Prom Night remake clips from Horror Unleashed...

These are short interview clips of the cast and film makers where they talk about their own proms, the filming of the movie, etc. There are four total here.

I am a huge fan of the original Prom Night. This one is not anything like it but rather a completely new type of thing with the same name. Anything called "Prom Night" without Jamie Lee Curtis is not actually Prom Night.

Remember Jamie Lee's disco dance practice? Then she cuts a rug during the prom at the height of Disco - I think that's my favorite thing. But, back to practice... she has this thing she does with her hair, kind of puts her hands behind her back under her hair and then pulls her hand up fluffing her hair up (no, she's not a "fluffer", get your mind out of the gutter) and I just think it's so funny that it kills me. I love that movie. I might just go watch it right now.

Anyway, you can see old cheesy campy horror stuff at the Horror Unleashed site, and there are some good ones.

http://www.horrorunleashed.com

Until the next clip - I'm hoping for some extended scene that will be really fun, like Jenna Jamison dancing with her throat ripped out. That's my favorite so far.

Don

Well, the headline of this post is a little misleading... there aren't any "Jenna Jigglers" in this clip (unlike the previous one... damn they are big, round and fake...) because this is some commentary and such. For instance, did you know that Zombie Strippers is NOT just about zombies and strippers, but rather has a deep and significant political message that the more cerebral of the viewers will notice and appreciate? Then again, for those "low brow" fans of zombie films, there are zombies and strippers.

Personnally, I found this an amazing revelation and now have a renewed respect for the political courage of Jenna and the depth of her acting ability. I mean, to be able to portray very impactful social and political commentary while appearing to simply strip on a stage topless with blood all over her. That's talent.

Find more clips, cheese, shocking revelations and contests at www.HorrorUnleashed.com

Don

Here are some short clips from the Ghostbusters Blu-Ray release in June. The best one is the commercial that the crew shot to advertise their activities, shown with Sigourney Weaver putting away groceries. I had forgotten about her in this film, actually... and I love her. There is commentary along with the clips, which I don't enjoy. Still, good reminder of that great "classic" of cheese.

Check out more clips, contests and that poster creation thingy at www.horrorunleashed.com

I don't know what's next on the clip department, but I hear that I will keep getting the horror corn-ball stuff for another week... hoping for 3 or 4 more good ones.

Don

Here are some clips and scenes from the Prom Night remake, including commentary by film makers and performers. I've always had mixed emotions about this remake as the original was part of the original group of low-budget horror films that elevated Jamie Lee Curtis to Scream Queen status, and I hate to see the classics messed around with. Still, the point of view of this film was interesting as it humanized the attacker, and his attack style was anything but subtle. Very physical movie.

Next up: some exclusive clips from GhostBusters! This was recently re-released on Blu-Ray, and I for one am thrilled to see a resurgence of this classic film. Btw, did you see ZombieLand yet? Believe me, it's relevant...

You can find more on horror cheese at www.horrorunleashed.com

Don

Redband clip from Zombie Strippers - this is the one with Jenna Jameson, not the one with Phillip Seymore Hoffman... thank God.

Check out more at www.horrorunleashed.com. I've got Prom Night coming next...

Don

There will always be some movies that send us into sleepless nights crying for our teddy bear no matter what age we are. They are the ones we rent on Saturday nights and watch with half-closed eyes, hoping that the terror on screen will cause the hot girl sitting next to us to jump into our waiting arms before it causes us to wet our pants; and as such will always hold a special place in the hearts and minds and sexual machinations of teenage moviegoers across the world.

But those of us who have tried this one too many times know that there is another side to the scary movie. Be it the serial killer wielding his plastic prop knife dripping with ketchup blood, or the ghost flying about on not-quite-so transparent rope, the so-called "campy" side to the horror genre and the laughs it brings us is as important as the screams. Maybe even more so!

So this Halloween we celebrate the good, the bad, and the downright ridiculous with a slew of new and classic movies - and we call it Horror Unleashed! From black and white oldies (13 Ghosts) to undead porn stars (Zombie Strippers) to rampaging automobiles (Christine) to Japanese remakes (The Grudge), the films of Horror Unleashed represent some of the Creepiest and Campiest movies there are.

Plus, reanimate your scary movie experience by entering the Horror Unleashed Boo-ray High-Deathinition (yes, I went there) sweepstakes, where you can enter for a chance to win an HDTV, a PS3 Slim and 10 of the best creep and camp films we've got on Blu-ray High Definition! The winner will also receive a promo code for a free download of the all-new Zombieland mobile game, available now on iTunes!

I am going to receive a series of exclusive clips, contests, news items and games over the coming weeks, and all will be shared here on BHM. If you prefer to go direct you can also fan Horror Unleashed on facebook (www.facebook.com/HorrorUnleashed) and/or follow on Twitter (www.twitter.com/HorrorDVD).

Check out the website at: www.HorrorUnleashed.com for the sweepstakes, movie info and the poster creator that I used in this post... not a lot of horror movie posters to choose from, but goofy fun. I think I look good as a vampire warrior.

Follow along here on BHM too as I will continue to post everything that comes my way. An R-rated clip from Zombie Strippers is coming next - stay tuned.

Twentieth Century Fox and MGM Home Entertainment released a collection of horror classics on Blu-Ray on September 15th, and I got the lot of them. If you haven't made the jump to Blu-Ray yet, it is a leap worth leaping in my opinion - big screen TV and Blu-Ray together is the closest thing to being in the theater that I've experienced, with the added benefit of no cell phone rings or couples murmuring sweet nothings to each other in the row behind... not to mention that my feet rarely stick to the floor in my den. Rarely.

The weekend of September 19 and 20 was rainy and flooded in the East Tennessee town of Athens, where I live. With no outside work to do the time was ripe for a horror movie marathon. After gazing longingly at my new wood chipper sitting idle in the barn near a pile of branches soon to become mulch, I unwrapped the first of the new Blu-Rays and settled in...

Child's Play

Pretty much everyone has seen this film, but it had been a very long time for me. While not scary at all, Chucky has become an icon of horror, albeit silly horror. The crisp visuals did make watching this one more enjoyable than I remember and I exclaimed out loud more than once about how good it looked.

For those who don't know the story, a serial killer who is also into voodoo is cornered in a toy store where he makes his last stand against the homicide detective determined to take him down. The killer planned for immortality by learning an ancient voodoo spell capable of moving his soul into the body of another prior to death. I guess he planned to continue "hopping bodies" over and over again to cheat death through all eternity. Unfortunately for him, there are no available hosts in the toystore after hours, so he settles on a "Good Guys" doll.  The doll winds up in the hands of a little boy who soon discovers that it has come to life and embarked on a killing spree.

This one if actually pretty fun... a bit better than I remembered. I just had to try not to apply any logic to the situation. I can buy a doll coming to life via a voodoo curse, but the strength the doll had to knock over adults with no means of leverage took a bit more work.

I'm not usually one for "special features" on these DVDs, but the piece on special effects was pretty cool. The mechanical dolls used to give Chucky life, along with the scenes where a "little person" was dressed up as a a knife-wielding toy, were fascinating. On to the next...

Wrong Turn

I had actually never seen this one before. The premise is that a young medical student in a very hot Mustang speeds through the West Virginia countryside on his way to some very important meeting and makes a "wrong turn", later slamming into another car packed with camping gear and leaving himself and a group of youngsters without transportation and stranded in the middle of nowhere. In "The Hills Have Eyes" fashion the kids are picked off one by one by a family of grotesquely deformed folks who proceed to cook them up and chow down. Lots of gore and sillyness ensues, and the film is not bad.

I didn't look at any special features, but the shots of "West By-God" Virginia are amazing in Blu-Ray. I did particularly enjoy the chick in the tree getting her head cut in half also, and the way that her dead body hit against limb after limb as it hurled toward the ground was a nice touch.

Wrong Turn II

There was no question that the sequel to Wrong Turn had to be next. This one starts the same way as the first, except this time it is a hot chick in a hot car driving through the same West Virginia wilderness. She is an actress on her way to film a reality show with an end-of-the-world theme. She takes, you guessed it, a wrong turn... and hits a deformed guy crossing the road. He literally flies over the car and lands in a heap behind her - quite dramatic. After she gets out to investigate the carnage the accident victim gets up, straightens his body, and acts creepy, while another emerges from the woods and cuts her in half length-wise with a machete. AWESOME scene!!

The rest of the cast gets tired of waiting on the now-dead actress and begins filming. The host of the show is played by Henry Rollins, and he is fantastic as an ex-marine searching for a niche in the world. Rollins absolutely steals the show as he lurks around and plans the rescue of the reality actors who are dismembered and disembowled one by one.

This is an example of a sequel soundly surpassing it's predecessor - I really enjoyed Wrong Turn II. There was even some character development here, unlike many of the horror of late. Not a ton mind you, but just enough so that I shouted with glee when some of the losers met their ends, and cheered for others as they attempted their escapes. This is a good one.

Misery

What a classic this one is. I hadn't watched Kathy Bates as Annie in a long time.

Annie is a dorky country woman who "rescues" her favorite author Paul Sheldon (James Caan) after he has a terrible accident in a snow storm. Sheldon writes trashy novels about a woman named "Misery" and Annie is his "number 1 fan". After the rescue, Annie holds Sheldon hostage and he psychosis becomes more and more pronounced.

I was amazed by the preformance of Kathy Bates in this film. She won an Oscar for the performance, and it is very clear that she deserved every ounce of that little gold statue. Truly amazing... and the hobbling scene is worth the price of admission on it's own. Chances are that most have seen this film a few times, but another watch is always warranted, and the Blu-Ray experience just adds to it. This was a very good purchase.

The Hannibal Lector Collection

The saga of Hannibal Lector is presented all together here with three DVDs included, Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Of course, all had to be watched back to back in a Lector extravaganza Sunday afternoon.

Manhunter is the "prequel" that introduces us to the cannibal, Hannibal. Lector eats his way through respectible society with a determined cop on his trail. Lector is finally caught and imprisoned, setting us up for...

Silence of the Lambs, the classic film starring Jody Foster and Agent Starling. So many classic lines. So many enduring characters. Silence of the Lambs is a true classic that I can watch over and over. Blu-Ray is a nice touch, but I'd watch this film again in any form.

Hannibal is the sequel starring Julianne Moore as Starling. She does a fine job, but I would have liked to see Foster again in this Role. The follow-up to a classic is always difficult... where do you go next? Hannibal decides that grossly disfigured characters, man-eating hogs and feeding a victim his own brains for dinner is the perfect place to go. Good film, though not nearly as powerful as Jody Foster in the main event. Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal is perfect throughout.

Slowly but surely my DVD collection is being transitioned to Blu-Ray because the experience is intensified with the almost 3-D quality of the picture. For the most part I am not replacing DVDs I already own but rather just buying my new ones in the new format... but this bunch was an exception that I don't regret. Oh, and I forgot to mention, both Child's Play and Misery include both the Blu-Ray and the DVD versions, so there's somethign for everyone. Good stuff, and highly recommended.

What a weekend!

We are only into the fifth episode and already there is a Halloween special. I guess that if you have a television series called "Friday the 13th" you had better have a Halloween special.

In this EP Micki, Ryan and Witchy-Poo (Jack) have a Halloween party inside the antique store and invite all of the neighbors that have visions of evil when they think of the store and the prior owner Uncle Louis. Things go terribly wrong, however, when some goofy dudes bypass the "do not enter" sign and go downstairs where the vault that houses all of the devil items is located. Those guys inadvertently conjure spirits via a crystal ball and open a path for the damned Uncle Louis to visit while a dwarf chick pretending to be a little girl locks Witchy-Poo in some kind of cage so that he can't help. Louis gets his hands on some amulet that might make it possible for him to roam the earth again.

Thoughts:

I like the fact that this isn't one of the "one size fits all" EPs that could show in any order. I understand what they're trying to do by making any episode be appropriate in any order, but I still like it when a little more is going on.

Other than the unique storyline this is not one of my favorites. The evil magic wasn't as good as some previous where vines choke people and rock stars turn 125 years old before your very eyes... now that was cool. Chasing down Uncle Louis and his whacked-out demon/dwarf friend is not quite as cool. Still fun, but not one of the better offerings.

Some strange woman is sneaking around the park at night and inviting homeless people to have a drink of tea from an ornate teacup. When they do the vines on the cup come alive and choke the person, giving the owner of the cup some quality that the person that is now dead had... i.e. youth. The adventure takes Micki, Ryan and Jack into the glamorous world of rock music and the quest for long-lost youngness.

Thoughts:

This episode is funny because of Bertie, this older woman social worker who has a crush on Jack and chases him around. She actually becomes trouble late in the episode but it all ends well.

The concept of killing someone to take from them some trait that you covet is not a new one and is dealt with well in this EP - the effects even work here because nothing has to fly around, no laser beams get shot, nobody falls into the pits of hell, you know, things that need good effects.

I realized in this one that Micki is really a bitch. I guess that's what happens when you have to wear your hair a little smaller than usual and you hang around with immature Ryan and "Witchie-Poo" Jack for a couple of episodes in a row. In fact, Micki's hair is getting progressively smaller as the EPs progress. Maybe that huge helmet of flaming red was too much, even for the late 1980s. Then again, maybe not; the "rock star" in this EP has absolutely enormous hair. Maybe they didn't want "big hair wars" that might make Micki's hair actually look small... be small on purpose and you can always claim that if it had been made big then it would have been supremely big and won the big hair award for sure.

Well, that's the end of the first DVD - five more to go!  Until next time, killer tea for you all!

Cupid's Quiver is the third episode of Friday the 13th: The Series and is about an ancient statue of cupid that causes women to fall hopelessly in love with the man who carries it. Unfortunately for the love struck females the second they utter the words "I love you" their love interest becomes compelled to kill her.

Thoughts:

This one is funny on a number of levels. First, the opening scene; A very nerdy dude brings the statue into a bar, hits on a woman who soundly rejects him, and then aims the cupid at her so that some kind of laser-beam can come out of it and change her tune. At the "love motel" later that night she speaks "the words" and he proceeds to choke her, until the cops come storming in out of nowhere. Doesn't make sense that the cops were there and it makes even less sense that there are several members of a fraternity there with them. What? Anyway, a frat boy steals the thing right out from under the cop's noses.

The frat dork that the brothers allow to clean up the joint steals it next and starts to find the power. Kills one girl by locking her in a truck with a bee hive which was pretty fun... beyond that there are no big revelations and the story goes along as you would suspect with no real surprises. Still, the way that the items work and the evil they bring are actually pretty brilliant. Good writers in story if not in dialog.