Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: Almost There..

Almost done with the Gore-a-Thon Round-up!

Gorror gives us the number one craziest bitch in horror, Charlotte from Antichrist. 

Bloodsucking Geek introduces us to Bloodsucking Freaks.  There's meaning there, somewhere... 

Disturbing Films gives us a taste of the new Evil Dead remake.  And it is glorious. 

Bloodsucking Geek lists the 10 goriest movies of all time!  Let him know if he's missed any. 

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: Shits and Grins

Surprise post from Deep Red Rum!  Death Smiles on a Murderer.  Who knew? 

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: Dysfunctional Relationship. You're Doing It Wrong

So, I've mentioned Dark Castle Entertainment a couple of times already so you should all know the drill.  DCE was originally started for the purpose of updating the classic William Castle movies for a modern audience which is an awesome dream that was, apparently, doomed to fail because they only remade 2 of them.

The film that started it all for DCE, though, was House on Haunted Hill.

House on Haunted Hill started its life as a poor black-and-white child brought into this world by William Castle and Robb White.  Robb makes me think a combination of Mad Men and Robb Petrie because everyone needs a little Dick Van Dyke in their lives.  There should be martinis and smoking in the office.

ANYWAY, this horror classic starred Vincent Price (as all horror classics should) and is, basically, your standard "If you can stay the whole night, you get paid" story, originally found in the Grimm fairy tale "The Boy Who Could Not Shudder".  A group of people are led to the titular house and told that if they can spend the entire night in the house with the doors locked, they get $10,000.  Sounds easy, right?  Wrong.  There are ghosts and psychotic hosts and vats of acid and a whole lot of firearms and one of the BEST Castle gimmicks, EMERG-O which flew a plastic skeleton over the audience at appropriate times.  Many, many poodle skirts left the theater stained with urine.

Fast-forward to 1999, we're basically given the same story except BOTH of the hosts (Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen) are trying to kill one another and the "house" is an abandoned mental asylum... and we ALL know how much I love those.  Stephen Price (whose name and appearance are a nod to Vincent Price), a thrill-ride impresario,  and Evelyn Stockard-Price, Stephen's spoiled trophy-wife, are leasing the asylum from Watson Pritchett (Chris Kattan, whom I despise and is the worst part of this movie) for Evelyn's birthday party.

What kind of smug asshole holds his wife's birthday party in an old asylum?

This kind.

Then the weird starts.  The five people that show up?  Neither Evelyn nor Stephen know any of them.  None of them.  But being the asshole that he is, Stephen continues the party.  The theme?  Survive the night, go home with a million dollars with the cash from anyone that doesn't make it being added to the survivor's pot.  Sounds easy, right?

We DO know that at least one of them is a stupid bitch with a REALLY big digital camera.

Now, this being the late 90's, the door can't just be locked.  This building goes into full-on, ain't no radiation gettin' in here, prison-bitch lockdown. It won't open for 12 hours.

And there's something I haven't mentioned.  The place actually IS haunted by the former inmates AND the sadistic doctor Vannacut that caused the place to be shut down to begin with (played with silent and malicious glee by horror notable Jeffrey Combs).

Who needs anesthesia?

Oh, and the party favors?  Handguns.  It's a PARTY, now, bitches!

Now, I like this movie.  I don't LOVE it, but I don't hate it, either.  The characters are delightfully mysterious.  Why are they there?  How did they get an invite?  How do they survive the night without slapping Stephen and his disgusting little French tickler mustache?  The plot itself is simple and direct.  We're here to watch a horror movie and the update from the campy original is maybe not the freshest thing on the block in terms of plot but they kept the humor while taking it to a much darker place and I appreciate that.  Once again, your mileage may vary.

That watery ghost effect?  Awesome for the time.  A little dated, now.

One totally cool thing about the remake, though, is that Dark Castle Entertainment originally meant to release each movie with a gimmick and this is the only one wherein they followed through.  Instead of EMERG-O, there was a scratch-off game given with each ticket so that movie-goers had a chance to win some cold-hard cash.

I could use some cash right about now...

So, anyway, this is my last entry for the Ultimate Gore-a-Thon.  I know, sad face, right?  But it's still going on until tomorrow night at Midnight!  I'll still be posting links to my fellow bloggers' articles and I'd like to thank JD at Bloodsucking Geek for inviting me.  This was a LOT of fun and I think I've made a few friends out of the deal.  Hopefully they don't think I'm just a loudmouth asshole.  They wouldn't be WRONG but nobody likes to believe that about themselves.  :0-)

Show my new buddies some love at:

Blood Sucking Geek - http://bloodsuckinggeek.com/ or on Facebook.
MK Horror - http://www.mkhorror.com/ or on Facebook.
At the Mansion of Madness - http://atthemansionofmadness.blogspot.com/ or on Facebook,
Deep Red Rum - http://initforthekills.com/  or on Facebook
Gorror - http://goreworld.wordpress.com/ or  on Facebook.
Movies at Dog Farm - http://moviesatdogfarm.blogspot.com/ or on Facebook.
The info Zombie - http://www.theinfozombie.com/or on Facebook.
Disturbing Films - http://www.disturbingfilms.com/ or  on Facebook.

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: SPIT IT OUT!

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon:  JD over at Bloodsucking Geek proves to us that he has Bad Taste. 

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon:  Movies at Dog Farm takes a pregnant pause to tell us It's Alive. 

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon:  Gorror gives us Crazy Bitch #3 with Asami from Audition. She is 100% correct.

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon:  MK Horror takes us on a tour of the House of 1000 Corpses. 

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: Lovecrafty!

At the Mansion of Madness brings us a tale From Beyond! 

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: That's Hot.

So... you guys are probably gonna hate me for this but I kind of don't care.  I can't help what I love and I love the 2005 version of House of Wax.

Because it's hilariously awful.

No, seriously.  If it weren't for the delicious idiocy displayed by the characters in this film, it would suck.  As it stands, though, I giggled my way through this like a toddler hopped up on pixy-stix and root beer.

So, the remake backstory goes like this.  In 1933, the last dramatic film made in two-color technicolor was Mystery of the Wax Museum, based on the unpublished short story/three-act play "The Wax Works" by Charles Spencer Belden and starring Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill.  People were kind of sick of the artificial colors that the two-color process displayed so this film kind of went away.  It was never reissued and for a long time it was considered a lost film.  (A new copy was discovered in 1970 and it's been recolored by Turner Entertainment and it is utterly alarming in its garishness.)  ANYhoo, the film was remade in 1953 in 3D, with the same plot but without the comic touches of the '33 film, and starring Vincent Price, Charles Bronson and Carolyn Jones.  The film is awesome but, considering it was a 3D film directed by Andre Toth, who was blind in one eye and, therefore, could not experience 3D, it fell a little flat in the gimmick department. 

52 years later, Dark Castle Entertainment, who, after Thir13en Ghosts, had taken to remaking films other than William Castle's, gave us their own take on House of Wax.  It bears some, but not much, resemblance to either of the first two films and it's saving grace, as much as I hate to say it, is the fact that it features Paris Hilton who was probably hopped up on the goofballs throughout the entire shoot.

That's her actin' face.

The film starts in 1974 with a woman making a wax mask; her child sitting quietly at the table with his Cheerios.  And then dad comes in with a screaming ball of angry child.  This child, as should happen with any child that is a danger to himself or others, is duct-taped to his high chair.  (I'M KIDDING!  Duct tape should never be used for infant control!  I hear it keeps diapers in place pretty well, though.)  After scratching his mother, she provides the pimp-slap.

And the Parent of the Year award goes to...

Enter ubiquitous herd of oversexed alcoholic young adults on their way to a football game in Louisiana.  Because without them, there would be no story.  They set up camp one night and get mildly terrorized by a pickup truck.  The next day, Carly, our heroine, played by Elisha Cuthbert, trips and falls down a hill and lands almost face-first in a pile of dead deer.  Because eew.  She sees a human hand in the remains and the slack-jawed yokel who shows up to add to the pile shows her that it's just a mannequin.  In the midst of the gross-out moment, Carly's boyfriend, Wade (Jared Padalecki) discovers that his fan belt is busted.  Slack-jawed yokel offers them a ride into town to get a new one and freaks them out on the way so they get out and walk.

They arrive in Ambrose which is practically a ghost town and interrupt a funeral.  Bo, the local mechanic, offers to help them fix the fan belt after the service.  Because he's all helpful.  While waiting, Carly and Wade visit the local wax museum which is actually made entirely of wax.  

 

After meeting up with Bo, who, oddly, keeps the correct sized fanbelts at his house, Wade gets his hamstrings slashed by a long-haired freak-nugget by the name of Vincent who operates at the same frequency as Leatherface and wears a mask made of wax.  Bo grabs Carly and super-glues her mouth shut while Vincent strips Wade, removes all of his facial hair, puts him in a contraption that pins his eyes open and showers him in hot wax because the people in Ambrose are all wax statues and I guess they needed a few more displays.

 

Aren't people normally told not to touch the exhibits?

And from there, we get to watch Carly's brother try to rescue her after she gets a finger cut off with a pair of tin-snips.  There's more Vincent action, there's Bo showing his true colors.  There's life-sized wax conjoined twin infants getting a hot knife separation.  There's melty staircases.  It's got everything!  Everything that no one needs, ever.

Seriously, kids, there is SO much wrong with this movie but you have to give props to any movie that allows me to cause the entire theater to bust out laughing with the words "That's hot."  

And this is where that happened.

Interesting newsy-notes about this one:

There was a $7 Million lawsuit against SFX expert David Fletcher and Wax Production because of a fire on the set that could have been avoided had they not kept timber props near an open flame and had a firefighter on set.  Because people tend to forget that wood and wax are all flammable and shit.

Also, the film was up for three Razzie awards that year with Paris Hilton winning the Worst Supporting Actress award.  She, unlike Halle Berry, did not show up to collect.

But, really, as compared to most slashers, the premise for this is OK.  It's not revenge or the hunt for a long pig sammich, it's just madness and I can deal with that.  This was a lot better than some of the other crap that came out around that time.  It's just not great.  Definitely a popcorn flick.  Turn off your brain, watch it for hilarious irony and forget the gaping plot holes.  Do not forget the gaping hole in Ms. Hilton's head.  'Cause that shit's funny.

This post brought to you by Glade 2in1 candles.

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: Feminista

MK Horror burns her bra and delivers her take on The Woman. 

I burned my bra a while ago.  Don't judge.

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: Declared a God? RUN!

It's Wednesday!  Let's make with the learniness!

Today on Candy-Coated Razor Blades, we're having a party and YOU'RE invited!  Why?  No reason.  Other than to appease the ancient and betentacled Blogathotep to ensure peace and prosperity for our land and people for the foreseeable future (which is, really, only until next year).  Only you don't get to know about the Blogathotep thing until the last 15 minutes.

The best servants of Blogathotep get one of these!

It'll be awesome!  We'll have rides and games and face painting and funnel cakes and deep-fried Snickers and a hog-calling contest...

and running...

and screaming...

and flaming death...

Yes, kids, we are throwing A Fete Worse Than Death!  Only, not really because death is, pretty much, the worst thing that could happen.

To you, not to us.  Frankly, most times, after the annual "Total Stranger Comes To Town Celebration", you're going to end up as the main course at a Long Pig Roast unless something goes horribly wrong and Blogathotep is unappeased by our sacrifice and decides to inflict upon us the starvation, madness and hurty-pain.

This trope hearkens back to the 1700s wherein Voltaire, the original ironic hipster, depicted the auto-da-fé as such a party in Candide.  This, though, wasn't really a stretch because real-life Europe has never exactly been the place to hide atrocities.  Public executions were, for a very, VERY long time, fun times out with the family, with balloons and questionable sausages-on-a-bun and high platforms of poor construction so that everybody could see the hanging/beheading/whipping/whatever.  Well, that sounds just swell, doesn't it?

PARTYYYYYYYYY!!!

Now, this trope is played a couple of ways.

A)  The entire town is utterly and completely aware of what's going on and they're MORE than happy to sacrifice one of their own but they'd rather sacrifice you.  These towns will often have deranged children poking you in the eyeball with blunt sticks.  Because you, more than likely, are some form of drifter that came to their town completely on accident, has no family and won't be missed.  See 2000 Maniacs!, Shirley Jackson's The Lottery or The Wicker Man.  (But not the remake because that shit is just gawdawful.  Nicholas Cage ruins everything.)

B)  The people running the town celebration are aware but the general populace is not.  This generally has an even creepier effect because the town is still more than happy to reap the benefits of your ultimate torture and demise but has no idea that a sacrifice is actually being made.  See The Cabin in the Woods, Neil Gaiman's American Gods (made extra fuck-nutty because no one in the town has any idea what Hinzelmann is or what the significance of their annual "car on the ice" contest is) and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street where, while there's no "sacrifice" being made, the whole town is DYING to get their grubby paws on some of Mrs. Lovett's meat pies as shown in the song "God, That's Good" but they have no idea that they're eating the Victorian equivalent of Soylent Green.

C)  The celebration is held by "noble savages" who really don't want their volcano/thunder/snake/whatever god mad at them.   This type is, mostly, played for racist comedy.  See King Kong, Joe vs The Volcano and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

This is another one of those tropes that is prevalent but not overly used and it occurs in all kinds of speculative fiction from literature to stage to screen.  One of the best examples of its use in animation is the anime series Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni in which a new arrival finds out that the Watanagashi Festival tends to cause mysterious illnesses, disappearances and death.  (Although he probably should have guessed this sort of thing might be going on since "wata" can mean either "cotton" or "intestines".)  On TV we have the Torchwood episode "Countrycide" and The X-Files gave us "Our Town".  Literature hands us The Hunger Games, Harvest Home and any number of H.P. Lovecraft short stories, specifically "The Festival".

And, yes, it can be used as a joke, too.  We know by watching Hot Fuzz that this is actually occurring throughout the film but our attention is clearly drawn to the trope by a newspaper headline following an "accident" at a church social.  The headline?  "A Fete Worse Than Death".  Keep in mind that the murdered individual ran the newspaper in question and was well known for typos. 

The "celebrated" don't necessarily die but this is a very rare use of the trope.  In Sweeney Todd, the masked ball shown during "Poor Thing", is a plot to get Lucy Barker to Judge Turpin's big, schwanky party to be publicly raped. Considering the Harry Potter community's obsession with Alan Rickman, many people have discovered that it is absolutely impossible to rape someone who refuses to withhold permission.  Lucy Barker would like to have a few words with those people.  She appears to be holding a sockful of nickels.

No, most times, it just doesn't pay to be a stranger in a small town's pumpkin festival, a negro in the old South or a virgin in the springtime.  If you fall into this category, you will usually find yourself welcomed with open arms, missing your personal belongings after you're given clean clothes to wear for the festival, arrested for something dumb and murdered in front of the whole cheering town.  Consider it your mission to keep from getting hugged, mugged, jugged or plugged (or any combination of the above).

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a barbeque pit to fire up and Mrs. O'Grady has a couple of guests at her B&B I have to go greet.  She tells me one of them is portly.

Mmmmmm... bacon...

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: Ladle Sockhop!

I think I can feel Movies at Dog Farm's TCM2 geekery from here. 

Remember:  TCM3D is not your friend.

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: King of the Hill

Bloodsucking Geeks treats us to the goriest album covers, EVER!

This one's not safe for work, kids.

And

Seven Days of Saw concludes!  MK Horror takes us straight to Pay Day with her review of Saw 3D.

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: Masks and Makeup

In 2007, the squee heard 'round the world was every present/former techno-goth, noise rock, industrial horror-core kid in the world saying "ZOMGROBZOMBIE'SDIRECTINGHALLOWEENI'MGONNADIE!!"  I am not ashamed to say that I was one of them.  Because both Rob Zombie and the original Halloween are awesome.

I am now arranging the line-up of every former techno-goth, noise rock, industrial horror-core kid in the world for the purposes of giving Rob Zombie a kick in the taint because this shit was wack, yo.

In Zombie's movie, we get 45 minutes of "prequel".  That's half of the fucking movie.  Half of the damn movie looking at an ugly child, that we already know is psychopathic, kill his pet and other small animals and take pictures of them, stalk silently, beat the boy from Spy Kids to death with a stick and then murder his step-father, sister and her fuck-toy. Considering their treatment of him, I'm not surprised.

There's a mosquito!  Hold still!

On top of that, there's Sheri Moon-Zombie, who sneers, strips and swears her fuckin' way through her part (see what I did there?) and is in desperate need of some damn FOOD and warm clothing, and to round out the nasty, there's Malcolm McDowell with the worst wig, ever.

Sherri Moon-Zombie, queen of the anorexics.

Ugly child gets placed in the local Sanitarium with Dr. Loomis taking care of him and he becomes fixated with masks.  His mom is OK with visiting him until he kills a nurse and then she snaps like the twig she is and kills herself.  This is probably the wisest course of action anyone in this movie will ever take.

Upon attempting to migrate Michael to a maximum security location, he murders his guards, escapes, kills a trucker for his jumpsuit and goes home.  He locates the mask he killed his sister in, which had been hidden under the floorboards.

And now he goes on the hunt for his sister, Laurie Strode.

Not Laurie. 

And... ummm... yeah... the rest of the movie is standard, formulaic, 80's slasher schlock.  About the only thing cool about this movie is the sheer number of classic horror cameos Zombie managed to wrangle.  Leslie Easterbrook, Sybil Danning, Bill Moseley, Dee Wallace, Sid Haig.  Hell, the man managed to cast Mickey Dolenz for cryin' out loud.  Well, that and the letter jacket with Cherry Bomb stitched on it because Joan Jett is extra-cool and I love her.

The problem here isn't that the movie is filmed or edited badly.  The problem isn't the acting (except on the part of Sheri Moon-Zombie).  The problem isn't our ability to play Fleur de Lis on Sheri's ribs (although, she does not present a healthy body image and little girls everywhere should just ignore her presence entirely).  The problem isn't Tyler Mane (who is one of the coolest, and tallest, celebrities I have ever met).  The problem isn't even Brad Dourif and Malcolm McDowell gnawing on the scenery (which is just to be expected, really).

Anybody else get "creepy old man" vibe, here?

The problem is that Zombie tried to make Michael Myers human.

In giving us a sympathetic view of Myers, Zombie has utterly ruined the feel of the character which, in turn, ruined the movie.  We, as the audience, might appreciate enough backstory to get the villain where he needs to be but we don't need an hour of it.  We need to know that Loomis finds Myers to be evil and that Myers is out to find Strode.  That's it.  We don't need "he was a bullied psychopath".  We don't need "but his mommy loved him".  We don't need to know that he had an orderly buddy.  We don't need "an obsession with masks".

We need "I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the *devil's* eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... *evil*."

Seriously, Hollywood, we only want enough "why" to get us through to the splatter.  Then we only want "how".

Sorry, Rob Zombie.  Hated it.  It's only purpose was to allow my friends and I a reason to disturb other movie-goers with our laughing.

Prepare for your taint-kickin'.

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: More Gore!

And the splatter-fest continues with:

MK Horror continuing her Operation with Seven Days of Saw.  Today?  Saw VI.

And

At The Mountains of Madness gives us a taste of being Faceless.  Dr. Orloff can bite me.

And

Gorror explores some fucked up Greek noir with Singapore Sling.  Crazy Bitch #3. 

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: Superstition

I am not a superstitious person.  I am totally cool with black cats, ladders, the occasional broken mirror.  Y'know.  Accidents happen.

And when Friday the 13th was remade in 2009, I thought "This won't be so bad.  The series needs a facelift.  It'll be fun!"

And that's when I gave up on "good luck" altogether because they decided to hand the facelift to the same guy that turned Joan Rivers into a small Chinese man and, thus, this remake tastes like shame.


For those of you not familiar with the reboot, this gives us two, two, two stories in one!  Why they went for an almost anthology feel with this one, I'll never know.  Oh, wait, I do know.  It's because Marcus Nispel is a FUCKING DOUCHEBAG!

So, the movie starts with about the only cool thing for the next hour and a half.  Nana Visitor gnawing on the scenery as Jason's mother.  Jason gets to watch her get beheaded by the 1980 final girl which, of course, does not lend itself to proper mental health on Jason's part and we all know he wasn't right in the head to begin with.. 

 PAY.  For THERAPY!  

Murdering teenagers may feel good for now but it doesn't solve anything.

Then, many years later, the ubiquitous gaggle of teenagers sets out to party in the woods.  Two of them have an ulterior motive in that there's a huge marijuana patch there.  Unfortunately, this patch happens to lie within spitting distance of Camp Crystal Lake.  Because, duh.  Jason hacks, cleaves, bear traps and slow-roasts all of them except one.

See that face?  Murdered in it.

The "final girl" here, Whitney, just happens to remind Jason of his mother...  so he keeps her captive in his subterranean lair of tunnels which also provides a handy means of popping up unexpectedly behind clumsy bitches that can't fucking stand up properly. (This doesn't get explored until later in the film but I'm not going that far.)

Enter NEW group of ubiquitous teenagers including rich asshole, kinda-hippie dude,Willa Ford and her boobs, other set of boobs, Token Stoner A (black) and Token Stoner B (Asian) and brown-haired smart girl.  Also, there's Jared Padalecki who's looking for Whitney and is really only there to bring in the Supernatural audience (much like My Bloody Valentine 3D used Jensen Ackles).

Neither of these two get laid.  This gives me hope for the gene pool.

Not because they're minorities.  Because they're fucking stupid.

So, yeah.  Ominous warnings from the locals.  Useless cops.  The introduction of the Hockey Mask.  Every slasher trope in the world is all right here and it's not even ironic.  

They just found Sarah Palin's sex tape.

See Nispel DELIBERATELY stepped back to the 80s in this one and didn't want to be at all self-referential like Scream and I'm pretty sure that was the number one failure in this film.  Had it tried for even a TRACE of irony, it might have been good but, no.  We did not get irony.  We got the stoner Asian kid who actually brings a WOK to defend himself.

I came here for horror, not a minstrel show. Just FYI?  Racism is not really all that funny.

On top of that, this is big budget Hollywood, assholes.  We don't want digital kills.  We don't want CGI blood.  It's bad enough we had to deal with Willa Ford's fakeys and rich kid going all "awful pillow talk" with other set of boobs.  If practical effects got the job done in the 80s, they can most certainly do the job, now.

Hated it.  Hated every last minute of it.

THIS ONE, can be used as an example of the horrors of bad remakes. 

Ultimate Gore-a-Thon: Damn, this is going fast!

WHOO! This is goin' by QUICK!!

Movies at Dog Farm has 13 Terrifying Taglines to taunt and tittilate your tense and turgid thoughtful bits

And

Seven Days of Saw has a Monopoly on Jigsaw this week! Join us at MK Horror to keep playing along.

Also, I'm watching Friday the 13th for you.  Not the good one.  I'm a little drunk.  This is making it easier.  You'll hear all about it tomorrow.