Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

It's not a spoiler if the scene doesn't appear in the movie.

Paranormal Activity 3 develops the story of the haunted sisters from the first two movies by flashing us back in time to 1988. This time, Katie and Krista are little kids living with their mom and her boyfriend, Dennis, who (for the convenience of the found footage gimmick of these movies) is a wedding videographer. When the ghostly shenanigans start up, Dennis sets up VHS cameras (which, for the purposes of this 2011 big screen release, are played by modern high definition cameras so the picture doesn't make you want to poke your eyes out) in various rooms in the house to try to catch the spooks in the act. The scares ramp up in intensity as we go from pictures falling off the wall to Katie's "imaginary friend" Toby having furniture-throwing tantrums. And we finally get a glimpse of what is behind the titular "activity" that follows the girls from childhood to their adult lives.

The scary stuff is provided by more of the same freaky noises, swinging lamps, moving furniture, and people getting tossed around by unseen forces that we've seen before, and they are mostly well done. Still, at this point in the series the antics are somewhat old hat and lack some of the shock factor they had in the previous movies.

For us vets of the series, the unlocking of the ongoing story's puzzle is almost as important as the scares. In this respect, the movie giveth and it taketh away. Some questions are answered, and some are left for the inevitable fourth film. Overall, I didn't get the answers that the previews seemed to promise, and that was disappointing.

And that brings us to the biggest oddity of Paranormal Activity 3. If you go into it thinking, "I can't wait for the scene where the girls do Bloody Mary," or "I'm glad we're finally going to see how the fire they mentioned in the first two went down," you are going to be disappointed. Never has a movie trailer been so full of scenes that weren't in the theatrical release. Really, almost everything in the extended trailer was nowhere to be found in the movie. No fire, no priest guy getting knocked around, no Mom getting yanked out of the room... There is a Bloody Mary scene, and it is good, but it isn't at all like it is shown in the trailer.

There could be a number of reasons for this incongruity. Trailers are produced in advance of the final cut of the movie, so the filmmakers could have simply decided to cut these scenes late in the game. They could be saving these scenes for the extended edition DVD. But I think what is mostly going on here is this - for once, Hollywood didn't want to give away the best stuff in a movie by showing it in the trailer. In this case, they showed some exciting stuff that represented what the audience could expect, while at the same time not spoiling the suspense that is so vital in these movies.

This is admirable, and a nice gesture, but it somewhat backfires in the sense that you spend much of the movie anticipating the scenes from the trailer instead of just enjoying the real scenes. And when the movie ends and you haven't seen what you came to see, you feel ripped off.

Despite the missing trailer scenes, the lack of resolution to many of the questions the first movies pose, and the somewhat predictable scare tactics, Paranormal Activity 3 is still very much worth checking out. It's scary, and that's all that really matters. You could probably get a lot out of this prequel even if you haven't seen the other two, but for best results, watch the movies in order. And when you're done, let's go ahead and get our tickets for part four.

Click here for the long trailer, which is almost entirely devoid of movie content.

The meteor picture that shocked the scientific world, and how it was faked

This year's Orionid meteor shower was not the most inspiring display of pyrotechnics the solar system has ever produced. At roughly 15 meteor sightings per hour, the average backyard observer would likely lose up to 20% of their overall digits to the bitter October cold in the time it would take to witness a satisfactory amount of meteor activity. But astoundingly, despite the mighty Hunter really dropping the ball on throwing burning particles of comet debris across the sky, one of the most fantastic amateur astronomy photos ever taken was shot during this bitterly disappointing example of a so-called celestial event.

The Fuzzbottom-20111021 photograph.

Fuzzbottom-2 - an astounding image of an Orionid meteor

In the wee small hours after the photograph was first produced, Fuzzbottom-20111021, referred to by most as Fuzzbottom-2, became an internet sensation. When the photographer posted the snapshot to his Facebook page, it threatened to crash the social network's servers to the ground. Within minutes, the "Likes" came pouring in. An astounding 75,000 users "Liked" the photograph before Facebook's built-in limits prevented further additions. Comments, among the thousands posted, ranged from, "Ooo, pretty," to "God'z rath [wrath] coming down on us! Reapent!!!1!" (the latter comment being one of many referring to the Apocalypse that occurred on October 21 - the second of two such Apocalypsi scheduled for 2011.)

Bertram Fuzzbottom of Cleveland, GA, who snapped the picture in his back yard with a mobile phone camera, described its production to USA Today in this way:

"I was out by our fire pit with my wife, Bethany, and our old dog Pooter, drinking hot chocolate and making s'mores. We had heard about the meteor shower and wanted to see it for ourselves, so we hauled out some blankets and my peepin' binoculars and headed on out. Honestly, I got a little bored. I got out my phone, checked in on Facebook, played the word 'PLUMP' on Words With Friends for 32 points on a double-word, and was gonna take a picture of Pooter yacking up a marshmallow when I saw a streak out the corner of my eyeball. I had the camera ready to go, so I turned and burned and that's what I got."

The Fuzzbottom-2 photo got the attention of the scientific community, as well. Dr. Phil Plait, astronomer, blogger, and Kangen Water distributor, studied the photo very closely. "It is certainly magnificent," said Plait. "Rarely do you see a picture of this quality from some yokel in his backyard. You can see, despite the total lack of context, that this particular meteor consists of a debris particle approximately the size of a Susan B. Anthony dollar intersecting with Earth's atmosphere at approximately 40 miles per second. From the fine detail of the flaming leading edge of the meteor, it is apparent that it is made up of approximately 30% dirt, 50% sulfur, 15% iron, and 5% love."

Not everyone was sold on Fuzzbottom-2 from the beginning. Brian Dunning, professional skeptic and creator of the popular Skeptoid podcast, approached the amazing image with, well, skepticism. "I thought it unlikely," said Dunning, "that the five-megapixel camera on an LG Revolution could take such a clear and detailed photo of a streaking ball of fire hundreds of miles above the photographer. I would have bet my next Big Pharma paycheck that it was taken with a tripod-mounted professional rig with a Carl Zeiss lens and a high speed shutter."

So Dunning did his homework. "I wanted to confirm the capabilities of the Revolution's onboard camera, so I called LG tech support. After spending almost half an hour on hold waiting for an operator, I gave up. I couldn't think of any way to investigate further, so I had no choice but to give this photo the coveted Skeptoid Stamp Of Authenticity. If it can't be disproven in an afternoon, then it must be real. That's the Skeptoid motto."

On the strength of Dunning's endorsement, excitement over the photograph spread like wildfire throughout the scientific community. Dr. Pamela L. Gay, astronomy professor and host of the Astronomy Cast podcast, had high hopes for the apparent technological advancements illustrated in the photo's creation. "I have never seen a meteor photograph like Fuzzbottom-2. Getting this level of quality out of a consumer cell phone has serious implications for the future of space exploration. If we simply mount one of these $600 phones on the James Webb Space Telescope in place of the planned NIRCam and MIRI infrared instruments, we could save the project hundreds of millions of dollars and still do some incredible science."

"You said mount," added Dr. Gay's Astronomy Cast co-host Fraser Cain, a Canadian.

Indeed, the Fuzzbottom-2 photo seemed to good to be true. And when something seems too good to be true, the hard-hitting investigators at Hippsology get to work.

Besides the obvious questions over the capabilities of a cell phone camera when taking a nighttime photo of a distant, fast-moving object, there was one thing that stood out in this reporter's mind.

S'mores.

Bertram Fuzzbottom claimed that he and his wife augmented their evening of stargazing with the liberal consumption of s'mores. As you may know, s'mores are a traditional campfire treat based on a recipe attributed to early Girl Scouts leader Loretta Scott Crew. The classic recipe consists of Graham cracker squares sandwiched around a chocolate bar and... a fire-roasted marshmallow.

Our exhaustive research has shown us that there are two recognized methods of roasting a marshmallow over an open fire such as the one the Fuzzbottoms had in their fire pit. Both involve poking a stick through a marshmallow (the Fuzzbottoms claim to have used wire coat hangers) and using said stick to suspend the mallow over the fire.

One method has the stick holder keeping the mallow high above the flames and constantly turning it until the heat causes the sugars in the marshmallow to caramelize, resulting in a crispy brown exterior surrounding a warm, gooey middle. The other method, one well known to former Girl Scout Bethany Fuzzbottom and former third-degree arsonist Bertram Fuzzbottom, is to shove the marshmallow into the flames until the mallow itself catches fire.

With that in mind, we at Hippsology present this digitally enhanced copy of the infamous Fuzzbottom-2 photo. We have adjusted the brightness and contrast, bringing out heretofore unseen details that shed new light on the image. These details expose the photo that baffled the experts as the hoax that it is.

Fuzzbottom-2 exposed: a flaming marshmallow on a stick

- Bennett R. Hipps
Hippsology Science Editor

Nekromantik (1987)

"Warning: Some of this film may be seen as 'grossly' offensive and should not be shown to minors!!!"  This is the on-screen disclaimer that precedes German writer/director Jörg Buttgereit's Nekromantik.

Honestly, this is the one movie on this list I was not looking forward to watching.   I added this to my collection several years ago when it was a rare, out-of-print dvd of some value. (It has since been rereleased, I'm pretty sure.)  I watched it once, then tucked it deep into the dark recesses of the dvd closet.  And now, it returns to the screen to melt the eyes right out of my head again.

With Nekromantik, European cinema (see also The Human Centipede.  Or better yet, don't) once again takes us to places that we just don't go in America.  I won't get into all of the details of what goes on in the movie, but the title is a "dead" giveaway.

Lead character Rob can only feel "alive" in the company of the dead.  When his like-minded girlfriend, Betty, leaves him and takes their "special friend" (a souvenir from his work at a human remains disposal company) with her, Rob turns to murder to drag himself out of the doldrums.

In the end, even this isn't enough for Rob.  In despair over what his life has become, he commits the most hideous of suicides, simultaneously fulfilling his deepest desire for death and symbolically repaying and returning life to the people he had murdered and defiled.  So there.

Nekromantik is pretty rough.  There is all manner of upsetting imagery played out to the sounds of a sparse, repetitive, Casio soundtrack and even sparser dialogue.  It's not a super-gory, torturous movie like Hostel or its kin (in fact, many of the gore effects are laughably amateurish - though the main corpse is very well-done), but it is full of distressing, controversial subject matter that is often pretty hard to watch.

Some critics have read some pretty weighty meaning into the disgusting stuff in Nekromantik.  That may be warranted (it does have that "artsy" feel), but mostly it's a horror movie in the truest sense of the word.  This is not a movie for the casual or inexperienced horror fan.  Only very open-minded hard-core horror freaks need apply.  And even at that... I would recommend you think twice before checking it out.

Basket Case (1981)

Belial's Rambo impression always cracks 'em up at picnics.

Basket Case is the very definition of a grindhouse movie.  It's gritty, ugly, sleazy, and totally bizarre.  It was shot for $35,000 and it played the midnight show at a theater in New York for two and a half years.

Duane Bradley causes quite a stir in the Hotel Broslin when he checks in with a wad of cash and a padlocked wicker basket that he carries everywhere with him.  Duane is a likable, naive sort of fellow with a secret - his deformed, separated Siamese twin brother in the basket, Belial.

Belial's reveal is unbelievably shocking.  He's a screaming, fanged head on a misshapen lump of flesh with arms and hands with giant claws.  Somehow, this mutated horror is freakishly strong - strong enough to knock down locked doors and tear a human body in half at the waist.  And despite an inability to speak aloud (all he can produce are loud, horrible screams), he has a psychic connection with Duane that lets him see what Duane is doing from afar and hold mental conversations with him, whether Duane wants to or not.

Evidently, Belial's plan is to cut in half anyone who had a part in separating him from Duane's body when they were young - and Duane's okay with that. It all goes according to plan until Duane meets a girl and begins the kind of relationship Belial can never have (or at least not until Basket Case 3: The Progeny). Belial's jealousy and bloodlust can't be contained by his wicker prison, and he - along with all Hell - breaks loose. That's right. All Hell.

The effects are cheap (especially the herky jerky stop-motion used for Belial getting around), the acting is amateurish, and the script is only here to get us from one violent scene to the next. But there's a heart, an attitude, and definitely a uniqueness to Basket Case that cuts through the movie's shortcomings and places it above its contemporaries as an icon of this strange era of filmmaking.

Dolls (1987)

The scene this dvd cover represents is AMAZING.

With Dolls, Stuart Gordon once again is our director. Who would have guessed that he, not Wes Craven or George Romero or somebody like that, would be the most represented director on my list?

A storm rolls in (via three different sets of stock footage clouds in rapid succession), forcing a family's car to get stuck in the mud and young Judy, her jerk-ass dad, and her Cruella DeVille-ish stepmom to seek shelter in a seemingly abandoned house.   

In fact, the house is occupied by the odd, elderly doll makers Gabriel and Hilary Hartwicke, and their creepy-ass doll collection.   They are soon joined by three other refugees from the storm and everyone is shown to their rooms for the night.

As you might expect, through the night, the guests are tormented and attacked one by one by the dolls, with only Judy knowing the truth of what is happening.  Not only are they being killed - they are being transformed, flesh and blood and all, into dolls themselves, and made to stay in the house forever.

The stop-motion animation on the dolls is excellent - no doubt, this is what led producer Charles Band to develop the Puppet Master series, which is similar to Dolls in many ways. (As a side note, Guy Rolfe, the actor who played Gabriel the old doll maker, went on to play a similar role as the title character in the surprisingly excellent Puppet Master 3 and its sequels.)

Furthermore, the gory special effects by John Carl Buechler (Friday The 13th, Part VII) are creepy and gross, just the way we like it. The killer teddy bear and the girl who pulls out her doll eyes in mid-transformation were spectacularly horrifying.

Dolls was a pleasant surprise, overcoming its relative cheapness to become an eerie, creepy, fun horror flick.  Stuart Gordon knows how to balance horror and humor and to get the most out of the resources he has.  Despite the transparent premise, no-name cast, and limited budget, Dolls is entertaining and satisfying, and short enough to not overstay its welcome.

Man's Best Friend (1993)

Max knows all the tricks - sit, down, fetch, roll over, slaughter the mugger...

In Man's Best Friend, TV news reporter Lori Tanner (Ally Sheedy - remember her?) investigates EMAX Research (the E probably stands for Evil), a genetics laboratory that apparently tests how much animal abuse you can perform before a TV news reporter investigates you. She and her camera-woman sneak around the lab late at night, shooting footage of the abused animals and telling themselves how good and hard-hitting their breakthrough story is going to be.

Lori accidentally unleashes (ha!) Max, a giant, super-intelligent Tibetan Mastiff that makes Cujo look like, um... a smaller dog than he actually was. When the brutal Dr. Jarret (the always reliable Lance Henriksen) chases after Max, the dog gets in the car with the cub reporters, who drive away, not knowing what they have gotten themselves into.

Max, a prototype EMAX 3000 guard dog, is genetically enhanced with DNA from other animals, providing him with their most desirable traits - a lion's fierceness, a snake's quickness, even a chameleon's ability to blend in with his surroundings... That sort of thing. He's like the Serpentor of dogs.

This particular EMAX 3000 is on a neuropathic drug that keeps him calm. When it starts to wear off, all sorts of awesome stuff happens. Max destroys an annoying kid's bicycle, climbs a tree, swallows a cat whole (after being sicced on the cat by two cruel, heartless children that we are evidently supposed to like), bites through Lori's boyfriend's brake line, defiles a Collie (to the strains of "Puppy Love"), pees acid on a fire hydrant, mutilates a mailman (as seen in Friday - Craig's dad watches this scene on tv... "It's yo' ass, Mr. Postman!"), buries the bodies under the porch like a stash of bones (which is kinda what it is), devours a parrot in a puff of feathers, acid-pees the boyfriend's face, and bites a cruel junkyard owner in the... um... junk.

Man's Best Friend is a great example of an awesomely bad movie. There's violence, blood, talking computers, character actors that you've seen before... somewhere. It's really an almost perfect example of fluffy, bad, early-90s horror, from a time before Hollywood started cashing in on the 90s angst with movies like Seven. Put this one in the same category as Dr. Giggles and The Lawnmower Man.

The biggest knock against it as a good bad movie is the abundant violence against animals. I love me some dogs and cats, and I hate the thought of animal violence in real life. But everything in this movie is so ridiculous that it's more like a Tom and Jerry cartoon than something PETA should be protesting (though I imagine they did anyway). In fact, as the violence goes, there is some evidence that this is really a stealth parody. Still, some folks will want to avoid Man's Best Friend for this reason.

Leprechaun In The Hood (2000)

Bushwick Bill was born to play this role.

Leprechaun In The Hood tells the authentic Irish legend of the leprechaun in a modern, urban setting. You know how it goes: Steal a leprechaun's gold, and he chases you in his little buckled shoes. Play a leprechaun's flute and you get a hit rap record. Make a movie with Ice T and Warwick Davis getting top billing and your movie will go straight to dvd.

Three wannabe rappers steal a music mogul's pot of gold (previously stolen from the Leprechaun) and his magic flute (ditto) and use the flute as he did - to become hip hop stars. Believe it or not, this concept makes more sense than most of the rest of the movie.

Naturally, the Leprechaun himself hunts for the thieves and kills everybody who had any contact with his stolen gold. You would think that this would be a perfect opportunity for some gory, creative, possibly pun-based death scenes. This is the fifth movie in a series about a green-clad three-foot-tall Irish killing machine. Subtlety need not apply.

But no. For the most part, all we get are bizarre offscreen killings where the Leprechaun is merely listening to the victim dying, just like we are.  I mean, for a couple of them you can't even be sure if the victim was dying at all, much less how. Very cheap, lazy, and odd. The deaths are mostly bloodless until the Leprechaun blows a guy's heart through his chest in a bloody, lumpy mess. That one kinda comes out of nowhere, considering the kills prior to it, so it works. But that's about the height that this movie hits.

The Leprechaun is definitely a fourth-tier evil slasher villain, falling way behind the likes of Freddy, Jason, or Pinhead.  Hell, he even takes a backseat to Chucky (and they're about the same size.) I confess I haven't seen the first four of these movies, but I have a hard time believing he ever had any real scare power. Shuffling his way through this one in his little suit, hat, and curly buckled shoes, with his lines mostly consisting of poorly written rhyming couplets (an attempt at rapping, I guess), he is not scary in the least.

The leads are likable enough louts, and more-or-less believable rappers (lame as their songs are), but they can't overcome the writing.  The movie has a comic energy like a lesser Friday movie, but it can't keep the pacing up in the last 30 minutes or so. 

Leprechaun In The Hood is stupid, senseless, and offensive, the horror aspects basically never work, and the jokes fall flat more often than not.  But somehow it's still entertaining, especially if you're watching with a group on a bad movie night.

Stay through the credits for "Da Lep's" jaw-droppingly bad, Fruity Pebbles-esque rap performance.  This movie is proof that there are not nearly enough rolls for little people in Hollywood and even the most well-known of these actors have to do some terrible movies to keep working.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Rosemary's Baby was adapted from Ira Levin's novel of the same name and produced by William Castle - the low budget auteur behind gimmicky movies like the original House On Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts. It is interesting to note that Castle brought the book to Paramount Pictures before the novel was officially released, and the studio bought the film rights with the stipulation that Castle could produce, but not direct, the movie. This is important because it led the way for director Roman Polanski to take the helm, kicking off his career in the United States with what could be his signature film. Had Castle directed, it would certainly have been a very different movie - likely a shlocky, forgettable bit of fluff rather than an icon of horror.

Rosemary's Baby is so well known and influential that even if you haven't seen the movie, you probably know the basic story. Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling actor husband Guy move into a new apartment and get to know their elderly, overly friendly neighbors, Roman and Minnie Castevet. Before too long, Guy's career starts to pick up and they decide it's time to have a baby. The Castevets take a overbearing interest in Rosemary's pregnancy, insistently providing help she doesn't want, like hooking her up with a famous obstetrician and making her a fresh herb concoction that Minnie makes up every day (per the doctor's orders).

As her due date approaches, Rosemary becomes more and more convinced of their sinister motives and that her husband is in with the Castevets on a plot against her and the baby. She comes to believe that the Castevets, the doctor, her husband, and untold numbers of others are part if a coven of witches who want to sacrifice her baby to Satan in exchange for power in the world.

And --- SPOILER ALERT --- she is mostly right.

Rosemary's Baby takes the normal anxieties of pregnancy and turns them up to 11.  It is hard enough to know how you will handle having a child under the best of circumstances. But if your child is the offspring of the Devil and the object of worship for a coven of old, frumpy witches, that presents a whole unique set of problems.  The finale gives us a good look at two things: a mother's natural strength and, in showing the gathered coven's very ordinariness, the banality of evil. These witches aren't black-robed, red-eyed monsters tattooed with the number of the Beast - they are your next door neighbors.

To The Devil A Daughter

"Absolutely the last time I do a book adaptation," thought Christopher Lee.

To The Devil A Daughter is Hammer Pictures' adaptation of Dennis Wheatley's novel of the same name. This effectively was the last of the Classic Hammer Horror series that had previously dominated the international horror market with Gothic films starring the likes of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. With To The Devil A Daughter, Hammer went out with a bang.

Catherine, a nun in the heretic order, the Children Of The Lord, has been raised since birth to worship the demon Astaroth and has been groomed to be his avatar (not those blue things) in the world. The ritual to make this happen is going to go down on her 18th birthday. She innocently believes that Astaroth is good, just like her church told her. Her father, a former member of this same Satanic order, is terrified of what is going to happen to his daughter. To keep her out of the order's clutches, he asks his friend, occult writer John Verney, to pick up Catherine at the airport when she comes home for her birthday and hide her away.

Father Michael (Christopher Lee) of the Children Of The Lord uses his black magic powers to try to get Catherine back in time for the All Hallow's Eve ritual, while Verney uses the knowledge and contacts he has acquired from years of writing occult novels to keep her safe and put a stop to Father Michael's plans.

There are lots of good ol' devil-movie staples: snakes, blasphemous images, weird-sounding British telephones, blood orgies... All the things you look for in one of these flicks. But even with all the on-screen madness, it sometimes seems that some plot things have gone on just off-screen, or maybe just before we begin a scene, that we're missing. This may be a result of it being a book adaptation - perhaps the book fills in those blanks. The movie is suspenseful and creepy, but sometimes a little bit hard to follow.

The story is fascinating, the acting is pretty good, and the Satan-fu is fairly strong. There are some scary and shocking moments, but in the suspenseful vein of Rosemary's Baby moreso than the action-packed Exorcist or something. The Satanists have more of a complete plan and methodology than in many of these movies, although the final goal is still a bit unclear. I guess they just want Astaroth to be alive in the world. Maybe he wants to breathe the air, walk among the people, take in some cricket matches... The means are definitely more well-defined than the ends. But still, it beats just saying, "we want Satan to win the great eternal boxing match. Go Big Red!"

There are a lot of rules about where the demons will and won't go and what they will and won't do.  Again, a fascinating mythology that is probably better understood in the book than in the movie, where they simply state the rules when necessary and we just have to go along.

Christopher Lee makes for an excellent evil priest and Nastassja Kinski is good as the innocent tug-of-war victim Catherine.  Maybe this one should be in line for a "director's cut".  The facile, over-too-quick ending is a let-down after a good build-up.  Maybe they can restore the exciting payoff they allegedly filmed and then inexplicably cut.

Note: This movie is the source for the clip of some Latin and Christopher Lee's line, "It is not heresy...  and I will not recant!" from White Zombie's "Super-Charger Heaven."

Anybody see a ghost?

Who ya gonna call?

Tonight I got to see my favorite movie, Ghostbusters, on the big screen again. It has been 27 years since I saw it in its original release, and almost 15 years since I saw it at the student theater at UGA. After all these years, it was a real treat to see it on the biggest screen yet, right here in Columbus.

The print was a little grainy, not like the pristine all-digital releases we have all become accustomed to, but it still looked great. The surround sound mix was lively and loud.

On a screen that big, I was able to notice nuances that had escaped me watching it at home a couple of hundred times - particularly the presence of Mr. Stay Puft on a bag of marshmallows next to the exploding eggs and on a wall advertisement in a shot looking out over the city. It was also pretty exciting to see the wonderful rotoscoping effects (electrical sparks and laser beams hand-drawn on the film) so big you could really appreciate them as the boys blasted away with their proton packs. Furthermore, the matte paintings used for New York cityscapes in the backgrounds of so many of the shots - out the window in Dana's apartment, behind the temple of Gozer, and so forth - looked great writ large upon the screen. With the matte paintings, rotoscoping, and model work, Ghostbusters is old school filmmaking at its finest.

Since this was a limited release showing of a movie more than a quarter century old, I had the feeling that the audience would consist mainly of hardcore fans, and I was right. We even had three members of the Alabama Ghostbusters chapter on hand in full, and very accurate, costume. It wasn't exactly a full house, but those of us who were there - and the ages ran the gamut from maybe 8 to 60 or so - shared a bond. We knew the movie well, and loved it. At certain key moments, we would even recite the lines aloud together - mass hysteria! - and get a kick out of that participatory feeling that you usually only get with Rocky Horror Picture Show or something. We laughed at Peter's banter with Walter Peck from the EPA, cheered the appearance of the Ectomobile and when Winston joined the team, and we applauded when Gozer was sent back to her (?) dimension of origin - or the nearest convenient parallel dimension. Together.

And the best part about the whole experience was that I got to share it with my loving, devoted wife. Of course she has seen the movie before with and without me. If it shows up on tv, we usually will stop channel surfing and leave it on as background noise. We watched the blu ray on the big tv upstairs the day it was released. We've experienced the movie together numerous times. But seeing it in a theater, projected on a giant screen, and with an audience of people who were enjoying themselves as much as we were... well, that was just great. I never thought I'd be able to see my favorite movie in the theater with the girl of my dreams, but lo and behold, it happened. And technically, as we are due to have our baby in just a few weeks, I got to take my daughter to Ghostbusters, too. How cool is that?

The Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

We all know that, with but a few exceptions, a sequel will never live up to the beloved original movie in a series. But rarely does a sequel fall as short of the mark as did The Exorcist II: The Heretic.

The story is kind of the same old thing as before - a priest tries to drive the demon Pazuzu out of poor Regan MacNeil, now age 17. Problem is, this sequel gives us little reason to think that she is actually possessed before the priest arrives. No weird crab-walks, projectile vomitting, or channeling her inner Andrew Dice Clay (remember that guy?). Instead, she is seeing a therapist about some nightmares she has about her original possession, which she can't remember. But when Father Lamont shows up to ask her questions about what happened to Father Merrin, the priest from the first movie, she starts up a pseudoscientific hypnotherapy that helps her remember, and it all starts up again.

Or it would if it was one of those movies that strives to keep the audience's interest and make a bit of sense. But no, it turns out the demon and the priest pal around in the hypnotic state, fly off (spiritually) to Africa, and watch a flashback of Father Merrin exorcising Pazuzu out of this boy named Kokumo. (no Beach Boys songs at this time, please)

Father Lamont decides to travel to Africa to find this Kokumo guy, not so much to help rid Regan of a demon (again, she's probably not even possessed here), but to help clear Father Merrin's name with the Catholic church, who has labeled him a heretic posthumously. There's a lot of stuff about really fakey looking locusts and Regan practices her tap dancing and has a bad dream and can miraculously heal people (?) and the movie just drags through its nearly two-hour length.

Exorcist II's greatest sin is being interminably boring.  Boooring.  The first one was dripping with atmosphere, tension, and dread.  It messed with your head with shocking, scary images and sounds and almost subliminal flashes of demonic faces.  You feared for the innocent girl and the elderly priest charged with saving her soul.  This sequel replaces the scenes of unrelenting terror with scenes of milling around an African village, futzing with flashy-lights machines built for... psychiatry... somehow, and a general lack of demonic activity (unless you count Regan's tap dance recital).  And at the end, the psychiatrist tells Regan, "I understand now.  The world won't, but I do."  Well, she's right about that.  The world doesn't understand what the hell was supposed to be going on.  Boo. 

The Church (1989)

Tonight's movie was directed by Michele Soavi (the dude who got his brains ripped out after his girlfriend puked up her guts in City Of The Living Dead) and written by Soavi and Dario Argento (Suspiria). So it has an excellent Italian pedigree. However, it does not actually meet the "zombie" part of the criteria for this section of the OHMC, as it's about demons, not zombies. My bad.

The Church begins with Teutonic knights (who look like the knights from Monty Python And The Holy Grail meets the armor-clad Sauron from the beginning of Fellowship Of The Ring) brutally slaying every man, woman, and child in this one 12th century village in the belief that the place is overrun with witches.  They dump the bodies into a mass grave.  Even a dead duck and a knight on his horse that fall into the pit are buried immediately so the "demons" won't come back to life.  Finally, a giant cross is laid on the burial ground and the monk who accompanied the knights tells them to build a church on that site - "a holy shrine to imprison the demon."  You gotta figure that will come back to haunt... somebody.

So that's how we get to the titular church in more-or-less the present day.  The great big Catholic Gothic cathedral is undergoing restorations, particularly to the crumbling catacombs in the sub-basement.  The church's new librarian, Evan, explores the catacombs and wouldn't you know it?  He disturbs the buried cross and releases the evil buried underneath.

The evil force possesses Evan first, followed by a Phil Collins-looking church custodian who goes on to commit suicide with a jackhammer over the cross in the basement.  Suddenly, the one exterior door in the cathedral closes, trapping priests, parishioners, and visitors inside.  And that's where the fun really begins.

One guy hallucinates a fish-monster leaping out of a bowl of holy water and attacking him, then seeing his girlfriend wrapped naked in the arms of a man-sized demonic winged gargoyle.  A senile old woman uses her husband's severed head to ring the cathedral bell. A woman is smashed flat against the windshield of an onrushing subway train.  A woman is offered up for sexual congress with Satan in the form of a giant winged goat-man creature. Finally, a writhing pile of the corpses from the mass grave rises up from beneath the cathedral.

The organ and synth score by The Goblins, including a song written by Phillip Glass, is full of rapid and repeating scales that give the scenes that feature it an urgency and nervous energy. The cast is solid, with a couple of "hey, it's that guy" folks thrown in (one of the priests is Queen Amidala's bodyguard/military advisor from the terrible Star Wars prequels, for instance). The visuals are surreal and bizarre, shocking and frightening. Your jaw is bound to hit the floor a couple of times throughout this one. Strange as it is, The Church is artful, creative, and appropriately horrific.

If you want a peek at most of the messed up stuff in this movie, check it out on YouTube: Not Safe For Work Or Kids. The one thing it's really missing is the astounding subway kill. You'll have to watch the whole movie to see that one. Or you can watch the spoileriffic trailer, which shows it pretty thoroughly. Enjoy!

City Of The Living Dead (1980)

Basically the only image from this movie that isn't disgusting.

Lucio Fulci's City Of The Living Dead begins with a scream at a seance and a priest hanging himself in a graveyard. Naturally, this opens the gates of Hell and causes the rotting dead to rise from the grave. Bound to happen. But the zombie uprising is just one small piece of the surreal insanity in this, one of the most violent movies ever made.

A bar mirror breaks all on its own. A cat scratches a psychiatry patient's hand. A maggoty, rotten corpse discourages a local scuzzball from getting busy with a blow-up doll. A zombie priest mooshes a handful of bloody, wormy dirt into a girl's face. A woman's eyes bleed and she vomits out her entire intestinal tract before tearing out her boyfriend's brains with one hand. Something in a dead woman's coffin tears a chunk of flesh out of a mortician's hand while the body remains in repose. A woman works on a painting of a rhinoceros head floating over an ocean. Glass from a breaking window impales a wall, causing the wall to bleed. A man uses a machine shop power drill to bore through another man's head and right out the other side. A storm of maggots blows in a window, covering everything in the room, including our heroes, in writhing, wriggling larvae. Zombies teleport hither and yon. A flashing sign assures us that the bar has Schlitz on tap.

It's all foretold in the Book Of Enoch, a 4000-year-old tome the medium at the seance tried to warn the police about. The only person who will listen is a reporter (who comes off more like a low-rent Columbo), who is eager to get to the bottom of the strange occurences. He and a woman who had a vision at the seance (and was subsequently buried alive) travel to the New England town of Dunwich - a town with a dark history of witch burnings - to try to close the newly opened gates of Hell.

Unlike so many zombie movies, this one is truly suspenseful at times: seeing the woman who was buried alive scratch and claw at the inside of the coffin lid; watching from her point of view as the reporter almost impales her through the eyes with the pickaxe he uses to free her... that sort of thing.

It even ventures into the territory of being genuinely scary near the end as our remaining heroes are surrounded by shambling zombies and the undead priest from the beginning in his cavernous, corspe-riddled tomb.

But most of all, City Of The Living Dead is weirder than all get out.

Lucio Fulci's best movies are like fever dreams in the way they throw disturbing images at you with no care for logic or sense. Scenes are cut together with little regard for traditional pacing, stabbing abruptly in and out of horror set pieces to catch up with our reporter hero or the families of the recently dead. The bizarre structure of the movie is unsettling and unnerving, and gives the whole thing a nihilistic, apocalyptic vibe. As a result, City Of The Living Dead presents a more effective Hell on Earth than most any devil movie ever could.

Horrifying, vile imagery is abstract art in the hands of a visionary like Fulci. He is much more effective with the bizarre, surreal horror of this film or his masterpiece, The Beyond, than with his more traditional zombie movies. If you like your outlandish gore packaged with an enigmatic story and atmospheric direction, you don't want to miss City Of The Living Dead.

A special note for death metal fans: City Of The Living Dead was the inspiration for Death's excellent "Regurgitated Guts."

Zombi 3 (1988)

Zombi 3 is an Italian pseudo-sequel to an Italian unofficial pseudo-sequel to George Romero's classic Dawn Of The Dead. See, Dawn Of The Dead was very popular in Italy where it was released as Zombi. In the grand European tradition of ripping off good Ameican movies, Italian director Lucio Fulci Immediately put out his unauthorized sequel, which is known in the U.S. as Zombie, but in Italy as Zombi 2. Then he followed that up with today's feature, which doesn't really have anything to do with the films preceding it. Oh, and just to add to the fun, Lucio Fulci's original cut of the movie was way too short. So Bruno Mattei, who was on a break from shooting Strike Commando 2 (with the guy who would later go on to be the first Dumbledore!), shot additional scenes that added up to about 40% of Zombi 3's length.

You with me so far?

Fortunately for those of us who like consistency, the movie itself is every bit as convoluted as the story of its creation. Zombi 3 follows the theft of a military-created bacteriological agent with the cheery name of Death 1 and its subsequent contamination of the populace. In one of many ripoff moments (this time of the fantastic Return Of The Living Dead), the military types kill the contaminated guy who stole the agent and cremate the body, causing the smoke to spread the contaminant. However, this time it's not due to seeded clouds and a rainstorm, but by interacting with a flock of passing birds. Yep, that's right - we've got zombie birds in this one.

Soon the birds have infected a handful of idiot humans who are our protagonists (such as they are). The usual zombie nonsense ensues, with flesh munching, army dudes shooting everyone, and our heroes heroically running from the slow-moving zombie hordes. But that makes this sound like a normal zombie movie, which it is not. It's not nearly as good as a normal zombie movie.

The best way to illustrate the shortcomings of this movie is probably for me to share the list of questions that came to mind as I watched it. Here goes:

• Some scientists working for the military, some military dudes out on a pass, some lamely slutty girls, some random vacationers at a cheap-looking "resort" hotel...  Who are these people?  Our protagonists? Oh no!
• Where are we? It's all jungle-y outside (it was shot in the Phillipines).  Oh, they mentioned safe-houses in Santa Monica and Santa Cruz on the local radio broadcast.  So this is In Los Angeles or something?  Wait, now they mentioned San Antonio. Huh?  A scientist just asked, "what if another epidemic breaks out? In Europe? In the United States?"  Where are we??
• Why did that zombie just shove that one girl out of a window into the hot springs? 
• How did the girl's legs get torn off in the hot springs?  Is there a shark in there (which would recall the great zombie vs. shark fight from Zombi 2)? 
• Why are the zombies hiding in the bushes, waiting to leap out at the military guy? Why can the zombies leap through the air but not walk faster than somebody's 90-year-old grandmother?
• How did the zombie head in the fridge leap out to bite that guy?  Flex its neck muscles real quick?
• Why do the zombies wait patiently outside, watching while the humans barricade themselves in at the hotel?  
• Why did the birds stop being a factor after the first twenty minutes of the movie?  
• Why did the scientists disappear from the movie for a good 40 minute stretch?  
• Why can the Decontamination Squad not shoot four people standing basically side-by-side?  
• Why does the movie go on for another 25 minutes after what seemed for all the world to be the final gut-munching zombie attack?  
• Why did the heavily armed Decontamination Squad make the military duress drop their weapons and then attack them hand-to-hand, especially since the plan was for the D Squad to kill everybody they encountered?
• What was in that small barn that caused a small hand grenade to blow it up like the Death Star?  
• Why are there zombies hiding in the grass like snipers?  
• How did that one guy get way out into open pastureland when a second ago he was twenty yards from the building?

This could actually be a pretty good zombie movie if you were to rewrite the script, hire new actors, put a new director in charge, reshoot the whole thing with better lighting and sets and without the apparent smear of Vasoline on the camera lens throughout.  Maybe revamp the makeup effects and improve the soundtrack, too.  These and just a few more changes would make a remake of Zombi 3 into a pretty decent zombie flick.  As it is, this one should probably only be seen by zombie completists and/or masochists. All others should avoid it like a plague of zombie birds.

Re-Animator (1995)

You would think Re-Animator, another Lovecraft adaptation from director Stuart Gordon (Dagon), would be a hard movie to like. It is intensely gory and loaded to the gills with horribly disfigured naked zombies, cats being brought repeatedly in and out of life, and a severed head interacting with one young lady like something from a Cannibal Corpse album cover. To say it's politically incorrect is to way understate things. But if you're a horror fan and you have a sense of humor, you'll no doubt agree with me - it's just so danged fun!

When eager, idealistic Miskatonic University med student Dan Cain takes on a roommate in the brilliant but unhinged Herbert West, Dan's life becomes a wide-awake nightmare in a matter of days. He soon finds his cat dead, re-animated, re-killed, and re-re-animated. This is just the beginning of the downward spiral of horror that sees the revocation of his student loan, a fight with a super-strong zombie, his future father-in-law's death and re-animation as a mindless monster, mind-controlled zombies, and the awful discovery that West's serum works on body parts as well as whole bodies. It's an eye-popping, bone saw-whirring, head-squashing tarantella of death and un-death.

Smug, cruel, manipulative, and mean, the title character of Herbert West would be repugnant and unlikable if it weren't for the talents of lead actor Jeffrey Combs. He brings an intensity and enthusiasm to the character that makes him not only a palatable screen presence who drives the plot forward, but a delightfully devilish protagonist you can really root for despite the horrible things he does. The whole movie lives and dies (and lives again!) by Combs' performance, and he carries the movie easily.

If you are squeamish, subscribe to Cat Fancy, or can't take a joke, you should give this one a pass. If you like H.P Lovecraft's stories and think buckets of gore can be pretty funny, then Re-Animator is the movie for you. It is absolutely one of the best zombie movies of the 80s and among the funniest gross-out horror movies ever.

Dagon (2001)

Dagon is a direct-to-DVD gem from director and H.P. Lovecraft specialist Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond) that adapts not so much the story from which the film gets its name, but The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Like with Die, Monster, Die!, the story is moved from its original New England location - this time to the fictional fishing village of Imboca, Spain. (Unlike yesterday's movie, the relocation of the setting probably had more to do with the Spanish cast, crew, shooting locations, and financial backing than simply aesthetic reasons. Certainly understandable for a lower budget movie like Dagon.)

Four Americans are shipwrecked on the sharp rocks just off the coast of Spain. When Paul and Barbara go ashore for help, they find the village of Imboca, which is populated with the hideously deformed worshippers of the sea deity Dagon. They are chased through the village by the inhuman Imbocans, culminating in a terrible ritual in the catacombs below the blasphemous church of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. There, Paul is to be made the bridegroom of Dagon's high priestess, and Barbara is to be made Dagon's unwilling lover.

As with most Lovecraft adaptations, there are major differences between the movie and the story. But unlike so many movies, in the hands of a director who gets it Dagon exhibits just the right spirit of bleak terror and existential dread. The acting from the cast of Spanish unknowns (save for the late Paco Rabal, whose name I know but I'm not sure why) is better than you might expect. The physical creature effects and special effects makeup are really fantastic. Particularly excellent is the portrayal of "that Innsmouth look" (or Imboca look, in the case of the movie) that the townsfolk tend to have - pale, clammy looking skin, hollow eyes, subtle (and not-so-subtle) gill slits, and even tentacles. The only missteps, effects wise, are a couple of instances of less-than-stellar CGI tentacles that are shown very briefly. But for the most part, this sort of thing is done practically, like back in the good old days, and it serves the movie well.

The only thing that's missing from this movie is the presence of Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, who both appear in Stuart Gordon's other Lovecraft movies. Otherwise, it has all the creepiness, nihilism, and gore it needs to put it on the short list of good HPL adaptations. If you're a fan of Lovecraft's work, or good monster-y horror in general, don't overlook Dagon.

Snack Food Review - General Mills' Sweet 'n Salty Chex Mix: Honey Nut

Notable on the front of the package of this flavor of Chex Mix brand snack mix is the use of golden yellows to contrast with the reds and blues of the standard logo and hint at the honey flavoring to be found inside.  This choice of color scheme is backed up by the image of a jar of honey at one end of a sort of ribbon that streaks across the package.  This honey jar is translucent, allowing the viewer to see the sticky, sweet substance inside.  The honey in this jar is either being added to or subtracted from by a grooved honey dipper similar to the one my grandfather utilized in dressing his toast at breakfast.   One difference between the dipper depicted here and the one I remember from my childhood is that the one depicted here is apparently capable of hovering over a honey pot with no visible means of support.  The one we used required manual assistance from the user.

The aforementioned ribbon that culminates in the honey jar serves mainly to provide a solid yellow background over which brown writing can inform us of the name of the flavor, the fat content relative to regular potato chips, and the fact that the product employs both natural and artificial means of arriving at its flavor.  Natural and artificial, huh?  Well, I guess that just about covers the whole spectrum, then, doesn't it?

Finally, below the ribbon and supporting the honey jar, we see a section of honeycomb, complete with honey in each hole.  On the honeycomb, separate from the honey jar, we find a tastefully arranged pile of the various snack pieces that makes up this bag of "mix."  More on the pieces later.  For now, I would like to observe one thing that is missing from the package art - and from the product itself.

Nuts.

That's right, folks.  Honey Nut Chex Mix appears to contain no nuts whatsoever.  There are no almonds, cashews, filberts, macadamias, Brazils, peanuts, or legumes of any kind depicted on this package, or inside among the mixed snack pieces.  A quick glance at the Federally mandated "Ingredients" list on the reverse of the package contains no mention of nuts either.  Perhaps they only meant "Honey Nut" as "vaguely recalling the flavor of honey and nuts."  This may well be the case, but nuts aren't even listed in an "artificial nut flavor" capacity.  The honey part of the flavor?  Why yes, there is honey, right towards the end of the "Contains 2% or less of" portion of the ingredient list.  But nuts?  Nowhere to be found.  All we see is a cryptic note that reads, "May Contain Peanut Ingredients," which seems to indicate that General Mills can't remember or isn't sure if they put peanuts in this product or not.  I'm here to tell you, General, that you did not.

Now we examine the contents of the package.  There are six standard snack pieces that, in varying quantities, make up the contents of this Honey Nut Chex Mix.  

Not surprisingly, the most abundant pieces are the two varieties of Chex cereal provided herein - Wheat Chex and Rice Chex.  These crispy, postage stamp-sized pieces are formed in their traditional basket-weave style, making a sort of hollow pillow in which the granules of salt and honey-flavored sugar that provide most of the snack's flavor can be captured.  

Following the cereal bits in their ubiquity are the pretzel pieces.  These come in two varieties as well.  One is a circular piece that either represents the circular nature of life in the same manner as the ancient Ouroboros (the snake that eats its own tail), or is perhaps simply easy to manufacture in bulk.  The other pretzel shape is one of a window with four open panes.  Perhaps the circular piece, then, is meant to be an eye, which, along with the window shape, is meant to bring to mind the old saying, "the eye is the window to the soul."  In any case, the inclusion of pretzels in the mix adds a level of dryness that I can't imagine focus groups actually would have asked for.  Sure, they hold the salt and sugar almost as well as the Chex cereal pieces, but I would gladly trade away the variety provided by the pretzels for the crispiness and relative moisture inherent in more Chex cereal.  

Rounding out the mix are two varieties (I sense a trend, here) of flour-based "Graham's cracker" pieces.  One is shaped into a mesmerizing spiral that one dare not gaze at too long lest one feel compelled to purchase dozens more bags of the mix, or whatever the hypnotic suggestion built into the cracker may be.  The last, and by far the most rare piece (only two instances of this piece in the sample bag) is a simple straight shape, rather like a tiny breadstick.  These two pieces really hold onto the honey flavor.  Perhaps the honey flavor is baked into every cracker, providing some built-in punch to these pieces in addition to the crystalline flavoring sprinkles that may be stuck to their exteriors.  At any rate, these pieces' delicious flavor tends to surprise the mouth after the eyes have gazed upon their pale color and rather pedestrian designs.

So where does that leave General Mills' Sweet 'n Salty Chex Mix: Honey Nut edition as a whole?  By and large, the honey flavor provides a strong counterpoint to the typical saltiness of a given Chex Mix.  The non-pretzel pieces are crisp and fresh ("Freshness Preserved by BHT," according to the Ingredients list).  Even the dryness of the pretzels is not enough to turn one off of the snack as a whole - especially when the pretzels are included in the same bite with the other types of pieces.  Taken altogether, General Mills' Sweet 'n Salty Chex Mix: Honey Nut flavor snack mix is certainly worth the $0.65 semi-premium vending machine price tag.  But I will say this to General Mills, in closing:  What's a guy got to do to get some nuts around here?

Die, Monster, Die! (1965)

In Die, Monster, Die!, based on H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out Of Space," smug American Stephen Reinhart visits his new girlfriend Susan Witley at her family's mansion in Arkham, England.  (It is unclear why the story's original New England location was moved across the pond.) There he finds Susan's wheelchair-bound (or is he?) father Nahum Witley (Boris Karloff) to be hiding a horrible secret that has to do with a maid's disappearance, Susan's mother's extreme sensitivity to light, and a charred, scarred, dead, and decaying area of land near the Witley house.

The vague descriptions of H.P. Lovecraft's unnamable, indescribable horrors make his stories notoriously difficult to adapt to the screen.  In the case of Die, Monster, Die! (as overblown a title as any movie has ever had), the screenwriter seems to have seized on the concept from the short story of plants growing overlarge near the Witley house and run with it.  Regrettably, this leaves us with a rather conventional plot that has more to do with irradiated plants and people attacking the innocent than the truly alien monster in Lovecraft's original story.

Still, the movie is atmospheric and creepy, especially when the main characters explore the enormous, mysterious Witley house.  The noxious green glow from the greenhouse that holds the family's twisted secret is chilling (and may have inspired a scene in John Carpenter's love letter to Lovecraft, In The Mouth Of Madness).  However, as is so often the case with Lovecraft movies, when monster makes its appearance, it is a bit of a letdown.

If you are a fan of 60s horror and don't mind a few hokey effects mixed in with your atmospheric cinematography, Die, Monster, Die! is worth a shot.  If you are looking for a faithful Lovecraft adaptation, however, you will be disappointed.

Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein was the last of Universal's Frankenstein series, and it went out with a bang.  Continuing the "monster rally" concept the studio had pioneered with Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, House Of Frankenstein, and House Of Dracula, Universal brought together three of their top horror villains (four, if you count Vincent Price's excellent cameo) and added the most popular comedy team in the world.

This is somewhat akin to making a Freddy Vs. Jason sequel that also features Leatherface and... I don't know... Harold and Kumar. Or somebody funny. But it's way better than that would be.

In this one, Dracula (Béla Lugosi, returning to the role for the first time) tries to restore Frankenstein's ailing monster to full health and replace the monster's murderous brain with one that is simple, stupid, and compliant. That's where Wilbur (Lou Costello) comes in. Aiding Wilbur is his skeptical buddy Chick (Bud Abbott) and Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) - a man whose own monstrous nature is revealed when the moon is full.  It all comes together in a mad chase through Dracula's castle in Florida (!) that pits monster against monster with Chick and Wilbur caught in the middle.

As expected, the horror elements are pushed to the back so Abbott and Costello can do their thing.  There are scenes that would be suspenseful and nerve-wracking in any other entry in the series if it weren't for Costello's mugging and whimpering, but that's what we're here for.  

The man is funny.  Costello's outstanding moments include socking the Wolf Man in the nose and kicking him in the butt when he thinks it's just Chick in a mask, losing his sense of direction and running into a stone wall - hard, and breaking the fourth wall after a successful "yank the tablecloth" bit.  

Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein brings together classic Hollywood's greatest icons of horror and comedy in a mad monster party that is fun for the whole family.  Or at least it was fun for my wife, my dog, and me.

Son Of Frankenstein (1939)

This third film in Universal Studios' classic Frankenstein series sees the son of the infamous Dr. Frankenstein travel to his European homeland to take possession of his birthright - the family castle, the laboratory, and the legacy of horror.  

Baron Wolf Von Frankenstein (played by Basil Rathbone before his lengthy run as Sherlock Holmes) succumbs rather easily to the allure of his late father's terrible experiment when the mysterious and deformed Ygor (Béla Lugosi) shows him the body of the dormant monster (Boris Karloff).  A few jolts of electricity to the monster's neck later, and Wolf comes to learn that the nearby villagers have good reason to hate his family name as the monster is up and killing again.  Wouldn't you know it? 

This second sequel has a lightness and humor to it that is charming and unexpected.  It's fun to watch Baron Frankenstein sprint off to the lab in mid-conversation as he tries to protect his family while preventing tbe one-armed police inspector (a victim of the monster's earlier attacks) from discovering that he has followed in his father's ghastly footsteps.  The villagers' joyful send-off when the Frankenstein family leaves town is a stitch.  There is even a humorous nod to the real-world confusion over whether the monster himself should be called Frankenstein.

The sly humor and crisp dialogue can largely be attributed to the script by Wyllis Cooper, creator of the horror radio program Lights Out - a radio predecessor to comics like Tales From The Crypt in both its anthology horror format and the tongue-in-cheek comedy that tempers the terror.

The cast is top notch, the script is solid, and the special makeup effects (especially Ygor's broken neck) are good throughout.  The cinematography and sets are terrific; the asymmetrical doorways and odd angular shadows in the corridors call back to the German expressionist movies that influenced the first Frankenstein film.  All-in-all, while it may not reach the heights of the first two movies in the series, Son Of Frankenstein is very well made and worth seeking out.

NBA Lockout Timeline

The National Basketball Association's players have been "locked out" (prevented from doing their jobs) since this summer. Despite the fact that the NBA is just days away from missing regular season games, their lockout hasn't gotten nearly the publicity that the similar National Football League lockout got from the national sports press. The reasons for this are many, but the main one is that while the NFL is the most popular sports league in the country, nobody gives even one solitary damn about the NBA.

In the interest of furthering the public's sports-related knowledge, I thought I would share with you some highlights of the NBA lockout so far. I present to you the NBA Lockout Timeline:

Day 1 - League commissioner David Stern announces that there will be no NBA basketball until the players agree to rescind the Mavericks' 2010/2011 championship and concede the title to the Miami Heat. His proposal is rejected by the NBA Players Association by a vote of 357 - 3.

Day 5 - Labor talks break down when players' union chief Billy Hunter refers to Nets co-owners Jay-Z and Mikhail Prokhorov as "Young MC and Ivan Drago."

Day 10 - Foreseeing the harsh realities of an extended unpaid work stoppage, Celtics forward Paul Pierce begins storing up an emergency supply of Cadillac Escalades.

Day 25 - The Minnesota Timberwolves are mathematically eliminated from the 2011/2012 playoffs.

Day 35 - Shaquille O'Neal uses the time off to revive his rap career, culminating in the release of his new album, "Shaq Sandwich." As with Spinal Tap's similarly titled album, the reviews practically write themselves.

Day 40 - During pre-game coverage of the WNBA Game Of The Week between the Indiana Fever and the Eastern Division-leading Connecticut Sun, NBA analyst Stephen A. Smith hangs himself with his microphone cord.

Day 50 - Former Washington Wizard Javaris Crittenton is implicated in the shooting death of 22-year-old Julian Jones in Atlanta.  Wait, this should go in the NBA Lock-UP timeline.

Day 60 - On a live 3-hour television special, LeBron James chooses Arian Foster with the first pick of his fantasy football draft. Heartbroken Cleveland fans burn Colt McCoy jerseys in the streets.

Day 70 - Labor negotiations continue to flounder as the players' union stands firm against a hard salary cap for players' personal entourages.

Day 80 - WWE head honcho Vince McMahon announces the formation of the XBA. The new league's "extreme" brand of basketball will feature unlimited personal and technical fouls, metal chain nets, and nightly "run-ins" from the likes of Hulk Hogan, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, and Rasheed Wallace.

Day 85 - ESPN finally remembers to announce that the NBA is on strike and has been for nearly three months. Viewers shrug and return to watching football.

Day 90 - NBA Commissioner Davis Stern threatens to take the ball and go home for the entire season. The players' union responds by calling Stern a "doo-doo head" and that they had to be home before the streetlights came on anyway. So there.

Day 95 - Kobe Bryant announces his verbal agreement to spend the lockout playing with Vitus Bologna in Italy.  Shaquille O'Neal extends verbal offer to play for bologna, too.

More to come as the lockout continues.

Häxan

Häxan (or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a silent documentary from Sweden that juxtaposes the perceptions of witches in the Middle Ages with the views of the "modern world" of 1922. At the core of Danish director Benjamin Christensen's narrative is a refreshingly skeptical point of view, from which the filmmaker suggests psychologically plausible explanations for the demonic visions and actions of supposed witches and those tormented by devils.

Beginning with a look at witchcraft and the Devil in the art of ancient and Medieval cultures (including a statue of the Assyrian demon Pazuzu that will be familiar to any fan of The Exorcist), Haxan informs us that the imagery of the demonic has permeated all of the "naive" and primitive cultures of the world for the entire history of mankind.

After the art history lesson comes the heart of the film: the dramatic depiction of witchcraft in the time of the Inquisition. The first vignette shows us the lives of self-proclaimed witches and the sad souls who seek their potions and spells. Then we see a typical Inquisition scenario in which an old woman is accused of witchcraft, tortured into a manufactured confession of her evil deeds, and subsequently levies accusations against the people in town who have wronged her. The cycle goes on until the village is scoured of witches and the judges of the Inquisition move on to the next town.

Finally, Christensen show us his hypothesis of the true causes of so-called demonic behaviors, playing the actions of the bewitched against scenes of modern psychological disorders such as kleptomania and somnambulism, which he lumps together under the term "hysteria." In this way, Christensen endeavors to teach the audience to put aside the superstitions of the "naive" past and try to solve real psychological problems with real-world treatments.

So, Häxan is a documentary, but is it a horror movie? Yes, yes it is. While the film as a whole may not be particularly scary to today's audience, it can certainly be unnerving.

The costumes are fantastic in all senses of the word: a terrifying Satan (played by the director), creepy imps, pig-men walking upright, a skeletal horse, and all manner of other grotesquery. Guillermo del Toro would be proud of the creature designs and effects.

The blasphemous imagery of the Witches' Sabbath scenes is shocking, particularly considering when Häxan was made. Demons drain blood from a baby into a brew the revelers drink, an old witch gives birth to man-sized demons, and witches literally kiss the Devil's behind to show their loyalty. Häxan is brimming with depraved acts we wouldn't think anyone would have put into a film in the 1920s, and all is depicted with a surreal weirdness that somehow makes it seem more real than the lifelike effects in modern movies.

Häxan came to the screen in the same year as F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, which was three years before The Phantom Of The Opera and nine years before Dracula or Frankenstein. This places Häxan among the foundations of cinematic horror. Unlike these other movies, Häxan tackles not literary monsters familiar to all as fiction, but evils that are considered all too real by much of the world. It portrays these horrors unflinchingly, while warning against letting superstition lead again to the kind of madness that shook Europe during the Inquisition.

If you're interested in one of the most fascinating horror movies of the silent era or simply want some freaky visuals to play on the tv in the background of your Halloween party, look no further than Häxan.

October Horror Movie Challenge begins

Here's the list of movies I intend to tackle in the October Horror Movie Challenge (subject to change, of course). See you back here with my comments after each movie. Happy horror!

Classics You May Have Missed
1. Haxan
2. Son Of Frankenstein
3. Abbot And Costello Meet Frankenstein
H.P. Lovecraft on Film
4. Die, Monster, Die!
5. Dagon
6. Re-Animator
Italians Love Their Zombies
7. Zombi 3
8. City Of The Living Dead
9. The Church
Satan: Ladies' Man
10. Exorcist 2: The Heretic
11. To The Devil A Daughter
12. Rosemary's Baby
Low Expectation Theater
13. Leprechaun In The Hood
14. Man's Best Friend
15. Dolls
Dude, This Is Pretty Messed Up Right Here
16. Basket Case 
17. Nekromantik
18. Audition
No, Really... These Are Pretty Good
19. The Gate 
20. April Fool's Day
21. The Burning
The Devil Without And The Devil Within
22. Prince Of Darkness
23. Frailty
24. The House Of The Devil
Re-visiting Halloween Horrorfest 1995 (mostly)
25. Theater Of Blood
26. The Thing 
27. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) 
Remakes And Prequels
28. Halloween (2007)
29. The Thing (2011)
30. Paranormal Activity 3 
Happy Halloween!
31. Trick R Treat