31 days of horror Year 2 day 11

Slumber Party Massacre-Shout Factory release

Haven't seen this one in over 20 years. Holds up pretty well and I noticed lots more of the background jokes this viewing. 2 sisters throw a slumber party and a maniac with a power drill stalks and kills them. Simple plot did with a pretty small budget,but somehow it all works and forms a pretty decent slasher film. Most of the FX are good. Another stand out that seems to get overlooked is how the killer moves and his body language. He has this kinda half sidestep half creeping walk that is very strange. This disc also had a documentary,"Sleepless Nights",that was about all 3 films in this series. Lots of interesting stories are told about all of the films. But if you have already read the Femme Fatale issue all about SPM ,you have already heard 80% of what is covered in the documentary. The disc also has a commentary with the directer,a guy that host the kinda offical SPM/SHM fan site. Pretty good commentary that offers up some new informantion. Slumber party massacre gets a A.

31 days of horror Year 2 day 6

Children of the Corn IV the Gathering-Dimension DVD

This is the second of the series to get released straight to video. Starring a very young Naomi Watts and Karen Black ,CotC IV seems to be completely unrelated to the previous entries in the series. But it has been revealed that in a deleted scene we find out the connection to the previous 3 films. Naomi is a young woman who is coming back to her hometown to help take care of her mom. But when she gets there she finds out over night most of the kids started suffering from a high fever and now seem to be possessed. It seems the spirit of a murdered child preacher,Josiah, has possessed them. The possessed kids assume the names of children from Josiah's time and try to bring Josiah back from the dead. It seems in the deleted scene we find out that Josiah has another name "He who walks behind the rows". Now I haven't seen all of the Children of the Corn films,I don't think I have seen 5 or 7. But this one is the best so far. The story is pretty interesting,the acting is way better than it has been. And the FX are really good considering how low the budget had to be. CotC IV earns a B+.

31 days of horror Year 2 day 5

Fangoria Blood Drive II-Koch Vision DVD

In 2005 Fangoria magazine put out a second collection of short horror movies. This one is hosted by the super sexy Mistress Juliya,of FUSE TV fame. There is 8 shorts in total. And also a nice featurette on Bruce Campbell. In the featurette Bruce is interviewed in his home and talks all about his career and what his plans for the future are. While all the shorts on the DVD are worth a watch ,two of them stand out. The Gibbering Horror of Howard Ghormley by Steve Daniels,is a kind of Moebius strip of a man that seems to be either stuck in a time warp or slowly losing what is left of his sanity. Filmed in black and white and silent,except for some background music,this short left me feeling very uneasy and the ending was stuck in my mind for days after viewing. Means to an End by Paul Solet and Jake Hamilton,is about two horror fans that do special effect work for lots of low budget films. After a bad experience on a job,they decide to make their own film. But since they have almost no money they will have to use "inventive" ways to get the gore needed for any horror film. Very very humorous and fun short that has a nice coda. The rest of the shorts are good,but the above two stand head and shoulder above them. I give this DVD a solid B.

Hellraiser Hellseeker

I have been a huge fan of the Hellraiser series of films since the first one came out oh so many years ago. But had never bothered seeing any of them that came out after part 5 AKA Hellraiser Inferno. Well a few weeks back at Coast Con a very nice female recommended to me Hellraiser Hellseeker which is the 6Th film in the series. The film starts of with Dean Winters and Ashley Laurence ,who are a married couple taking a drive in their car. While getting a kiss from his beautiful wife Dean swerves into the other lane and has to swerve back quickly to stop from being hit by oncoming traffic. This causes him to lose control of the car and it goes off a bridge into a lake. Dean manages to get out of the car,but sadly his wife doesn't and He sees her die. We then see him at the hospital. While there a cop shows up and starts asking a bunch of questions. It seems when the car was removed from the lake the cops couldn't find Ashley's body. Dean ends up as the prime suspect,and the cops seem to think he has killed his wife. He keeps having flashbacks,and very weird hallucinations. And also is suffering from massive headaches. The further we get into the movie the more it seems that reality is being replaced by what to me seems to be a very Lovecraftian world. The lead cenobite Pinhead shows up at various times during the movie giving Dean cryptic clues as to what is going on. And as I predicted everything is finally explained in the final 10 minutes. The various practical and CGI special effects in the film are very well done for a film that I am sure didn't have a huge budget. And it was nice to see Ashley Laurence back playing Kirsty. Dean Winters is an actor that before this I had only seen on Rescue Me,and had enjoyed his performances on that show. Before this film I had a theory about the various Hellraiser films. IMHO the odd numbered films were good to great and the even numbered ones were below average to pure shit. This one disproved that theory. I find Hellraiser Hellseeker to be the third best film in the series. And plan on buying it sometime soon. Hellraiser Hellseeker gets a B.

31 days of horror Day 3

Silent Night Deadly Night II

Source-Out of print Anchor Bay dvd

Ahh Silent Night Deadly Night II,the sequel that is mainly made up of footage from the first film. This one is about the little brother of the lead from part 1. After growing up semi-normal in a adopted family,lil bro finally snaps and proceeds to go on a rampage of violence. IIRC His first kill is in an alleyway in which he impales a guy on an umbrella. Next he hooks a preppy dickhead up to a battery charger,then he walks around the neighborhood randomly shooting people. This part is were the meme "Garbage Day!!!!" comes from. On this dvd there is a commentary from the producer and directer in which they explain that since at the time very very very few people had seen the original,they were told to use a lot of the footage from part 1. Basicly they used almost all the kills from part 1 but these are from an R rated cut so some of the kills are shorter than they should be. This film gets a lot of bad reviews since about half of it is nothing but scenes from the previous film. I actually like it,and don't seem to hate it as much as most people. I would have to give it a C+.