31 Nights of Terror 2015 #39 - Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Director: Dwight H Little
Starring: Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris
Format: DVD

Plot: Ten years after his original massacre, the invalid Michael Myers awakens and returns to Haddonfield to kill his seven-year-old niece on Halloween. Can Dr. Loomis stop him?

Every Halloween night I like to watch one movie from either the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Halloween franchises. Having watched Halloweens 1, 2 and 3 in recent times I decided on this, the fourth entry and, as the name suggests, the one where Michael Myers returns (after being absent for part three, the producers decided they needed The Shape back).

As a movie in its own right, Halloween 4 isn't anything great. Most of the plot is rehashed from the first movie (Michael escapes and heads to Haddonfield, teenage babysitter, friend who's the Sheriff's daughter, Dr Loomis etc) and Little's direction lacks the artistic eye of John Carpenter. But on the other hand there's something infinitely rewarding about hearing that theme song and seeing Michael creep around killing people, like putting on a pair of well-worn pants.

Obviously we all know that Danielle Harris has turned into a modern scream queen and darling of the horror nerds, but even as a 10-year-old here she's pretty great. Her scared facial expressions are really effective. The rest of the acting is pretty much just there, although of course Donald Pleasance hams it up as the ever-more-crazy Loomis. Also worth a mention is a brief but funny appearance by Carmen Filpi, whose comedic performances in Wayne's World and The Wedding Singer ("I used to be much stronger") make him a legend in my book.

The kills are unfortunately pretty mundane and the gore factor is pretty low. What does make this movie stand out in the memory is the ending. It's a nice little twist and I wish they'd continued with it into the next movie, but of course they ignored it and went back to the tried and true.

Overall part 4 is nothing spectacular, but it's a helluva lot better than what was to come. Hey, at least there's no crappy rapper kung fu fighting Michael, right?

31 Nights of Terror 2015 #29 - Tales of Halloween (2015)

Tales of Halloween (2015)
Directors: A bunch of people
Starring: A bunch more people
Format: AVI

Plot: Ten stories are woven together by their shared theme of Halloween night in an American suburb, where ghouls, imps, aliens and axe murderers appear for one night only to terrorize unsuspecting residents.

Between this one, All Hallow's Eve and A Christmas Horror Story, this year's countdown has become something of an anthology-fest. This is probably the most-hyped of them, with such high-profile directors as Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw series), Lucky McKee (May) and Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers) helming a series of short segments all based around Halloween.

The acting credits are also fairly impressive, with appearances by such genre favorites as Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog), Lin Shaye (Insidious movies), Barry Bostwick (Rocky Horror Picture Show), Barbara Crampton (Re-animator) and Caroline Williams (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2). A handful of horror directors - Mick Garris, Joe Dante, Stuart Gordon, John Landis and Adam Green among them - also make cameos in acting roles.

With 10 segments there's no way I'm about to go through them one at a time. Instead I'll mention the ones that stick out.

My favourite is "The Night Billy Raised Hell", by Bousman and starring Bostwick  at his campy best causing all sorts of havoc on Halloween night. It's just so much fun and has a dark twist to it.

I also really enjoyed "Bad Seed" by Neil Marshall, about a killer Jack O' Lantern that eats people. Simple but effective and the pumpkin effects are top notch. 

Another great one is "The Ransom of Rusty Rex", directed by Ryan Schifrin and starring the late Ben Woolf (Meep on American Horror Story) and John Landis. It's funny and creepy at the same time.

In truth there are no stinkers amongst the 10 segments. All are good, all are different, but they all have a real Halloween feel to them. Some are funny, some are scary, some are both - but all are quality. Tales of Halloween blows the VHS movies and the ABCs of Death series out of the water, and deserves to be watched every Halloween season alongside Trick R Treat.

31 Nights of Terror 2015 #25 - All Hallow's Eve (2013)

All Hallow's Eve (2013)
Director: Damian Leone
Starring: Katie Maguire, Catherine A Callahan, Marie Maser
Format: AVI

Plot: While watching two children on Halloween night, a babysitter finds an old VHS tape in the kids' trick or treat bag. The tape features three tales of terror, all linked together by a murderous clown. As the night goes on strange things begin to occur in the house. It isn't long before the babysitter learns the horrifying truth... the maniacal clown is slowly working his way into her reality.

I do love a good anthology movie, and having watched A Christmas Story earlier in the marathon, I felt it was time to check out a Halloween-themed one. What I do not love is clowns. I hate them. They terrify me. Take a look at that cover art above - yikes!

A bit of background on this one - two of the three segments in All Hallow's Eve are actually short films made by director Leone years before. So he shot a new segment and some wrap-around stuff and Bob's your uncle. Well Bobo I guess, and he's your murdering uncle.

One of the pre-made shorts deals with a woman who is visited by aliens. It's not terrible, but definitely the weakest of the segments, held down by some dodgy effects and the fact that, well, not much really happens in it.

The other segments are all pretty good, especially considering the low budget. The wrap-around segment is simple enough and akin to the VHS movies in involving a mystery video tape containing the three "stories", and has a fairly brutal and gorey pay-off. The first segment, which introduces the clown, isn't anything too great but gets good use out of a creepy setting (deserted railway station and railway tunnels) and an even creepier clown. The best of the three is the segment titled Terrifier, involving the same clown and a gas station.

Leone achieves a lot with very little with this nice little anthology. It's not flawless by any means but what is lacks in budget it makes up for with creepy style, some good gore and simple storytelling.

31 Nights of Terror #30 & #31 - Halloween double feature

Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981)
Director: John Carpenter (I), Rick Rosenthal (II)
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance
Format: DVD

Every Halloween night I watch one of my two favourite horror movies of all time - Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. This year it's the turn of John Carpenter's masterpiece, the one that launched the slasher genre (yes I know Black Christmas was first), and this year I own Halloween II on DVD for the first time, so I'm going to watch them back-to-back.
I won't be taking notes, as I want to just sit back and watch these two great movies one after the other.
But here are a few observations from the back-to-back viewing:
- Interesting that they changed a couple of the shots from the finale of the first movie for the recap at the start of Halloween II. The music is different as well. Not sure why they would do that.
- Michael's mask is also slightly different for the sequel.
- The other noticeable thing from having watched the first movie just moments before popping in part two is how they tried to make Jamie Lee Curtis' hair look the same (remember, part 2 takes place on the same night as part 1) but couldn't quite pull it off three years later.
- The jazzed-up Halloween theme song for the sequel isn't bad, but I don't know why they didn't just stick with the classic original track.
- Donald Pleasance's performance as Dr Loomis gets crazier with each Halloween movie.
- Watching the two movies back to back was great. Because they take place on the same night and flow into each other so well, it's like one, big long movie experience.
- I will never forgive Rick Rosenthal for the abomination that is Halloween Resurrection. No amount of alcohol can wipe the image of Busta Rhymes kung fu fighting Michael Myers from my memory.

31 Nights of Terror #25 - Trick 'R Treat (2007)

Trick R Treat (2007)
Director: Michael Dougherty
Starring: Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Dylan Baker, Leslie Bibb
Format: DVD

- I've seen this once before and loved it and have decided to make it a Halloween tradition to watch it again every year.
- Opening scene: Seriously, who has that many bedsheets?
- I dig the comicbook opening, it reminds me of those great anthologies of yesteryear, like Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt.
- Why hasn't Michael Dougherty had another gig since this? It's been four years.
- Anna Paquin. New Zealand represent!
- The family that slays together stays together
- Okay, so I stopped taking notes early in this movie and just enjoyed watching it. To write too much about it would probably ruin some of the plot twists anyway.

Overall thoughts: Trick R Treat is one of my favourite horror films of the 2000s. Of course it was meant to have a theatrical release but was delayed two years and finally released straight to DVD, which to me sums up the sad state of our film studios today. Trick R Treat is scary, atmospheric, funny, gorey. It has a dark, dark streak of black humour running through it, but the comedy doesn't detract from the horror. Ranks right up there was one of the best horror anthology films of all time, albeit with a non-chronological structure rather than a story-by-story one. Make this movie part of your annual Halloween viewing. I am.

Announcing 31 Nights of Terror... the sequel!

Hi everyone, sorry for my lack of blogging lately. The usual real life things have gotten in the way.

But that's about to change!

Back in 2008 I attempted the first 31 Nights of Terror marathon. My intention was to watch one horror movie every night for 31 consecutive nights leading up to Halloween.

I failed. I made it through 21 nights but found it too hard to commit to watching a movie every single night for a whole month. (You can read the marathon in its entirity in the blog archive).

But now I'm extremely happy to announce the revival of 31 Nights of Terror! It remains essentially the same - I will try to watch 31 horror movies in the month of October. But to make it a little easier on myself, I won't be watching *every* night. Some nights will have double features, others will be movie-free, but in the end it will still add up to 31 movies over the month.

What are the movies? Sorry, you'll just have to wait and see, but for the most part they will be movies I have either a) never seen, or b) haven't seen in a long time. Some will be on VHS and some on DVD. The only connecting thread is that they will all be horror flicks.

The only cheat I'm allowing is that I'm starting the marathon tonight, which is Friday September 30. I know, not technically October, but like I said it's a small cheat and doesn't ruin the spirit of the marathon.

As with my past movie marathons, I won't be writing full reviews of the movies I watch, but will instead post the notes I write while I watch, followed by a short summary of my overall thoughts.

So, stay tuned!