Halloween III: Season of the Witch-remake THIS Rob Zombie

So everyone is writing like crazy about the original Nightmare on Elm Street series in anticipation of the remake that is coming out this weekend. I recommend you check out excellent articles by The Film Connoiseur and Kindertrauma , both of which present interesting takes on the Krueger mythos.  Because I am lazy and behind on the times, I watched Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which has nothing to do with N.O.E.S.  Halloween III: Season of the Witch really has nothing to do with the other Halloween films either.  It was a bizarro "stand-alone" experiment meant to make the Halloween series into an anthology franchise.  Didn't work, partly because it didn't have that sexy beast Michael Myers in it, and also because it's a pretty shitty movie-even taken on its own.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch was released in 1982.  I remember seeing the poster when I was a little girl and thinking "That looks shitty."  I was right! 

H3 (I am not typing the whole damn thing out every time) begins with an hysterical man running for his life from some men in suits.  He escapes and ends up in the local hospital where he is treated by Dr. Dan Challis, played by the great Tom Atkins. Dr. Challis is an alcoholic who ignores his kids...so of course he is the hero of our story!  The men in suits finds the hysterical man in the hospital and proceed to kill him employing major head trauma. Dr. Challis chases the man in the suit outside only to witness him set himself on fire!  Soon, the man's hot daughter, Ellie, shows up and Dr. Challis decides to blow off work and his family to follow her out to this little town where Ellie's father was before getting killed.

God, even writing that paragraph bored the shit out of me!  It gets better.  The town is the home of "Silver Shamrock," a factory that makes Halloween masks.  Turns out Ellie's father found out something awful about these masks and was about to blow the whistle.  Will Ellie and the Doc uncover the mystery?  Will they get it on? Will this movie make any sense?  Yes on the first two, NO on the second.

There are a couple of great things about this flick.  One is Tom Atkins, although watching him seduce a woman gave me the creeps, I don't know why.  Number Two are the great masks designed by Don Post, which are very integral to the story.  There is no number three.  So much about this movie made no sense.  For instance, what was the point of stealing part of Stonehenge and bringing it to this factory?  And why do you want to kill all the children in the world?  And isn't there an easier way to do it? 

The original Halloween is seen playing on a TV in one scene.  It made me want to turn this movie off and turn on the original.  A lot of people hate H3, and I can see why.  Honestly, I was hoping I would like it, like it was some undiscovered gem unfairly judged by it's association with such a venerated horror cannon.  I was wrong.  Now, if you are brave, watch the commercial for "Silver Shamrock" novelty masks.  Warning: you may wish you were wearing an exploding mask.

Hangin' with my Peeps in the City

San Francisco is the BEST city in the world (I may be biased.)  Look at the things you see and the people you meet...

"Why are we hanging out?"

Such a cool day hanging out with some of my best fiends.  I kept hoping one of them would talk to me but no such luck.

The Streets of San Francisco

Loves it!

The Apple

I have no idea what the "apple" is (it looks suspiciously like an apple) but I don't want any part of it. I don't remember 1994 being like this. Then again, I don't remember much of 1994.

The face on MY wall....

So this is the door to my bedroom and the only known "face" I have in my home.

I think it kind of looks like Gandalf the Grey with horns.  Or Jimmy Durante with horns.  So I know it is not as scary as this...........

But it's a start. 

Keeping me up all night....

Kindertrauma is one of the best horror blogs out there, without a doubt.  They recently did this awesome post about one of my favorite horror movies of all time: Alien.  Check it out at http://www.kindertrauma.com/?p=12315

Reason I bring it up is that one of the images from this post is going to come back to haunt me, say around 2am........

Inanimate objects that look like faces scare the S-H-I-T out of me!!!  This scene in The Haunting has always bothered me.  Of course, I saw this film as a little girl, and ever after I saw faces in walls and doors.  Still do!  Now I have to watch Alien again to spot this scene.   I was going to clean the house today and do some grocery shopping.  Now, I must curl up and watch Alien. 

Thanks Kindertrauma.  Really, thank you!

The Collector: Unnecessary Kitty Trauma....

The good news is that I loved Kick-Ass.  Do yourself a favor and go see it!  The bad news is that I did watch The Collector, and while watching it I kept staring at the Netflix envelope and thinking "when will this 1 hour and 28 minutes be over?"

The Collector is a low rent Saw brought to you by the makers of........Saw.  The Director, Marcus Dunston, wrote Saw IV, V, and VI, also known as the "lesser" Saws. 

Josh Stewart, who looks like a young Sean Penn and who was awesome in the short lived TV show "Dirt" plays Arkin, an ex-con who decides to rob a house to help out his insanely hot ex-wife pay off some loan sharks.  I know, already this is boring the shit out of me.  Anyway, he gets to the house, gets in, and just as he is about to open the safe, he hears a noise.  Someone else is in the house.  Arkin hides, and then begins to hear screaming.  It is the family who lives in the house, locked up in the basement.  Seems a serious asshole in a mask is torturing the family.  Arkin picks up the phone to call the police and in an instant he gets a nail through the ear.  This is one of the many elaborate traps the masked asshole, by now known as "the Collector," has set up throughout the house.  Since he has the family tied up, he must of set the traps just in case some ex-con decided to break in at the same time he was playing happy fun torture. 

The traps are pretty nasty.  I kept thinking the whole time that I hoped the "Collector" had drawn some kind of map or diagram to remind himself of everything he had done, because it would suck for him to be killed by his own knife chandelier.  The "Collector" is like the Macgyver of serial killers.  This seems like a lot of work just to kidnap one person (see the Collector only keeps one person, the rest he kills.)  Arkin keeps trying to rescue the family, but since the family are also a bunch of assholes, they keep getting killed.  Even the family cat gets killed.  Well, first the cat gets stuck in some acid, and then kitty guillotined.  My cat Yao was not in the room while this scene took place.  Thank God. 

The Collector does have it's good qualities.  It is beautifully shot, some of the traps are quite interesting, and Cujo makes a guest appearance.  If you really love the Saw films, you will probably love The Collector.  I only mildly like the Saw films so I watched this flick.  What can I say?  I'm a sucker.

As a side note.  I am noticing a weird trend of former child stars (of the girl variety) showing up in horror flicks, usually playing a quasi-slutty girl who more likely than not is going to get killed.  And they also show their boobs.  Saw this with  Zombie's Halloween, saw it with Hatchet, and now The Collector.

Apparently the little girl from The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is hot shit.  All I know is that it was driving me crazy trying to figure out who she was!

Zombie!

Despite all my talk I am pretty sure that when the Zombie Apocalypse happens, I will be turned pretty quickly.  And here is what I will look like! (Beer in hand of course.)  Thanks to iZombie for turning me- -I look pretty happy for a Zombie.

I am now off to see Kick-Ass.  Check back later and you might see a review for The Collector.  The only note I wrote down for this film was : "Fuck this Movie."  So if I can stretch that out to a paragraph you are all in for a literary treat.