Shocktober Revisited: Don't Go In the Woods

 M. Night Shyamalan once famously tried to "re-brand" The Happening as a "B Movie" after audiences (and critics) had a chance to see how terribly inept it was. At one point, I had to prove to a friend of a friend that it wasn't the case by showing them the special features on the Blu-Ray, which has Shyamalan lauding his cast and crew on what a terrifying thriller they were making, one that would open people's eyes. Now, I suppose, it's possible that when he saw the finished cut, he revised his strategy, but given his typical stance of believing his turds are golden eggs, I think it was studio pressure to salvage his eco-disasterpiece. But that's just my theory. The Happening does all of the heavy lifting by itself - you decide if this was supposed to be schlocky or just ended up that way as a result of gross incompetence.

 What bearing does this have on Don't Go in the Woods (sometimes with "...Alone!" at the end)? As I learned after watching this 1981 slasher movie, director James Bryan intended the film to be a comedy, and not just a "me too" entry into the subgenre. That would put the film in the same company as Student Bodies, but the problem with this characterization of Don't Go in the Woods is that it's almost impossible to tell while watching the film. Bryan seems (well, seemed - I won't pretend I'm familiar with his filmography) to lack any basic semblance of pacing, editing, or sensible shot composition, and somehow makes a movie that's barely 81 minutes feel twice that long. It doesn't work as a comedy or as a slasher film, and yet, is oddly appealing in fits and (blood) spurts.

 One wouldn't be mistaken in assuming there's no plot to be had during the first twenty minutes of Don't Go in the Woods, as Bryan haphazardly jumps from one hastily cobbled together "kill" to the next, in rapid succession. Other than the fact that someone - or some thing - is hunting anyone who wanders into the forest outside of Park City, Utah, there's no connective tissue whatsoever that can be identified. Bryan's notion of setting up a "kill" is to throw a character on screen, without any sense of context, cut to hand-held "POV" shoots of the murderer, and then go straight for the gore. If you get a kick out of seeing the camera run into branches, lose balance, and then unexpectedly cut to a guy losing his arm, Don't Go in the Woods has you covered. We eventually learn that he was an ornithologist (McCormick Dalton), which is relevant in no real capacity, but that is the only one of Bryan's procession of victims we have any sense of back story for.

 Also wandering around in the woods, presumably just to be murdered, are a girl running around (Alma Ramos), a newlywed couple in their customized shag van (pun intended) (Carolyn Braza and Frank Millen), an artist (Cecilia Fannon), a tourist (Dale Angell), his mother (Ruth Grose), a fisherman (Hank Zinman), and a guy in a wheelchair (Gerry Klein) who is, inexplicably, slowly rolling himself up a dirt road. His struggle, including at least two times when his chair tips over, are agonizingly cross-cut with the final showdown between our heroes, the police, and the killer. For the record, my favorite theory about the killer prior to discovering it was just a Killbilly was that it was a "bear with a knife," which is really what it looks like when the artist dies and her toddler-aged daughter disappears.

 Yes, I did mention "heroes," didn't I? Eventually, in the midst of all of this random killing for killing's sake, we do actually meet the four twenty-somethings that one expects to find in a slasher movie: Craig (James P. Hayden) Ingrid (Mary Gail Artz), Joanne (Angie Brown), and Peter (Jack McClelland). Craig is leading the expedition out to a cabin in the woods - relax, we never see it, and it is never mentioned again once the killer shows up - with the rest in tow. He's the natural leader, Boy Scout type, and Peter is the "tenderfoot" who makes mistakes and resents Craig. Ingrid and Joanne are, um, the girls. One of them has short hair and the other one doesn't. To be honest, without looking at them in the movie, I can't remember which is which, but I think Ingrid is the one who lives at the end (SPOILER). Since I'm SPOILING, this breaks with the at-the-time nascent concept of "Final Girl" theory by also having Peter survive, but Craig and Joanne are long dead. Like the rest of the murders, there's no real rhyme or reason for this decision.

 I should mention that in the midst of hiking to a cabin, they spend the night in the woods twice, despite the fact that the cabin is close enough to walk to "by mid-day tomorrow." The killer isn't even stalking them at that point - he's instead murdering another group of campers (Leon Brown, Jr. and Linda Brown, although I could have sworn there were more people). It might have been a clever "bait-and-switch" if it were possible to tell what the hell was going on in Don't Go in the Woods. By that point, Bryan is stretching the story out in all possible directions, also including the morbidly obese Sheriff (Ken Carter). He's responding to the missing ornithologist report, until he just decides to give up in the middle of flying over the woods. No, really, that's what happens. He requests a plane to fly over, in the hopes of seeing, um, something, and then tells the pilot they'll never find the guy, he probably went home. But don't worry, the police and a local militia will be back for the "big" finale.

 Perhaps Bryan's notion that Don't Go in the Woods being a "comedy" comes from the sensory overload of ridiculous, bloody murders that make up the first half of the film. If so, he failed miserably, because there's nothing particularly comical about having the tourist's dead body lying on a rock just above two frolicking teenagers - a shot he returns to after killing the mother. There's nothing particularly tragic or ironic about it, either, because the composition is so in-artful. The closest thing to outright comical happens during the honeymoon - and honestly, you can't even tell they're married until you see it on the side of the van - when, after the couple is slashed thoroughly, the killer decides to flip the van over, into a ravine. And it explodes. I laughed at the audacity, and again when somehow nobody noticed that this happened, despite what is clearly a crowded forest.

 To be fair, I go into most slasher films with a healthy suspension of disbelief. The ridiculous nature of murder set pieces were part and parcel of the subgenre, even in 1981. I can even put up with sometimes amateurish execution, as long as the payoff is worthwhile. What's difficult to reconcile about Don't Go in the Woods is the stunning lack of tension. We barely have time to register that someone is on camera before they're being stalked and summarily slaughtered, and none of it is done with any degree of flair. There's no suspense in the film because there's no sense of geography for the characters, or any attempt to set up anything. If you'd like to make a case that the killer's M.O. resembles the Texas Chain Saw Massacre (and his cabin is clearly designed to) and therefore is somehow meant to make it "random," I'd listen, but then you'd have to explain the ending as something less coherent than "repeating the cycle." What begins as a slasher film slowly devolves into a mishmash of The Hills Have Eyes, but with random asides not unlike the police subplot in The Last House on the Left. And I somehow doubt that Wes Craven or Tobe Hooper would be happy to have their films compared to Don't Go in the Woods.

 And yet, I did say I kind of enjoyed it, didn't I? Well, that is true. It's an excruciatingly boring movie from the halfway point onward, but the random killings at the beginning are amusing in and of themselves. It's a little bit like that DVD, Boogeymen: The Killer Compilation, which was just clips of famous monster movies without any semblance placement within their respective films, crammed together. It's not the ideal way to watch a slasher, but the sheer willingness to throw narrative away and just randomly murder people with no rhyme or reason is amusing. And I reiterate: whether intentional or not, the fact that the killer pushes a van off of a cliff (sideways) is humorous. Some of Don't Go in the Woods is so stupid that you can't help but chuckle. The "score," by H. Kingsley Thurber (Frozen Scream), is a synth-heavy cacophony of "was that the right choice?" Every now and then he provides the punch line for a joke, which is funny in all the wrong ways, especially for the musical "fart" that accompanies Peter soiling himself.

 So, in fairness, while Don't Go in the Woods is frequently an interminable bore, there are moments of sheer stupidity, of incompetence in the direction and writing (how could I leave out Garth Eliasson, he who wrote the story and the script?), that will make you chuckle. If it had, oh, a sense of pacing, let alone a better sense of one, I would be inclined to recommend it, because some of the kills are decent, and before you know what the killer is, there's a sense of baffling confusion. As it stands, I would only recommend it to slasher die-hards who have exhausted most of the better offerings. Don't Go in the Woods isn't bottom of the barrel - it is watchable, if nothing else - but you might find yourself struggling against seeing how much time you have left.

Shocktober Revisited: The Final Terror

There's no certainty that people would even know that The Final Terror existed today, were it not for the fact that most of its cast of young stars went on to bigger and better roles a few years later. In fact, The Final Terror was shelved in 1980 and not released for another two years, and only then because it suddenly had "name" talent in it. It's not hard to see why producers might find the film hard to sell - it just barely qualifies as a "slasher" film - but there's a scrappy, underdog quality to The Final Terror that makes it worthwhile. Coupled with some soon to be well known names was director Andrew Davis, who these days is probably better known for The Fugitive, but back then still had a keen eye for visuals, which is important considering the entire movie takes place in the woods.

 Forest rangers Mike (Mark Metcalf), Nathaniel (Ernest Harden, Jr.), Boone (Lewis Smith), Zorich (John Friedrich), and newcomer Marco (Adrian Zmed) are heading up for a weekend of clearing brush and river rafting in the Pacific Northwest*. Against the advice of their mechanic, Eggar (Joe Pantoliano), they decide to bring along some girls: Windy (Daryl Hannah), Melanie (Cindy Harrell), Margaret (Rachel Ward), and Vanessa (Akosua Busia). They also choose one of the most remote paths back to where Eggar is going to take the bus, and during campfire storytelling, Boone shares the story of a crazed old woman who escape from the local asylum and lives in the woods. But it turns out that might not just be a story...

 There's actually nothing supernatural about The Final Terror (which is pretty ambiguous based on its poster what the "terror" is supposed to be - aliens?), and by the twenty minute mark, before anybody's been killed (although Marco goes missing) we have a general idea who the backwoods slasher is or is going to be. You can actually guess even earlier than that based on clues that are not so subtly dropped on the way to the woods, or the fact that one character is clearly more deranged than everyone else. Still, Davis does a good job of misdirection throughout the movie, causing you to wonder if Boone's story is entirely accurate, or if there's a Psycho-esque angle at play. And when the kills do start, they are pretty brutal. There's actually a pre-credit double kill of two unrelated characters that Davis shot when producers informed him the body count (three) was "too low" for a slasher film.

 The Final Terror is nevertheless more "survival horror" than "slasher film," and it hews more along the lines of Walter Hill's Southern Comfort than something like The Burning. Most of the movie is spent with our protagonists trying to outrun the killer and make it back to the bus (their alternative is a 45 mile hike), with military enthusiast Zorich becoming the de facto leader and resorting to survivalist tactics. The end of the film is more or less a showdown in the middle of the woods that, in the ensuing three decades, is unfortunately going to remind a lot of people of Predator, even though The Final Terror had it beat by six years. Aside from a few tense sequences on the bus and a few good kills early on, you'd be hard pressed to really include The Final Terror in the "classic" slasher era.

 On the other hand, you probably noticed in the synopsis just how many names you recognized, even if vaguely. After Zmed's career took off with TJ Hooker and Daryl Hannah figured prominently in Blade Runner (and would make it big with Splash the following year), The Final Terror was deemed worthy of cashing in on, but they're far from the only recognizable names. Joe Pantoliano would appear in Risky Business the same year, and go on to memorable roles in The Goonies, Midnight Run, The Matrix, and The Fugitive (again directed by Davis). Rachel Ward had already appeared in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Sharky's Machine, and would star opposite Jeff Bridges in Against All Odds the following year. Mark Metcalf might not be a name you recognize, but he was both Niedermeyer in Animal House and The Master on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even less familiar names, like Ernest Harden, Jr. went on from The Jeffersons to The Final Terror and would pop up in White Men Can't Jump and J. Edgar. Lewis Smith who, coincidentally, joined the cast of Southern Comfort after filming this, would go on to make North and South and appeared in Wyatt Earp.

 In that regard, it's fun to watch The Final Terror and see so many people on the cusp of stardom or, barring that, recognize-ability. It's similar to The Burning, which was the film debut of Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter, and Fisher Stevens, although the end product is perhaps less memorable. I don't want to give the impression that this film is a long lost gem (although it has been MIA for a while) - at best it's a pretty good thriller / suspense film with some horror elements. It's well shot, has a pretty good pace, and an ending that doesn't disappoint, but I'd hesitate to leapfrog The Final Terror to the top of my "horror" list. Still, I'm glad I got the chance to check it out, and if you've seen everything under the full moon, this one is worth seeking out for a throwback to when "slasher" was a little more nebulous in its formula.




 * I don't recall if it's specifically stated in the film, but The Final Terror was shot in Northern California and Oregon.

Blogorium Review: Don't Go in the Woods

  M. Night Shyamalan once famously tried to "re-brand" The Happening as a "B Movie" after audiences (and critics) had a chance to see how terribly inept it was. At one point, I had to prove to a friend of a friend that it wasn't the case by showing them the special features on the Blu-Ray, which has Shyamalan lauding his cast and crew on what a terrifying thriller they were making, one that would open people's eyes. Now, I suppose, it's possible that when he saw the finished cut, he revised his strategy, but given his typical stance of believing his turds are golden eggs, I think it was studio pressure to salvage his eco-disasterpiece. But that's just my theory. The Happening does all of the heavy lifting by itself - you decide if this was supposed to be schlocky or just ended up that way as a result of gross incompetence.

 What bearing does this have on Don't Go in the Woods (sometimes with "...Alone!" at the end)? As I learned after watching this 1981 slasher movie, director James Bryan intended the film to be a comedy, and not just a "me too" entry into the subgenre. That would put the film in the same company as Student Bodies, but the problem with this characterization of Don't Go in the Woods is that it's almost impossible to tell while watching the film. Bryan seems (well, seemed - I won't pretend I'm familiar with his filmography) to lack any basic semblance of pacing, editing, or sensible shot composition, and somehow makes a movie that's barely 81 minutes feel twice that long. It doesn't work as a comedy or as a slasher film, and yet, is oddly appealing in fits and (blood) spurts.

 One wouldn't be mistaken in assuming there's no plot to be had during the first twenty minutes of Don't Go in the Woods, as Bryan haphazardly jumps from one hastily cobbled together "kill" to the next, in rapid succession. Other than the fact that someone - or some thing - is hunting anyone who wanders into the forest outside of Park City, Utah, there's no connective tissue whatsoever that can be identified. Bryan's notion of setting up a "kill" is to throw a character on screen, without any sense of context, cut to hand-held "POV" shoots of the murderer, and then go straight for the gore. If you get a kick out of seeing the camera run into branches, lose balance, and then unexpectedly cut to a guy losing his arm, Don't Go in the Woods has you covered. We eventually learn that he was an ornithologist (McCormick Dalton), which is relevant in no real capacity, but that is the only one of Bryan's procession of victims we have any sense of back story for.

 Also wandering around in the woods, presumably just to be murdered, are a girl running around (Alma Ramos), a newlywed couple in their customized shag van (pun intended) (Carolyn Braza and Frank Millen), an artist (Cecilia Fannon), a tourist (Dale Angell), his mother (Ruth Grose), a fisherman (Hank Zinman), and a guy in a wheelchair (Gerry Klein) who is, inexplicably, slowly rolling himself up a dirt road. His struggle, including at least two times when his chair tips over, are agonizingly cross-cut with the final showdown between our heroes, the police, and the killer. For the record, my favorite theory about the killer prior to discovering it was just a Killbilly was that it was a "bear with a knife," which is really what it looks like when the artist dies and her toddler-aged daughter disappears.

 Yes, I did mention "heroes," didn't I? Eventually, in the midst of all of this random killing for killing's sake, we do actually meet the four twenty-somethings that one expects to find in a slasher movie: Craig (James P. Hayden) Ingrid (Mary Gail Artz), Joanne (Angie Brown), and Peter (Jack McClelland). Craig is leading the expedition out to a cabin in the woods - relax, we never see it, and it is never mentioned again once the killer shows up - with the rest in tow. He's the natural leader, Boy Scout type, and Peter is the "tenderfoot" who makes mistakes and resents Craig. Ingrid and Joanne are, um, the girls. One of them has short hair and the other one doesn't. To be honest, without looking at them in the movie, I can't remember which is which, but I think Ingrid is the one who lives at the end (SPOILER). Since I'm SPOILING, this breaks with the at-the-time nascent concept of "Final Girl" theory by also having Peter survive, but Craig and Joanne are long dead. Like the rest of the murders, there's no real rhyme or reason for this decision.

 I should mention that in the midst of hiking to a cabin, they spend the night in the woods twice, despite the fact that the cabin is close enough to walk to "by mid-day tomorrow." The killer isn't even stalking them at that point - he's instead murdering another group of campers (Leon Brown, Jr. and Linda Brown, although I could have sworn there were more people). It might have been a clever "bait-and-switch" if it were possible to tell what the hell was going on in Don't Go in the Woods. By that point, Bryan is stretching the story out in all possible directions, also including the morbidly obese Sheriff (Ken Carter). He's responding to the missing ornithologist report, until he just decides to give up in the middle of flying over the woods. No, really, that's what happens. He requests a plane to fly over, in the hopes of seeing, um, something, and then tells the pilot they'll never find the guy, he probably went home. But don't worry, the police and a local militia will be back for the "big" finale.

 Perhaps Bryan's notion that Don't Go in the Woods being a "comedy" comes from the sensory overload of ridiculous, bloody murders that make up the first half of the film. If so, he failed miserably, because there's nothing particularly comical about having the tourist's dead body lying on a rock just above two frolicking teenagers - a shot he returns to after killing the mother. There's nothing particularly tragic or ironic about it, either, because the composition is so in-artful. The closest thing to outright comical happens during the honeymoon - and honestly, you can't even tell they're married until you see it on the side of the van - when, after the couple is slashed thoroughly, the killer decides to flip the van over, into a ravine. And it explodes. I laughed at the audacity, and again when somehow nobody noticed that this happened, despite what is clearly a crowded forest.

 To be fair, I go into most slasher films with a healthy suspension of disbelief. The ridiculous nature of murder set pieces were part and parcel of the subgenre, even in 1981. I can even put up with sometimes amateurish execution, as long as the payoff is worthwhile. What's difficult to reconcile about Don't Go in the Woods is the stunning lack of tension. We barely have time to register that someone is on camera before they're being stalked and summarily slaughtered, and none of it is done with any degree of flair. There's no suspense in the film because there's no sense of geography for the characters, or any attempt to set up anything. If you'd like to make a case that the killer's M.O. resembles the Texas Chain Saw Massacre (and his cabin is clearly designed to) and therefore is somehow meant to make it "random," I'd listen, but then you'd have to explain the ending as something less coherent than "repeating the cycle." What begins as a slasher film slowly devolves into a mishmash of The Hills Have Eyes, but with random asides not unlike the police subplot in The Last House on the Left. And I somehow doubt that Wes Craven or Tobe Hooper would be happy to have their films compared to Don't Go in the Woods.

 And yet, I did say I kind of enjoyed it, didn't I? Well, that is true. It's an excruciatingly boring movie from the halfway point onward, but the random killings at the beginning are amusing in and of themselves. It's a little bit like that DVD, Boogeymen: The Killer Compilation, which was just clips of famous monster movies without any semblance placement within their respective films, crammed together. It's not the ideal way to watch a slasher, but the sheer willingness to throw narrative away and just randomly murder people with no rhyme or reason is amusing. And I reiterate: whether intentional or not, the fact that the killer pushes a van off of a cliff (sideways) is humorous. Some of Don't Go in the Woods is so stupid that you can't help but chuckle. The "score," by H. Kingsley Thurber (Frozen Scream), is a synth-heavy cacophony of "was that the right choice?" Every now and then he provides the punch line for a joke, which is funny in all the wrong ways, especially for the musical "fart" that accompanies Peter soiling himself.

 So, in fairness, while Don't Go in the Woods is frequently an interminable bore, there are moments of sheer stupidity, of incompetence in the direction and writing (how could I leave out Garth Eliasson, he who wrote the story and the script?), that will make you chuckle. If it had, oh, a sense of pacing, let alone a better sense of one, I would be inclined to recommend it, because some of the kills are decent, and before you know what the killer is, there's a sense of baffling confusion. As it stands, I would only recommend it to slasher die-hards who have exhausted most of the better offerings. Don't Go in the Woods isn't bottom of the barrel - it is watchable, if nothing else - but you might find yourself struggling against seeing how much time you have left.

Shocktober Review: The Final Terror

 There's no certainty that people would even know that The Final Terror existed today, were it not for the fact that most of its cast of young stars went on to bigger and better roles a few years later. In fact, The Final Terror was shelved in 1980 and not released for another two years, and only then because it suddenly had "name" talent in it. It's not hard to see why producers might find the film hard to sell - it just barely qualifies as a "slasher" film - but there's a scrappy, underdog quality to The Final Terror that makes it worthwhile. Coupled with some soon to be well known names was director Andrew Davis, who these days is probably better known for The Fugitive, but back then still had a keen eye for visuals, which is important considering the entire movie takes place in the woods.

 Forest rangers Mike (Mark Metcalf), Nathaniel (Ernest Harden, Jr.), Boone (Lewis Smith), Zorich (John Friedrich), and newcomer Marco (Adrian Zmed) are heading up for a weekend of clearing brush and river rafting in the Pacific Northwest*. Against the advice of their mechanic, Eggar (Joe Pantoliano), they decide to bring along some girls: Windy (Daryl Hannah), Melanie (Cindy Harrell), Margaret (Rachel Ward), and Vanessa (Akosua Busia). They also choose one of the most remote paths back to where Eggar is going to take the bus, and during campfire storytelling, Boone shares the story of a crazed old woman who escape from the local asylum and lives in the woods. But it turns out that might not just be a story...

 There's actually nothing supernatural about The Final Terror (which is pretty ambiguous based on its poster what the "terror" is supposed to be - aliens?), and by the twenty minute mark, before anybody's been killed (although Marco goes missing) we have a general idea who the backwoods slasher is or is going to be. You can actually guess even earlier than that based on clues that are not so subtly dropped on the way to the woods, or the fact that one character is clearly more deranged than everyone else. Still, Davis does a good job of misdirection throughout the movie, causing you to wonder if Boone's story is entirely accurate, or if there's a Psycho-esque angle at play. And when the kills do start, they are pretty brutal. There's actually a pre-credit double kill of two unrelated characters that Davis shot when producers informed him the body count (three) was "too low" for a slasher film.

 The Final Terror is nevertheless more "survival horror" than "slasher film," and it hews more along the lines of Walter Hill's Southern Comfort than something like The Burning. Most of the movie is spent with our protagonists trying to outrun the killer and make it back to the bus (their alternative is a 45 mile hike), with military enthusiast Zorich becoming the de facto leader and resorting to survivalist tactics. The end of the film is more or less a showdown in the middle of the woods that, in the ensuing three decades, is unfortunately going to remind a lot of people of Predator, even though The Final Terror had it beat by six years. Aside from a few tense sequences on the bus and a few good kills early on, you'd be hard pressed to really include The Final Terror in the "classic" slasher era.

 On the other hand, you probably noticed in the synopsis just how many names you recognized, even if vaguely. After Zmed's career took off with TJ Hooker and Daryl Hannah figured prominently in Blade Runner (and would make it big with Splash the following year), The Final Terror was deemed worthy of cashing in on, but they're far from the only recognizable names. Joe Pantoliano would appear in Risky Business the same year, and go on to memorable roles in The Goonies, Midnight Run, The Matrix, and The Fugitive (again directed by Davis). Rachel Ward had already appeared in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Sharky's Machine, and would star opposite Jeff Bridges in Against All Odds the following year. Mark Metcalf might not be a name you recognize, but he was both Niedermeyer in Animal House and The Master on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even less familiar names, like Ernest Harden, Jr. went on from The Jeffersons to The Final Terror and would pop up in White Men Can't Jump and J. Edgar. Lewis Smith who, coincidentally, joined the cast of Southern Comfort after filming this, would go on to make North and South and appeared in Wyatt Earp.

 In that regard, it's fun to watch The Final Terror and see so many people on the cusp of stardom or, barring that, recognize-ability. It's similar to The Burning, which was the film debut of Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter, and Fisher Stevens, although the end product is perhaps less memorable. I don't want to give the impression that this film is a long lost gem (although it has been MIA for a while) - at best it's a pretty good thriller / suspense film with some horror elements. It's well shot, has a pretty good pace, and an ending that doesn't disappoint, but I'd hesitate to leapfrog The Final Terror to the top of my "horror" list. Still, I'm glad I got the chance to check it out, and if you've seen everything under the full moon, this one is worth seeking out for a throwback to when "slasher" was a little more nebulous in its formula.




 * I don't recall if it's specifically stated in the film, but The Final Terror was shot in Northern California and Oregon.

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!

---


 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.

Blogorium Review: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

 Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is the latest entry in what I like to call the "killbilly" genre: I guess you could say it started with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre but it's more like the I Spit On Your Grave / Deliverance / Wrong Turn kind of movie about some upstanding young college victims kids on vacation who, for no apparent reason, decide to go camping in the middle of nowhere (often in part of the Appalachian region) and are terrorized by killer hillbillies. It's a culture clash: the richer, douchier party guys and their girlfriends vs the interchangeable sometimes inbred but always bloodthirsty hill folk. Why? Because horror excels at perpetuating stereotypes and it does it well. The Wrong Turn movies might not be high art, but those mutant cannibals sure are scary. I don't think there's a person in this country that doesn't shudder a little bit at the phrase "squeal like a piggy!"

 So it's refreshing that Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is what high falutin' film professors call an "inversion" of the subgenre: the protagonists of the film are our title characters, two generally harmless guys looking to spend a weekend fixing up a "vacation home" that Tucker (Alan Tudyk) bought. Dale (Tyler Labine) is so harmless he has trouble fishing, but their weekend of kicking back and drinking beer is cut short thanks to some college students. Generally speaking, we'd follow the college students all the way as they slight the killbillies, then run into them again, and are slowly picked off until they decide to fight back.

 Technically speaking, that does still happen, but through a series of misunderstandings, Tucker and Dale appear to be a lot more threatening than they are. While out fishing, they save Allison (Katrina Bowden) who falls off a rock and hits her head while everybody is skinny dipping, but to her friends, it looks like they knocked her out and kidnapped her. Despite the very reasonable solutions posed by some members of the college kids, their suggestions are ignored by Chad (Jesse Moss), the psychopath that brought all of them out to the woods. He knows that twenty years ago the same campsite was the home of a killbilly massacre, so the combination of leaping to conclusions and being, well, more dangerous than anyone else in the film, makes Chad leap to the conclusion that Tucker and Dale are "Evil."

 You'd think it would be simple to straighten this out, and it would if the college students weren't both idiotic AND proactive in trying to rescue Allison. It turns out to be a lethal combination, as the unwitting Tucker and Dale keep witnessing the twenty-somethings accidentally kill themselves in horrible ways. Like the Wrong Turn films, if you can think of a way to die in the woods, you'll see it in this film: tree-impaling, spearing, death by woodchipper, burned alive, wood with nails to the skull - they're all there. I give credit to director Eli Craig and co-writer Morgan Jurgenson for keeping things fresh and funny. We've seen these beats before, but Tudyk and Labine are so likable that the horror is magnified when they unwittingly find themselves having to clean up the mounting body count around the dilapidated cabin.

 Speaking of the cabin, Tucker and Dale don't seem alarmed at all that the new "vacation" home previously belonged to someone who loved hanging animal bones from the ceiling and collected newspaper scraps about the massacre. Dale sees the board games and is happy: Tucker is proud to own such a large cabin, and it just needs a little elbow grease to make it more "homey." You can imagine what it looks like to the college kids, who don't so much fit into "types" as they are indistinguishable: aside from Chloe (Chelan Simmons), the "dumb blonde", I couldn't tell you much about Jason (Brandon McLaren), Naomi (Christie Laing), Chuck (Travis Nelson), Todd (Alex Arsenault), Mike (Joseph Sutherland), or Mitch (Adam Beauchesne).

 I think Mitch is the voice of reason impaled by a tree while running from Tucker (who made the mistake of running a chainsaw through a bee's nest), but I can't even necessarily connect a name with a face beyond that. Beyond Tucker, Dale, and Allison, Chad is the only character who really registers. There's the nameless Sheriff (Phillip Granger) who meets an accidentally horrible end while trying to understand why Tucker and Dale didn't kill these kids, and a pre-credits sequence that kind of hints at a sequel, but most of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is about finding amusing ways to present a "redneck" slasher film from another angle.

  It's a testament to Craig and Jurgenson that they stretch what should be a one-joke premise into a (nearly) ninety-minute film. They're helped by Tudyk and Labine, the latter of whom carries most of the movie. Tudyk's Tucker is a punching bag of sorts, who suffers nearly as much as some of the kids without the instant death that accompanies it. Bowden is also very good as Allison, who realizes quickly what's actually going on but can't seem to convey that to her friends. As a psychology major, her "therapy" session between the title characters and Chad fails miserably. Jesse Moss' Chad starts out as a generic "asshole" type, the kind of guy who usually bites it in a horrible way, but gradually evolves into something much more dangerous than the "Evil" he has to fight. When it's finally clear WHY Chad came to the woods (along with another twist late in the film), it's a minor miracle Tucker survived at all.

 So is Tucker and Dale vs. Evil a parody of "killbilly" movies? A deconstruction of the subgenre? Is it a clever gimmick? An inversion of the tropes of slasher films? Well, yes. I suppose it's all of those. The film works on those levels, but also on the most important criteria: it's funny. You don't need to be well versed in slasher films to enjoy Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, but it's not going to hurt you if you are. It's degrees of laughter, so look at it this way: as a comedy, it succeeds. As a slasher movie, it succeeds. As a "killbilly' movie, it's leaps and bounds better than the Wrong Turn films. You win any way you look at it.