Day Five: Lady in White

So the last few days I feel like I have hit stride in my quest for ten days of horror. I hit a small speed bump with Children of the Corn, and since then I recovered well with The Frighteners and Sweeney Todd, so I felt like I needed to keep the momentum going. I have owned Lady in White by Frank LaLoggia for a few years now, and never got around to watching this on DVD. I think that I have seen this movie close to ten times on HBO when I was growing up back in the late 80s, early 90s.

The funny thing is that with all the times I have seen the movie, I do not remember the first ten minutes at all. Maybe I never watched the first ten minutes before since it was on HBO, I probably came in late each time watching it. Without the cable box built-in guide, we had to rely on TV Guide or the local paper for our show times, so catching a movie on time often didn't happen unless you rented the movie.

So I wanted to do this movie mainly because I have great memories of it from when I was a child, and because it takes place over Halloween. The story centers around Frankie Scarlatti (played by Lukas Haas), a budding author in grade school who is considered weird by his fellow students. He begins to have visions of a young girl that had some traumatic experience that somehow links to his life.

I really like this movie... it has the typical 80s fluff feel but still manages to also have a more ominous presence to it. This was a pretty low budget independent film, but does not show it. The movie's effects for the time are really good, the acting in the movie is probably as good as you're going to get for kids, and the adult acting is perfectly serviceable. This movie provides you with a relatively good twist, back from a time where twists were not yet trendy. The twist really pays off because of the time and effort that is taken in telling the story and setting up the characters. Even though I would not classify this movie as a true Horror, I truly recommend this movie for anybody trying to get into the Halloween mood.

Click here to read reviews of Lady in White

Day Four: Sweeney Todd

So I saw a live play version of this story in Chicago some years back, and I have been hesitant to see the movie for fear that I would not be able to enjoy it due to a bias from my younger years of seeing it on stage. My memories of Sweeney Todd on stage is not only a great memory, but it is how I lost my virginity to stage productions. So as they say, you always remember your first.

The one bright point that has always attracted me to the film version was that it was being done by Tim Burton (and we would get to hear Johnny Depp and Sacha Cohen sing). I thought that if anyone could capture the mood of the and translate it to the silver screen, it could only be Burton.

Much to my surprise, the movie is rather enjoyable, and also captures the original emotion that I remember from the play. Burton brings his signature sets and darkness to the play in a way that makes you feel like the story was written to be made by him specifically.

As would be expected, Johnny Depp immerses himself into the role of Sweeney Todd, the barber that was wrongly convicted by a judge that had plans for his wife. Once returned from exile, Todd comes to find that his wife has poisoned herself, launching Todd into a plan for revenge that would lead to a lot of slit throats and meat pies. I couldn't help but eat a shepherd's pie immediately following the movie. The other actors/actresses in the film are just as good at selling their roles. Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman are both very convincing in their interpretations as Mrs Lovett and the Judge respectively. Sacha Baron Cohen casts off his comical leash and gets the opportunity to show off his acting chops. Even though his role is short-lived (literally), he shines as the over-the-top street peddling barber.

Without giving too much away for the sake of those that have not seen the movie, I will not go too deeply into the spoiling of the plot. I will just highly recommend this movie to all that would like to see a musical horror movie (not that it isn't a bit of a contradiction from the realm of Hollywood) over this spooky holiday season. Just know that you are going to get the Burton and Depp that you have come to expect, and while some of the original material from the musical is cut (I assume for the sake of time, since the movie comes in just over 2 hours long), be sure that this version is a loyal, albeit fantastic, representation of the Sondheim original.

See Reviews for the movie Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Day Three: The Frighteners

So after a setback on day two of the 10 Days of Horror, I pushed on to try and finish out the final eight days of my movie marathon. I think people have been feeling my pain after watching Children of the Corn yesterday, because they have been walking up to me with Dixie cups filled with watered-down Gatorade and towels to wipe myself down with. So as the marathon continues and I fight through the movie cramps that pop up during my trek, I keep looking ahead to better movies.

So hoping to rebound from the last movie, I decided to go with a little lighter fare and watch a "horror" movie that is a little more fun. I chose The Frighteners by Peter Jackson, which I think often times gets lost in the shuffle of good horror movies because it is actually a good all-around film. This was also Peter Jackson's first non-independent film so it gave him the budget to use around 500 CG shots, leading to his first thoughts of creating the Lord of the Rings films that he would make a few years later.

The film opens with a death in an eerie house in the middle of a thunderstorm. After the death we cut to a news writer creating a story about many recent deaths, and referring to death as an entity casting a dark shadow over the town. So in the span of 7 minutes Jackson does a wonderful job of setting the tone, introducing his main character, and describing the central theme to the story. So the story centers around Frank (Michael J. Fox), a psychic detective that can see and communicate with dead people (pre-Sixth Sense). He uses this ability to con people into thinking their houses are haunted, so that he can come in and charge them money for "cleaning" their house. So that the movie does not slip into the ranks of pure comedy, we learn that Frank can see an emblazoned number on the foreheads of "death's" victims. That number comes to represent the order in which the people are dying within the town. The story intensifies as it progresses and while it never completely loses its humor, it definitely becomes darker in tone as the movie works its way toward the conclusion.

The movie, like most Jackson films, is very well-made. The camera angles, the lighting, the effects, and the story are all great. I often forget how great of an actor that Michael J. Fox was before he became sick. He definitely has a style to his acting that carries over from role to role, but I always believed he was the character he was playing.

I really like this movie, I think it is fun and engaging, and while it never takes itself too seriously, it still manages to create thrills and scares throughout the movie. I highly recommend this movie as not a hardcore horror movie, but a fun thriller that can clean the funk off of a Corny scary movie. Pun intended.

Click Here to See Reviews for The Frighteners

10 days of 10 Horror Movies

So I am going to try and live the dream over the next ten days. I am going to attempt to watch 10 horror movies leading up to Halloween. I am not sure which ones I am going to watch yet, but I will give a not-so-official review of each one over the next few days. In the meantime, I have posted in the right-hand column what I currently feel are my top ten horror movies of all-time. I am sure I have forgotten some but these are definitely in my wheel-house when it comes to the fright-flicks.

Commence the Halloween Shenanigans

GeoTagged, [N40.03234, E83.17400]

So this weekend marked the beginning of the Griswold... I mean Poole, holiday season. Three months, four holidays. Let the good times roll. So I am not sure what is normal for most families seeing as I said bye-bye to normal a long time ago, but my household loves Halloween. It is probably the most celebrated holiday in my family. From the decorations outside, to Trick-or-Treat, to costume parties, and horror movies, it is definitely a blast. I read somewhere that Halloween is now the second biggest, from a retail perspective and I surely contribute a sizable chunk to that statistic.

Well tonight we cooked up a Halloween feast. We made witch's finger breadsticks, pumpkin pie dip, a cheeseball in the shape of a pumpkin, and buried cupcakes. Once we finished watching the Buckeyes dismantle the Spartans, we started with the festivities. After eating we decided to watch Ghostbusters to kick off the frightfest. I know it is not very scary, but it is a classic and the kids love it, so a good starting point. This also gave me the chance to try out the iPhone Blogger Pro application. After Ghostbusters we turned up the horror movie quotient just a bit and watched Children of the Corn. I also rented Sweeney Todd to see how it rates vs. the play version. More on that later.