🎃🎃🎃Closing Week to Halloween 🎃🎃🎃

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 to Letterboxd to see if that helped the film get noticed by customers of the streamer. Sure enough, there were a bunch of reviews for the last two days. Reviews were mixed, but a majority of them were average 3.5/5, which is cool. Slasher fans find their way to Just Before Dawn, probably thinking it is something akin to Friday the 13th (1980), but Jeff Lieberman's film will always be closer to Deliverance. I'd say The Final Terror, Berserker, or Don't Go Into the Woods...Alone! is closest to what Just Before Dawn represents...the backwoods mountain slasher. But even with slasher attached to Just Before Dawn, I still think it is really more of a survivalist horror film. This is about the dangers of in family breeding and what can be produced from that. This was the first time I was able to watch it with captions. I do hope this gets a lot of exposure. When it was released on DVD for the first time in the mid 2000s, the film was introduced to folks like me, who got to see it for the first time. The streaming generation now get the chance, too. Deborah Benson is just outstanding, while Henry is a bit rough. But Kennedy as the forest ranger who knows that mountain has a lot of danger these young people can't prepare for and Kellin as the drunk who has been shaken by "the demon" are fun veterans I always look forward to seeing again. But Benson's evolution is a fascinating character study. My daughter watched this with me for the first time. When I first watched it, I think she was only one or two years old. 4/5

The Bat (1959) - I haven't gotten my Vincent Price fix this October, and with very little time left, I figure I'll have to watch a few of his best in November. Turner Classics showed a few of his, but no Tingler this year. Sadly, I'm just now thinking about it. In past years, The Tingler is one of the first of Price's I make sure to schedule. 2021 has been a very different year. I wanted to watch one of the lesser Vincent Price films before he broke out with Roger Corman. Embezzled bank securities at a million dollar price tag are desired and sought after once the bank president is shot by Price at a cabin. Agnes Moorehead and her loyal friend hire out that dead bank president's home not anticipating someone dressed in black (including a mask that hides the face) wearing gloves with finger nail claws, even releasing bats in that house. Price is a doctor who is proposed might be that black-clad sinister visitor. Moorehead is really the reason I think this film was of interest at the time, since Price hadn't quite established himself completely as a horror icon. The house Moorhead temporarily resides is of great interest, so her and the assistant being scared out might be the object of their visitor's desire. The bank president's swindling left the bank (and his highest employee, not to mention, a cop badly needing the converted cash found) in dire straits, resulting in murder and attempted murder. 3.5/5

Night of the Demons (1988) - This wasn't a film in my past that was necessarily a certified October mainstay. I used to love to watch it in the summer as a teenager. It definitely feels like something introduced to me on Up All Night. I can't recall if that was it or I came across it scanning the shelves at my rental stores. It might have been HBO, but I can't be 100% sure. You know, the theme and opening titles to the film are probably one of my favorite pieces for the film. And the cover with Angela in full demon face with the invite card for her party on Halloween night at the funeral parlor would totally speak to me as a teenager. Is the dialogue and characters (and their acting) overripe and obnoxious? Absolutely. The Hull House setting and the makeup for the cast: I certainly feel these are the key factors in why I would return to the stores to rent the damn movie. Well, those and Quigley, of course. I want to say two years ago, I watched this on YouTube. I picked up the SE Blu-Ray this year, finally, but I succumbed to laziness and watched the film on Shudder. I finally put a band and song to the "demon dance" or "dance of the damned" showstopper with Angela: Bauhaus - Stigmata Martyr. Seriously, though, the house is a labyrinth of closing doors, decaying walls, decrepit windows, and dusty banisters...I'm always possessed (so seduced) by cobwebbed, aging relics occupied by dumb characters on Halloween night. I think next year I'll partner this with the completely unrelated Sorority House Massacre for some oddball cocktail of Up All Night madness. Strobe lights and folks going through windows...check and check. 3/5

October 27

Trick 'r Treat (2007) - Since it is Warner Media, HBO was showing this anthology cult favorite this year. I have noticed this is celebrated today, but I recall back when I was reading about it (and never got released down here in my neck of the woods, which, to this day, pisses me off), the film just didn't get any respect from the company backing it. Well, at the very least, Trick 'r Treat is much beloved now, so better late than never. The school bus accident over the cliff into the drink and how the special needs kids in costumes were to be drowned by the driver because their parents didn't want them still leaves me all twisted in my guts since I have two Autistic kids. How this is tied to kids during the current timeline and Halloween grinch, Mr. Kreeg, with a smart, sweet girl dressed as a witch mistreated by other kids her age just looking to scare her (despite making her feel as they want her to tagalong with them) who comes out of it the best is just one example of why Trick 'r Treat remains such a treasure this time of year. That is not counting how the town itself (and attached neighborhoods) is dressed to the Halloween holiday nines, with so much orange and black aesthetic to make the heart grow fonder, makes my dark heart skip a beat. With an actual "spirit of Halloween", Sam, making sure folks feel the pain when they dismiss this kickass holiday, and a serial killer who poisons a crude obese kid who knocks down jack'o-lanterns for the hell of it so he can use the boy's head for teaching his son "carving skills", Trick 'r Treat joined It (2017) as an iconic holiday favorite near and after 2010 when the genre goes through its ups and downs. Speaking of that killer, he might throw some fangs in his mouth and bite a woman game for hooking up with him but choosing Anna Paquin as his next potential victim proves to be quite the undoing...particularly, because her sharp teeth are quite real and she has quite the overbite! 5/5

Hubie Halloween (2020) - Speaking of a great Halloween aesthetic, Netlifx really seemed to throw some money at Sandler's company, Happy Madison, because his Salem just vomits orange and black, and I'm all for it! The holiday is everywhere you look in the film, with all the homes and folks costumed not only appropriately but to the hilt. Much like Trick 'r Treat (2007), Hubie Halloween just paints every frame with the season. My problem with the film is Adam Sandler's decision to speak the way he does when it isn't necessary. He can still be a picked-on, bullied, meaningful but naive, maintaining his willingness to serve his community even when they have no interest in that whatsoever, and speak without sounding as if he had coins in his mouth. Talking under his breath, in a certain speed, Adam's Hubie could very well be a character, no matter his heart and desire to serve, a lot of folks want as far from their screen as possible. But he's almost in every scene. I get that when Liotta pushed Sandler in the open grave of his father (!), a neighbor insults Sandler after he rescues her cat from a moving car (!), parents mock Hubie when he speaks to their daughter about taking too much candy from an "honor system" bucket, town kids on bikes (and other locals) toss objects and food at Hubie, a couple (Maya Rudolph and Tim Meadows) orchestrating a car stunt to terrorize Hubie, the police sergeant (Kevin James under mullet and face-covering beard) creating some fake role out of thin air just to get rid of Hubie, and a priest (Michael Chiklis) who seems to have anger management issues with (and seems to want to strangle) Hubie is supposed to build up sympathy for the film's lead "hero", but he seems to often bring it on himself. In the end, though, he gets the girl (Julie Bowen; hilariously always google-eyed for him) and keeps his mom (in those hilariously perverse shirts she fails to realize are sexually ironic) from burning his bullies alive. 2.5/5

Munsters Go Home! (1966) - I found this on Tubi when I was trying to come up with something fun to close the night with. Universal adapted this right after the series was cancelled, but it wasn't a hit. Still, if you are a fan of the B&W show, this Technicolor film might be of significant interest, particularly since it is set (not filmed, unfortunately) in England. This is "Hollywood's version of England", though. Terry Thomas is an infantile brat in an older man's body, not at all happy that Herman has inherited the Munster Hall left by his father to him. Herman was adopted by the Lord Munster and given his last name. Terry Thomas (and Jeanne Arnold, playing his equally greedy sister), with his mother (Hermoine Gingold), plot to kill Herman and receive the property/estate, while also worried about his discovering their secret counterfeiting operation. Richard Dawson (host of Family Feud) is one of the laborers moving fake cash from a secret room in the Munster Hall. Robert Pine (CHiPs) is Marilyn Munster's English love interest, a race car driver whose father (Bernard Fox, for whom I know from the 1980 Knotts/Conway comedy, Private Eyes) had been a long-time rival of Lord Munster. The first portion of the film features the Munsters (all returning except Pat Priest, who was replaced because she was considered too old at fucking 30! That's Hollywood for you!) on boat to England, with Grandpa taking "wolf pills" by mistake while trying to find Herman an anecdote for his "boat sickness". While their English town considers them hideous and treats them as basic lepers that should be "tomatoed", shunned, without access to shops, and disregarded, Herman plans to join the big race for the local trophy. While driving his golden coffin "Dragula" racecar, Thomas and Arnold orchestrate (with their mother) a plot to infiltrate Pine's spot (he spends the race trying to free his hands of the rope binding them and escaping a nearby cabin) in the race and kill Herman. The Dragula is one of those classic prop vehicles gimmicked Gothic style as you can only see in The Munsters show. Nothing against Debbie Watson, but Universal (or whoever was calling the casting shots) done Priest dirty...and Watson never quite reached the potential they thought she would. Watson was pretty, but when you watch one actress in the role, you'd expect to see her in the subsequent movie. There are some fun scenes in the castle such as Herman and Grandpa locating a secret passage through a door in the fireplace, following it past a dropping cell bars door Herman bends with ease and bubbling pool of acid Herman and Grandpa must cross by way of hanging pipe. Trying to scare off Herman and Lily with dropping skeletons, walking about in a ghost sheet booing, opening a wall passage with a woman faking as a corpse, among other theatrics proves to be all for naught by Thomas and Arnold...they considered this a welcoming entertainment! Not to leave him out, Eddie Munster must keep up his spirits as mean kids toss tomatoes at him while getting Thomas to kiss his Woof Woof doll. Without the laugh track, the sitcom acting might fall flat, but I'm a fan of The Munsters so it didn't bother me. And I love Gwynn as Herman, and he once again charmed me. Yvonne really keeps Gwynn honest when she's not happy about something. Change of venue for the movie didn't hurt, but I just prefer 30 minute stories in a sitcom format, honestly. And the makeup of the Munsters seems to work better without the Technicolor, though I have read from reviews others liked that change. Was perfect for the end of October, I thought, though. 3.5/5. Terry-Thomas on the floor kicking his feet like a child having an outburst, sucking his thumb in bed while asleep, and his room filled with stuffed animals as if he was seven really seemed to indicate he never quite grew up. The identity of the racecar driver trying to kill Herman during the race isn't all that shocking...it is a bit of a whimper really. As always, the Munsters clash with their surroundings, on the boat and in England.

October 28th

Tales of Halloween (2015) - For 95 minutes, this anthology got a LOT of tales in it before the film was over. My favorite was the little alien with the squeaky voice looking up at the Jason Voorhees lookalike serial killer with human remains of the entire counselors he just chopped up saying Trick or Treat. The Jason lookalike tries to squash the alien, but it just inhabits the final girl and takes to him with a hatchet while he returns the favor with an ax. The alien wins. The little alien with the tiny candy bucket that sways back and forth is adorable...I can't help it, don't judge me. The worst tale of them might be this young woman walking home from an adult party (Lin Shaye telling a story to those together, which includes directors Mick Garris and Stuart Gordon, with Barbara Crampton dressed as a witch), rushing home when she feels someone (or thing?) following behind her. No matter the precaution, she has an intruder ghoul in the house. And that is it. Nothing more or less. Pollyanna McIntosh (notable these days for "The Walking Dead") has this strange role as a type of demon responding to news her husband decided to "get clipped" so they couldn't have children by putting him in her heated oven. She has these arms that emerge from the back when she gets riled up and wants to slap him. When really angry, her body "goes red" and eyes bulge. Kristina Klebe has her hands full as a cop in pursuit of a killer "super pumpkin" that eats humans (with Joe Dante as a scientist unaware that his company's experimental organic formula has created a whole farm of killer human-eating pumpkins!). Two neighbors attacking each other over yard Halloween decor summons to mind "Deck the Halls", except the rivalry is a different holiday, with a protruding sharp piece of wood broken during the scuffle settling matters between them in tragic fashion.  Duval as a metal head neighbor mocking his rival has been in so many indie films. John Landis is a very rich businessman with what two hoods believe is a kid they kidnap...in fact, this is a pointy-eared creature who attaches himself to folks and remains with them (until "he" eats them!). The most warped tale could be the kids attacking the adults savagely, with a phone of sick images of one of the victims exposing them as torturers (of children!). Tiffany Shepis is one of the four adults who gets what's coming to her. The Sweet Tooth creature that loves him some candy, making sure the babysitter and her teenage boyfriend "give up their candy" and the kid they freak out discovering them is a tale that does kick things off in gory style. I wish Adrienne Barbeau had more of a significant role, but her Stevie Wayne voice narrates the film, so we do get that. Here's an old Review 2.5/5