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 2015 #14 - A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

A Christmas Horror Story (2015)
Directors: Grant Harvey, Steve Hoban, Brett Sullivan
Starring: William Shatner, George Buza, Rob Archer
Format: AVI

Plot: High school students investigate a mysterious homicide that occurred the prior holiday season, a couple notices their young son is acting strangely after a snowy forest trip to cut down a traditional tree and one family are stalked through a winter wonderland by Krampus, the Xmas demon. Meanwhile at the North Pole, Santa is fending off zombie elves.

I downloaded this with the intention of waiting until closer to Christmas time to watch it. But then I stumbled across a couple of screenshots of its Krampus creature on a website, and they looked so damn badass I had to watch it as soon as possible.

A Christmas Horror Story is an anthology film, and like all anthology horrors it has some segments that are stronger than others. While none of them are terrible, I'd say two are great and two are just okay. And unlike a lot of anthology films this one tells all the stories at the same time, cutting back and forth between them. I'm not sure I like that idea, as it made things a little disjointed. But on the plus side it meant not having to sit right through a lesser story in its entirety.

The wrap-around segment has Bill Shatner playing a radio host on Christmas Eve. I usually can't stand The Shat in anything he's done in the past 40 years, but here he's actually pretty entertaining and his portions are kept short.

The first segment I'll talk about involves a family going into the woods to illegally cut down a pine tree for the holidays and instead bringing home a shapeshifter creature. The little kid who plays the monster is actually pretty creepy, but I felt like this was the least-enjoyable of the segments. The parents are portrayed as pretty unlikeable, and the story is very, very predictable.

The other segment that doesn't work involves a trio of high school kids breaking into a high school where two students were killed a year before. They find a hidden part of the school (this part is pretty cool) and are soon at the mercy of a vengeful spirit. Talk about Ho Ho Hum.

Luckily the movie is saved in a big way by the segment involving Santa Claus fighting off his elves after they all get turned into zombies. Come on, who could possibly not enjoy seeing ol' Kriss Kringle taking an ax to flesh-eating midgets? It's pure, gorey fun.

The best effects of the movie come in the last segment, featuring the aforementioned Krampus. A family are on their way home from a relative's home when they crash and have to survive an attack by Christmas evil personified (kind of a giant goat man). Krampus looks completely badass and is nigh-on impossible to stop. Between this and another movie called Krampus coming out in December, I can see the big goat dude being a fan favourite for years to come.

The wrap-around segment then concludes everything in a really fun way that I didn't see coming (and which I won't spoil).

While not quite as good as Trick R Treat, A Christmas Horror Story basically does for Christmas what that movie did for Halloween. It's definitely one I'll be revisiting in years to come, during the festive season. 

SUMMER OF 87 #9: Creepshow 2

 The cover of my VHS copy of Creepshow 2

2pm, Day 2:

Creepshow 2
Director: Michael Gornick
Starring: George Kennedy, Lois Chiles, Dorothy Lamour
Format: VHS (Cinema Club)

Plot: Three more bone-chilling tales that include a vengeful wooden Native American, a monstrous blob in a lake, and a hitchhiker who wants revenge and will not die.

- I know a lot of people like the first Creepshow movie better than this one, which gets some bad reviews, but I've always loved this movie. It might be because it was one of the first horror movies I ever saw (soon after it came out on VHS here in NZ), so it's got nostalgic value. I should also add that I'm a Stephen King geek - I have every book he's ever written and a few rare pieces of memorabilia. Heck, I even visited his house in Bangor Maine back in 2000.
- So yes, I've seen this movie before, several times in fact. It's one of only two "cheats" I'm allowing myself during this marathon.
- This anthology (like the first Creepshow movie) is Stephen King and George Romero's homage to the EC comics of his youth (Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror etc). King wrote the stories and Romero adapted them for the screen.
- Director Gornick was cinematographer on the first Creepshow movie.
- The first tale, Old Chief Wood'nhead, is a simple story of revenge that is pretty schmaltzy, but good performances by veterans George Kennedy (THE DIRTY DOZEN) and Dorothy Lamour (who starred with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in a string of their Road To movies in the 30s) have the viewer rooting for the bad guys to get what's coming to them.
- I dig that Cisco Kid is playing on the TV in the houses of each of the bad guys. I love that TV series.
- Old Chief Wood'nhead's makeup is great. Creepy too.
- The second tale, The Raft, is the one that really stuck with me after I first watched it all those years ago. It creeped the hell out of me, pun intended.
- Nice segue I never noticed before: The two guys in The Raft refer to themselves by the nicknames Cisco and Pancho.
- I remember thinking a lot about how I would try to survive the "killer" in The Raft. Like I obsessed with thinking up survival scenarios after watching The Swarm on TV as a kid.
- Even when his life's in danger, a teenage boy's gotta get laid. Especially if his name is Randy.
- I still love that ending. Awesome.
- The final tale, The Hitchhiker, is my least favourite of the three, but did provide me and my friends with a line we would use all the time: "Thaks for the ride lady!"
- Cameo by Stephen King as a truck driver. He had more of a starring role in the first Creepshow, as unfortunate bumpkin Jordy Verrill.
- The third tale is definitely the bloodiest of the three. Some nice gore right at the end.
- The wraparound animation is good fun, as it should be on an anthology like this.

Overall thoughts: As I said at the start of this review, I enjoy this movie for nostalgic reasons, so I can't review it objectively. But if you're a fan of EC Comics-style horror anthology like Tales from the Crypt, Tales from the Darkside and Monsters, you should enjoy this movie. And because it's a movie, it has T&A and gore that you won't find on those TV series.

31 Nights of Terror #5 - Body Bags (1993)

Body Bags (1993)
Director: John Carpenter (2 segments), Tobe Hooper (1 segment)
Starring: John Carpenter, Robert Carradine, Stacey Keach, Mark Hamill
Format: VHS (Home Cinema Group)

- I had this one on my list to watch for this marathon, but had to bump it up to today after learning that actor Charles Napier had died. He features in one of the segments in this anthology.
- I've been wanting to see this for years. All I know is it's an anthology, was made for TV and is meant to have all sorts of horror movie cameos in it.
- So instead of The Cryptkeeper we get John Carpenter himself as The Coroner. Nice touch.
- Another nice touch: The first segment is set in Haddonfield.
- Alright, let's go horror actor/director spotting!
- Spotted in segment 1, The Gas Station: Directors Wes Craven and Sam Raimi, David Naughton (American Werewolf in London).
- Decapitated head humor, always funny.
- Segment 2 is void of horror guy cameos, but it does feature 80s singers Sheena Easton and Deborah Harry.
- Stacey Keach in a long hair wig is just creepy. Like seeing Fabio as an old man.
- Segment 3, there's Charles Napier, playing a baseball coach. RIP Charles.
- Mark Hamill and Twiggy as a married couple. Mr and Mrs Has Been!
- Roger Corman as a doctor. Nice! Ha, and his acting is terrible, exactly what you'd expect from one of his own low-budget movies.
- And Corman's doctor colleague is played by former b-movie leading man John Agar (Tarantula, Attack of the Puppet People etc).
- Hamill's actually pretty good in this.
- And the final cameo comes in the wrap-around conclusion, as director Tobe Hooper plays a morgue worker alongside Tom Arnold.

Overall thoughts:
I've read that this anthology was intended as a pilot for a TV series that didn't get picked up. I'm not sure why it didn't get picked up, because it's as good as most horror/scifi anthology TV series of the past 30 years. And no, that's not a compliment. Like its peers, Body Bags suffers from the restraints of TV censorship (sparse blood and guts) and weak source material.
The middle story, Hair, is the least conventional of the three, but is also the weakest. The opening story has good atmosphere, music and camerawork, the hallmarks of John Carpenter's career, while the third one, directed by Tobe Hooper, is from the predictable transplanted-body-part-is-evil line, and is only saved by a good acting performance by former Luke Skywalker Mark Hamill. The best stuff comes in the wrap-around, which is full of dark humour and a fun performance by Carpenter himself.
Final verdict? Not a complete waste of time but if you've seen most horror anthologies you know what to expect. If nothing else horror fans will have fun trying to spot all the director cameos.