Trailer of the Day: The Gravedancers

The first year they did the After Dark horror fest thingy, my roommate and I went to check it out. We were only able to see one movie and choose The Abandoned, which was great, but horribly depressing and made us regret not seeing The Gravedancers, which a friend of ours said she heard was great.

She was grossly misinformed.

While not being Ghosts of Mars level boring, it was still pretty bland. The main problem I had with it is that it doesn't know if it wants to be a creepy ghost story or a freaky monster movie. There's a little creeping suspense in the beginning, but once weird (but not scary) looking ghosts show up and start tossing people around it kind of destroys the tension. But hey, it was good enough to keep half my attention while I did other stuff, so I guess that's something...

Trailer of the Day: Halloween III

Bizarre, mean-spirited, and completely underrated. Halloween III could possibly be my favorite horror film. When it came out it was widely unappreciated due to it's lack of Michael Myers, but I feel it's the best in the series. I can't tell you how much I wish the yearly anthology format of series was kept up. This is one of the most offbeat, original horror flicks ever made. I don't want to go into too much detail about the plot, so I'm just going to tell you to go watch it if you haven't seen it.

Seriously, go now!

Trailer of the Day: The Howling 3

HOLY HELL!

When I watched The Howling 2 I thought the movie suffered because it tried to continue the plot of the first Howling instead of going just completely, batshit insane. The Howling 3: Revenge of the Marsupials makes no such mistake. This could be the most ridiculously bad movie I've watched all year, and possibly the most entertaining. I can't even type Revenge of the Marsupials without loosing it.

I think what I liked most about this movie is that the actors seemed just as confused about the plot as the viewer must be. Half the lines are totally random and several plot points are barely explained (I'm lookin at you, werewolf nuns). I especially love the aborigine guy that keeps screaming at people for no reason.

And how 'bout that trailer! I actually found three and went with this one because it was the wackiest. Plus the quotes at the end are just great. "Should attract devotees of horror thrillers.". How's that for a shining endorsement!

Trailer of the Day: Big Trouble in Little China

Despite my love of this movie, I've never seen the whole thing in one sitting. I mean I've seen the entire movie, just not all at once. So Friday night I sat down with a friend and thought "Now I'll do it, I'll finally watch it all the way", half an hour later I was sound asleep.

Anyway, I still love Big Trouble, even though I've had to watch it in parts. It's probably Carpenter's most nuts film (Prince of Darkness comes close though), and because it doesn't take itself too seriously the actors can just cut loose. Kurt Russel is quite the madman here. He totally hams it up but it's not really out of place with the rest of the madness going on.

I'm surprised that the trailer shows so much of the movie with out really giving away any of the plot. Of course the plot is pretty bat-shit insane so I guess it would be kind of difficult to really give it away. Now that I think about it, Big Trouble  is kind of like a sanitized version of Raw Force. Seeing as how Raw Force came out in '82 (4 years before this) I wonder if Carpenter was at all inspired by it. Well I'll tell you one thing   Raw Force doesn't have, a crazy mystical gorilla monster! Man, that thing scared the crap out of me when I was a kid!

Trailer of the Day: THEY LIVE

Ok, so I know I've been doing a lot of harping on John Carpenter's failures lately. You might even get the impression that I'm not a fan of his work. Let me dispel that notion right now, because THEY LIVE  is one of the finest horror films ever made.

Even though it might not be Carpenter's scariest film (that honor belongs to The Thing), I really feel that it's his best. The film's message is pretty powerful, but still tongue in cheek enough to keep it fun. Not only that but it also has the absolute most pointless, ridiculous fight scene ever, but I guess that's not too surprising seeing as how the movie stars Rowdy Roddy Piper. Where is the remake on this one? I'd love to see that fight scene redone with The Rock and Idris Elba.

This movie is also probably Keith David's best performance. That guy does not get anywhere near enough recognition. He's one of those guys who always plays the same part in every movie, but hey, that never hurt Nicolas Cage's career.

The trailer is pretty boss too. For some reason I love it when they say part of the movie's name over and over before giving you the full title. It's also pretty cool that they don't show any of the creatures till the little glimpse right before the end. I can imagine seeing the trailer in the 80's before you could just look it up on youtube and pause.

Trailer of the Day: The Ward

*SIGH*

I really wanted to think of something witty to start things with but every time I start to think about The Ward I...*sigh*...

Look Carpenter, you've had some really great movies. Most of your work is pretty entertaining, even the bad stuff (with maybe some small exceptions). You know how to make a scary movie and when you're not doing scary you know how to make it campy and fun. This movie, however, was not scary or campy or even fun. What it was, is boring and predictable.

If you've seen a few horror movies, then you will probably guess the "big twist" pretty easily. That would be forgivable if the rest of the movie wasn't bland and lifeless. Lets fill a movie with unlikable characters and then show the unfrightening "monster" a bunch. This is not a good idea.

I was really hoping for something great, I really was, and maybe if it was someone different behind the camera I be a little more forgiving, but lets face it Carpenter, we expect more from the master.

Trailer of the Day: Ghosts of Mars

I tried watching this, I really did. I figured there was no way it could be as bad as it's reputation. Even if it was that bad maybe it would have a certain lovable charm to it like Battlefield Earth (which was a great movie, YOU SHUT UP!).

I didn't make it past the first 20 minutes. Ghosts of Mars suffers from the worst affliction any movie could have, it's boring. I'm fine with bad movies, me and bad movies are cool, but bland movies are something else all together. When a you're watching a movie and you realize it's not quite bad enough, you know you have a problem. I didn't even get to see if there was an inevitable show down between bad-boy Jason Statham and bad-boy Ice Cube.

I don't know if it's just me but it seems like a lot of 90's horror movies were like this. I can think of  some good 90's horror movies if I try hard enough (Candyman come to mind), but I can't think of any bad ones. Maybe there were no bad horror movies in the 90's just boring, totally forgettable ones. Ghosts of Mars  is like a death knell for the 90's wailing on just after it's passing.