31 Days of Horror: Halloween

October 31, 2008: Halloween

In this 1978 classic we are taken into the world of Michael Myers and introduced to one of the best independent movies ever made – John Carpenter’s Halloween.
As a young boy, Michael Myers stabbed his seventeen year old sister to death. After this event, he is locked away for years in the Smith’s Grove: Warren County Sanitarium. He is put under the care of Dr. Sam Loomis, who had worked with Michael for years, before deciding that Myers needs to be tried as an adult and locked up forever.
The night they planned to escort Myers, he manages to escape, steal a car and return home to Haddonfield, Ill., just in time for Halloween.
We are then introduced to Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, in her first role) who has plans to stay in on Halloween night and watch one of the neighbors kid. Little does she know that Michael is coming home and is planning a killing spree.
The movie becomes a cat and mouse game between Strode and Myers, which would become the staple formula for slasher movies to come.
With out giving too much away, I want to say my favorite scene in this movie involves Strode, Myers, a closet and a wire hanger. If you seen the movie you know what I’m talking about and if you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat.
This movie is the standard in which all modern horror films are measured. Halloween deserves all the praise it can get, it’s because of this movie we have films such as Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Without this important film, I doubt slasher movies would have ever been proven to be a successful market.
The movie has spawned sequels that never lived up to the original and also there was a remake of this film in 2007, directed by Rob Zombie.
What I will say about the remake is that I appreciate how Zombie tried something different and new with the franchise, but seeing Myers’ childhood and back-story made the character less scary for me. The less I know about a psychotic killer the better.
I can’t really recommend the remake, I will say only watch it if you have seen the original and then you can form your own opinion on it.

Halloween Bonus: James’ Tips on Surviving a Horror Movie

If a psychotic is chasing you with a chainsaw through a dark forest, find a place to hide and don’t scream. By screaming you’re giving up your position and the person chasing you is as blind in the dark as you are.

When it seems you have killed the monster or killer, you didn’t, so make sure you defend yourself when they come back for their final scare.

If you find a book on how to summon demons, don’t read it.

Please, do not solve any strange puzzles.

If you’re a male and find yourself trapped in a horror movie situation, find the quickest way out, because only the females survive.

Never go camping at a place that has been dubbed “Camp Blood”.

If a huge home is being sold for cheap, please ask the realtor why before you commit to anything.

Never be arrogant, because they are usually picked off first.

Kids, do not let your parents send you to summer camp.

I suggest not to stay at any unchain motels or hotels stick with the franchises.

Angry mothers are more dangerous than I psycho with a chainsaw.

If your friend has a pale face and they’re moaning, they’re not sick they’re a zombie – get away from them.

If you start to hear the Halloween theme, don’t try to find the source, just run.

Do not go down dirt roads.

If you are in a horror situation and you need to split up, I recommend the buddy system. Just make sure your buddy doesn’t leave you to save him or herself instead.

If a killer is chasing you, do not run deeper into the woods. Please … for the sake of survival go somewhere where there is people.

If you your being chased, don’t constantly look back at the killer. I mean he’s not changing positions; he’s always going to be behind you.

Don’t investigate strange noises. If the strange noise comes from upstairs and you are alone, please leave the house.

If your power goes out and you see your neighbor still has power, do not try to fix the fuses. Again, please just leave the house.

Always keep your clothes on.

Do not go skinny-dipping.

Do not drink.

If you are able to get into a house and lock the door, don’t stand by the door and just wait for the killer to start banging on it. Use that time to increase your distances between him and you.

Never say, “Oh … It’s finally over,” because it’s not!

It’s Friday the 13th; do you know what I’m doing? Well, I can tell you that I’m not camping.

Hiding under the covers will not make the killer vanish.

If you are n the woods and you have to relief yourself, don’t wander miles away, because the killer is out there.

If girls are jump roping outside your house, singing about a guy named Freddy, please just move.

If you live on an Elm Street, relocate as fast as you can.

If you were suppose to meet someone at night in the woods and they haven’t shown and you hear someone approaching you. Do not say, “Is that you?” because its not, it’s the freaking killer.

If someone tells you a story about a boy who drowned in a lake and still roams the woods surrounding you, jump in the car and leave.

Don’t rent cabins in the woods for a weekend of partying.

Don’t rob the dead, because that only makes them mad.

Make sure you always have a full tank of gas.

If you do run out of gas, don’t go to the house that’s in the middle of nowhere to use the phone. Keep walking until you reach a neighborhood.

Never take a short cut the locals tell you about. Please always stick to your MapQuest directions.

If you come across a deserted town, don’t explore it; it’s that way for a reason.

Never visit the backwoods of the United States.

If you meet someone named Pumpkinhead, just run.

Avoid Sleepy Hollow and the Western Woods that surround the town.

If locals tell you a story about a legendary ghost, killer or monster – don’t say, “That’s impossible,” because it’s not and most likely you will run into them for just saying that.

Do not say the name Beetlejuice three times.

If you have a pet named gizmo, don’t feed him after midnight, don’t get him wet and please keep him out of the sunlight.

If you’re just a supporting character, there is a good chance you’re not going to survive, no there’s a great chance.

If a mysterious fog blankets your town, you’re pretty much in deep trouble.

If Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis are haunting your house, it’s not really a bad thing, it could be worse.

Don’t expect to be entertained by clowns who just arrived from outer space. In fact if you find yourself in this situation, just leave town.

If Freddy Krueger starts haunting your dreams, remember it’s just a dream and it’s your dream. So, when it’s your dream you can fight back and make out with any outcome you please.

If you’re traveling down a rural road and see a shady character dumping buddies down a pipe, just keep driving. And please don’t go back to investigate the pipe.

Jason Voorhees is NOT afraid of water! SO, if you run into him don’t try to use it against him.

31 Days of Horror: The Exorcist

October 30, 2008: The Exorcist

The Exorcist, the movie many consider the scariest movie ever made. The film was released to the public in 1973 and quickly became a nationwide success. People were actually fainting in theaters after seeing the horrific images the movie shows and religious groups constantly boycotted it. Yet, it had huge box office returns.
The film centers around a young girl named Regan (Linda Blair), a 12 year-old who has been recently possessed by the devil. Her mother, Chris (Ellen Burstyn), becomes aware of her daughters strange behavior and exhausts ever medical effort to find a cure. She soon discovers that her daughter’s condition can’t be solved medically but spiritually and recruits Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) to perform an exorcism.
Karras is not only dealing with the supernatural in this film, he also has scarce faith and displaced quilt over his mother’s recent death.
During the exorcist he is joined by a strange Jesuit exorcist Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) and together they have to confront the evil that possesses young Reagan.
The great thing about this movie that I really admired about it is how it grounds itself in realism and has the everyday tone, and then it lets the terror come in slowly and then hits you hard with it.
Watching the movie now, it still holds up and remains a classic. If you had to choose a movie for Halloween that will really give you a scare I would go with The Exorcist.

31 Days of Horror: Alien

October 29, 2008: Alien
When I first wrote the master list of what horror movies I was going to use, I received a lot of criticism on the inclusion of Ridley Scott’s Alien.
I added this movie, because it is a horror with sci-fi elements mix into one big science fiction horror, it really can be counted as a classic film for the horror genre and also the science fiction genre.
The movie stars Sigourney Weaver as the infamous warrant officer Ellen Ripley and focuses on the crew of the space cargo ship named, Nostromo.
During the course of the movie, the ship comes across a faint S.O.S and they decide to land on the strange planet Moribund. While there, they find the crashed ship and come across strange looking pods, which hatch out an insect-type creature that locks onto the face of Kane (John Hurt).
Ripley is alarmed by this event and urges Ash (Ian Holm) not to allow Kane access to the ship, but Ash refuses to take Ripley’s advice and lets him back aboard.
With Ash’s lack of concern, the ship would become the creature’s domain after one of the most infamous scenes in any movie and of course that’s the scene where the creature bursts out of the stomach of Kane and escapes within the walls.
After this, Dallas (Tom Skerritt), the ships’ captain, leads the others in search for the rapidly growing, acid-dripping alien before it can cut them down.
A breakthrough film for Ridley Scott that has beautiful art direction, set design and special effects that really gains the movie its atmosphere.
The original movie will always have that feeling of being new and exciting, but the sequel Aliens in my opinion surpasses the original and that’s hard to do. So, I will say watch Alien and Aliens, stay away from Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection.

31 Days of Horror: Dawn of the Dead

October 29, 2008: Dawn of the Dead
After securing an apartment building overcome with flesh-eating zombies, two Philadelphia area S.W.A.T team members, Peter (Ken Foree) and Roger (Scott Reiniger), flee to a television station, where they escape in the station's helicopter with Francine (Gaylen Ross) and Stephen (David Emge), two station employees. Seeking refuge from the zombies and the ensuing madness, they land on top of a Pittsburgh area shopping mall, despite the fact that the undead seem to be flocking there. What begins as a stop for supplies becomes a longer stay as the four become involved in a pointless war within the mall to remain alive and not a zombies’ supper.
The movie is a sequel to Night of the Living Dead, I don't really like giving sequels a spot on this list but this one really stands out as it's own movie.
This movie stands as one of the most riveting and fun zombie films that has ever been produced. The movie is able to throw together horror, gore and social commentary that work well together.
They remade this movie in 2004 and I'd have to say that it wasn't bad, it wasn't great, but it was enjoyable.

31 Days of Horror: The Birds

October 27, 2008: The Birds

Alfred Hitchcock had just delivered us one of the best movies in cinematic history, Psycho and he followed it up with this thrilling and edge of your seat tale about killer birds in The Birds.
What I love about the birds is how Hitchcock puts together tones of painstaking morality and dark humor to have it all come together as a thriller that begins as a light hearted comedy and finds itself ending as an apocalyptic parable.
The movie stars the mother of Melanie Griffith, Tippi Hedren, in her first role in a film, which would lead her onto a career as a leading lady.
The story begins with Melanie Daniels (Hedren), who is a wealthy woman who has just given up her life as a party girl. She enjoys a brief flirtation with a lawyer by the name Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a San Francisco pet shop. She enjoyed his company so much that she decides to follow him to his Bodega Bay home. (I guess stalking wasn’t a big deal back then.)
The upside of her following a man she hardly knows is that she’s bringing his sister a birthday gift - she bought her two lovebirds.
Before any of the major events happen, we see Melanie getting attacked by a seagull. I mean it’s something small, but I always found it eerie and a kind of Hitchcock way of giving us a taste on what we can expect.
Melanie and Mitch quickly start up a romance, but Melanie has to contend with his possessive mother and boarding at his ex-girlfriend’s house.
Strange events soon start occur, during a birthday party for Mitch’s younger sister. We see a flock of birds attack the children, but no one seems to pay much attention. They really pass it off as something random.
Little do they know that this event was only the beginning of massive aerial assaults on the residents of the town. Flocks of birds start to wreck havoc in a serious of events that no one can explain.
I did some research on the Internet and found out that this movie was loosely based off of a Daphne du Maurier story and a Santa Monica newspaper account, “Seabird Invasion Hits Coastal Homes”.
The movie was originally released in 1963 and still holds up in my opinion. My favorite scenes in this movie, and without giving too much away, would be the scene where the children from the school house are being chased down the road by a flock of menacing birds, which are pecking them. The other scene is the very end, I won’t describe it, but I think it’s an epic shot of just endless terror.
If you haven’t seen The Birds, then I strongly suggest seeing it. I mean I strongly suggest seeing all the movies I put on 31 Days of Horror.

31 Days of Horror: 28 Days Later

October 26, 2008: 28 Days Later
A deadly and powerful virus escapes out of a British research facility, which spreads through a single drop of blood. Once infected with the virus you’ll be in a permanent state of murderous rage.
It only takes 28 days for the country to be overwhelmed by the virus and it’s now up to the survivors to salvage a future in a big, empty, eerie world with zombie like creatures trying to eat you.
The movie is one of, if not, the best post-apocalyptic movies I’ve ever seen. The feeling you first watch this movie is epic. You actually feel for these characters and as the movie goes on you feel the loneliness they have to push through and you also feel the constant fear of something always hunting you.
The movie spawned a sequel, 28 Weeks Later, which is another good movie and I would recommend you watch both. But, please watch them in order to get the full effect of them.
The movie was directed beautifully my Danny Boyle, who brought us the lackluster movie “The Beach”, but he comes together for this one and proves to be one of his best pieces of work yet.

31 Days of Horror: The Omen

October 25, 2008: The Omen

Robert, a U.S. Ambassador to Italy (Gregory Peck) and Katherine Thorn (Lee Remick) are a happy married couple that has everything they both ever desired. They want nothing more in their life except for one thing – a child.
Yet, tragedy strikes the couple when the baby Katherine gives birth to is a stillborn; a priest at the hospital who suggests that he should take a healthy newborn, whose mother had died in childbirth, approaches Robert.
Robert agrees and without telling his wife and the couple relocate from Italy to London, when they arrive, eerie events occur and a warning from a priest leads Robert to believe that the child he took from the hospital in Italy is evil incarnate.
This movie introduced Damian to the world and till this day he continues to scare us and his story continues to fascinate us.
The movie is well worth any price if you haven’t seen it or if it shows up on TV, I strongly recommend you watch it.
Like so many other horror movies this one was also remade, which was release in 2006 and I suggest just not watch it and stick with the 1976 original. I mean Richard Donner, the guy who brought us Superman I and II and also one of my favorite movies – The Goonies, directed this original.Some might like this more then others and I warn there are some disturbing scenes in this movie.