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...

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.

TV Talk: Treehouse of Horror

(note: this post covers the first ten episodes of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror. For 11-21, please refer to this entry.)


TV Talk is something the Cap'n rarely does, but for a good reason: with the exception of the first edition, I try to avoid writing about a show when there's more to come. In the case of Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, I'd seen what I could see, what was available, and rather than wait another two years to put preliminary thoughts out there, I thought "why not?"

I waited until Lost was over and done with to do a post-mortem as part of a Video Daily Double, and I've heretofore hesitated talking too much about Doctor Who (in either incarnation), in part because the way the 63-89 version is released makes it very difficult to follow entire season arcs*, and the 2005-present series is still ongoing, consistently building upon itself.

That leaves me with shows that are long done with, which I a) don't remember very well (The X-Files), or b) have talked about ad nauseum (Mystery Science Theater 3000). What hasn't come up as often, it turns out, is The Simpsons.

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. That I haven't seen any episode, let alone a Treehouse of Horror from 2003 onward that's anywhere on the level of the first six isn't the Cap'n just being a grumpy gus - it's a demonstrable fact. Watch them for yourself and see.



* And yes, they do exist: Tom Baker's first season is one continuous story broken up into Robot, The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, and Revenge of the Cybermen

I Sure Hope We Watch Blood Simple Tomorrow...

Ack! Double plus ungood correction time from the Cap'n: Okay, so previously reported on the Blogorium - The Simpsons Season 20 featured the switch to HD and was in widescreen. Subsequently followed up by a correction (based on watching disc 1) that the episodes were NOT in fact widescreen, with an assertion I must have mistaken season Twenty for Twenty One.

Final Correction, based on all the available evidence: About ten episodes into season Twenty, The Simpsons switches from good ol' 1.33:1 to 1.78:1, complete with the new HD opening (one of several variations). The episode, in case historians lose track of every other record in the Universe save for the Blogorium, is "Take My Life, Please", in which Homer discovers that he actually DID win his Senior Class election. I am not going back to double check disc one, because every site but IMDB officially recognizes this to be the shift in screen size. If I'm wrong again, then you can blame it on bad internet writing. There will be no third correction!!!!

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I have a theme. Three films, each related in one way or the other to the phrase "one bourbon, one scotch, one beer". Saturday the 30th sounds like a good day to me; how about you?

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The following observation is not intended to critique the quality of Avatar as a film or my own disinterest in seeing James Cameron's new blockbuster. What I'm curious about is whether the continued success of the film (it was once again number one, and the drop off in ticket sales is really negligible from week to week) is the result of new audience members going in to see it for the first time based on word of mouth, or just the collective work of nerds angry that Titanic, Cameron's "chick flick" is the number one movie of all time in making megabucks. Just something I was thinking about...

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Finally:

MacGruber!!!!!!

Things You Should and Shouldn't Look Into

I thought I'd start with an amendment to Monday's piece about The Simpsons Season Twenty. While the episodes are, in fact, in high definition, so far there's nary a widescreen presentation to be found. Based on the opening credits, I may have mistaken the jump from 4X3 to 16X9 by a season. The current run (season 21) has different opening sequences, many of which poke fun at the wider image. Still, I'm a little confused why Fox pushed so hard to rush season twenty out, since it technically misses the 20th anniversary and it's Blu-Ray release doesn't take advantage of the screen in the way fans are going to expect.

Additionally, there is literally one extra on the disc: a three minute teaser with Morgan Spurlock for a forthcoming Anniversary Special. Unfortunately, there's no indication of when the special is airing, or if it's going to be available. None of the commentaries from other seasons are present, or deleted scenes, commercials, making of's, or anything else. It screams of a quick cash-in, and I'm really not going to be shocked if you see this season released AGAIN sometime before season twenty-one.

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For anybody with Netflix's "watch it now", while you can't see any new Warner Brothers releases, what you can do is catch two movies that are a little trickier to see: Big Fan and Che. Now Che comes out from Criterion next week, but Steven Soderbergh's four-and-a-half hour Benicio del Toro as Che Guevara epic is going to be a little steep on DVD or Blu-Ray. Luckily, you can watch Part One and Part Two in HD streaming right now. I might just do that in a bit.

While Big Fan technically came out yesterday, no store in the area was carrying the DVD and Amazon has it on a two week back order, so I wouldn't be seeing it that way until the end of the month. Netflix, sensing this problem, not only has Big Fan to watch Instantly, but they one-upped the DVD version by offering the film in HD. Since there's no Blu-Ray release listed, you're getting a bonus here.

I did watch Big Fan, but I'm going to save that review for tomorrow. In the meantime, if you have access to the movie (instantly or on disc) I highly recommend it. Patton Oswalt is excellent, the character study is engrossing, and the ending was a bit surprising. I'll say more tomorrow, but go seek Big Fan out now.

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The Cap'n promised I wouldn't make you sit through another pan of Terminator: Salvation, and so you won't have to. I won't tell you about the reasonably interesting action sequences hampered by an idiotic story punctuated with massive plot holes. I won't tell you about the squandered opportunities or the myriad references to other films that were bungled. I won't mention the stupid ending, a weaker version of the "John Connor is a terminator!" twist that leaked prior to filming. I won't mention how toothless the film feels with a PG-13. I won't tell you all about how fake the digital Arnold face looked or the REALLY STUPID plan by Skynet that JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE, or how Sam Worthington's accent goes from "Southern" to his native Australian while he's hanging by a car frame. Above all, I certainly won't mention how the film feels exactly like the exercise in futility that I thought it would, but somehow manages to be even less interesting than I expected.

No sir, you won't have to sit through that, and I won't have ripped off a Harlan Ellison article to not tell you.

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In the wake of having written my defense of Rob Zombie's Halloween II - which is the best way to prepare someone for that film, because it really is Rob Zombie's singular take on the series - I'd like to hear from Cranpire and find out what others thought. Don't get me wrong; I've seen a lot of bad reviews, but none from people I know. So if there are some guest bloggers out there, I'm asking for your input.

Summer Fest: Recap

Well folks, sorry I've been a bit slackadasical in getting this post up in a timely manner, but the weekend of sleeplessness finally caught up with me about an hour into work today. Not to say I regret the "from dusk til dawn" aspect of Summer Fest, but as cool as it is to have people willing to watch movies with you from sundown to sunrise, the lack of sleep can be taxing.

Tomorrow night I'll have some pictures up so that you can get a sense of what it was like to be here. For anyone who missed out on the coverage, we watched the following movies from Thursday to Sunday:

The Happening
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Blood Car
Teeth
Shark Attack 3: Megalodon
Dead Heat
C.H.U.D.
Night of the Lepus
Fido
Friday the 13th Part 2
Feast
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
The Giant Claw

along with sprinkles of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors, the Twilight Zone on sci-fi, and Tales from the Crypt. There's, uh, something else, but even if I could identify it by name, I won't. Somehow it seems very appropriate that we ended up watching thirteen feature films during Horror Fest.

Not to be disrespectful of a guest blogger in any way but I do feel I need to correct Neil's post just a smidge: Ray Harryhausen didn't actually work on King Kong in any capacity. Willis O'Brien was chief stop motion for Kong, although Harryhausen's no slouch. He's just not of King Kong fame; more like 20 Million Miles to Earth or Earth vs the Flying Saucers or Jason and the Argonauts fame.

But speaking of guest bloggers, I'd like to thank all who attended Horror Fest and spread the word, and a special thanks to Neil and the Cranpire who were present for every single movie of the fest proper (if not always awake). Kudos also go to those brave souls that paid good money to see The Happening. At least you know what the rest of the world doesn't. Yeah, that's the ticket.

There's no picture for it, so I'd just like to thank the twenty or so people who crammed into my "not large enough for all of you" living room for Night of the Lepus. That was incredicool and everyone chimed in on the myriad of logistical problems, bizarre plot points, or instances of DeForrest Kelley being pedophillic. Truly a sight to behold, which is why I didn't take a photo.

After tomorrow I guess you won't have to read about Horror Fest again until October. This breaks your dried up little hearts, I'm sure. Somehow we'll push on together, dear reader. Somehow...

Summer Fest Day Two: End of night Recap

We really did talk about more guest blogging, I promise. Once again it's actually 6:15 in the morning and the sun is coming up.

Tonight we had the highest turnout in Summer Fest history and were left with "standing room only" for the second Prime Time Movie. Saturday night's Summer Fest flicks were:

Dead Heat - reviewed by Tominator earlier, despite his not being here or ever having seen it. It's the kind of movie that takes the premise of Dead & Buried and marries it with Lethal Weapon. Except with Joe Piscopo and Treat Williams, and guest appearances by Darren McGavin, Robert Picardo, and Vincent Price. I can't make this shit up. It's silly except for any joke made by Piscopo, who seemed on the verge of saying "knock knock" almost all the time.

The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VIII - with The Homega Man, the "fly" segment, and Easy Bake Coven. It seemed fitting to include Treehouse of Horror, as they've played during every Horror Fest to date. This was particularly amusing because it ran simultaneously with Cranpire playing Grand Theft Auto 3 on the other tv and pretty much just destroying cars over and over again in police chases.


C.H.U.D. - someone actually was scared by a C.H.U.D. in this movie, which may be the first time in recorded history that's happened. If I have to say more, then you clearly need to dust off your copy and watch it again. The film became the target of our running gag involving Daniel Stern's inability to do anything useful at all during the story, mostly because someone would ask him to "prove it". I guess you had to be here.

Night of the Lepus - we simply did not have enough room for everybody during Lepus, but damned if it wasn't a blast and a half. Imagine, if you will, six sets of MST3K bots riffing nonstop on this "nature and science gone amok" monstrosity, with every possible rabbit joke or reference appearing, as well as the ability to build sets that look exactly like Lionel Train miniatures. Possibly as much fun as seeing The Happening on Thursday.

Fido - This strange slice of Romero meets Lassie was pretty popular with the folks who stuck around after Night of the Lepus. Not quite as campy as the films that preceded it, but definitely a good choice to follow killer rabbits.

Friday the 13th Part 2 - We started this around 4:45, after pretty much everyone left in some state of exhaustion. It was agreed that to stay up a film with "shock" scares or crazy action had to follow Fido, and it was between Friday the 13th part 2 and Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight. We chose wisely, although sleep deprivation takes its toll even when you're trying hard to focus on bag-headed Jason and Amy Steel.

At this point, I need to pass out. The sun is on its way up and there's still one day left of Horror Fest. We've got a lot of ground left to cover, so hope to see you on the other side...

Horror Fest Day Two: Return to Horror High

After some very demented children and a haunted house, we returned to find people ready for some hot horror action, which I was happy to provide. We warmed up with The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror V, which remains a fan favorite with The Shinning, Time and Punishment, and Nightmare Cafeteria, but then it was time for some horror action. Or so we thought.

Return to Horror High thinks it's a very clever movie, with its myriad flashbacks and flashforwards, but instead the movie is a heaping hunk of crap disguised as a horror comedy. The promise of George Clooney and Maureen McCormack were dashed after Clooney is killed thereabouts eight minutes into the film, and McCormack only appears during the frame story that has so many plot holes it rivals the movie within a movie for logic gaffes.

Oh right, the story: well, when we jump in, police are investigating a mass killing at Crippen High School, where a low budget film crew was working on a movie based on some actual mass killings at the same school in 1982. Except that this supposedly "abandoned" high school looks like it's ready for classes the next morning. At one point, the writer (the only survivor of the second wave of killings) mentions that the movie was mostly night shoots in a dark school, except that almost all of the movie takes place during the day and outside of the school. Really.

The whole film is classy, finding excuses to get almost every female on camera naked at least once, and then packing every small part with outlandish stereotypes (like the black janitor who wants to make "pussy films" and brags about his ten inch penis) and occasionally kills people in giant litter boxes or by propeller (don't ask). Alex Rocco (voice of Roger Meyers Jr on The Simpsons) appears as the sleazy producer, except that compared to some of these slimeballs, he looks pretty harmless.

I could spend more time telling you how awful this movie is, but to be honest, it just isn't worth it. Return to Horror High is the kind of movie that could only be a product of the mid-to-late eighties, the type that promises skeletal cheerleaders only to renege on it at every opportunity, and the sort of film that gets rereleased on dvd because it has a (now) huge star in it that barely registers as a cameo. Damn, what a terrible movie...

Horror Fest Day One: Treehouse Of Horror I-V

I just watched the first five Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Episodes, joined by Tom, who has them pretty much memorized.

To help jog your memory, the break down as followed

Treehouse of Horror:
1. Bad Dream House - the segment where the Simpsons buy a haunted house above and Indian Burial Ground, and when faced with the decision to live with the Simpsons, the house implodes.
2. Hungry are the Damned - The first episode with Kodos and Kang, as well as James Earl Jones as the Preparer, who's name would require the removal of your tongue. A fun twist on "To Serve Man"
3. The Raven - Edgar Allen Poe meets Homer Simpson. Narrated by James Earl Jones

Treehouse of Horror II
1.The Monkey's Paw - Notable not only for the adaptation of the Monkey's Paw story, but also the episode where Kodos and Kang are defeated by a board with a nail in it.
2. It's a Good Bart - The Twilight Zone episode about the little boy with mind powers goes Simpsons. Features perhaps the most outlandish prank phone call of the series.
3. Robot Homer, or the Man with Two Burns - Homer gets fired and ends up as the brain in Mr. Burns's robot, and then ends up with Burns grafted to his head.

Treehouse of Horror III
Opens with a warning, but instead of Marge, Homer comes in to an Alfred Hitchcock Presents homage.
1. Killer Krusty Doll - The Talking Tina episode of the Twilight Zone, notable for both the Bottomless Pit (and naked Whoopi Goldberg pictures), but the "Evil" switch on the Krusty Doll
2. King Homer - A pretty faithful retelling of King Kong, but much shorter and with Homer eating everyone.
3. Dial "Z" for Zombies - Bart tries to raise Snowball I from the grave, and instead unleashes, and Homer gets to kill Zombie Flanders ("He was a zombie?")

Treehouse of Horror IV
featuring Night Gallery inspired introductions
1. The Devil and Homer Simpson - Homer deals his soul for a forbidden doughnut. Featuring a not dead yet Richard Nixon in the jury of the damned, and Flanders as The Devil.
2. Nightmare at 5 1/2 Feet - Bart and the Gremlin recreate classic Shatner Twilight Zone action. With decapitated Flanders and Joy Joy Candies (Mit Iodine)
3. Bart Simpson's Dracula - Mr. Burns is the head Vampire.... or is he??? Featuring Happy Super Fun Slide and "Yes, I'm a Vampire by Montgomery Burns (Foreword by Steve Allen)"
episode ends with a Charlie Brown Christmas joke

Treehouse of Horror V
featuring an Outer Limits opening
1. The Shinning - "Don't you mean Shining?" "Shhh! Do you want to get sued?" "Urge to kill fading...fading....RISING... fading." "Strange, the blood usually gets off on the second floor." "No TV and No Beer make Homer something something..." you get the idea.
2. Time and Punishment - For people who want to see how "A Sound of Thunder" should've come out. Homer becomes the second non-Brazilian to travel through time. Willie gets an axe in the back. again.
3. Nightmare Cafeteria - The faculty gets a taste for students, but surely something will save the Simpson children....
Like a fog that turns people's skin inside out!