Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

  I put off watching Season of the Witch until the 31st while many of the others remained in rotation throughout the month. I just wanted this for my Halloween afternoon movie. And I did just that. In the past Season of the Witch wasn't always really a preferable Halloween Day film. But I like it as that now. But after it ended today, I thought to myself: this was always a great July Saturday afternoon film when I watched it before my "blog beginnings". I might have mentioned this in the past on the blog, but my very first Halloween franchise film was actually Season of the Witch ! Yep, I borrowed a VHS tape from my uncle that had "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) on it, and I wanted to watch that out of curiosity. And to add to this history of my life: my very first viewing of "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) was in color! That was the version my uncle had. So Season of the Witch just happened to be on the videotape. So I didn't have that di...

It's the Great Pumpkin!  Whether it was Rachel pissed at Brady for wanting to find out how the sheriff's daughter "does it by the book" while Michael, having lived through a hell of a fire, aims to locate and kill his niece after leaving an ambulance a bloody mess for Loomis and law enforcement to find, or Devon Sawa contending with a demonically possessed hand going on a killing spree (that includes his parents, best stoner friends, and students of his high school during a costume Halloween party) without his permission, the Saturday before Halloween had quite the eclectic schedule this year. I wanted to make sure I had a busy Saturday because I am only watching two movies on Halloween night.  My daughter got to pick several of the films for the day, and my son picked one. He was talking about dressing as Shaggy from Scooby Doo next year, and we got to talking about the two movies. He wanted to watch Monsters Unleashed , and I found it on HBO Max.  Halloween IV: The ...

  I've always wanted to get this image exactly as above. Glad to finally have it. I wanted to get a few Friday the 13ths in the month somehow, despite a recent actual Friday the 13th in August. I just went with the first two. These are the two (well, I'd say the third one, also) that I seem to pair with each other a lot more the last few years than in the past. And I have conditioned myself to watch Friday the 13th (1980) and Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) starting in the early afternoon. Until tonight, I've even made room for the third film in many Friday marathons. I'd say the first film has moved up the most in favor since it really feels like an independent film shot on location in New Jersey, still grasping a hold on the 70s spirit before some of the later sequels attained a more mainstream horror 80s vibe. I still think why I love Part 2 is because it was a continuation of that to a certain extent, taking us to Connecticut, but still maintaining the rural East Coa...

Trick 'r Treat We've hit the final week already. So many films less watched this year than in times past, but I fully recognize I can't do what one kid did on r/horror on Reddit and watch 200 films off of Tubi. He said he was tapping out. Most people would! For me, I can look back on the IMDb Horror Message Board and remember the monthly viewing challenge and how it worked as this incredible competition (of sorts) among fans all over the world. I do remember really having that stick-to-it-ivness needed to march through the month gobbling up a lot of horror. My stamina and sustainability have waned, but I guess life doesn't always forfeit the time needed. I chose for the middle of the week horror set during Halloween where the spirit of the holiday was emphasized significantly. Just Before Dawn Munsters Go Home! Tales of Halloween Night of the Demons Hubie Halloween The Bat October 26th Just Before Dawn (1981) - This was a nice surprise to see pop up on Shudder. I went ...

  I had a realization not just today but on Saturday. These are great movies that I have personally pigeonholed into one particular month when they deserve to be essential viewing any time of the year. I had a fun revisit of "Frankenstein Created Woman" (1967), where Victor has now focused his attentions on the soul (or our human presence opposite the body we inhabit), regarding how to isolate it in some apparatus and hold it there until a body comes available. What makes this particular film interesting is how Victor decides to isolate the soul of a wrongfully executed assistant and eventually "implant" it into the resurrected body of his girlfriend (who drowned herself in a suicide attempt), who happened to pass by the guillotine as his head was chopped off. Inside his beloved girlfriend, Hans takes the body of Christine and kills the three privileged hoods who were responsible for the death of a shop owner whose death he was executed for. So Frankenstein has no p...

 Rick has these moments that might make viewers cringe today. But back in 2010, I can see why Darabont and his writing team wanted to make sure we understood these zombies were once people. Rick following the crawling zombie with her lower torso and telling her how sorry he felt for her situation in "Days Gone By", and Rick, before chopping up a zombie they brought in from outside the department store, pulls his driver's license and wallet, making sure those around him recognize that this guy was a father who loved his family. Morgan, in "Days Gone By" can't just plug his zombie wife. It was obviously of great importance to those behind this show at the time that we remember these zombies were once folks worrying about bills, school, a football game, etc. As the series continues, that becomes quite less important.

Merle, not to just be a racist, calls Andrea sugar tits, so he's also a misogynist.  I had forgotten how much fun The Walking Dead could be. "Guts", for me, is one of the most entertaining and exciting episodes of the first season (and probably entire series). You have fireworks of a kind that will leave plenty of viewers cringing concerning racist, Merle Dixon, and his object of hate, T-Dog. T-Dog didn't do anything to deserve it, but the writing has to make sure Merle isn't nuanced in the least. If I have a gripe it is that the writing and performance from Rooker (who isn't restrained, really laying it out there thick, hot and heavy) are very overripe. T-Dog leaving Merle behind after losing the key to handcuffs that locked Dixon to a pipe is this major development the writing made sure to establish as a big deal. Now in this episode, it isn't established yet that Merle has a brother...the very popular Daryl. We do know that Amy, the pretty blond in whit...

  I have written three times about this film in the past, mostly in October. This is a favorite of mine for the month of October. Around 2000, this was on cable a lot. I used to have it on quite a bit. For me, it is about the adventure, not necessarily the destination, though I imagine fans watching it in a theater were hoping, as Roger Ebert was, for insight into what lies behind the ninth gate. Maybe there is curiosity for what hell or Lucifer looks like since Polanski's movie talks so much about both. The close we get is Emmanuelle Seigner, riding Depp outside Château de Puivert (a castle in Aude, France), as her face seems to morph into different faces while her eyes fluctuate in color and fire burns from the windows. Langella thought he had achieved something metaphysical, something spiritual, but he was missing a certain authentic page. So the journey to opening the ninth gate seems to be Depp's instead of Langella's. Seigner tells him as much. She's clearly some ...

  Probably my least favorite of the V/H/S series, but I'm not really the biggest fan of the films, though the style does work some for me. I just didn't care anything about "Terror" about the nutty religious fanatical militia holding a vampire while plotting to eventually attack the federal government. They kept shooting some guy in the head over and over, gaining access to a whole police cache of weapons from a cop believing in their cause. They appear to be a bunch of losers following a commandant certain to fail on whatever mission they have planned. Eventually the vampire (with a face that opens to reveal a lot of teeth that clamps down of all these fuckers' faces, before the sun takes care of it) goes on a violent rampage, proving how inept these yahoos really are. I got bored of these clowns real quick-like.  My favorite of the video recorded stories was "The Wake", where a newly hired funeral parlor employee must remain at the wake during a severe...

 The bungling error of humanizing Frankenstein too much and retconning the previous history of the last two films sort of leaves "The Evil of Frankenstein" (1964) adrift to exist on its own. A greedy, vengeful hypnotist named Zoltan, instead, is served as the replacement heavy, using the scientist's monster to kill those he considers worthy of punishment for his banishment from Karlsbaad. You get Frankenstein telling his newest ally, an assistant named Hans, a different history, one set to machinery, lightning, and a laboratory modeled after the Universal Studios, giving "The Evil of Frankenstein" a particular feel unlike any other due to availability thanks to a distribution deal Hammer had with the great Hollywood studio. The look of Frankenstein's monster and how he was brought to life quite familiar because it was as if Cushing got the chance to model himself somewhat after Colin Clive's Henry Frankenstein. Victor spends a lot of time frustrated and ...

 If someone was critical of the Hammer Frankenstein series, in regards to the character portrayed by Cushing, I could definitely agree because I think the great actor sort of fashioned The Baron depending on the tone and trajectory of the story in each film. For instance, "The Revenge of Frankenstein" (1958) didn't feature the exact same Frankenstein we followed in the previous "Curse". He wasn't entirely evil, though his behavior certainly felt close to The Baron in terms of his obsession to create man "from the ground up", this go-around having volunteers to be active participants in the process. The assistant, Dr. Kleve, badly wanting to work alongside such a brilliant mind with a wealth of knowledge and intellect he could learn from and glean such information from. In fact, by the end, Dr. Kleve is able to move the brain of Victor (a battered and dying body thanks to a number of disgruntled Skid Row patients wanting their own revenge against hi...

God, how many Octobers has "The Curse of Frankenstein" (1957) been brought up, with some new (or reiterated old) anecdote popped into my head while watching it? This is a film that has remained one of my favorites to talk about. I don't necessarily think it is even perhaps the best of the Cushing Hammer Frankenstein films, but I still find it so interesting as a character piece and consider the developments in the film. One of the resounding questions always seems to be: why doesn't Paul just tell Elizabeth about the experiments? Or, for that matter, the local authorities? The Baron is a graverobber, performs surgeries on dead bodies, even committing murder. And Paul can see that The Baron is so obsessed he's willing to do whatever it takes to get what he needs in order to be a successful scientist. The talk of creating man from parts he finds should be more than enough to get the authorities to look in on what the Baron is doing. And if Paul tells Elizabeth of wh...

Including screen grabs thanks to Peacock.   So watching Halloween Kills (2021) in the theater still reiterates the positives and negatives of my experience watching it on Peacock. Almost everything out of Tommy's (Anthony Michael Hall) mouth and how he acts was still cringe. I don't fault Michael Hall. I think he especially tries upon his introduction when up on a stage in the Haddonfield bar telling the patrons dressed in disguises and taking beer swigs about Michael Myers and what he was responsible for in 1978. This is prior to learning of the carnage in his wake when everyone receives phone calls and watch a news broadcast. Then Marion (once a nurse), played by Nancy Stephens (once again stabbed multiple times by Michael in a different alternate universe) starts with the evil dies tonight that permeates ad nauseum throughout the rest of the film. There is this brief moment in the bar that I totally appreciated that might go unnoticed I thought was a nice visual touch regar...