The 31 Scariest for the 31 Days Of October:Part II: The Un-deadening

           

           So in the first installment I gave you gore-freekz (FREEEEKKKZZZ!!!!!) out there a nice spread of horror movies.  In this installment I forgo the nice and instead throw a bucket of pig’s blood in your face.  Yes, no more Chopping Mall or Thir13en Ghosts.  No.  Instead I am offering you some real freaky, dare I say freaky deaky movies to usher in your Halloween night. 

October 16^th: V/H/S.  Last year on 12 Pack Tuesdays I gave “V/H/S” high praise for it’s originality and execution and I stand by every word.  This movie had actual scares and great moments of “RUN, BITCH!  YOU GONNA DIE!”.  There is a sequel (V/H/S 2) that many are saying outclasses the original but unfortunately I haven’t seen it yet but you could rent both and make a night of it.

October 17^th: Phantasm.  The Tall Man?  He lives in your night terrors.  The ball?  The Ball?  THE BALL!?!!??  I always felt like “Phantasm” got the little brother treatment from horror fans.  Although “Phantasm” came out only 1 year after “Halloween” (1979) and 1 year before “Friday the 13^th”, people never quite loved “Phantasm” as much.  I mean it’s a beautifully shot movie with very dark overtones that prey on childhood fears but folks never really get into it.  It doesn’t help that all the sequels are terrible.  But in Phantasm 2 a guy has a quadruple barrel shotgun!!!! Sweeeeet.

October 18^th: Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  With vampires being a hot commodity these days I had to throw at least 1 more vampire movie in here.  “Dracula 2000”, “Chronos”, or “Near Dark” almost made it in but recently I revisited “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (a movie my mother banned me from watching as a child) and found it…interesting.  I honestly can say you will never see anything like it ever again.  Francis Ford Coppola did his best to keep the author’s original vision together all while painting with a surrealists paint brush.  Honestly the movie is unreviewable (in a good way), kind of like the VHS tape in “The Ring”.  You watch it, make a sad face, pass it on and make someone else watch it. 

October 19^th: Candyman.  Finally they gave Tony Todd a starring role in a slasher movie!!!  And he has the power of swarms of bee’s…a hook hand…and a fly ass floor length fur coat!!!!  The bee thing was kind of weird…and he kind of had Freddy Krueger powers where he would hop into your dreams and then appear after you wake up.  Sidenote: large,scary black man terrorizes a fragile white woman…very original racist Hollywood.

October 20^th: John Carpenter’s The Thing.  This movie taught me a valuable lesson. My father can be kind of a dick sometimes.  He was more than happy to let me watch “John Carpenter’s The Thing” all while sitting in the background going “not too scary, right son?”.  And of course not wanting to look like a huge pussy in front of my father I would steel my eyelids open as John Carpenter and the F/X team of Stan Winston and Rob Bottin poured years worth of nightmare fuel into my brain.  Now in my 30’s I’m thankful my dad had me watch “The Thing” so young.  It changed me, made me harder.  It’s something akin to when gangs beat the living hell out of new members except it’s your family giving you giant mental scars.

October 21^st: Clive Barker’s Hellraiser.  This is another film that was on my mother’s now famous MY SON IS NOT ALLOWED TO WATCH list.  My mom was actually a huge Clive Barker fan and admitted later that the book alone scared her and after she watched the movie decided that her son should never watch it.  But being a deep down trauma hound I found my way to The Box and Pinhead and the Cenobites.  Years later I found that there was a company selling replica puzzle boxes in the back of a Fangoria magazine and decided right then and there that some people tempt fate a little too fucking much.

October 22^nd: Night of the Creeps & Slither.  Oooooh shizzy, a 2-fer!  “Night of the Creeps” was one of my absolute favorites for years.  It had axe wielding maniacs, aliens, zombies, college kids, and some serious heavy petting.  Mostly it centers on alien brain slugs that turn humans into slug spewing zombies that infest a small community.  “Slither” is also a film that centers on alien slugs that infest a small community but with the added benefit of being made in 2006 and starring Elizabeth Banks, Nathan Fillion, and Michael Rooker.  Before it’s release “Slither” got tagged as a ripoff of “Night of the Creeps” and David Cronenberg’s “Shivers” but I always saw it as a modern director (James Gunn) offering his take on the 70’s/80’s style B-movie horror show.  You know, nobody ever gives Tarantino shit for ripping off the Asians.

October 23^rd: High Tension.  For a country know for being effete, snobby assholes the French really come through for us in “High Tension”.  The story of two college ladies who travel to one of the girl’s family homes in the country to study in peace and quiet turns into a display of powerviolence as a mass murderer methodically starts to murder large sections of the family tree.  Go and Google the word ‘concrete saw’ and then imagine someone getting murdered with one.  Yep, pretty gross.

October 24^th: Antichrist.  I am apologizing in advance for any of you who take this list to heart and sit down and watch “Antichrist”.  It’s not that I don’t like the movie; it’s just that you can’t really say you enjoy it.  Lars Von Trier has made a career out of making artful films that are gut-wrenchingly hard to watch.  Willem Defoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg star as a husband and wife whose son, Nick, commits suicide in the beginning of the film.  The wife starts to show signs of mental breakdown and Defoe decides, as a husband and a licensed psychotherapist, to take her up to the family cabin for some immersion therapy.  What follows is indescribably vile and horrible.

 

October 25^th: The Wishmaster.  Ok.  Since I made you watch “High Tension” and “Antichrist” I felt you needed a palette cleanser.  Goofy.  Too much CGI.  “Hey was that Robert Englund”?  Those are all appropriate reactions to “The Wishmaster”.  One big loophole I noticed is that The Wishmaster never really waits for people to say “I wish”.  People will be like “…yeah right.  I’d like to see that happen” and then the fucking Wishmaster is all like “as you wish….grumble grumble grumble” and meanwhile I’m there like “THAT’S NOT A FUCKING WISH!!!!!”.  If you are going to base your movie on an evil genie (oh sorry Djinn or whatever) that grants wishes then people should actually have to wish for things rather than suggest at the possibility of their happiness should an event occur in their favor.

October 26^th: IT.  I knew I was going to have to include at least one Stephen King TV miniseries.  The one with Tim Curry playing an evil clown wins…every time.  In fact just Tim Curry dressed up as an evil clown wins everything ever because no one is going to stand up to him.  Pennywise the clown is fucking scary is what I’m saying.  You don’t believe me?  Fine.  Random scenario: you’re walking down the street and you hear a voice coming up from the sewer grating upon inspection you see a clown standing down there who tells you “They all float down here” in a gruff voice.  Do you…

1. fill your pants with fear shits
2. piss yourself
3. RUUUUUNN!!!
4. Lie to everybody and say your not scared

October 27^th: Return of the Living Dead.  I look forward to a whole bunch of loving comments on this choice but “Return of the Living Dead” is just a fun movie.  “Night of the Living Dead” is an amazing movie that we still see the effects of today.  I mean shit most video games owe George Romero a huge royalty check over the fact that he basically invented the zombie archetype.  The reason I chose this gem is that it took Romero’s work and put in the 80’s bedazzler.  Punk rock, goofy characters, talking zombies, jokes and jokes and jokes and jokes.

October 28^th: Evil Dead (2013).  Alright angry townsfolk, put your pitchforks and torches away because I know this just pissed off thousands of self-proclaimed Deadites.  Listen, I boycotted the viewing of this movie for quite some time (read: right up until Redbox started carrying it).  I stood by my classic Raimi directed ED 1&2 but upon giving the 2013 Evil Dead a try this movie is fucking awesome.  Fede Alvarez paid tribute to the Raimi originals while creating a new legend into the Evil Dead pantheon.  The final 25 minutes of Evil Dead is a blood soaked hell-scape of nightmares. 

October 29^th: Child’s Play/Friday The 13^th/Nightmare On Elm Street/Halloween.  I know, I know it’s kind of a cheat to put 4 movies in one slot but these 4 movies are genre defining achievements.  Child’s Play, when watched as an adult, is mildly unsettling.  The animatronic doll they used has dead eyes that burn into your soul.  Friday The 13^th is kind of weak sauce but is a must watch.  Nightmare on Elm Street is when Freddy was still scary and not a goofball one-liner machine.  Halloween is the godfather.  Michael Myers (or ghostShatner-face-man) is the Don Corleone of slashers…which makes Freddy the Michael Corleone and Jason the Sonny Corleone…and I guess Chucky is Fredo?  Yeah, Chucky is a total Fredo.

October 30^th: Trick’r’Treat.  If you haven’t guessed it by now I am a sucker for the anthology movie.  “Trick’r’Treat” sets itself apart nicely by being a horror movie about Halloween.  Not just a scary movie about scary things but a movie that centers on the holiday itself.  Even in “Halloween”, the holiday is more of a backdrop then a plot device.  Now all that being said the movie is top notch at all levels and the plot of each short is a far cry away from the next.  Bonus Feature: Anna Paquin looking sexy!!!

           This is it folks.  The day has arrived.  Halloween.  H-Day.  H20.  Samhain.  Now at the outset of this list I fully intended to find the ultimate Halloween day movie.  I scoured my private collection of DVD’s.  I went into my mom’s basement and rifled through my massive VHS collection (I worked at a video store that had zero security sooooo yeah I own a shitload of VHS).  I poured through pages of internet forums and other lists of the best horror has to offer and found…no movie can encapsulate Halloween on it’s own.  It’s sad but true (note to self I now owe Metallica $1.75).  So in light of this revelation stay tuned for…