31 Days of Horror 2015 Day 16 Incident on and off a mountain road

Incident on and off a mountain road(Masters of Horror season 1 episode 01)
Source-Blu Ray

Ok yeah I normally like to post the cover of whatever I watched. But the blu ray cover is ugly as sin. And the DVD copy isn't much better. So I grabbed the ahove pic from somewhere.

Masters of Horror to me was a fun experiment. Give good directors a ok budget and no restrictions. I thankfully got Showtime. The local cable was phasing out all the movie channels to digital only. And we didn't feel like paying the $40 more a month. I then saw Don Coscarelli was directing it from a Joe Lansdale story and I had to see it as it aired.

The phones where set to silent. Everyone knew to not come over for a hour that Saturday. I was as hyped as a rich kid and it is X-mas 1985.And well I got a fun but average almost hour long horror story. Angus Scrim shows up in a great small role. Bree Turner ,above on the right,is good as the lead.To lazy to look it up but her husband,dude on left above,I know for piles of stuff.

Rewatching it again for the first time since that original airing,and this time in HD.Well I like it more. I knew what was gonna happen,mostly. So I saw more background stuff.

Incident on and off a mountain road gets a C+.

31 Days of Horror 2015 Day 15 Monster Brawl

Monster Brawl
Source-Image DVD

Been hearing about this film for 5 years now. So added it to my Netflix queue.Got it in a few days ago. Couldn't sleep so through it in my player,figuring I would see about half of it before I went to bed.

The basic premise is they bring together some of the most famous monsters,vampires,cyclops,etc. And have a one night tournament to determine who is the best.

Sounds good doesn't it. Then add in you got Kevin Nash and Jimmy Hart in the cast. Sounds even better right?

Well it is horrible. I know it was low budget,but I have seen films filmed in people's backyards with better acting and make up FX. It was all I could do to make it through the entire film.

I have been doing this 31 horror film reviews in October since 2000. After seeing Vampeggedon a few years ago I thought no film would be worse than it. Well I was wrong. Monster Brawl is one of the worst pro-made horror films I have seen.

Monster Brawl gets a F-.

31 Days of Horror 2015 Day 014 Happy Birthday to Me

Happy Birthday to me
Source-Mill Creek Blu Ray

Ahh Happy Birthday to me,the kind of forgotten decent 80s slasher. With the blind girl ,well blind on the show,from Little House on the Prairie.I had heard a bit about it back in the day. But never saw it for rent.Then I saw that first DVD release from I think Anchor Bay. There was some bitching cause some of the soundtrack was changed. Then there was a later DVD with the original soundtrack.While I liked the film I never saw the DVD for less than 15 bucks and I wasn't going to pay that much to own it.

Then I see online somewhere that Mill Creek put out a double feature bluray of Happy Birthday to Me and When a Stranger Calls. HB2M has the original soundtrack and both supposedly look good. Plus it is only $5.I grabbed a copy.

Ok so Virginia is part of this group of popular teens at a private school. And they are all being killed off one by one. Virginia also suffers from flashbacks and blackouts.

This is your typical clone of Halloween/Friday the 13th. The scarf/motorcycle kill and the wacky as  hell last 10 minutes are what makes it stand out from so many other slasher clones.But we get decent acting,pretty decent kills,and a fucked up ending.

Happy Birthday to me gets a C+.

31 Days of Horror 2015 Day 13 Zombiethon

Zombiethon
Source-Full Moon DVD

This is basically a highlight reel of any film Empire/Full Moon had the rights to that had zombies in it. So you got stuff like Fulci's Zombie,Oasis of the Zombies and many others. With the only original footage being kind of wraparound piece. About a woman that is being chased by zombies. So she hides out in a theater. That is full of zombies and is showing movies.

A few years back I got a VHS rip of this and reviewed it here on my blog. I knew Full Moon had put it out on a DVD.But it was 15 bucks which is much more than I wanted to spend. Then earlier this year I found it in a bodega. And they only wanted $5. It was mixed in with all the other DVDs they were selling. Which was all big mainstream movies. No clue how this oddball got mixed in there but I am happy it did.

The DVD looks slightly better than the VHS rip I saw.And the only extras are a short intro from Charles Band. And a bunch of trailers.

Zombiethon gets a B.

31 Days of Horror 2015 Day 12 Home for the Holidays

Home for the Holidays
Source-Echo Bridge 20 movies for $5 DVD pack

Before buying the 20 horror films for $5 pack I hadn't even heard of Home for the Holidays. I was looking at the back of the pack,saw this film's title and that Sally Fields was in it I had to grab it.Then I started looking it up. Seems it was made for TV in 1972. And Aaron Spelling was the producer.

A man calls his 4 daughters and asks them to come to his house for the X-mas holidays. They get there and he reveals he thinks his new wife is poisoning him and wants him dead. Then a horrible thunderstorm hits. And the killer appears. Wearing a yellow rain jacket and armed with a pitchfork. Now since this was made for TV the violence and gore levels are pretty much at zero. But the acting is really good and I was kind of surprised with how much I enjoyed this movie.

I like how this came out before Black Christmas and Halloween,both of which are considered the first slasher films,and all the slasher tropes appear in this film. For that reason since seeing it I have considered this film a proto-slasher. Kind of how like now Psycho is considered a proto-slasher.

The DVD is bare bones. And looks like it is a VHS rip. But considering the VHS is kind of rare,and this is the only DVD release of the film and how much this cost it is worth grabbing if you find a copy.

Home for the Holidays gets a A-.

31 Days of Horror 2015 Day 11 Zipperface

Zipperface unrated version
Source-Echo Bridge DVD

Now I love slasher films. And thought I had at least heard of all the ones released in the States during the 80s and 90s. Then I bought a 20 films for $5 pack. It was full of horror films and at that price I took a chance. Saw the name Zipperface and had to watch it.

Zipperface came out in 1992. Seems it was a DTV release. With an R rated and a unrated release. From my research the unrated version is becoming hard to find on VHS.

Set in the early 90s in a big city out in California,this is a slasher that tries to be different. And it is in a few ways. First off this is the first horror film I know of to use BDSM leather gear as the outfit for the killer. Zipperface looks like a twisted version of the Gimp from Pulp Fiction. He is hiring hookers. And once they come to him after tying them up he kills them. So of course a couple of detectives are assigned to track down Zipperface and stop them. This is kind of a throwback slasher. In that it feels more like an early 80s slasher. You get a few red herrings,the best being the sleazy photographer the female detective ends up dating.

If you remember the old show Silk Stalkings,imagine an R rated version of that show. But with way more sexual overtones.

I checked the running time and this DVD release is the unrated cut. But really there doesn't seem to be anything in this film that would prevent it from getting an R rating. Maybe the distributor had an R rated cut made so Blockbuster Video would carry it.Yeah if you didn't know Blockbuster had a policy of not carrying any unrated films. Blockbuster is the reason there is an R rated cut of Showgirls on VHS.

So if you are a slasher fan that has already seen all the 70s,80s and 90s slashers give Zipperface a watch. I still see that 20 pack all over for $5. And the same pack also has a decent looking copy of the hard to find proto-slasher Home for the Holidays. Those 2 films are worth the $5.

Zipperface gets a C-.

31 Days of Horror 2015 Day 10 Halloween 2 remake

Halloween 2 director's cut
Source-Unrated Director's cut DVD

I skipped this one when it hit theaters. At the time my local theater hadn't remodeled and was horrible. Bad projection,bad sound and they charged way too much for a ticket. Then everyone I talked to that saw it hated it. I haven't seen the horror community throw out this much hate since the backlash about 2 months after Blair Witch came out.

Then one night I was in town looking for something to watch. The DVD of this film had been marked down to $5 so I grabbed it.

First off it should be known that I do not like the original Halloween 2. To me the first Halloween film was as close as we got to an American giallo film. Then Halloween 2 was pretty much a paint by numbers 80s slasher.

I sat down to watch this,thinking well if everyone hates it I am sure it has to be horrible. After the film was over I wondered why it was so hated. I even asked quite a few people why they hated it and it was always tiny nitpicky things like "Why did Zombie have to cast his wife in this one too? ","Michael barely wears the mask in it!" and other whiny fanboy reasons.

Now as for me. I enjoy the movie. I like seeing how what happened in the first film has effected Annie and Laurie. I like how Dr Loomis has used his new fame to become a money hungry media whore. And yes I even like the Sherri Moon Zombie and White Horse dream sequences.

The DVD like the first films is loaded with fun extras. The commentary being the best of the extras. But the others are worth a look.

Halloween 2 remake gets a C.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 088 Adventure Heroes by Jeff Rovin

TITLE-Adventure Heroes Legendary characters from Odysseus to James Bond
AUTHOR-Jeff Rovin
FORMAT-Hardcover
FIRST TIME READING-Yes
PRICE-25 cents plus shipping

Months back I was watching one of James Rolfe's videos. Where he was talking about his reference book collection. One book he talked about,Encyclopedia of Monsters,sounded really good. So I looked on various used booksites to get a price range. Saw that the same author had written and bunch of other encyclopedia style books.Along with a bunch of 80s era Nintendo game tip books.

Over the past 8 years I have been getting more and more into the pulp hero genre of fiction. So I thought a book about adventure heroes would be a fun read.

Once I got the book in it took the top spot in my bathroom. Yes I am one of those folks that reads while using the toilet. So for months now this has sat in my bathroom. And I slowly read my way thru the entire book.

Rovin covers all the usual suspects when you think of adventure heroes,like say Doc Savage,Tarzan,Lone Ranger. But it is the oddball ones he talks about that make me love this book so much. When I first got it I was flipping thru it and noticed there is an entry for Star Comics,Marvel's kids line,short lived Planet Terry comic. I collect the Star Comics and I barely remember Planet Terry.

From what I know most of the entries in this book are accurate as of when the book was written. And sure now books like this have been replaced with websites. But there is something about a nice hardback reference book that I like.

When I ordered the book,which cost me a quarter plus IIRC 2 bucks for shipping,and it was listed as used I figured it would be complete but a bit beat up. What I got was an ex library copy. And since it is classified as a reference book that means it wasn't allowed to be checked out. The book is in amazing shape. I would like to have a poster of the cover image.

Adventure Heroes by Jeff Rovin gets a 4.55 out of 5.

31 Days of Horror 2015 Day 09 Halloween remake

Halloween remake
Source-Unrated Director's cut DVD

This film came out at a time when I wasn't going to theaters to see anything. So I didn't see it until I bought the DVD over a year later. But everyone I knew that saw this remake at least liked it. With a few people saying it was better than the original. Then around 2008 I started posting at a forum for a horror podcast. And wow the hate this film got there. You would think that Rob Zombie had dug up the podcast host's dead grandmothers. Then defiled the corpse in front of them  while burning all their autographed pictures.

As for me,I do enjoy this film. Do I think it is better than the original? Nah. But it is the best Halloween film since part 5. And better than the original part 2,H2O and the one with Busta Rhymes.

I like how we get a back story as to why Michael did what he did that one Halloween night. I like how Laurie isn't a perfect angel in this film,and yes I do remember in the original the scene where she smokes a joint with her friend. I like how they explained where Michael's mask came from. Really my only complaint about this film is Sherri Moon Zombie isn't the best choice to play Michael's mother. She tries her best but just isn't the right person for the role.

Now I know there is 3 versions of this film. There is a workprint that leaked right before it hit theaters.There is the theatrical cut and then there is the director's cut. All I have ever seen is the director's cut.

The DVD is fairly loaded with decent extras. The commentary is worth a listen. And the documentary on the making of the film is great.

Halloween remake gets a B.

31 Days of Horror 2015 Day 08 Terror Firmer unrated Director's cut

Terror Firmer
Source-Unrated Director's cut 2 disc DVD

I have love Troma since when I first saw Toxic Avenger back in the 80s. So as soon as Netflix had Terror Firmer for rent I rented it. For a few years I would blind buy anything  Troma put out. But they had a 3 or 4 year long slump. So I switched to renting their stuff first to see if it was worth buying. And Terror Firmer was. But the only versions I could find locally for sale were used and looked to be in bad shape. So I figured if I waited I would find a decent copy for a good price.

I didn't know at the time I would be waiting 11 years. Yep 11 years. At the 2014 Coastcon,I was at this one dealer's table. She always has a great selection of new and used DVDs and Blu rays. I am standing there chatting with her. We found out the year before we have a mutual friend. When I saw Terror Firmer in her bins. And it was still sealed. "I am asking $8 for it since it sounds like one of the discs is loose." I shook the case heard a disc rattling around. But figured it wouldn't be too scratched up to play. Plus since it was still sealed that meant it would have the Terror Firmer mini poster. I paid her for it and the other things I was buying. And opened it up to see if there was any damage to the loose DVD. Nope not even a tiny scratch.

Set on the set of a low budget film,Terror Firmer is in some ways a film version of  Kaufman's first book on how to make a movie. There is some lady killing off people involved in the film. Add in the normal issues on the set of a low budget film and you get all kinds of mayhem.

The cast is pretty damn good for a Troma film. You got Debbie Rochon as the diva actress,Lloyd Kaufman playing a version of himself as the blind director,and then there is Will Keenan and Trent Haaga. I had seen Keenan in Tromeo and Juliet. And Haaga I had seen in a few Full Moon movies. Both are good actors and really shine in this film

The FX are also pretty damn good for a modern Troma movie. And thankfully there is no CGI. There is even a few scenes where Haaga,who plays the FX guy in the film,explains how they do a few of the FX.

Now of course with this being unrated and a Troma film that means it is loaded up with gore,nudity and plenty of non-PC stuff. If this film had been sent to the MPAA it would have gotten an NC 17.

The 2 discs of this set are loaded with extras. The movie has 2 commentaries. Both of which are worth listening too. And there is a great Easter egg. Where you will be shown the R rated version of the film. When it comes to a scene that had to be cut to get an R rating,Lloyd shows up on screen and describes  what is going on. The second disc has a really long and really good documentary on the making of Terror Firmer. Which is almost as entertaining as the film is.

Terror Firmer gets a B+.