Tag: #31daysofhorror

31 Days of Horror: 2017

Halloween brings out the best and the worst of us as obsessive moviewatchers. I can only speak for myself, but I imagine my experience mirrors many of yours. When October rolls around (now mid-September because the 31 horror movies in 31 days doesn’t jive with adult schedules), horror movies dominate all channels. The wife shrugs her shoulders. Hide the more explicit DVD cases from the kids. You start arguing about sequels and franchises and Argento vs. Bava vs. Fulci.

My wife joins in when I can find a nice, palatable mid-grade horror film. In recent years, she’s joined me for films like Tremors and The Fog and comedies like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. (Though, she still tells me she’s nervously scanning the mist for ghost pirates whenever a nice fog rolls through the Pittsburgh hills.)

Each year for the past four years, I’ve embarked upon the journey to watch at least 31 horror movies by the end of October. Last year I joined @ElCinemonster’s Hoop-Tober challenge on Letterboxd.com. Each year he lays down a few challenges to help guide the viewing of his monstrous minions. This year I’m again combining my Cinema Shame Horror Shame-a-thon with the Hoop-Tober Challenge 4.0 to perpetuate the most unwieldy title in the history of movie blogging and watching.

Welcome to the @CinemaShame/Hoop-Tober Watchpile/Shame-a-thon 31 Days of Horror 2017

Let’s lay down some rules for any lunatics that might want to play the home version of the 31 Days of Horror 2017.

Pick 31 never-before-seen (or unwatched DVD purchases) horror movies — “horror” is broadly defined as anything containing elements of the horror genre. So, for example, I’ve count the Abbott & Costello monster films in the past because of the classic movie monsters. Watch as many as you can stomach during your “month” of October.

I’m air-quoting “month” because, as I mentioned earlier, I’m borrowing @ElCinemonster’s notion that we’re busy goddamn people and 31 days is just not a reasonable duration for busy people to watch 31 horror movies. He’s beginning his “month” on September 15th. I plan to do the same. I hit 33 last year(!) and while I don’t expect to top that total I aim to match.

I’m going to pluck as many movies as possible from my Watch Pile (any film I already own that hasn’t been watched). I’ve been making a more concerted effort to watch more movies than I buy. The worthy remain. The ones I don’t see myself watching again hit eBay. I’ll note the outcome of each disc in my blurb.

And speaking of blurbs… after each movie, I’ll toss up a mini-review and a 30Hz rating that will correspond to my review on Letterboxd.com. The review may or may not contain any actual insight. The reviews are the part of this project that will leave you a quivering pile of bloody goo. And now for the more specific Hoop-Tober demonic hurdles, courtesy of @ElCinemonster.

6 sequels (mix-and-match. 6 total)
6 countries
6 decades
6 films from before 1970
6 films from the following: Carpenter, Raimi, Whale, Browning, Craven, Tom Holland (mix-and-match, or all one)
3 people eating people (non-zombie)
1 Hammer Film
1 Romero film
1 terrible oversight aka OVERT SHAME! (use this link, filter out the films you’ve seen and picked the highest rated film from the list that you can get ahold of)

And 2 Tobe Hooper Films (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film)

-review them all.(eek)

Clearly one film can satisfy multiple criteria. Viewing and reviewing will begin at 12:01am CST on Sept 15th.

I plan to call some audibles when spur-of-the-moment cravings strike, but here’s my blueprint for the 2017 31 Days Of Horror CinemaShame/Hoop-Tober Watch Pile Shame-a-Thon.

Past #31DaysOfHorror Shame-a-thons: 2013 | 2014 | 2015 Part 1 | 2015 Part 2 | 2016

*rewatch

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
Brain Damage
Caltiki: The Immortal Monster
Cannibal! The Musical
Christine
Death Walks in High Heels
Eating Raoul
Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th Part II
House*
House 2*
House 3
House 4
Fox with the Velvet Tail
Invaders from Mars
Mill of the Stone Women
Posession
Prince of Darkness
Shocker
Spontaneous Combustion
Suddenly in the Dark
The Devil Doll
The Dismembered
The Green Butchers
The Hound of the Baskervilles*
The Wife Killer
Spider (Zirneklis)
The Velvet Vampire
What Have You Done to Solange?
Two Evil Eyes
The Initiation
The Fan (Der Fan)
The Invisible Man (familiar comfort horror)*

What’s your list? What’s your plan for horror movie watching this year? If you’re keeping a list or participating in the Hoop-Tober challenge, I’ll link you in the header for my posts. Just leave a note with a link in the comments. Together we shall overcome… or we’ll be the loser pumped off in the first act to establish indomitable menace. It’s more comforting to know you’re not doing this alone.

Tags #31daysofhorror, 31 days of horror, 31 days of horror 2017, Cinema Shame, CinemaShame, hooptober

31 Days of Horror Cinema

31 Days of Horror: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

Post author By jdp
Post date November 26, 2016
6 Comments on 31 Days of Horror: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

31+ Days of Horror. 33 Horror Movies. 33 Reviews. Hooptober Challenges and Bonus Tasks.
View my 2016 Cinema Shame/Hoop-Tober Watch Pile Shame-a-thon Statement here.

Nature of Ghost and Mr. Chicken Shame:
Unseen Comedy Classic

Hoop-tober Challenge Checklist:
Decade: 1960’s
Before 1970’s

#31. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

The Horrific days of October have bled into the Thanksgiving holiday. I’m pecking away at this post while my daughters watch the rather dismal Hotel Transylvania 2, a rather potent distraction from composing competent thoughts let alone complete sentences regarding a movie I watched nearly a month ago. I lament the trend to compose bl-g-length posts rather than three or so sentences; I hope I remember this 11 months from now when I again embark on 31 Days of Horror.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken appeared on the 31 Days of Horror schedule as part of the wife-friendly horror marathon, and though the film lacks certain frightful elements… or really any at all… Don Knotts has brought to light an intrinsic link between horror and comedy. Many of our most classic horror films trade in absurdity, yet transcend that absurdity through horrific imagery. How distant is, say, John Carpenter’s Halloween from a parody of John Carpenter’s Halloween? Change to score from haunting synth to a Mickey Moused screwball riff. Swap out scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis for weak-kneed Don Knotts. What do you have? The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.

Comedy and horror make excellent bedfellows. How potent is a quick laugh in the face of quaking terror? What makes Evil Dead 2 such a successful film? The preposterous coupling of laughter and the innate terror of demons from another dimension coming to get you through the floor. Laughter breaks the tension, allows the viewer to more fully embrace the emotional strain of pure terror. Unrelenting horror often falls short of classic status. The broader audience cannot embrace something as dour and hopeless as Dead and Buried, just to name one recent example from my own 31 Days of Horror experience. And even though that film had a few laughs, it fell short of accomodating a lesser constitution.

The mirror image of Evil Dead 2 looks something like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. Horror elements swapped for screwball. The comedic excesses swapped for creepy old mansions and inexplicable goings on. There’s really not much difference between the personalities of Bruce Campbell and Don Knotts anyway.

(This prattle makes perfect sense as I’m typing away, but I’m sure I’m shortchanging a dozen necessary components of this argument — the pint of 750ml Ommegang Three Philosophers I just downed likely has something to do with it. What can I say? It’s the holidays.)

Don Knotts plays Luther Beggs, a typesetter at the local paper with aspirations to be a fully-accredited news reporter. He believes to have seen a murder outside a local “haunted” mansion, but while he details the incident to his boss, the “victim” walks into the room. Luther’s a local joke, a man-child prone to histrionics. So when the opportunity presents itself, Luther volunteers to sleep one night in the haunted mansion. He’ll write about it and sell many papers with his tales of terror.

During his night in the house, Luther encounters secret staircases, creepy passages, self-playing organs and many things that go bump in the night. After writing about them all, Luther becomes a local hero, championed by all. (Apparently Kansas is short of heroes.) That is, until he’s accused of libel by the owner of the mansion and discredited by his old schoolteacher who claimed Luther was always “keyed up” as a boy.

Since this is a feel-good 1960’s comedy the outcome of The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is never really in doubt. Romanticizing small town America, the championing of the average Joe, punishment of greed. Comfort food for the 1960’s loving soul. The difference between The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and a true horror movie feels like a canyon — and yet, how far does it actually stray from a haunted house film of the same generation? Compare The Ghost and Mr. Chicken with The Haunting (1963) or The Legend of Hell House (1973), two films that bookend Mr. Chicken by a few years on each side.

Better lighting in the haunted mansion. A slight shift in focus from the source of the spooks to the libel suit and the eventual Scooby Doo unmasking. Dial back the Don Knotts, of course. Consider the ways that The Ghost and Mr. Chicken builds and relieves tension through a Don Knotts pratfall. The real difference is just the repeated efforts to relieve the tension before it festers into something greater.

Final Thoughts:

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken remains a frivolous lark of comedy/horror film. Easygoing and legitimately funny (if you care for Don Knotts’ schtick — which I do), despite the soulcrushing weight of civic-sanctioned bullying. It’s a film that at once celebrates the oddball yet fails to condemn small-town America’s gossipmongering. Yet we forgive and enjoy, because 1960’s.

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Earlier 2016 31 Days of Horror entries:

#1. Vampyros Lesbos / #2. A Chinese Ghost Story / #3. The Haunting of Morella / #4. Delirium (1972) / #5. A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin / #6. She-Wolf of London / #7. Son of Frankenstein / #8. Killerfish / #9. The Bride of Re-Animator / #10. A Bay of Blood / #11. The Seventh Victim / #12. The Fly (1958) / #13. The Fly (1986) / #14. Deep Red / #15. Dracula’s Daughter / #16. Day of the Animals / #17. The Unknown / #18. Kuroneko / #19. Komodo / #20. Tremors / #21. Tremors 2 / #22. A Nightmare on Elm Street / #23. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge / #24. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors / #25. Tenebrae / #26. Salem’s Lot / #27. Veerana / #28. House of Wax / #29. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage / #30. Dead and Buried

Tags #31daysofhorror, 31 days of horror, 31daysofhorror 2016, don knotts ghost and mr chicken, ghost and mr. chicken, horror shame-a-thon, the ghost and mr. chicken

31 Days of Horror Cinema

31 Days of Horror: Dead and Buried

Post author By jdp
Post date November 22, 2016
4 Comments on 31 Days of Horror: Dead and Buried

31+ Days of Horror. 33 Horror Movies. 33 Reviews. Hooptober Challenges and Bonus Tasks.
View my 2016 Cinema Shame/Hoop-Tober Watch Pile Shame-a-thon Statement here.

Nature of Dead & Buried Shame:
Unseen (and two-years borrowed) Blu-ray

Hoop-tober Challenge Checklist:
Decade: 1980’s
Because Cinemonster told me to

#30. Dead and Buried (1981)

Dead & Buried UK Quad poster — Original Cinema Quad Poster – Movie Film Posters

I didn’t know anything about Dead and Buried when I borrowed it from a buddy of mine two years ago. He just told me I should watch it. Then when Cinemonster added it to the Bonus Requirements for Hooptober 2016, I expressed a measure of enthusiasm because I still had Dead and Buried up on the shelf. Dusty, maybe, but there. And I still didn’t know anything about it.

I still had no desire to pop it in for a watch.

As the CinemaShame/Hooptober 31 Days of Horror Challenge 2016 wound down, I had two movies left on the schedule — Dead and Buried and This Old Dark House. The first because I just didn’t watch it. The second because This Old Dark House remained the only film on my list I didn’t own or didn’t otherwise have in my possession. FINE! I’LL WATCH THE MOVIE. Dead and Buried had almost reached Titanic levels of stubborn refusal. (To be fair, NOTHING will ever reach Titanic levels of stubborn refusal. I still haven’t seen Titanic and I’m quite convinced I’m the last person on earth. Solidarity?)

Thankfully, Dead and Buried didn’t Trojan horse me Titanic; it was actually striking example of atmospheric horror with a side of stomach-churning gore. That syringe in the eyeball, though! At times Gary Sherman’s film recalled The Fog — lots of haze and small town xenophobia and paranoia. The horrors of Dead and Buried take on a far less supernatural form, at least at the outset. As the film progresses, the horrors of Potter’s Bluff remain grounded in the corporeal — humans doing despicable things — despite the threat originating from humans of an undead variety. It’s no small feat maintaining this grounded slice of terror. I attribute the film’s success directly to its pacing and atmosphere.

As grisly murders slowly encircle our small town sheriff, Dan (the Sheriff) learns that the murdered subjects eventually return to Potter’s Bluff as walking, talking, “living” townspeople. The whole town’s caught a case of the dead-ish — including Dan’s wife and now he’s got to find out what to do about it. It’s a tricky thing, convincing the remaining “living” members of a town that the walking dead are systematically eliminating them — especially when it’s the mortician behind it all. Who suspects the mortician? He’s already a creepy dude. And what a spectacularly creepy dude he is — played by the great Jack Albertson (Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).

The languid (though uneven) pacing coddles the terror, slowly building until you find yourself on the edge of your couch with a steadily growing sense of unease that becomes full-on paranoia. The unease broken only by cringeworthy fits when the undead brutally attack with boulders and sex tapes and eye-piercing syringes and gasoline and matches. They’ve got a healthy bag of tricks, all of which leave you squirmy.

Final Thoughts:

But still… there’s that “but.” Dead and Buried sells such a perversely unrepetant tale that it’s hard to love it. Admire? Absolutely. Love? I’m not jumping at the bit to toss this one in again. I would like to revisit, if only to consider whether a second watch dulls the feelings of bridge-jumping hopelessness. Also, this merely reaffirms my notion that small town America will crush your soul and suck out your eyeballs.

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Earlier 2016 31 Days of Horror entries:

Tags #31daysofhorror, 31 days of horror, 31daysofhorror 2016, dead & buried, dead and buried, dead and buried 1981, horror shame-a-thon