackers named Claire and Luke, The Innkeepers is the story of the last weekend of the “Yankee Pedlar Inn,” a historic but woefully neglected hotel.  Clair and Luke are the sole employees on staff the final weekend, and they have decided to use this opportunity to investigate the hotel for hauntings.  Rumor has it a jilted bride hung herself in one of the rooms, and now haunts the hotel looking for a mate.  Luke claims to have seen her apparition, and Claire wants in on the action.

 

The only guests staying in the hotel that weekend are an annoying mother and her son, whom Claire and Luke like to torment.  Another guest is a washed up T.V. actress played by Kelly McGillis (awesome as always.)  The actress is now a new age healer, and she immediately senses that something is very wrong at the Yankee Pedlar.  She warns Luke and Claire that they may be in danger.   The duo, who can’t even take their jobs seriously, ignore her warnings…………. Until it is too late!!

The film has a couple of good scares that the actual Inn is very creepy in an old Americana sort of way.  The real strength of this film is the relationship between Claire and Luke.  Paxton and Healy completely inhabit their characters.  You believe in their relationship 100%.  Claire reminds me of myself at that age (or any age, I am still kind of an awkward mess).  The film ends on kind of a down note, but any other ending would have been cheese ball.   The last scene gave me Goosebumps.   Ti West is definitely one of my favorite new filmmakers, and I hope he sticks with the horror genre.  I just feel he is going to get better and better.