I think this might be the first foreign language film on the list this year, which is bad form on my part. There was a time where I viewed a lot of films from around the world, not just horror, and I still do. But there was a particular time where I was watching horror from our Asian friends, so it’s a surprise that this film slipped out of my grasp initially.
Movies
Night #26: Poltergeist
Back before ET started shooting (About 5 months in fact), Steven Spielberg stopped quickly to make this film about a suburban family terrorised by malevolent spirits. Only he didn’t direct it, only he sort of did. Or something.
Night #25: Lake Mungo
A bit of a deliberate change of pace tonight, a little something that suits my mood (In which this dreaded cold was going away and now has come back bigger and badder).
This is a story about ghosts.
Night #24: Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Besides being one of those films with a colon in it, hence making the naming above look a bit funny, Behind The Mask is a pretty great parody of slasher movies that’s played completely straight. After all the slasherin’ we’ve been through I thought it would be good to see it all deconstructed.
Night #23: The Evil Dead
Even though I’m coming down with something horrendous I still bring you all the goods and after viewing that trailer for the actually pretty good looking remake, I thought I’d give the original another spin.
Night #22: Dawn Of The Dead
The zombie. If it’s possible that we reached saturation I’d say we reached it a long time ago, but they continue to endure anyway. Like the vampire we’re treated to story after story of the shuffling dead from such diverse fair as The Serpent And The Rainbow (Hi again Wes Craven) to Zombiez(I think it’s meant as like…a street thing).
Seen as the modern Godfather of zombies, George Romero released what’s considered his magnum opus in 1978 and is still seen as a high point in the genre.
But I still don’t like it that much. Continue reading
Night #21: A Nightmare On Elm Street
Being hungover today and slipping in and out of sleep was probably not the best way to watch this. But these are the sacrifices I make in the name of the blog.
Night #20: The Last House On The Left
There was a period in American Horror, from the 70’s onward, that spawned a certain type of film. Ostensibly it was seen as a reaction to the Vietnam War, not a politically motivated action, but a subconscious one. The violence that was shown on television at the time permeated into the violence you would see on screen. With the leaps being made in special effects (What better frame of reference than some news footage on TV) it meant that filmmakers could push the boundaries of what was seen before. Indeed, filmmaking itself was getting cheap and mobile enough that it was easier for a Director with no budget to go out and shoot something.
It’s this perfect storm of influences that led to Wes Craven’s The Last House On The Left.
Night #19: Hellraiser
While the 80’s was the brief reign of the slasher film, the decade also gave rise to the body horror concept. Though it wasn’t a new phenomena (You could argue that something like The Wolf Man is body horror), the special effect advances allowed filmmakers to be more adventurous with what they did.
Hellraiser is one of them.
Night #18: Night Of The Comet
I was a strange child of the 80’s. That might come as no surprise to any of you that know me, but while people look back fondly at movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (Seriously people, Ferris is a sociopath. How can you not see this?) or The Breakfast Club or any plethora of so-called ‘classics’ I was developing something more of an…askew taste.
So it’s no surprise that Night of the Comet was right up my alley.
Is This Thing On? 