innerearitch

Scary Movies and Halloween.

[innerearitch]

The Burbs. Dir. Joe Dante. 1989.

In a way, ‘80s Tom Hanks was the gangly alpha and omega of Satanic Panic. In ’82 he starred in Mazes & Monsters, which was loosely based on events that triggered that national fever dream. Then just a few years later The ‘Burbs taught us our neighbors aren’t necessarily secret Satanists- they might be run-of-the-mill serial killers.

Tom Hanks crushing beer cans will ALWAYS be the perfect expression of impotent rage.

“I hate cul-de-sacs. There's only one way out, and the people are weird.” - Vic the Garbageman

[innerearitch]

Hell Baby. Dir. Robert Ben Garant & Thomas Lennon. 2013.

The second half of today’s horror-comedy double-header made up for the first.

It’s hard to say I grew up watching something that only lasted a couple years, but The State had an outsized influence on 11-year-old me. It makes me so happy that they’re still doing good work like this.

This is one of the funnier horror-comedies I’ve seen in the last few years, but it still hits some nice horror beats and gross-out moments. This will be an October staple for a while.

[innerearitch]

Little Evil. Dir. Eli Craig. 2017.

This was okay. Adam Scott is always good, and I liked the misfit stepdad crew, but it didn’t come together as well as Craig’s excellent debut, Tucker & Dale vs Evil. Of course, that’s a pretty high bar.

On a side note, when we watched Bridget Everett clear the room after Amy Schumer a couple years back, I laughed so hard I almost lost consciousness, and she was a highlight here, too.

[innerearitch]

House. Dir. Steve Miner. 1985.

What a trio: The Greatest American Hero. Norm. Bull, from Night Court.

With that talent, I was hoping for something funnier. As it was, it wasn’t funny enough to work as comedy, and it wasn’t scary enough to work as horror. It works best as an exploration of PTSD and survivor’s guilt, dredged up by Roger’s attempts to write about his Vietnam experience, but then you have to view the entire final act as hallucination. Roger’s son is long gone, stolen away to an unknown fate in the car we saw speed off in the flashback. Roger’s wife and neighbor are most likely dead, killed in his fugue state. It’s a bummer.

Oh, my first on-theme scary-new-house movie! Wish it’d been better.

Notes:

That grocery delivery kid must have gerontophobia (yesss, callback!).

Those Vietnam sequences looked like something out of a Max Fischer play.

Monster design by a 9th grade Iron Maiden super fan.

Maybe Cliff is better in the sequel.

[innerearitch]

‘What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror’

I still remember the age at which reading a whole novel in one day was an admirable feat. Just a few decades later, it’s probably considered a poor use of my time.

My other October tradition, along with binging on horror movies and sharing my thoughts on them with no one in particular, is reading a scary book or two. For whatever reason my taste in horror novels is a little narrower than my taste in horror movies, so for the last couple years I’ve ended up re-reading two books in particular: John Dies at the End, and its sequel, This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don’t Touch It. They’re creepy, gruesome, funny, crass, unsettling, and manage to subvert urban fantasy genre tropes, while maintaining their own identity (you’ll see the term “existential dread” thrown around a lot in discussions of the series, with good reason).

So today was movieless, as I tore through the just-released third book in the aforementioned series, ‘What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror.’ It’s past my bedtime now, so I’ll keep it brief and spoiler-free: It was, in fact, a very good use of my time.

[innerearitch]

The Visit. Dir. M. Night Shyamalan. 2015.

I’m zero for two on the “creepy neighbors” theme, but the month is young.

Was this the start of the M. Night Shyamaissance? I slept on it when it came out, since he’d fallen into "lazy punchline" territory, but it was good. The twist was maybe a little easy, and maybe a little unnecessary, but it worked for me, and those old-timers were really something.

The kids’ cheeseball “Swing Away” moments in the final act were a lowlight. Writers, please just let those moments be what they are: Scary, life-or-death situations. They don’t need the extra window dressing to make them exciting!

But whatever- it creeped me out, and that’s what this whole thing is all about. I’m excited to watch Split later this month.

[innerearitch]

Dead Alive. Dir. Peter Jackson. 1992.

For the first movie of the month you’d think I’d try to stick to my chosen theme, but it doesn’t matter, this movie is a stone cold classic. It’s disgusting, it’s hilarious, it’s weirdly affecting. It's the definitive splatter flick of my late-teens, and some of my fondest memories of that time are of introducing innocent, unsuspecting friends to this bloody Goddamned mess.

Still insane that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh went from this to Lord of the Rings.

Highlights:

"Singaia!”

The drunk laughing while Lionel beats on/subdues the zombie baby.

The grotesqueness of nearly every side character in the movie. Nazi embalmers, sleazy zookeepers, etc. This movie is greasy.

“I kick ass for the Lord!”

Lionel + Lawnmower.

[innerearitch]

The Month of Halloween, 2017

Like a cicada, or Eugene Victor Tooms, this site is destined to re-emerge every few years to fulfill its dark purpose.

Every October I watch as many horror movies as I can in 31 days, but this year I’ve decided to do little capsule reviews on here, since I had the space just sitting here collecting digital dust.

In the past I’ve done themes, usually focused on days of the week (”Monster Monday,” “Splatterday,” etc.), but this year, in honor of moving to a new home, the (very) loose focus is on creeptastic next-door neighbors, 'hoods with dark secrets, and sinister houses that never should’ve made it past inspection.