Shocktober Revisited: The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror (I-XXIV)

 This originally appeared in TV Talk as two parts in 2011.


  I am both old enough to remember a time before The Simpsons and still young enough not to have understood its impact on television or, eventually, on the show itself. At the time, anyway. Now it's easy to look back and understand why I stopped watching the show around season 12, then would check in sporadically, only to eventually give up around season 17 or 18. The show just wasn't that funny anymore. A brief flirtation with The Simpsons Movie and the show's shift to HD collapsed midway through the Blu-Ray of season 20, and I'm fairly content saying that I don't watch The Simpsons anymore. They recycle their own jokes now, unironically aware of what South Park already knew: "The Simpsons did it!"

 You can actually trace the downward trajectory through the first ten Treehouse of Horror's (which, oddly enough, are all called The Simpsons Halloween Special on the title card, but not on IMDB or the boxed sets). For those not familiar with the concept - in season two, The Simpsons introduced a yearly Halloween special. It was always a triptych, and they all typically involve the following: 1) a Twilight Zone redo, 2) a film parody, 3) a literary interpretation, 4) Some variety of social commentary (this happens increasingly as time goes by).

 People tend to be hard on the first few seasons of The Simpsons, but the first Treehouse of Horror isn't actually all that bad: there's "Bad Dream House," a Poltergeist/Amityville homage; "Hungry are the Damned," a Simpsonized twist on "To Serve Man," and an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven," wrapped around by a story of Bart and Lisa trying to scare each other.

 From there on out, there are a number of great moments: send-ups of King Kong, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Shining, Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Fly, The Omega Man, Godzilla (kind of), and The Indestructible Man; versions of The Monkey's Paw, Frankenstein, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Dragonwyck; and Twilight Zone episodes Little Girl Lost, It's a Good Life, Living Doll, Terror at 20,000 Feet, and The Little People.

 What I noticed though is that there's a steady decline starting with Treehouse of Horror VII (season 8), which stands out for an otherwise pretty stellar season (Hank Scorpio, Mr. Sparkle, Larry Burns, the Insanity Pepper episode): I could have sworn the "Hugo" evil twin segment happened later in the series' run, the "Little People" segment runs out of steam, and the Bob Dole / Bill Clinton Kodos and Kang story is a non-starter. It hints at the dull-witted political commentary to come, reaching a nadir in the late 2000s with a "War of the Worlds" / Iraqi Invasion segment.

 Treehouse of Horror's VIII, IX, and X are all hit and miss, but indicate a downward trend: for every "Homega Man" and "Fly vs. Fly," there's a pointless cameo by Jerry Springer or Regis Philbin (the Springer being a serious low point in the show's pop culture commentary), and things just fall apart in season 11. Again, I'm a little surprised by this because while it's nowhere in the same league as season 8, the next-to-last season of The Simpsons I watched entirely had at least given up on a semblance of plot, instead trying to out-surreal itself with each successive episode.

 It turns out that when that's the case, when making Santa's Little Helper say "Chewy?" and introduce Tomacco into the mix, that a Treehouse of Horror is going to struggle in comparison. Not only is it the first time the show directly references Kodos and Kang as not fitting into the Halloween milieu (something they would continue to do from what I've seen), the segments just aren't any good. The parody of I Know What You Did Last Summer sputters to a conclusion and is more fixated on the developing "Jerkass" Homer that characterizes seasons 12-onward. "Desperately Xeeking Xena" is a dumb comic book parody that also doesn't know how to end, so it settles for random: see, Xena can't fly, but Lucy Lawless can! That's the joke! The only thing funny about the "Y2k" segment comes in retrospect: notice Mark McGwire and Mel Gibson on the "best of humanity" rocket.

After Treehouse of Horror X, I can only say I remember parts of XI and XII: I'd honestly thought "Day of the Dolphins" came sooner than it did, the Ghost Dad parody doesn't stir much other than Homer dying on a piece of broccoli twice, and I have vague memories of Pierce Brosnan as the voice of a house that hates Homer. I don't recall the Harry Potter parody at all. From there on out, I understand they've spoofed Transformers, 28 Days Later, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, The Dead Zone, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Most Dangerous Game, A.I., The Blob, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Twilight. Mmmhrm...

Believe me, I'd love to jump on them for more movie parodies, but going back and looking at it, the Bram Stoker's Dracula send-up was right after the movie came out, and they weren't wildly removed from A Nightmare on Elm Street's sequels at the time either. What I can say is that I laughed less and less from Treehouse of Horror VI to X, and I laughed quite a bit during VI. The episodes are a fine time capsule of where The Simpsons was, what the writers found amusing, and which elements were emphasized - story, character, parody, or randomness.

 At a certain point, I simply stopped watching The Simpsons - it was likely in the early 2000s, when the repetitiveness of the stories became too taxing and I just gave up. Every now and then, I'd notice a Treehouse of Horror episode (in particular, ones that aired after October), but didn't pay them much mind. However, it seems unfair to start reviewing these episodes and not try to cover them through the present, so the Cap'n soldiered on. I was left with a "good news, bad news" scenario: the good news was there were flashes of my favorite Treehouse of Horror's, but the bad news was they were often fleeting, and a rarely did one of them lasted for an entire segment of its episode.

 Things get off to a shaky start in Treehouse of Horror XI with a parody of the Bill Cosby movie Ghost Dad, but evens out with the final segment, the aforementioned "Night of the Dolphin," which manages to fit in nods to Jaws and The Birds and has a fitfully dark ending. The middle segment, "Scary Tales Do Come True," is symptomatic of a problem that plagues the latter Treehouse entries: many of the parodies are tangentially (at best) tied to horror.

  A Hansel and Gretl meet other fairy tales would make sense in the context of other Simpsons anthology episodes (which have covered works of literature, myths, or Biblical stories), but it begins a trend of moving away from Twilight Zone stories and horror films to other parodies - some of which don't even make sense. But Transformers? Mr. and Mrs. Smith? The Harry Potter spoof doesn't even get a pass because if you took that, "Scary Tales Can Come True," and "Four Beheadings and a Funeral", a Sherlock Holmes / Jack the Ripper story, and put them into their own anthology.

  I'm more willing to give the Mad Men-esque spoof "How to Get Ahead in Dead-vertising" because it at least continues the trend of zombie celebrities, even if it is just a variation on the Homer the Grim Reaper segment from XIV. However, "Bartificial Intelligence" doesn't make any sense in a Treehouse of Horror, and a Golem story (like "Hex in the City") eventually shifts from possibly horror related to cheap ethnic jokes. A Fantastic Voyage (really?) spoof turns it self around into a variation on Treehouse of Horror II's "Homer and Burns share a body" joke, followed by a song-and-dance vaguely reminiscent of the "Bart Simpson's Dracula". "The Ned Zone" never really goes anywhere, and "Married to the Blob" starts great but falls apart long before Dr. Phil appears as himself. A Tales from the Crypt-style opening sequence falls apart as soon as Smithers appears, which is a shame.

 The nadir of the latter Treehouses is"The Day the Earth Stood Stupid," a segment that seems to be a take on Orson Welles' infamous "War of the Worlds" hoax, but then devolves into a boneheaded (and woefully unfunny) critique of the War in Iraq, with Kodos and Kang arguing about who said they would be "greeted as liberators" and ends with an awful "hearts and minds" gag. Of course, if you like Kodos and Kang, then stay away from "E.T.: Go Home" which seems promising but quickly goes south.

While there are some serious lowlights, it is fair to mention that there are some sporadically clever segments: there's the spot-on Hitchcock homage "Dial 'M' for Murder or Press # to Return to Main Menu," a pretty good take on Dead Calm (although I can't imagine most fans getting that reference) marred only by a pointless A Clockwork Orange reference ("Simpsons did it!"), the Twilight parody actually has a few good jokes, as does Pierce Brosnan's evil house in XII. While I don't love "Frinkenstein", it was amusing to hear Jerry Lewis as Professor Frink's father gleefully collecting organs at the Nobel Prize ceremony. "The Island of Doctor Hibbert" and "Survival of the Fattest" are pretty good, and the 28 Days Later "tainted Krusty Burger" segment is great but drops the ball at the end.

 The closest thing other than the Hitchcock segment is an almost perfect send-up of Charlie Brown cartoons called "It's the Grand Pumpkin, Milhouse." For a while, it sustains the animation style, but overuses a few obvious gags (Marge's trombone, for example) and breaks the tone with Nelson and the bullies before halfway redeeming itself with a racist pumpkin ("all pumpkins are racist; the difference is I admit it!"). The Grand Pumpkin and Tom Turkey's screams of "Revenge!" still make me chuckle.

 At times, the choices of Treehouse of Horror movie references boggles the mind, as is the case with XXII, which opts to parody 127 Hours and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, turning the latter into a series of fart jokes involving an incapacitated Homer. It then closes on a pot shot at the already forgotten Spider-Man Broadway musical. The final segment turns Ned Flanders into Dexter in "Dial 'D' for Diddly," which I guess they chose the title for after forgetting they'd already used that Hitchcock reference. In truth, I'd just as rather not mention Treehouse of Horror XXIII, which I had to look up to remember - the Paranormal Activity is borderline unbearable, and the Back to the Future-inspired "Bart and Homer's Excellent Adventure" doesn't remotely qualify as horror related. The inclusion of a Mayan calendar joke to open the episode and a totally forgettable "black hole" opening segment are best left to be recalled
fuzzily.

 Perhaps the most notable element of Treehouse of Horror XXIV is the extended opening directed by Guillermo Del Toro: it manages to include references to all of his films (closing with a couch gag that ties directly into Pan's Labyrinth) and a number of horror films that influenced him. It does set the tone for what is (at times) a disturbingly violent episode, perhaps no more so than during "The Fat in the Hat," a Dr. Seuss inspired story of trick-or-treating. Take your pick at what's more upsetting that Homer as the titular character does, but I think killing Mr. Burns (as a vulture) and feeding him to the homeless (uncooked) might do it for me. Or skinning Moe and wearing him as a coat. It's surprisingly dark, even for The Simpsons. Comparably speaking, the parodies of Freaks and The Thing with Two Heads are tame, if also violent. Unfortunately, "Dead and Shoulders" is likely to remind you of not one, but now two other similar stories (Treehouse of Horror II and XV).

  Watching the back stretch of the Treehouse of Horror episodes, I can see many of the things I've noticed while popping in on The Simpsons over the years after no longer being a regular viewer - jokes are periodically funny, but often are followed by something that reminds me of a better Simpsons episode. The "jerkass" phase of Homer Simpson is abundant in many of these episodes, and it's more grating than hilarious. The pop culture references become more obvious and get lazier as time goes on, and much of the sharp writing of earlier years is undermined by lazy shortcuts or, worse, an inability to stick the landing. While I don't plan on watching the show regularly again, it was nice to catch up on what used to be a Halloween institution, and I'll try to catch XXV (airing this weekend) to see if an upswing is ever in the cards. Call me hopeful - it might be...

Shocktober Revisited: Never Sleep Again - The Elm Street Legacy

 Review originally appeared in 2010. Some amendments have been made to reflect the Blu-Ray edition.

 If anything good came of Platinum Dunes' remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, it's that more attention shifted to the original film and its sequels. Not only did fans get A Nightmare on Elm Street on Blu-Ray (and let me tell you, the "arm stretching" scene looks even sillier in HD*), but the insanely comprehensive Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy arrived for Fred Heads to pore over. And boy howdy is there a lot to pore over.

That is, if you could find it. To date, I still can't find Never Sleep Again in stores. It just recently made it to Netflix, and I had to order my copy from Amazon, where it was on a "Ships in 1 to 3 weeks" back-order. Fortunately, I ordered from one of the Marketplace sellers - Moviemars - based in NC, and got it in about a week. However, it was totally worth the wait.

 2014 Note: At the time this was written, it was more difficult to find Never Sleep Again, but in the four years that followed, a second edition of the DVD and Blu-Ray were released, which are widely available. I currently own the Blu-Ray and recommend it wholeheartedly.

Surrounding the remakes of Halloween and Friday the 13th, retrospective documentaries were released for each: Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and His Name was Jason, which set the template for Never Sleep Again - interviews with cast, crew, fans, and creators of each film in the series. In fact, Never Sleep Again is co-directed by Daniel Farrands, who directed His Name Was Jason. Each set came in two discs - one disc was the documentary, and the other was extended interviews, set visits, recaps, or short featurettes on music, makeup, or fandom.

The difference between the all-encompassing docs for Friday the 13th / Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street is sheer depth of presentation. Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and His Name was Jason are 89 and 90 minutes respectively; Never Sleep Again is 4 hours long. That's just the documentary. I'm guessing the second disc has roughly 2-2 1/2 hours of additional material. And none of it drags.

 Directors Farrands and Andrew Kasch managed to get just about everyone involved in the Nightmare series to appear on camera** and talk about the films, and almost none of it rehashes information from the previous making-of's in the Nightmare on Elm Street boxed set or Infinifilm disc. Narrated by Heather Langenkamp, each film gets a good 30-40 minutes covering every aspect of the production from story to casting to production, release, controversy, and direction.

 There's a surprisingly comprehensive list of cast members who came back from the first seven films, including Mark Patton (Jesse in Freddy's Revenge), Danny Hassel (Dan in Nightmares 4 and 5), Ken Sagoes (Kincaid in Dream Warriors), Jsu Garcia (Rod in Nightmare 1), Alice Cooper (Freddy's father in Freddy's Dead), Mike Smith (Super Freddy in Dream Child), Lisa Zane (Maggie in Freddy's Dead), Zack Ward (Bobby in Freddy vs. Jason), Lisa Wilcox (Alice in Nightmares 4 and 5), Clu Gulager (Jesse's Dad in Freddy's Revenge) and even Charles Fleischer (Dr. King in Nightmare 1); people I've never heard talk about the Nightmare movies before. For crying out loud, the even talk to Dokken!

 Once and for all, there's a comprehensive discussion of the various iterations of Freddy vs. Jason in one place, complete with a breakdown of how the final script differed from the film - including reactions from some of the cast about changes that occurred between signing on and filming. Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash even comes up, and there's a pretty good explanation by former New Line executive Jeff Katz (who wrote the spec script for FvJvA) on why it never came to pass. Even Kane Hodder (Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th part 7 to Jason X) chimes in about how he was in and out of the film without ever being given a specific reason.

 It was also interesting to hear Wes Craven talk about each of the sequels on the record, including (as one of the extras) the remake. Additionally, I have to say it's fascinating hearing the ways that Jack Sholder, Chuck Russell, Renny Harlin, Stephen Hopkins, Rachel Talalay, and Ronny Yu talk about their approaches to the film, and cast and writer experiences of working with each director, warts and all.

 My personal favorite section of the documentary was the discussion of Freddy's Nightmares, the ill-received anthology TV series that aired between The Dream Master and Freddy's Dead. Considering that almost no one ever talks about the series, it was fun to see William Malone (House on Haunted Hill), Mick Garris (Masters of Horror), David J. Schow (The Crow) and Tom McLoughlin (Friday the 13th Part 6) talk about making a very low budget show for syndication where the limits on gore and sexuality were, shall we say, lax. Nobody seems particularly proud of the end result, including former New Line CEO Robert Shaye, but that it was even mentioned - let alone get its own block of documentary - made me happy***.

 I haven't completely finished the second disc (in that I haven't watched all of "Horror's Hallowed Grounds: A Nightmare on Elm Street") but the extended interviews are great, the 10 minute recap of the Nightmare films - comprised of cast members performing memorable lines - is a lot of fun, the fan segment is cool, as are the various people who make glove replicas, the music section is cool, I liked the spin-off books (which also cover FvJvA), and a nice interview with The Angry Video Game Nerd about his Nightmare on Elm Street game review is included. Overall, it's just a solid package covering damn near everything you could want to know. Think of it as a documentary version of Peter Bracke's Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th.

 2014 Note: Speaking of which, Farrands and Kasch went on to "adapt" Bracke's book into a companion piece for the Friday the 13th series, which is comparably exhaustive (thereabouts seven hours) in its coverage of the films. It's also notable for an alternate version of the interviews from Freddy vs. Jason, focused more heavily on the Friday the 13th side.

 While I'm slightly biased as a massive Nightmare on Elm Street fan, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that even casual fans won't be bored watching this 4 hour documentary. There's never a point where the discussion isn't interesting or there's something new to learn (for example, I'd somehow never heard that Tron's David Warner was originally cast as Fred Krueger and had to drop out) and it's broken up in such a way that you can spread it out over a day or two. This is an absolute must-see for Nightmare fans, and a high recommendation for people who want to see what all the hoopla is about.


* That being said, everything else looks great. Don't let the cynics tell you that a low-budget movie from 1984 can't look good in High Definition. A Nightmare on Elm Street looks better than I'd ever imagined it could.
** Notable absences are Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette, Ronee Blakely (Nancy's mother in part 1), Breckin Meyer (Freddy's Dead), Frank Darabont (who co-wrote Dream Warriors), Peter Jackson (who wrote the mythical and unproduced A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: The Dream Lovers) and strangely much of the cast of Freddy vs. Jason (including Katharine Isabelle, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter, and Ken Kirzinger), although there is a great joke involving Jason Mewes and the assumption he played Freeburg in Freddy vs. Jason.
2014 Note: During the commentary, it's explained that Depp and Arquette were willing to film interviews but could not find time in the schedules, and that Frank Darabont was filming the pilot for The Walking Dead during production of Never Sleep Again. While Darabont was unable to film an interview, he provided many stills and behind the scenes memorabilia for the production.
*** Craven and Shaye, among others, also address Dreamscape - which was released the same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street - for the first time I can remember.

Horror Fest VIII (Day Two): Curse of Chucky and Trick 'r Treat

  After an episode of Tales from the Crypt ("Beauty Rest," for those curious) and waiting for some attendees to run to get some food, it was time for the double feature "main event," the unveiling of Curse of Chucky for audiences who barely knew it existed and the return of Trick 'r Treat for the first time since Horror Fest IV: The Final Chapter! As I expected, neither disappointed, but other than Demons, Horror Fest VIII has (to this point) been quite the success.

 Like All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, attentive readers are no doubt aware that I already reviewed Curse of Chucky to kick off Shocktober. Unfortunately for those of you reading this, I don't have much to add to that review (feel free to click on that link, I'll be here when you get back), but as it's been a few weeks since the beginning of the month, I'm comfortable spoiling a little bit of the movie and describing how it plays with a larger crowd.

 As the Cap'n suspected, Curse of Chucky works very well with fans and relative newbies to the Child's Play series alike. Some long time fans came in with trepidation, but Don Mancini's willingness to play with expectations goes a long way towards easing any doubts about Curse's "direct to video" stigma. The misdirect about who the nanny was "shtupping," about how Nica's family fits into the Charles Lee Ray back story (and how that retcons into Child's Play), and the kills in particular were big hits, but the cameos that close out the film really sealed the deal. Aside from having to explain why Jennifer Tilly appeared as Tiffany (again, if you haven't seen the ending of Seed of Chucky in a while, you might want to jog your memory), that was the most welcome of the two.

 It was a little trickier with the post-credits Alex Vincent reprising Andy Barclay, mostly because you don't immediately recognize him (for obvious reasons). They do a pretty good job of catching you up quickly, but the interaction between Chucky and Andy is so brief and the final cut so abrupt that I almost with Mancini had left it out. Yes, it helps set up an inevitable Child's Play 7 or Chucky 4 or however you like to keep track of them, but the actual, post-Jennifer Tilly ending with the "hide the soul" and grandma is a more effective way to close out the film. It also leaves you with the question about whether Chucky did transfer his soul or not, because there's no way that little girl would know who Andy was.

 But I'm picking nits, here, folks; Curse of Chucky is not only a better movie than any of us thought we'd get, but probably up there in the Child's Play series overall.

---

 While several people had to split after Curse of Chucky (it was getting late and we're getting old and boring, what can I say?), I had the distinct pleasure of watching Trick 'r Treat with one person who had seen the film and one person who hadn't. The nice thing is that both of them still saw the movie a new way.

 Looking back at my Horror Fest IV coverage, I noticed something: the recaps were a LOT shorter. Take a look at this and see if you can come away with much of anything about Trick 'r Treat of substance. I couldn't, and I wrote it. And that was four years ago, when I had the stamina to watch all of those movies and get reviews together before going to bed (oops... *SPOILER*). Well, it's been four years and the Cap'n is nothing if not long winded these days, so let's give you a more "proper" look at Michael Dougherty's excellent addition to the Horror Anthology pantheon.

 I still contend it's better not to know all of the twists and turns of Trick 'r Treat going in, because the construction of the anthology is such that it rewards the uninitiated. Watching it a second, third, or fourth time, even when you know how the chronology works (SPOILER: the movie isn't told sequentially, and the overlapping stories aren't always intercut to reflect that), you're going to catch things in the background that give you some idea of where the beginning of the movie fits in with the school bus story, the Principal's story, Mr. Kreeg's story, and the girls' night out story.

 The trickiest editing is actually right after the prologue, where two stories (not going to spoil which ones) cut back and forth when a major character overlaps between the two and they seem to take place hours apart. In fact, I'm only a little fuzzy about how early in the story Principal Wilkins' story is supposed to take place (it has to happen before the prologue and during Kreeg's fight with Sam), but it also has to take place well before the pumpkin collectors take Rhonda (Samm Todd) to the quarry. Why? Because there's a direct spoiler to the "twist" in the Laurie (Anna Paquin) / "vampire" story - while they're in the elevator going into the quarry, Rhonda identifies the howling well before we cut back to Sheep's Grove (as is evidenced by the fact that Sam made it back from the quarry and is watching the girls party). It makes sense in a fashion, but Wilkins (Dylan Baker) and his son (Connor Christopher Levins) must have taken care of Charlie well before the news report about the Halloween parade downtown.

 Every time I watch Trick 'r Treat (and I try to every year near Halloween), I pick up on some other detail in Dougherty's insanely planned narrative. It's quite a draw to revisit the film, even if it weren't already a fun, suspenseful, and at times downright creepy experience to begin with. Some day, I'd love to see this in a theatre with a really big audience; I bet it plays like gangbusters.

 One final note that came up during a post-movie discussion: both of the guys who stayed late to watch Trick 'r Treat have kids, so we ended up talking about what a shame it is that parts are so violent / disturbing, because the movie does a great job of explaining why Halloween / Samhain is important culturally, but also why there are "rules." There may be no better demonstration of why you should always check your candy than the beginning of the Principal Wilkins story, why we decorate our yards and dress up, or why respecting the dead is important. They're packaged in a supernaturally charged fashion that is, almost without fail, exceptional, but underneath everything is a celebration of why Halloween continues to be such an instrumental holiday, and why October is the best month of the year for a lot of people, the Cap'n included.

 Up Next: Why am I still awake? Oh, right, because Day Two closed out with The Haunting and The Woman in Black! I may never get to sleep...

Shocktober Revisited: A Tale of Two Halloween II's (Part Two)

 Now, let's talk about Rob Zombie Presents Rob Zombie's Halloween II, not to be entirely mistaken with Halloween II but maybe for the first fifteen minutes if that's cool with everybody.

Allow me to point out that this is not a So You Won't Have To review, although I suspect many of you won't be checking out Rob Zombie's Halloween II. It's not a perfect film, to be sure, but I found the experience to be far more enjoyable than Halloween.

Many of you know that I was not, am not, and don't expect to be on board in the future with Zombie's remake. I just didn't like it. The familiar faces in supporting roles got to be absurd, the excessive profanity and sleaziness bordered on parodic, and I felt there were fundamental problems in the retelling that robbed Michael Myers and Laurie Strode's story. However, I had hoped that like The Devil's Rejects was to House of 1000 Corpses, so to would Halloween II be to Halloween. Rob Zombie did not disappoint.

From the get-go, Halloween II moves away from the limitations of a remake and forges onward in its own direction. Zombie, not feeling beholden to specific iconic imagery, moves at a different pace than the "slasher" portion of Halloween. In fact, Michael spends roughly half the film without a mask on. When Zombie does pay homage to the other Halloween 2 - a clever nod to the hospital siege - the end result is better than anything in the original sequel. I was more interested in the carnage Michael unleashed and Laurie's desperate attempts to get away than at any point during the original H2.

After the homage-turned-dream-sequence, we're reintroduced to Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton), Annie Brackett (Danielle Harris) and Sheriff Lee Brackett (Brad Dourif), living together in relative isolation. Laurie and Annie have severe psychological scarring (and Annie has some pretty serious physical scarring too), and Laurie's constantly teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She's been having strange dreams with young Michael (Chase Wright Vanek, filling in for Daeg Faerch) and Deborah Myers (Sherri Moon Zombie) in spectral form. Some are bizarre, and at least one involving a pumpkin feast, is outright disturbing.

Speaking of disturbing, the violence in Halloween II is pretty rough. Like, rougher than even the last film rough. Michael (Tyler Mane) carves a path of carnage on his quest to reunite the Myers family - he too has the visions of a spectral mother and white horse - and though I consider myself to have a pretty tough horror constitution, some of the kills early in the film are pretty nasty. Sawing through a guy's throat with broken glass is one thing, but the repeated stabbings, each with increased force, until the sound design resembles someone punching a bag of rotten meat, was more than I expected.

Back to the plot for a second: Halloween II picks up two years after Halloween, and two years after the supposedly dead Michael disappeared. When we see him again, Mane often appears without the mask and instead has a long beard and scraggly hair. You've probably heard folks refer to these sections as "Hobo Michael", but I didn't feel like much of his wandering was aimless. The explanation - that he's following his visions - creates an internally coherent reason for why Michael ends up where he ends up during the film. Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) is exploiting the tragedy once more with a new book, one that threatens to expose Laurie to the truth about her history.

The "guest star" casting (as Tarantino has come to put it in his films) actually works in Halloween II where it did not in Halloween. Perhaps the reason is that while the faces are recognizable from time to time, everybody looks different enough that you don't say "hey! Mickey Dolenz!" or "Look, it's Sid Haig or Clint Howard or Udo Kier!" Instead, Zombie calls on Daniel Roebuck (Lost, Bubba Ho-Tep), Margot Kidder, Mary Birdsong (Reno 911), Caroline Williams (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2), Richard Brake (Batman Begins), Richard Riehle (Office Space, Casino), Howard Hesseman (Shampoo, Silent Movie), Duane Whitaker (Pulp Fiction, Feast), and Mark Boone Junior (Memento, The Quick and the Dead).

Where Halloween II succeeds in the way Halloween didn't is that with most of the bit parts, you'd have to really know these actors to spot them immediately. I really didn't recognize Mary Birdsong or Margot Kidder at first, and Daniel Roebuck is almost unrecognizable. Instead of saying "hey look, another person I recognize in a tiny role!", the impression is more like "that person looks familiar, but I couldn't tell you why", which should be the intended effect. Even "Weird" Al Yankovic fits within the scene he's in, which is a talk show sequence designed to undermine Loomis' credibility (the host is Chris Hardwick, of House of 1000 Corpses).

To be fair, not everything about Halloween II works. While Annie's dialogue is a lot better (reflecting a certain maturity in her post-traumatic experience), Laurie can periodically be shrill and annoying. I'm not saddling it all on Taylor-Compton, because the rest of the dialogue for her new friends (Brea Grant and Angela Trimbur) is occasionally cringe inducing. McDowell's Loomis is so glib and shitty that I do wonder if he'd really bother showing up at the very end of the film.

I also have questions about why Laurie, who seems to be frequently terrorized by dreams of being murdered by Michael, would so idolize Charles Manson. She has not only a huge poster of Manson above her bed, but also some hand painted slogan about what would Charley (sic) do or something to that effect. That was the only moment in set design that really did ring false. Also, the "when Michael puts his mask on vs when he doesn't" motif doesn't really have any rhyme or reason. He kills just as brutally without it outside of the strip club.

What most people are objecting to, however, is the kinda-far-out-there choice by Zombie to bring back Sheri Moon Zombie as ghost mom. Now, I will say that it can get kinda goofy, especially when she lapses into a Vampira-esque staredown with the camera, but I didn't find it to be as horrible as the audiences who vocally assaulted the film in theatres. It's an out there choice, but this is no longer the Halloween we expect; this is Rob Zombie's take on the story, going off in its own direction.

Speaking of which, I have to say that while I did see the Unrated Director's Cut, I have seen the theatrical ending (it was *ahem* online somewhere...) and I much prefer Zombie's cut. For one thing (potential spoilers here) killing Laurie earns the "white horse" coda in a better way than having her put on Michael's mask and go catatonic. I'm also of the mind that Laurie doesn't necessarily need to kill Michael for the story to work, so Michael killing Loomis and dying in a hail of gunfire was plenty appropriate. It's similar to the way that they don't show what Michael does to Annie, just its aftermath. True, it would be a cool kill, but the story doesn't need you to see it happen, just like the ending.

Ultimately, while people seem to really hate Halloween II, the Cap'n liked it. I thought that, even with its flaws, this is a sequel that bests its predecessor and works on its own merits. If you can accept that this is a very different kind of movie than any of the original Halloween films, but one with its own internal logic, you might indeed find it worth checking out.

Total Side Note: The Blu-Ray for Halloween II looks nice, but the picture is awash with grain. This was no doubt an aesthetic decision by Rob Zombie, so I'm not bagging the image quality, but I'm betting that if you find the DVD instead the picture won't be radically different.

Shocktober Revisited: A Tale of Two Halloween II's (Part One)

 So let's talk about the sequel to John Carpenter's Halloween. You know it as Halloween II.

Or, as the trailer puts it: "More of the night He came home".


Yes, that's what it really says, and it should give you a pretty good indication of the kind of sequel Halloween II is. It is, after all, a movie John Carpenter drank his way through writing. Believe me; it shows.

The Cap'n used to really like Halloween II, and without watching it for several years, I held it in pretty high regard. It was one of the first ten dvds I ever owned (along with Ghostbusters, Mallrats, Jaws, and Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn) and I've held it fondly in my memory, at least until three days ago.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm going to err on the side of "yes, Cap'n, we've seen Halloween and Halloween II," so recapping the film is not necessary. Instead, I'm going to share my revised thoughts on the film, pros and cons, then provide a "wish list" of sorts for things from Halloween II I'd like to see in Rob Zombie's H2.

To be kind, let's start with things I did like:

- The opening recaps the last five minutes of Halloween quite nicely for audiences (it was three years between the first and second film) and quickly gives urgency for Dr. Loomis to find a very alive Michael Myers loose in Haddonfield.

- Starting and ending the film with "Mr. Sandman" is an inspired move. The song can, under the right circumstances, be rather ethereal and creepy (see Nan Vernon's version in Zombie's Halloween remake.) As it plays over a crane shot re-introducing the Jarvis house, you're in the frame of mind that this Halloween is anything but nostalgic.

- The early way Michael stalking scenes are handled well; a combination of first person perspective shots and well placed lighting that reveal Myers at exactly the right time. My favorite is when Michael slowly un-dissolves from the darkness in Dr. Mixter's office. The entire sequence with the Security Guard, Mr. Garrett, is also well executed.

- Some of the kills are pretty cool, particularly the inventiveness of the hospital murders. I'm thinking specifically of the "Tub" sequence, the hypodermic needle kills, and the blood drawing of Mrs. Alves.

- For a while, it looks like Halloween is going to address not merely Laurie and Dr. Loomis, but Haddonfield in a broader sense. Much of the first half of the film is about the way the citizens react to the murders of Halloween and the possibility that a killer is loose in their city. The "wake" for Annie at the Myers house does hint at a deeper movie than Halloween II ends up being, which is unfortunate. Had they not dropped so much of that depth, the film may have been better.

- I love that in order to throw a red herring into the Loomis chase of Michael that Halloween II just arbitrarily kills a guy who coincidentally looks exactly like Michael Myers. What's more, it's not enough to pin him against a truck with a police car; there has to be a huge explosion and lingering shots of faux-Michael burning to death.

- Speaking of burning, I do like the final shots of the film: one of Laurie in the ambulance and then a comparably lingering shot of real-Michael facedown in the hospital, burning to not-death (as we discover in Halloween IV).


Now, unfortunately, there are the cons.

- Many of the things I like about Halloween II are undone by its last 40 minutes, which are almost exclusively in the hospital. Key to the problems of Halloween II is the fact that Laurie Strode has nothing to do. So miniscule is her role in the film that the script frequently finds excuses for Laurie to pass out, lapse into a coma, or simply hide out when no one is looking for her, just to get her character out of the film.

- As a result, the "cat and mouse" elements of the film with Michael and Laurie, when they finally do happen, are awkward and unnecessarily drawn out. Since the geography of the hospital is never clearly established (I think we're supposed to believe that the Maternity Ward, Rehab Room, and Laurie's room are on the same floor of a three story hospital), the two chases involving Laurie and Michael just don't make any sense.

_ The other kills Michael commits in the hospital are also riddled with sensical errors. While drowning the nurse in a "boiling" tub, Michael's right hand spends as much time in the "scalding" water as her boiled face does, yet it's perfectly normal throughout the movie. In fact, the hand Michael puts in the boiling water is the same one he wields his knife with, so you see quite a bit of how not "scalded" it is. The one character (Paul) who doesn't die in the hospital has a great fake out that never gets a payoff. He slips and falls in a puddle of blood, and it splashes up on his mouth, making Paul look like another victim. Rather than use this to any effect in the chase scenes, Paul simply appears later, getting into the exact car Laurie happens to be hiding in. Then, he inexplicably passes out on the horn and disappears from the rest of the movie. One or two of these things might be acceptable by "slasher" standards, but to come one after the other for 40 minutes is too nonsensical to accept.

- Of course, there are a lot of things in Halloween II that don't make sense in a "bad" way. I can live with the random killing of a teenager to keep Loomis and Laurie apart, but there are a lot of "convenient" things that pile up on top of each other in such a way that you can't suspend disbelief near the end. Among them: Laurie is unable to scream for Loomis until after he goes in the hospital, the extent of her injuries change depending on how convenient it is for her to escape, Loomis is given a crucial piece of information while being dragged out of Haddonfield by a Marshall and then decides to commandeer the car at gunpoint, so he can finally confront Michael, knowing the truth about why he chose Halloween to return.

- And oh my, is it a BAD reason. For some reason I used to defend the "Laurie is Michael's sister" plot "twist" in Halloween II, at least until Halloween: H20. When it became a central plot point in Rob Zombie's Halloween, I stepped back, and watching the awkward way the twist is handled, I can't defend it any more. When Loomis finds out that Laurie was adopted by the Strodes after Michael's parents died, he says the following (verbatim):

"Geez! Don't you see what he's doing here in Haddonfield? He killed one sister fifteen years ago and now he's trying to kill the other!"

The line is delivered so flatly by Donald Pleasance that I had trouble not laughing. Carpenter's script sloppily handles this "twist" by introducing terrible flashbacks while Laurie is in the hospital that deliver ham-handed lines like "Laurie, I'm not your real mother" and a shot of young Laurie visiting Michael in the asylum. You know, the same asylum that Dr. Loomis spent fifteen years studying Michael, and yet he a) never saw Laurie visit Michael, and b) doesn't know about this extension of the Myers family because "it was sealed by the Governor two years after Michael was locked up to protect the Strodes."

Suddenly I find myself longing for Daeg Faerch calling baby Laurie "Boo" before slaughtering his family of trailer trash.

Speaking of which, having watched the sequel to Halloween, here are a few things I'd like to see Zombie include in his sequel to the remake:

- I'm really hoping that this "Hobo" Michael plot device means that we're going to get more of the citizens of Haddonfield in H2. Certainly, considering that the cast has only grown with more people in town (including Margot Kidder, Bill Moseley, Daniel Roebuck, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Caroline Williams, and Howard Hesseman), I can hope that the scale of H2 reflects the promise abandoned by Halloween II.

- Truthfully, since he's already hinted at the hospital massacre, is it too much to ask for the arbitrary kill to throw Loomis off of Michael's trail? It's such an out-of-left-field move for Halloween II that I can picture Zombie borrowing it.

- Could there maybe be a twist where Laurie isn't Michael's sister? Maybe it's Annie instead? That's so dumb it might actually work!

- While it's not technically from Halloween II, is there a way to incorporate the police reaction from Halloween IV? One of the things I loved about that movie is that instead of the local cops not listening to Dr. Loomis, instead they mobilize to keep everyone safe and it still fails. It was a great twist on the slasher convention from a sequel that's honestly better than part II.

- One final request that I know won't happen, but could H2 at least try keeping Loomis and Laurie together for more than three minutes? It's not that I find the two of them combined are much more effective (I mean, Loomis shoots Michael 13 times and Laurie shoots him twice to no avail) but to be honest I minded Scout Taylor-Compton less when Malcolm McDowell was also on-screen.

You know what? It almost doesn't matter if none of that happens because we have "Ghost Deborah Myers", played by Sheri Moon-Zombie, which I still contend is crazy enough to make H2 vaguely watchable. While it shouldn't be that hard to make H2 better than Halloween II, I remain skeptical.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

 Forget December, the month of October has and likely will always be Cap'n Howdy's favorite time of the year. After all, you don't give yourself a bastardized moniker from The Exorcist without being into horror movies, and the season of Samhain / Devil's Night / Halloween is exactly the time for a good scare.

 As many of you know, the Cap'n also holds my annual festival of shocks this time of year, and Horror Fest VII will be a-happening, albeit probably later than usual for reasons I'll get into when the official announcement is made. In the meantime, I like to stack October with reviews for horror films, so while I will continue to watch movies like Looper and The Campaign, the focus from here on out will be on thrills and chills, with the occasional horror documentary thrown in for good measure.

 However, as the Cap'n finds himself at work more often than he isn't, I haven't had the time I normally have to seek out horror movies I haven't seen. That makes it harder to share them with all of you, so I'm opening up the comments for solicitations, recommendations, and any ideas of "theme" reviews (like looking at a series of films or one particular actor/actress's body of work).

  Below, I'm going to try to list as many horror films as I can remember having seen so you don't have to deal with Cap'n Buzzkill saying "seen that" over and over. In all honesty, while I have seen many horror films, there are a LOT I haven't and even more I haven't heard of that I'm sure would be cool to see. Just a note: I have tried and failed to enjoy Syfy Channel Original Movies, and don't see that changing.

 Alternately, you can use the below list to construct your own October movie playlist. This way, we both win!

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 The Universal Classic Monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, The Phantom of the Opera, Son of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Ghost of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, The Creature Walks Among Us, Werewolf of London.

 The Classics: Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, M, The Old Dark House, The Haunting, Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, Halloween, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, Carrie, Godzilla, Island of Lost Souls, Vampyr, Blood Feast (?), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Alien, Suspiria, The Shining, Psycho.

 Hammer Horror: The Horror of Dracula, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Dracula has Risen from the Grave, The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula A.D. 1972, Plague of the Zombies, Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, The Woman in Black.

 Werewolves: An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, Ginger Snaps, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, Ginger Snaps Back, Dog Soldiers, Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory, The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman, Silver Bullet, Bad Moon, Waxwork (?).

 Vampires: Mark of the Vampire, Return of the Vampire, Martin, The Lost Boys, Let the Right One In, Curse of the Undead, Fright Night, Fright Night II, From Dusk Till Dawn, From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, Slaughter of the Vampires, Vampire's Kiss, Shadow of the Vampire, Innocent Blood, Daybreakers, The Hunger, Thirst, Near Dark, The Lost Boys: The Tribe, Dracula 2000, Bram Stoker's Dracula, I Am Legend, The Omega Man, The Last Man on Earth, 30 Days of Night, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, Cronos, Sleepwalkers, Salem's Lot, Vampire Hunter D, Rabid.

 Ghosts: The Lady in White, The Orphanage, The Devil's Backbone, Hillbillys in a Haunted House, The Entity, House on Haunted Hill, Thirteen Ghosts, The Asphyx, The Others, The Frighteners, The House by the Cemetery.

 Zombies / Infected / Fake Zombies: Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Survival of the Dead, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, The Crazies, The Signal, Pontypool, Zombi 2, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, Dead Snow, Cemetery Man, Dead & Buried, Planet Terror, Fido, [REC]3: Genesis, Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, The Dead, Dead Alive / Braindead, Bong of the Dead, Zombies on Broadway, Zombie Strippers, Tombs of the Blind Dead, The Dead Hate the Living.

 Evil Houses / Hotels / Etc.: Hausu, The Amityville Horror, Poltergeist, The Inkeepers, 1408, The Legend of Hell House, Silent Hill.

 Creature Features: The Giant Claw, The Boogens, ThanksKilling, Rise of the Animals, Ghoulies, Ghoulies 2, Troll, Troll 2, Alligator People, Them!, Feast, Feast II: Sloppy Seconds, Feast III: The Happy Ending, Black Sheep, C.H.U.D., Night of the Lepus, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, Weasels Rip My Flesh, Kingdom of the Spiders, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Matango, Piranha, Jeepers Creepers, Jeepers Creepers 2, Phenomena, Monsturd, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Little Shop of Horrors, The Gingerdead Man.

 Killbillies: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Wrong Turn, Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, The Hills Have Eyes Part 2, The Devil's Rejects, House of 1000 Corpses, I Spit On Your Grave.

 Killbots: Chopping Mall

 Killer Trees: The Happening, From Hell It Came, The Navy vs. the Night Monster.

 Found Footage: [REC], [REC]2, Cloverfield, The Blair Witch Project.

 Aliens / Invaders / Etc.: Invaders from Mars, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Fiend without a Face, Flesh Eaters from Outer Space, A Taste for Flesh and Blood 2, Galaxy of Terror, The Blob, Beware! The Blob, Forbidden World, The Deadly Spawn, Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Call of Cthulhu, Alien Apocalypse, Terminal Invasion, Attack the Block, Terrorvision, The Stuff, The Galaxy Invader, Bad Taste, The Faculty, The Thing from Another World.

 Satan / Demons / Pagans / Witches / Etc.: Night of the Demons, The House of the Devil, Incubus, Demons, Demons 2, The Church, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, The Wicker Man, From Beyond, The Gate, Inferno, The Mother of Tears, Satan's Little Helper, The Rest of the Exorcist movies, Season of the Witch, Equinox, Lisa and the Devil, Manos: The Hands of Fate.

 Killer Santas: Silent Night, Deadly Night, Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2, Saint, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Santa's Slay, Christmas Evil.

 The John Carpenter Section: In the Mouth of Madness, The Fog, Prince of Darkness, The Ward, Ghosts of Mars (?), Vampires, The Thing.

 Anthologies / Amicus: Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, The House That Dripped Blood, Doctor Terror's House of Horrors, From Beyond the Grave, Tales That Witness Madness, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, Trick 'r Treat, Creepshow, Creepshow 2, House of Frankenstein, Trilogy of Terror, Cat's Eye, Black Sunday, Chillers, Spirits of the Dead, Tales of Terror, Two Evil Eyes, Twilight Zone: The Movie.

 Blaxploitation: Blacula, Blackenstein, Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, Scream Blacula Scream, Abby, Tales from the Hood.

 Slasher Flicks / Giallo: Black Christmas, The House on Sorority Row, Slumber Party Massacre (1-3), Sleepaway Camp, The Burning, The Prowler, Uncle Sam, Splatter University, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Maniac Cop, The Stepfather, Maniac, The Driller Killer, The Stepfather 2, See No Evil, Cheerleader Camp, A Night to Dismember, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Sorority Babes at the Slime Ball Bowl-o-Rama, Mortuary, Evil Laugh, Visiting Hours, April Fool's Day, The New York Ripper, The Tool Box Murders, Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye, Cat in the Brain, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, Blood and Black Lace, Pieces, Blood Runs Cold, Sisters, Dressed to Kill.

 Horror Series: Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Halloween, The Evil Dead, Child's Play, Leprechaun, Re-Animator, Phantasm, Return of the Living Dead, Saw, Resident Evil, Scream, Wishmaster, Hostel, Underworld, Blade.

 Remakes: Quarantine, Quarantine 2: Terminal, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, John Carpenter's The Thing, The Fly, The Crazies, Shit Coffin, Shit Coffin 2, Fright Night, Piranha 3D, Piranha 3DD, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, The Hills Have Eyes, House on Haunted Hill, Th13een Ghosts, The Wicker Man, Night of the Living Dead, My Bloody Valentine 3D, The Wizard of Gore, The Thing (remake/prequel), The Ring, The Ring 2, Willard, Night of the Living Dead 3D, The Wolfman, The Blob, Bodysnatchers, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Haunting.

 Horror Documentaries: Fangoria Weekend of Horrors, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Revisited: A Family Portrait, Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, His Name was Jason, More Brains: A Return to the Living Dead, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, Val Lewton : The Man in the Shadows, Screaming in High Heels: The Rise and Fall of the Scream Queen Era, Best Worst Movie, Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, American Scary.

 Horror Comedies / Parodies / Etc.: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Shaun of the Dead, Student Bodies, Return to Horror High, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Scary Movie, Scary Movie 2, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Beetlejuice (?), Ghostbusters (?), House, House II: The Second Story, Drag Me to Hell, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, 2001 Maniacs, Basket Case, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, It's Alive, Night of the Comet, Night of the Creeps, Cabin Fever, I Sell the Dead, Some Guy Who Kills People, Slither, The Monster Squad, Dead Heat, Zombieland, The Puppet Monster Massacre, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, My Name is Bruce, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Shadows, Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight, The House of Long Shadows, Tales from the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood.

 Meta Horror: The Cabin in the Woods, Behind the Mask; The Rise of Leslie Vernon, Rubber, Funny Games.

 Things That Don't Exactly Fall Into Those Categories: The Descent, Absentia, The Descent Part 2, Blood Car, Teeth, The Mist, The Ruins, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, The Toxic Avenger, Frankenhooker, Street Trash, High Tension, Martyrs, House of Wax, The Raven (1932), The Black Cat, May, Roman, Sleepy Hollow, Faces of Death, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Godsend, Village of the Damned, The Bad Seed, Maximum Overdrive.

 Okay, so this isn't everything, but I have to stop for now. As I remember more, I'll update more, but please let me know if there's something I NEED to see or would really enjoy or if there's something you really want me to review.

Spoiler of the Day: Halloween II (2009)

 Okay, follow me if you can - Michael has been seeing visions of his mother and younger version of himself, who lead him to kidnap Laurie. He takes his sister to a barn, and Sheriff Brackett and officers surround the area. Dr. Loomis arrives and against Brackett's wishes, he goes into the barn to try to reason with Michael. Then we have two different endings:

 Theatrical Version - Michael kills Loomis in the barn, and is gunned down. Laurie puts on Michael's mask and walks outside. She takes her mask off, and the film dissolves to Laurie in a mental institution.

 Director's Cut: Michael shoves Loomis through the barn, and kills him in front of the police, who gun him down. Laurie walks out, picks up Michael's knife, and despite Brackett's pleas otherwise, one of the officers shoots Laurie, killing her. We then dissolve to Laurie in the asylum, where Michael's / her mother is coming down the hallway with a white horse. She smiles.

 Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Friday the 13th

Spoiler of the Day: Halloween (2007)

 After Michael appears to kill Loomis (more on that tomorrow), Laurie shoots Michael point blank in the face with a revolver. That should pretty much wrap up this story, right?


Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Halloween II (2009)

Spoiler of the Day: Halloween Resurrection

 Laurie didn't decapitate Michael - just some medic wearing his mask. Michael kills Laurie, goes home, and is kung fu'ed, electrocuted, and burned alive by Busta Rhymes.


 Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Halloween (2007)

Spoiler of the Day: Halloween - H20

 Laurie decapitates her brother... or does she? Stay tuned for tomorrow's spoiler!


 Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Halloween Resurrection

Spoiler of the Day: Halloween 6 - The Curse of Michael Myers

 Tommy Jarvis, Kara, and Doctor Loomis subdue / kill Michael, but Loomis goes back and is killed off-screen by The Shape. I forget what The Man in Black had to do with it.



Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Halloween - H20

Spoiler of the Day: Halloween 5 - The Revenge of Michael Myers

  Loomis and Jamie catch Michael and take him to the police, but he's rescued by a man in black. Not Johnny Cash, though. Just some dude in black. It will all make sense tomorrow (SPOILER: It Won't)


 Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Halloween 6 - The Curse of Michael Myers.

Spoiler for the Day: Halloween 4 - The Return of Michael Myers

 This time Michael falls down a mine shaft, or something. That's not really the twist for the movie: Jamie, his niece, has been tormented for the whole movie, and she finally snaps, puts on a clown mask, and stabs the hell out of her mother. A scarred but very much alive Dr. Loomis stands on the staircase and bleats "noooooooooo!": Cue "theme from Halloween" with a to be continued tomorrow...


 Tomorrow's Spoiler for the Day: Halloween 5 - The Revenge of Michael Myers

Spoiler of the Day: Halloween III - Season of the Witch

 The evil plan to set Samhain in motion with evil masks that kill (and release killer insects) is all tied to Halloween commercials being broadcast nation wide. Despite being Tom Atkins, he fails to stop it, so presumably you're all too dead to read this. Realizing that Michael Myers wasn't in the film, people stayed home and they went back to slasher town the following film.


 Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Halloween 4 - The Return of Michael Myers.

Spoiler of the Day: Halloween II

 The hospital explodes, theoretically killing Michael and Dr. Loomis (see Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers). Laurie escapes and fakes her own death (see Halloween: H20 later this week). Life is safe for evil toy companies to create killer masks.


 Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

TV Talk: Treehouse of Horror XI-XXI

 When last we left off, the Cap'n had finished watching the first ten episodes of The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror series, which covers seasons two through eleven. Even though I decried an evident case of diminishing returns as the series went on (in effect stopping nearly when I stopped watching the show), I noticed that I seemed to be missing "Night of the Dolphins," and I figured why not sit down and catch up with eleven years' worth of horror-related anthologies that I hadn't seen (some at all).

 I was left with a "good news, bad news" scenario: the good news was there were flashes of my favorite Treehouse of Horror's, but the bad news was they were often fleeting, and a rarely did one of them lasted for an entire segment of its episode.

 Things get off to a shaky start in Treehouse of Horror XI with a parody of the Bill Cosby movie Ghost Dad, but evens out with the final segment, the aforementioned "Night of the Dolphin," which manages to fit in nods to Jaws and The Birds and has a fitfully dark ending. The middle segment, "Scary Tales Do Come True," is symptomatic of a problem that plagues the latter eleven Treehouse entries: many of the parodies are tangentially (at best) tied to horror.

 A Hansel and Gretl meet other fairy tales would make sense in the context of other Simpsons anthology episodes (which have covered works of literature, myths, or Biblical stories), but it begins a trend of moving away from Twilight Zone stories and horror films to other parodies - some of which don't even make sense. But Transformers? Mr. and Mrs. Smith? The Harry Potter spoof doesn't even get a pass because if you took that, "Scary Tales Can Come True," and "Four Beheadings and a Funeral", a Sherlock Holmes / Jack the Ripper story, and put them into their own anthology.

 I'm more willing to give the Mad Men-esque spoof "How to Get Ahead in Dead-vertising" because it at least continues the trend of zombie celebrities, even if it is just a variation on the Homer the Grim Reaper segment from XIV. However, "Bartificial Intelligence" doesn't make any sense in a Treehouse of Horror, and a Golem story (like "Hex in the City") eventually shifts from possibly horror related to cheap ethnic jokes. A Fantastic Voyage (really?) spoof turns it self around into a variation on Treehouse of Horror II's "Homer and Burns share a body" joke, followed by a song-and-dance vaguely reminiscent of the "Bart Simpson's Dracula". "The Ned Zone" never really goes anywhere, and "Married to the Blob" starts great but falls apart long before Dr. Phil appears as himself. A Tales from the Crypt-style opening sequence falls apart as soon as Smithers appears, which is a shame.

 The nadir of the latter Treehouses is"The Day the Earth Stood Stupid," a segment that seems to be a take on Orson Welles' infamous "War of the Worlds" hoax, but then devolves into a boneheaded (and woefully unfunny) critique of the War in Iraq, with Kodos and Kang arguing about who said they would be "greeted as liberators" and ends with an awful "hearts and minds" gag. Of course, if you like Kodos and Kang, then stay away from "E.T.: Go Home" which seems promising but quickly goes south.

While there are some serious lowlights, it is fair to mention that there are some sporadically clever segments: there's the spot-on Hitchcock homage "Dial 'M' for Murder or Press # to Return to Main Menu," a pretty good take on Dead Calm (although I can't imagine most fans getting that reference) marred only by a pointless A Clockwork Orange reference ("Simpsons did it!"), the Twilight parody actually has a few good jokes, as does Pierce Brosnan's evil house in XII. While I don't love "Frinkenstein", it was amusing to hear Jerry Lewis as Professor Frink's father gleefully collecting organs at the Nobel Prize ceremony. "The Island of Doctor Hibbert" and "Survival of the Fattest" are pretty good, and the 28 Days Later "tainted Krusty Burger" segment is great but drops the ball at the end.

 The closest thing other than the Hitchcock segment is an almost perfect send-up of Charlie Brown cartoons called "It's the Grand Pumpkin, Milhouse." For a while, it sustains the animation style, but overuses a few obvious gags (Marge's trombone, for example) and breaks the tone with Nelson and the bullies before halfway redeeming itself with a racist pumpkin ("all pumpkins are racist; the difference is I admit it!"). The Grand Pumpkin and Tom Turkey's screams of "Revenge!" still make me chuckle.

 
Watching the second half of the Treehouse of Horror episodes (plus one), I can see many of the things I've noticed while popping in on The Simpsons over the years after no longer being a regular viewer - jokes are periodically funny, but often are followed by something that reminds me of a better Simpsons episode. The "jerkass" phase of Homer Simpson is abundant in many of these episodes, and it's more grating than hilarious. The pop culture references become more obvious and get lazier as time goes on, and much of the sharp writing of earlier years is undermined by lazy shortcuts or, worse, an inability to stick the landing. While I don't plan on watching the show regularly again (and the episode "The Real Housewives of Fat Tony" really guaranteed that), it was nice to catch up on what used to be a Halloween institution, even if several Treehouse of Horror episodes joke about airing in November.

Let the Blogorium Speak for Itself...?

 Hrm. The Cap'n doesn't really have a review today. I thought I might, but over the last two days I watched Halloween II with Rob Zombie's commentary track and the group commentary for Trick 'R Treat. I've toyed with the idea of doing write-ups of commentary tracks, as they seem to be the least accessed feature on nearly every DVD and Blu-Ray release. For some reason, it never seems as interesting to write about them as it does to listen to them. Appropriately, many directors, writers, producers, and actors feel like it's not as interesting to listen to them talk about a film when you can let the film speak for itself. Steven Spielberg doesn't record commentary tracks for just that reason, along with David Lynch and the Coen brothers*.

  Part of the appeal of a "Rogue Commentary Track" is that it would allow people who have a marginal history with the film, but who appreciate something about the film, to speak at length about what they take away from it without forcing people to pay anything. If it ever happens, that is. I certainly don't have the equipment to make that happen, but I do know a number of well versed cinephiles who could sit down and provide insightful and entertaining tracks for films that go underrepresented. It's the technical end that's hanging that idea up, and the scheduling; there's rarely time that everyone could get together.

 Well, let's try to make something out of this commentary-centric Saturday. Trick 'R Treat was fun to watch (virtually) with the director, editor, composer, producer, and storyboard artist, and I picked up a few more connective tidbits that I hadn't caught yet. The film really does reward multiple viewings, because it is packed with overlapping character moments. I honestly had no idea that Brian Cox wanted Mr. Kreeg to look like John Carpenter, but it's actually a clever nod that I can see during his segment.

 After listening to the Halloween II "Unrated Director's Cut" commentary, it's clear that two things dominated the making of the film: the decreasing budget / schedule and the editing. Zombie is clearly frustrated that a number of sequences were hampered by schedule cuts, including the Phantom Jam (which was supposed to take four days to shoot but was shortened to one night), and while he feels the film suffers from the shortcuts they had to take, he's reasonably satisfied with the director's cut.

 I'm happy that I found a copy of the Theatrical Cut (available in Canada, but I'm not sure if it is here in the US), because based on Zombie's description of what was cut, alterations made to existing footage, and his feelings about the changes, that unlike many "director's cuts," this is a radically different version of the film. Tonally the films sound quite different: the relationship between Laurie and Annie is less antagonistic, Michael's visions are more ambiguous, and the ending heads in a different direction. Zombie is happier with his cut of the film (available on Blu-Ray), but I think being able to watch both will be a valuable point of comparison. There's also a commentary on that DVD, and I wonder if it's also distinct from the director's cut, as it would be difficult to simply cut out many of the descriptions of what differs.

 All of this may seem irrelevant to many of you, as I understand that people really seem to hate Halloween II. As someone who really hated Halloween, I find it odd that people were less interested in seeing Zombie go off in his own direction with the sequel, and it makes me wonder what exactly it was that you all liked about the 2007 remake. Aside from the hospital dream sequence, Zombie makes no effort to stick to remake "rules," and while it may have problems, I think that Halloween II works as a sequel, and considering that the original Halloween II is a mess of sloppy plot points, needless coincidences, and stupid characters, I'm going to give the edge to Rob.

 Oh well. That seemed more interesting to write than it probably was to read for you. I'll see what I can do to rectify that in the coming days. I have found more than a dozen horror films from the 1980s that I've never heard of before that seem like they'll be fun to review. Until then...



* With the notable exception of The Man Who Wasn't There, which is a low-key affair featuring Joel, Ethan, and Billy Bob Thornton, where they impart a number of interesting details along with what may or may not be a whole bunch of trickery about the film. It depends on whether you trust the mercurial Coens or academics, who claim to have "figured them out" without actually knowing them.

Blogorium Essay: Home is Where the Monster Is.

Here's a break from the norm: the Cap'n was asked to write a short piece on the subject of "home." This is what came to me:

Home is where the Monster is.

I thought long and hard about the subject of “home,” and invariably my mind wandered to horror films, as it always does. Home means something to us in horror films, mostly because the most successful fright films deal with the invasion of home. We feel safe at home, and the violation of that safety scares us more than giant lizards or killer rabbits ever could. It’s more than a nuisance, it’s terrifying. But sometimes we don’t give the monsters a fair shake. Sometimes, we’re invading their home.

Take Jason Vorhees, for example. Okay, hulking monstrosity, hockey mask, machete, and all that. He’s scary, I get that. But he only ever follows one person home, at the very beginning of Friday the 13^th Part 2. The rest of the time, Vorhees tries to stay in and around Camp Crystal Lake. Summer camp is a home away from home for America’s youth, a proving group filled with absentee counselors and budding adolescence.

It’s also Jason Vorhees home. It’s the only home he knows, and every summer another gaggle of horny teenagers show up, making noise and smoking pot. Can you blame him for hacking them to pieces? Home is where the heart is, and if you’re a mongoloid without proper parents, maybe the more hearts, the merrier. Literally. The crazy old man in town did warn them, after all.

Consider also the Halloween series. Whether you’re on team Carpenter or team Zombie, Michael Myers invariably heads home after escaping the asylum. Maybe he just wants to relive old memories: Christmas mornings, playing in the back yard, or stabbing his sister to death while wearing a clown mask. Who can be sure? The important point is that even movie monsters have the same desires we do. We all want to go back home after being away for a while. The sting that home isn’t the same; that you have to make home where you find yourself, can be jarring. Thankfully, more people adapt than become homicidal maniacs.

On the other hand, there’s the curious case of Freddy Krueger. Despite what many years of sequels have wiped away, the iconic house so associated with the gloved killer isn’t actually his house. It was Nancy’s house, then Jesse’s house. Freddy didn’t just invade the dreams of Elm Street’s children – he decided to move in! This always troubled me, because Freddy has no attachment to the house. Nancy’s mother just kept his hat there, in a furnace in the basement. If that gives you “squatter’s rights,” then I need to start leaving articles of clothing everywhere I go.

Freddy is the ultimate “bad” roommate – the house was in great shape until he moved in, you can’t come home without finding something horrible around every corner, and every now and then he brings a girl home and turns her into a cockroach. Not cool, Freddy! It’s no wonder that nobody moves into 1428 Elm Street. For that matter, nobody wants to move into the Myers house either. I’ll chalk that up to a sense of cosmic propriety – we don’t want monsters stalking around our homes. It’s fair to assume they don’t want to come home and find us stalking around theirs either.

Food for thought: “home is where the monster is” can be read both ways. As the Twilight Zone taught us: sometimes we’re the monsters. Those homicidal maniacs? They just want a place to kick back and get away from the big bad world for a while. Then they’ll try to kill you.

Blogorium Review - Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy

If anything good came of Platinum Dunes' remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, it's that more attention shifted to the original film and its sequels. Not only did fans get A Nightmare on Elm Street on Blu-Ray (and let me tell you, the "arm stretching" scene looks even sillier in HD*), but the insanely comprehensive Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy arrived for Fred Heads to pore over. And boy howdy is there a lot to pore over.

That is, if you could find it. To date, I still can't find Never Sleep Again in stores. It just recently made it to Netflix, and I had to order my copy from Amazon, where it was on a "Ships in 1 to 3 weeks" back-order. Fortunately, I ordered from one of the Marketplace sellers - Moviemars - based in NC, and got it in about a week. However, it was totally worth the wait.

Surrounding the remakes of Halloween and Friday the 13th, retrospective documentaries were released for each: Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and His Name was Jason, which set the template for Never Sleep Again - interviews with cast, crew, fans, and creators of each film in the series. In fact, Never Sleep Again is co-directed by Daniel Farrands, who directed His Name Was Jason. Each set came in two discs - one disc was the documentary, and the other was extended interviews, set visits, recaps, or short featurettes on music, makeup, or fandom.

The difference between the all-encompassing docs for Friday the 13th / Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street is sheer depth of presentation. Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and His Name was Jason are 89 and 90 minutes respectively; Never Sleep Again is 4 hours long. That's just the documentary. I'm guessing the second disc has roughly 2-2 1/2 hours of additional material. And none of it drags.

Directors Farrands and Andrew Kasch managed to get just about everyone involved in the Nightmare series to appear on camera** and talk about the films, and almost none of it rehashes information from the previous making-of's in the Nightmare on Elm Street boxed set or Infinifilm disc. Narrated by Heather Langenkamp, each film gets a good 30-40 minutes covering every aspect of the production from story to casting to production, release, controversy, and direction.

There's a surprisingly comprehensive list of cast members who came back from the first seven films, including Mark Patton (Jesse in Freddy's Revenge), Danny Hassel (Dan in Nightmares 4 and 5), Ken Sagoes (Kincaid in Dream Warriors), Jsu Garcia (Rod in Nightmare 1), Alice Cooper (Freddy's father in Freddy's Dead), Mike Smith (Super Freddy in Dream Child), Lisa Zane (Maggie in Freddy's Dead), Zack Ward (Bobby in Freddy vs. Jason), Lisa Wilcox (Alice in Nightmares 4 and 5), Clu Gulager (Jesse's Dad in Freddy's Revenge) and even Charles Fleischer (Dr. King in Nightmare 1); people I've never heard talk about the Nightmare movies before. For crying out loud, the even talk to Dokken!

Once and for all, there's a comprehensive discussion of the various iterations of Freddy vs. Jason in one place, complete with a breakdown of how the final script differed from the film - including reactions from some of the cast about changes that occurred between signing on and filming. Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash even comes up, and there's a pretty good explanation by former New Line executive Jeff Katz (who wrote the spec script for FvJvA) on why it never came to pass. Even Kane Hodder (Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th part 7 to Jason X) chimes in about how he was in and out of the film without ever being given a specific reason.

It was also interesting to hear Wes Craven talk about each of the sequels on the record, including (as one of the extras) the remake. Additionally, I have to say it's fascinating hearing the ways that Jack Sholder, Chuck Russell, Renny Harlin, Stephen Hopkins, Rachel Talalay, and Ronny Yu talk about their approaches to the film, and cast and writer experiences of working with each director, warts and all.

My personal favorite section of the documentary was the discussion of Freddy's Nightmares, the ill-received anthology TV series that aired between The Dream Master and Freddy's Dead. Considering that almost no one ever talks about the series, it was fun to see William Malone (House on Haunted Hill), Mick Garris (Masters of Horror), David J. Schow (The Crow) and Tom McLoughlin (Friday the 13th Part 6) talk about making a very low budget show for syndication where the limits on gore and sexuality were, shall we say, lax. Nobody seems particularly proud of the end result, including former New Line CEO Robert Shaye, but that it was even mentioned - let alone get its own block of documentary - made me happy***.

I haven't completely finished the second disc (in that I haven't watched all of "Horror's Hallowed Grounds: A Nightmare on Elm Street") but the extended interviews are great, the 10 minute recap of the Nightmare films - comprised of cast members performing memorable lines - is a lot of fun, the fan segment is cool, as are the various people who make glove replicas, the music section is cool, I liked the spin-off books (which also cover FvJvA), and a nice interview with The Angry Video Game Nerd about his Nightmare on Elm Street game review is included. Overall, it's just a solid package covering damn near everything you could want to know. Think of it as a documentary version of Peter Bracke's Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th.

While I'm slightly biased as a massive Nightmare on Elm Street fan, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that even casual fans won't be bored watching this 4 hour documentary. There's never a point where the discussion isn't interesting or there's something new to learn (for example, I'd somehow never heard that Tron's David Warner was originally cast as Fred Krueger and had to drop out) and it's broken up in such a way that you can spread it out over a day or two. This is an absolute must-see for Nightmare fans, and a high recommendation for people who want to see what all the hoopla is about.


* That being said, everything else looks great. Don't let the cynics tell you that a low-budget movie from 1984 can't look good in High Definition. A Nightmare on Elm Street looks better than I'd ever imagined it could.
** Notable absences are Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette, Ronee Blakely (Nancy's mother in part 1), Breckin Meyer (Freddy's Dead), Frank Darabont (who co-wrote Dream Warriors), Peter Jackson (who wrote the mythical and unproduced A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: The Dream Lovers) and strangely much of the cast of Freddy vs. Jason (including Katharine Isabelle, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter, and Ken Kirzinger), although there is a great joke involving Jason Mewes and the assumption he played Freeburg in Freddy vs. Jason.
*** Craven and Shaye, among others, also address Dreamscape - which was released the same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street - for the first time I can remember.