Next up in the October Fear Fest and the Horror binge-a-thon is a film based on the story written by one of my all-time favorite authors, EYG Hall of Famer Edgar Allan Poe.

House of Usher is based on the story “The Fall of the House of Usher,” one of Poe’s classic tales of Gothic horror and macabre.

After a long trip from Boston, Phillip (Mark Damon) arrives at the House of Usher to see his fiance Madeline (Myrna Fahey) but he is met at the door by the loyal servant of the Usher family, Bristol (Harry Ellerbe).  The servant attempts to sway Phillip into leaving, but he would have none of it, demanding to see Madeline and her brother Roderick (Vincent Price).  Phillip intends to take Madeline with him back to Boston.  Roderick insists that Madeline is sick and that the evil of the lineage of the House of Usher would not, could not continue. In fact, all of the Usher family has gone crazy and died horrible deaths and there is nothing that could be done about it.

How much the two remaining Usher family members were doomed to a curse compared to making this a self-fulfilling prophecy is a fascinating study here.  You feel for the plight of poor Madeline and you believe that Roderick truly believed the insanity was unavoidable.

Vincent Price is the horror-filled goodness here as this marked the first time he and director Roger Cormen teamed up for an Edgar Allan Poe tale.  They were really able to distinguish the tone of the story and made the terrors real.  I was rooting for Madeline and Phillip, even though I knew that Poe’s works never come to a happy end.

I love Edgar Allan Poe and his work very much.  I had not read “The Fall of the House of Usher” before this, but the film is supposedly one of the more faithful adaptations of his work.

For the time (1960) and the low reported budget, House of Usher looks great.  The look of the film adds to the overall creepy feel of the film.  The House itself brings a great deal of character to the film as well.

House of Usher works so well that you are disturbed and unhinged by what happens to the characters, despite the expectations that things would not go well.

More meta for the sequel which, as Randy says, is never as good as the original.

Scream 2 is very solid however, as the story takes a bit of a divergence while keeping the familiar beats that made the first Scream such a fun return to slasher movies.

Sydney (Neve Campbell) has moved on with her life after the events the year prior.  She has gone to college and she has a new boyfriend (Jerry O’Connell).  However, with the release of the movie based on Gail Weathers’ (Courteneny Cox) novel about the murders, the craziness starts up again with an apparent copycat killer once again stalking Sydney and her friends.

Scream 2 had a lot of fun playing with the suspects list, actually verbalizing every possible suspect from Deputy Dewey (David Arquette) to Randy (Jami Kennedy).

The sequel was also not afraid to push boundaries a great deal as they wind up killing off Randy inside the news van in a graphic and bloody manner.  This showed that anyone was in danger and there were major stakes to be had.  I mean, if the rules guy himself could bit it, then any of our favorite survivors could be next.

Wes Craven returned only one year after Scream opened to create this effective sequel.  It makes one believe that he must have had the idea already in place for them to crank this out as quickly as they did.

There was a welcome addition to the cast here with Liev Schreiber as Cotton Weary, the man who Sydney had incorrectly accused of her mother’s murder originally.  Cotton spent a year in jail only to be exonerated by Gail’s book.  Cotton, however, was looking to cash in on his fifteen minutes of fame and he wanted Sydney to help him do that.  She was not exactly jumping for joy over the chance.  Schreiber brought a different vibe to the film with Cotton and play an important piece in the overall narrative.

So as I continue the October Fear Fest and the Horror Binge-a-thon today, Scream 2 is an excellent sequel that captures what everyone liked about the first one with some well deserved twists and unexpected plot points to keep even the biggest horror fans guessing.

What’s better to fit into the horror genre than a musical?

Wait…I didn’t mean it like that.

The next film in the October Fear Fest and the horror binge-a-thon is the stage play Sweeney Todd, which was adapted for the big screen starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter as two of the worst protagonists to ever grace the cinema world.

After being banished by an evil judge, Benjamin Barker returns to London under the name Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) to reunite with his lost love and daughter.  When the truth of the situation confronts him, he quickly changes his plan from reunion to revenge.  Meeting up with Ms. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), the pair concoct a plan for Todd to get his revenge on the people of London, to murder the evil Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and to hide their bloody rampage inside Ms. Lovett’s meat pies.

Directed by the stylish Tim Burton with songs from Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a blood-soaked good time.

The most interesting thought experiment is trying to decide exactly which of these characters are the worst.  Sweeney Todd has the tragic background and you are meant to identify with him as the hero, but he is anything but.  His descent into madness had happened well before he had returned to London and he has basically become a serial killer.  Judge Turpin was a horrendous man who abused the power of his position for his own whims, taking Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly) from Benjamin and raping her.  He also took the Barkers’ daughter as his own ward.  If that is not enough, we get a scene of him sentencing a young boy to hang from the neck for the crime of stealing.  Ms. Lovett manipulated Sweeney Todd into what she wanted to aid in her own success with her meat pies.  She did not blink at all when the dead bodies started falling into her bake shop.

Ms. Lovett did show some feelings for Toby (Ed Sanders), the boy who was working for the Italian barber Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen).  However, once Toby started asking questions, she locked him in the cellar and brought Sweeney Todd down to, supposedly, get rid of him.

These rotten people all have extremely satisfying endings as Burton spared no scene of horror.  Ms. Lovett, in particular, gets a gruesome finale.

The music is wonderful.  I love the songs and the performances, even by the so-so singers, are perfect.  The song, “Little Priest” is one of my favorite songs of the whole piece.

Sweeney Todd is dark and comedic.  It is brutal and violent.  It blends all of this together seamlessly and creates a visually and thoroughly engaging film.  Depp and Carter are wonderful as the criminal duo and Alan Rickman is as fantastic as always with his dirtbag judge.

The next film for the October Fear Fest during the horror binge-a-thon is the documentary by Seth Breedlove and Lyle Blackburn of the Small Town Monsters crew that deals with the story of the Mothman.

Back in the 1960s, there were multiple sightings of a strange, birdman like creature in the town and surrounding areas of Point Pleasant, West Virginia.  There were sightings on a regular basis for 13 months, which included plenty of unidentified flying objects and strange lights in the sky as well.  The legend of the sightings included some who claimed the Mothman as a prophet of doom, even going as far as saying that it was seen perched on the Silver Bridge, which collapsed soon after in 1967.

The documentary was well done, specifically in the way of creating a mood in the viewer.  The music, the stylish manner, the coincidences really do a fine job of setting the feeling for the viewer.  Many of the re-enactments of certain major events were well done and helped to make the film creepy.  However, there is not a really deep investigation into the mystery though.  It basically gives the information of the eye-witnesses and tells the story.  There is little to no counter points shown to balance the story.  It takes the assumption that this was something weird and goes from there.

It was an interesting documentary to watch, but it did not truly provide much real substantiated material from anyone other than a town that holds Mothman festivals.

The month of October Fear Fest continues here at EYG with our look at horror classics in the “Doc’s Classic Movies Reviewed” section.  We started last week with Invasion of the Body Snatchers and this week, we start today and tomorrow’s horror binge-a-thon with Wes Craven’s beloved horror movie satire, Scream.

While it is a satire of horror movies, Scream also is a great example of how successful a slasher film can be.  Not only does the film subvert the genre, taking the “rules” and playing with them in many unexpected ways, but it also resets the rules for future films.

Starring Courteney Cox, who was in the middle of her huge success with Friends, Cox’s soon to be husband David Arquette, Neve Campbell who is everyone’s favorite non-victim, and Billy Loomis himself, Skeet Ulrich.

The use of dialogue involving other scary movies into Scream is a stroke of genius and really created a meta film that was also not-mega at all.  The back story with Sidney’s mother works wonderfully, even without anything first hand for us to see.  Connecting Courteney Cox’s reporter character to Sidney’s mom’s story was great.

Gail and Dep. Dewey were a fun couple too, mirroring the real life pairing between actors.

The use of a star with the stature of Drew Barrymore as the first victim of Ghostface was surprising for certain.  I remember being shocked when she died when I first saw this film years ago.  You just do not do such a thing.  I mean, there is Drew’s face front and center on the movie poster and, yet, she is the, well…technically, second victim to die (Ah, poor Steve…we hardly knew ye!).

Ghostface was anything but a perfect killing machine as he flailed and was battered through the movie as well. Having there be two Ghostfaces in the end is a twist that really kept people guessing.  It was a great film that set off a very successful slasher franchise, which is kind of ironic.

As we are now in October, I have started a watch of some of the horror/thriller genre films that either I haven’t yet seen or ones that I haven’t seen in a long time.  The remake of Invasion of Body Snatchers falls into that second category.

I remember watching the film as a youth, but I honestly did not remember much about it so this rewatch today was very much like watching it for the first time.

Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright were the main actors in the cast.  They all were very solid in the well acted remake.  Sutherland, in particular, was great as Matthew Bannell, a health inspector, discovers that people are being replaced with emotion-less pod creatures after they sleep.  Bannell, along with a small group of his friends, try to find a way to stop the creatures before it is too late.

The film creates an effective feeling of paranoia as the story progresses.  You immediately distrust everyone and some of the imagery of the film was fairly frightening, especially for the time.

I did have a couple of issues.  I did not understand the relationship between Bannell and Brooke Adams’ character, Elizabeth.  Through much of the film, I wondered if they had been related, until later when they were kissing and proclaiming their love for one another.  I’m not sure if they were intended to be exes, just friends or acquaintances.

The invasion also seemed to arrive without much reasoning.  I think that is part of the idea though, indicating that something like this can come from nowhere and you might never see it coming.

The sound of the movie really works well, helping to create that feeling of anxiety and helplessness that the film fosters.  The cries of the pod creatures was also very unnerving.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a strong remake and works in many manners.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a lovely to look at, fun to watch and enjoyable time at an animated movie. Based on a story from Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox blends the best of Dahl with the traits of Wes Anderson in a wonderful mishmash of styles.

George Clooney voices the lead character, Mr. Fox, who is a proud “wild animal” that gives up his life of chicken stealing when he discovers that his wife,  Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) is pregnant with his first child.  After years of a dull, domesticated life, Mr. Fox feels the pull of his life of crime once more when he discovers three big time farmers just begging to be pilfered.

Many of Anderson’s normal crew is involved in voicing characters in this animated classic, including Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe and Eric Chase Anderson.

The animation style is great in the stop action animation style.  The herky-jerky style showed an even more artistic flair from the director, who insisted on the film not being too finished in the animation.

There is a lot going on in this story besides the apparent midlife crisis of Mr. Fox.  The film deals with the relationships between parents and children as well as the jealousy that can develop between family members.  Mr. Fox’s son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) was not an athlete like his father no matter what he did, but his cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson) was a natural and created a ton of tension inside Ash.

Some of the bits in Fantastic Mr. Fox are extremely funny and entertaining.  They show the wit of Wes Anderson very well without completely losing the darkness of Roald Dahl.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a fine film that the entire family can enjoy.  The movie is not just for kids despite the fact that they will probably enjoy watching it.

I had an afternoon filled with campy clowns killing innocent bystanders in a sleepy town.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is a weird ride.  The film is silly and a good-natured horror movie that does not take itself seriously and knows exactly what it is.

Looking at the title and the movie poster, I was pretty sure this would be nothing more than a terrible B movie.  I was wrong.  This was a reasonably enjoyable B movie.

I mean…what else can you ask for but a clown car being chased by an ice cream truck?

There are some cute and imaginative uses of the clowns.  They might be considered very creepy for those who have the unreasonable fear of clowns.  After It, I was really surprised to find out how many people were actually scared of clowns.  And these clowns can be creepy.  Sure, if you are not fearful of clowns, you will not be scared by the Killer Klowns, but if you are…

I certainly have seen worse alien invasion movies.  I have seen alien invasion movies that are every bit as ridiculous as Killer Klowns from Outer Space but try to take themselves seriously as if they were the second coming of Citizen Kane.  Killer Klowns from Outer Space embraces the silliness and provides a fun time because of it.

Quite a brutal and frightening film.

Michael Rooker is Henry, a character loosely based on the serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, and Rooker is a dominating force on the screen.  The chilling and callous manner in which he dispatches these innocent people shows how much of a monster some of these serial killers can be.

It is odd, but Henry is not the worst character in the film. Otis (Tom Towles) is far and away a worse person.  Otis would at times accompany Henry on his killing sprees and he would even video tape the events.

I have to say that I was having a herd time finding someone to root for in the film.  It weirdly almost sets Henry up as the anti-hero in a few scenes, but those feel wrong (as is proven at the film’s conclusion).  I really wanted there to be some kind of comeuppance for the pair of horrid individuals, and when that did not fully happen, I found it to be a little unsatisfying.

However, the final shot of the film is absolutely dark and powerfully scary.

Michael Rooker was top of the line in the role.  His performance was frightening and executed perfectly.  The imagery was dark, brutal and nightmarish.  The belief that there were people like this in the world truly makes one doubt humanity.

Finding a rating for this film is tough.  It doesn’t feel right to give this one a “FUN TIME” rating, but I would not go to the “CLASSIC” rating either.  It also does not feel right to call this “OVERRATED” as I would consider this a (mostly) positive review.  So I am going to debut a new rating for this film that will cover it.  It is a….

I was struggling trying to determine what exactly I wanted to watch tonight.  Everything that I found was either too long or not what I wanted.  There were actually a bunch of creepy/scary films available, but I just did not feel like I was wanting to handle a movie with shock and terror in it.

So I played a film with those words in the title!

Birdemic: Shock and Terror is one of the worst movies ever made.  Thankfully, I have only seen it as a part of the special presentations by the RiffTrax Live guys, Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett.  Even today, Birdemic: Shock and Terror is my favorite RiffTrax show I have seen.

Birdemic the movie is a film that is meant to pay homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, but it fails in just about every imaginable manner.  It takes around 45 minutes before we see any birds on the screen at all and when they finally do show up, they are possibly the worst special effects to find its way onto a movie screen.

Calling the acting wooden would be too good.  Alan Bagh (who plays Rod) is unbelievably robotic in his portrayal of the software salesman turned solar panel magnate who dates our lovely young model Nathalie (Whitney Moore) and these two stumble through the somewhat unaffected world where killer eagles are attacking people at gas stations, alongside the road and at motels.

This is truly a film that is impossible to describe.  The special effects, the sound quality (or lack thereof), the acting, the story, the consistent shots of people driving their cars for no determinable reason.

Thankfully, the RiffTrack guys make this a remarkably entertaining, making me laugh out loud at their hi-jinks and witty banter.  The best part though is when none of the three of them are able to make a joke because they are too busy laughing themselves at the horrible performance of Rod.

The reason behind the Birdemic, we guess, has to do with global warming as the film takes many opportunity to spread the word about how humans are affecting nature (including one of the most awkward allusions to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth movie.

I love the RiffTrax performance and if you see Birdemic: Shock and Terror (which also somehow spawned a sequel), you must see the RiffTrax version.  That is because, scoring the movie itself only… it is …

Burt Reynolds passed away recently at the age of 82.  I had never seen this iconic film from his oeuvre so I put it on the list to watch.

It was very disturbing of a film.

It started with the epic dueling banjos that was so fantastic.  About midway through the film, the horrible rape scene takes place (poor Ned Beatty) and the rest of the film was tense.

Honestly, the first part of the film featured Reynolds. but the second half of the film belonged to Jon Voight as Ed and Ned Beatty dealing with his own pain over what happened to him.  Burt was regulated to the sidelines with his injured leg.

I will say that the first part of Deliverance, after dueling banjos, was dull.  There was just too much canoeing going on.  It seemed to me that a lot of that could have been removed and it would have made the film a tighter feel.  However, once the hillbillies showed up with their plans of making poor Ned Beatty squeal, this film picked up the pace.

There is a lot of uncertainty in the film as well.  Drew (Ronny Cox) fell out of the canoe as the four friends reached the dangerous rapids.  Why was that?  Reynolds’ character claimed he was shot, but I am not sure of that.  I did not hear a shot fired nor was their any real evidence of that when they came across Drew’s body later.  It as a strange part of the story.

I have heard a lot of great word of mouth about this movie, but to me, it is, at best, okay.  The second half of the film was better and, of course, the Dueling Banjos song was tremendous.  Otherwise, there was the shock value of the rape and not that much more.

It is a solid film in the technical aspects, but I do not see it as one of the great films of all time. It certainly has some of the most iconic moments of all time, but moments do not necessarily make a movie.

Kathy Bates has had a great career, and Misery is one of the highlights.

In Misery, Kathy Bates created one of the most iconic and HORRIFYING CRINGE-WORTHY moments in movie history.  It was the hobbling scene where she took a sledgehammer to the ankles of James Caan, who was playing author Paul Sheldon.  It was a scene where, even when I knew it was coming, caused me to scream out in anguish.

The movie, which was basically the two main stars working in a confined room, never felt dull or boring.  It was completely engaging and breathtaking.

Paul, who had just finished his newest manuscript, was heading home through a blizzard when his car crashed.  Injured badly, Paul awoke in a bed being nursed back to health by Annie Wilkes.  She had plenty of answers to his questions that seemed reasonable as to why he was not in a hospital.  He legs had been badly broken and his shoulder separated but Annie was his number one fan and was dedicated to help him heal while the blizzard kept them isolated.

Of course, Annie was more than just the number one fan.  She was the proof that the work fan comes from the word FANATIC, as she showed her levels of crazy gradually.

Kathy Bates and James Caan are tremendous here.  Misery wound up being directed by Rob Reiner and adapted to the screen from The Princess Bride writer, William Goldman.  Interestingly enough, the hobbling scene was originally intended to be a decapitation instead and that caused a great deal of problem with many actors and actresses.  Reportedly, it was what led Bette Midler to drop out of the role of Annie.

Which turned out to be a great opportunity for Kathy Bates, who did win an Academy Award for the role.

Misery is such a taut thriller with so many great moments that you always remember, it is certainly one of the best Stephen King adaptations to make the big screen.  It has to be the biggest fear of every famous person that there is an Annie Wilkes in their fan club.  Quite an amazing film.

This one is so much better than the new version that came out this weekend, The Predator.  It is not even close.

This movie really shot Arnold Schwarzenegger into the stratosphere of movie stars with his great performance as Dutch, the leader of an elite crew of mercenaries/soldiers who are sent into Central America on a secret mission.

While taking care of the mission, Dutch and his team encounter an alien being that starts hunting them and killing them off one at a time.

Why this works so much better than the new film? There are many reasons.  One, in Predator, we took some time to know who this group of soldiers were and how they were connected to one another.  They were more than just a bunch of traits.  They were characters.  They may not have been incredibly deep, but they gave you a reason to care about their imminent deaths.  Two, the humor was kept to a bare minimum in the original.  There were several one liners in the first Predator that worked (most of Jesse Ventura’s lines for example), but the entire crew did not feel the need to be cracking wise through the whole movie.  Three. the Predator itself was more than just a Hulk rip-off.  This predator was a real hunter and he took advantage of his skills and his knowledge to become a threat.  He was not just show up and batter people to death like in the new film.  Fourth, the story was simple.  It was a slasher movie with soldiers instead of teenagers.  There was no need for complex convoluted plotlines that some times did not go anywhere.  There was one major plot…to survive.

Predator had some serious violence.  I know that my friends in our Champions group of role-playing games always wanted one of Blain’s (Jesse Ventura) line guns after seeing the chaos that thing brought.  The scene of the soldiers just decimating the jungle after Blain’s untimely death (really, he died way too soon!!!) was just amazing.

I also loved how Arnold Schwarzenegger was battered and bloody and nearly died.  He did not stroll through the film like nothing would ever hurt him.  He was frightened by this monster and he had to use every trick in the book to survive and he knew that he was lucky.

After watching this week’s Honest Trailers which featured this original Predator, I have to agree with them that the scene at the very beginning revealing that the Predator came from outer space was an unnecessary scene that actually hurt the film.  How much cooler would it have been if we did not know what it was that was stalking these men and causing such violence?  Instead, we know immediately that it was an alien.  I have to agree with Honest Trailers here, even though it was not a major problem.

If you want to see a Predator movie this weekend, I highly recommend that you skip the one with the “The” in front of it and watch the first and best  one, Predator.

As I was writing up my post on Muppet Treasure Island, I was flipping around the TV stations and I came across the original Star Wars, what would become to be known as Star Wars: A New Hope, on TNT.  So I watched it.

It has been awhile since I have seen this film that started a franchise that is so important to movies and to fandom.  It was such a treat this morning seeing the initial film that had so much joy and fun about it, before people got angry and insane over every little thing.  How the greatness of this epic came through the screen with great characters, exciting action, wonderful performances and a story that is simple yet full of heart on its own.

Watching it again made me remember how special it was to see Star Wars for the first time.  What a special feeling it brought to the viewer, filling him/her with a tale of a hero’s journey from youth to rebel fighter.

Sure, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) was really whiny, but that only serve to show you how much the character grew over the years and the subsequent films.  We got continued goodness from Harrison Ford as Han Solo.  A brave and heroic princess who was not anyone’s damsel in distress in Carrie Fisher’s Leia.  The regalness of Sir Alec Guinness as our first ever Obi-Wan Kenobi.  The first time ever to see such iconic characters such as Chewbacca, R2D2, C3PO.

Directed by George Lucas, the film truly holds up and actually looks even better than the CGI fests that populated this franchise in later episodes.

And there was the pureness of Darth Vader, before we knew that he was a hero fallen or that he would one day be conflicted because of his feelings for a son.  This Darth Vader was a classic villain who was bad ass and knew what he wanted.  He did not hesitate to strike down Obi-Wan with his light sabre and send the old knight straight into the world of Force ghosts.

Each character had an arch and they each became more than they were at the beginning.  Han Solo showed his heroic side for the first time (unless you count Solo: A Star Wars Story) as he returned to help Luke blow up the Death Star, an unbelievable weapon that destroyed Alderaan earlier in the film.

There are so many great moments that I can even forgive those tacked on moments that just do not feel as if they fit, such as Han Solo meeting with Jabba the Hut and basically telling him the exact thing he told Greedo.  It was an unnecessary scene that felt repetitive and was tacked on just to shoehorn Jabba into the movie.  These moments are distractions, but cannot take away from the overall epicness of this classic.

There was a reason why this was such a moment in time.  Star Wars was one of the greatest movies ever made.

This coming Wednesday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  I celebrate the holiday every September the 19th.  As the song says, it is a day when adults can show that they still know how to play.  In honor of the great day, I pulled out one of my favorite pirate inspired movies of all time… Muppet Treasure Island.

The Muppets became involved in a series of movies that retold classic stories using the Muppets in the starring roles.  Muppets Christmas Carol, Muppets Wizard of Oz etc.  This one was an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Kermit the Frog was Captain Smollet, the captain of the Hispanola.  Miss Piggy was his beloved girlfriend Benjamina Gunn.  Sam Eagle was Mr. Arrow. Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat were here as themselves.

However, there were three key human characters here.  EYG Hall of Fame Wild Card Inductee Tim Curry played the evil pirate chef Long John Silver, Kevin Bishop was a young Jim Hawkins and comedian Billy Connolly played Bill Bones, who had stolen Cap’n Flint’s treasure map.  The three of these actors brought a ton of humor and solid work to the Muppet cast.

I liked the songs on this film more than some of the other Muppet films.  In particular, “Shiver My Timbers”, “Professional Pirate”, “Something Better” and “Sailing for Adventure.”  While there may not be any instant classic such as “Rainbow Connection”, the overall quality of songs are wonderful.

Tim Curry is perfect as Long John Silver.  He provides the charisma of the gentleman of fortune and yet plays the sinister aspects of the character extremely well.  The relationship between Curry and Kevin Bishop was believable and true.

The film is quick-paced and fun.  It is a perfect way to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Ahoy!