A couple of days ago my boyfriend and I were talking, and I was excited because I finally had gotten Re-Animator on netflix so I could have him watch it (he's not a horror fan, so I'm turning him into one)... then he went and asked me a terrible, awful question: "what are your top 5 horror movies?" And suddenly I knew that the only way my homework would get done would be for it to do itself....

I'm no good at making top 5 lists, or top anything lists, because there's always something I forget and there are always way more movies that I know I WILL probably have on my list... once I've seen them. I decided to try and make a few top 5 lists, one for each category, I suppose. Top 5 Halloween horror, top 5 Christmas horror, top 5 summer horror, top 5 mood horror, top 5 giallo, etc. So here goes.... and if some seem out of place, it's because I probably saw them around a specific time and therefore associate it with that time of year.

Top 5 Halloween Horror

1. Halloween

2. The Thing

3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre

4. Ringu

5. Phantasm

Top 5 Christmastime Horror

1. Black Christmas

2. Silent Night, Deadly Night

3. Nattevagten

4. Cemetery Man

5. The Exorcist

Top 5 Summertime Slashers

1. Sleepaway Camp

2. April Fool's Day

3. Happy Birthday To Me

4. Pumpkinhead

5. Friday the 13th

Top 5 Summertime Horror

1. Re-Animator

2. Night of the Creeps

3. Evil Dead/ Evil Dead II

4. American Psycho

5. Hellraiser

Top 5 Zombie Movies

1. Dead Alive

2. Night of the Living Dead

3. Dawn of the Dead

4. The Beyond

5. Fido

Top 5 Giallo

1. Opera

2. The Psychic

3. Torso

4. Don't Torture A Duckling

5. Tenebre

Top 5 Old Horror

1. Eyes Without A Face

2. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

3. Nosferatu

4. M

5. Les Diaboliques

Top 6 Horror Movies That Don't Fit Anywhere Else/Mood Horror

1. Carrie

2. The Abominable Dr. Phibes

3. May

4. I Spit On Your Grave

5. Hellraiser

6. Blood Feast

That's enough for now... I still feel pitifully amateurish.... there are so many movies I need to see, and I'm not even sure of the order on these lists... or if I've forgotten any.... comments/suggestions are quite welcome.

5 minutes later: I just realized that I didn't add "Inside" anywhere to the above lists. It may very well be my favorite horror movie, even though I say that very hesitantly because I don't like to limit myself. I suppose I could have added a foreign horror list. On that list would be Inside, High Tension, Cemetery Man (I'd move it), Man Bites Dog... and The Eye.

It's been a long-ass time since I've had the time to add a post here. As soon as I got to school, I found myself with 13 hours of school and 10 hours of work per week.... not to mention trying to find time to do homework and write reviews for the newspaper and applying to study abroad and applying for a film series internship... not to mention trying to stay healthy and failing. But let's talk about the month in horror. I haven't seen as much as I'd like (I'm taking 2 film classes and altogether have to watch 3 movies a week for my classes), but here it is...

Before I went back to school, I watched Urban Legend, Dead Silence, The Amityville Horror (1979), and The Backwoods. I also finished reading "The Ruins" and "The Stepford Wives."

The only reason why I slightly enjoyed "Urban Legend" was because I love urban legends and because it was filmed in a really nice location. For the most part, however, it was a rip-off of all the other 90s teen movies and I hated the main character. But this movie reminded me of those "Scary Stories to tell in the Dark" books that I used to read. Now I'm on the hunt for them.

I could definitely have lived without seeing "Dead Silence." It wasn't awful, but it was just... nothing. It didn't contribute in any way to my movie-watching. It was decent, the score was nice and I liked the atmosphere, but there was nothing to be taken away from this. As far as I can see, this film is really just another brick in the horror wall.

I thought "The Amityville Horror" was much more worth my time. I love the 70s. It's probably by favorite decade for any type of film, but horror especially. This is the decade where they were building the fine line between the stuff that Hitchcock and others did and the fun junk of the 80s. I've also found that every 70s horror movie has managed to deliver at least one or two decent scares, and I really liked the score to this. I admit that this one isn't the best 70s horror movie, but I did still enjoy it quite a bit. It's got that "70s air" that I really like.

"The Backwoods" is actually quite decent, which is more than I was expecting even with Gary Oldman in it. It wasn't as much a horror movie as I expected - more like horror in the way that some might consider "Straw Dogs" a horror movie. Sometimes I forget it isn't. The characters in this weren't entirely stupid, which was a nice change.

"The Ruins" by Scott Smith was frightening. It's always scarier to read something because it's more bearable to take in all the horror without actually seeing it but at the same time you're watching it in your head. This book was really frustrating. My friend and I are always talking about how frustrating it is when the villain feels "entitled" to cause the horror. I talked about this in my review of "Inside" for those of you who read it.  My friend and I both love horror, but we really do get frustrated with villains who think they have the right to do these things. Same with this book. The villains are the vines, and they are annoying. Still an awesome book.

"The Stepford Wives" by Ira Levin was awesome. I've seen the movie (er, the original, so all of this will be referring to that on since I haven't seen the one with Nicole Kidman), and I think I actually preferred the ending of the movie to the book. The same thing happens in both, but it's so abrupt in the book that it threw me off. Again, the villains are annoyingly "entitled" to doing this. This book makes me fear marriage, but it did come out at an opportune time because women were really going out of their way to claim their independence, so it was relevant. I liked it.

And then, with an unfortunate last trip to the movie theatre (my mother and I saw "The House Bunny" - gag), I was off to school. Since I got back to school, I have been watching and reading what I can between all the crap I have to do at school. I've read some Clive Barker short stories (yum) and I read "Flowers In The Attic," which I loved, and started the sequel but couldn't get through it. So far, movies have included....

"Deathdream." I forgot the year, but I think this just beats out "Black Christmas" as my favorite Bob Clark movie. This one is GREAT!! It's about a kid who goes off to Vietnam, dies, and returns home as a zombie. Symbolic, no? I think the best part was that the guy reminds me of my brother. Anyway, I thought this movie was pretty genuinely creepy, though the mother was the creepiest of all. Awesome movie, totally going to add it to my Christmas list.

"Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America." Three short films by the same guy, Douglas Buck, all deal with dysfunctional family situations in America gone awry. This is like "The Squid and the Whale" meets "The Shining" or something like that. The first one is quite possibly the creepiest short film I have ever seen. The second one is sort of a follow-up, and it's expected after the first one - not as creepy. The third one is altogether different. It's much longer, for one thing, and is completely devoid of blood (as opposed to the others). It's more of a horrific drama. All three are very grainy and all rather disturbing, especially the first one.

I watched "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror" for my History of Cinema class and LOVED it. I loved it a lot more than I did "Dracula." I love watching early horror, especially the German expressionism stuff, like "M" (which we also saw but I've seen it before and I won't talk about it here, though I love it). By this point, filmmakers were figuring out that shadows are damn scary and that most of the horror is in atmosphere. The only thing I didn't like was that in the version we watched some parts had sound, like whenever people gasped or screamed. It was very distracting and tacky.

The second movie I showed for that Obscure Film Club I mentioned earlier was an early 60s movie called "The Innocents." It was beautifully shot, though I wasn't a huge fan of a lot of the dialogue and how it was delivered - very British. However, some of this was rather creepy. They were really figuring out how to make ghosts scary at this time and they did pretty well. None of us really liked the ending, though. It was pretty sudden and ambiguous. I didn't mind how ambiguous it was, but the ending was so abrupt that it was ridiculous.

My friend and I decided to watch the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" instead of doing Japanese homework. I liked that it followed the book a lot more accurately than the 1978 one did. I didn't write about this one right away, so I don't remember as much of what I liked about it as I would like to, but I did enjoy it.

"The Experiment" was a good chance for me to practice my German numbers. It was also a damn good movie. It came out a few years ago and is based on the Stanford prison experiment of the 70s, where random people were put in a fake prison as either guards or prisoners and were observed. It definitely had that frustrating villain aspect, but it was expected and these guys volunteered and, anyway, I think the amazing buildup was definitely worth it. Great movie.

That's it, except for the book that I am a chapter or so into called "Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender In the Modern Horror Film." I like it so far, and it's really put me in the mood to watch "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." I showed "Inside" at the beginning of the year to a group of about 8 or so friends, and they all hate me now. Maybe this is a good excuse to get them to like me again - another horror movie.

...has been a lot less lazy lately. But thanks to the library, my friendly neighborhood video store, and various online sources, I've been able to set aside times at night when I get to see lovely, delicious horror movies. (At least, when my mother and I aren't going to the movie theatre to watch "Mamma Mia," but I'll pretend I never said that. I know I'm female, but I think most of my friends forget that.)

EYES WITHOUT A FACE!!!!!!!!!! I loved this. Not only is that one chick in this (Alida Valli from Suspiria and The Spider's Strategem), but this film is so amazing I couldn't believe it. The French really have been doing it right from the beginning. This is so classy and perfect and almost seems like it isn't a horror movie. It's gothic, very eerie, and it's got the father doing this for his daughter. Also, I've always been a big fan of blood & gore being implied rather than shown, ESPECIALLY in cases where it's going to end up looking fake. It's easier to imply than to spend hours on makeup and special effects that will someday be laughed at. Also, I loved that everyone seemed to have their own theme song in this movie. Really, really awesome. I've always like old horror movies like this.

My friend and I rented "Session 9" because we wanted something actually scary, and I'd heard a lot about this one. Also, it was between this and "Urban Legend" WHICH, by the way, I still want to see. I heard about this movie from somewhere, but I can't remember who from. It's some famous person's favorite movie. Some author, I think. I keep thinking Chuck Palahniuk, but then I think.... but really.... would this be his favorite movie? It's driving me nuts, though. Oh wow, I was right. I just looked it up. (Also, this has nothing to do with movies, but why are my eyes watering? .... oh, my mom's chopping onions.) I thought this movie was pretty eerie, but it's really a night movie. It would be completely ineffective during the day. I liked that the characters were not complete morons like characters can often be in a horror movie. Pretty spooky though, and though the twist was somewhat unoriginal the very last line still managed to send shivers down my spine.

We also rented "Turistas." I actually don't watch a lot of new horror. I don't ever go to the movie theatres to watch horror movies, usually because the ones that are out don't seem all that great (except for "The Midnight Meat Train" - I would DEFINITELY go see that if it was playing anywhere nearby). I remember when this one came out and I saw a preview for it. If I had told myself then that I would watch it a year or so later, I wouldn't believe it. But I did watch it, and I didn't hate it. I didn't particularly like it, either. For some reason, I just didn't consider it to be a horror movie. Like "real horror." The beginning is supposed to set the tone and create foreshadowing, but it didn't faze me in the least. I was sitting there and usually I feel at least a little bit queasy or unsettled if there's an opening like that or a scene somewhere in the movie like that scene, but I remember being completely aware of not being frightened or grossed out or really anything in the least, except for possibly indifference. Also, a lot of the time what makes a horror movie scary is having someone do something for absolutely no reason other than because they are absolutely sadistic. In this case, I won't lie, the guy has a pretty good reason to do this stuff. He's right. The gringos invaded their country. I think that if I was in Brazil, though, in a situation that seemed like it'd end badly, I'd think of this movie and be scared. In real life, people do things for a reason. But in the film world, the less of a reason there is, the scarier the movie is.

I am also reading the book "The Ruins" because I'd like to see the movie and I'm indulging in one last horror book before I go back to school on the 31st. When my friend and I were at Blockbuster renting those last two movies, I almost checked out either "The Ruins" or "Rogue," but, surprise of all surprises, everyone's (least) favorite video store has a clever new ploy to put all their hardworking, independent-owned counterparts out of business: "charge $5.43 for new releases and 99 cents - $1.99 for everything else. There was no way I was going to spend almost 6 bucks on a rental movie, geez, even a horror movie! I'll wait till I'm back at school and my netflix is started up again.

On the subject of reading, I finally got an issue of the August Rue Morgue. I got it around the 11th, I think, but I don't know if I mentioned it. I got it when I was driving (I WAS DRIVING!!! Hah - this is a big deal for me. I'm 19 and just learning how to drive) home from Eastern Washington and we stopped at the Barnes & Noble in the Tri-Cities. This issue is loaded with goodies. Not only does it focus on Pumpkinhead, it goes into the Clive Barker movies that are being made. The Midnight Meat Train, Book of Blood - and there was one more. Then there was something about the short story Pigeons From Hell, and southern gothic art. And Thriller on the back page. This is probably the second-best issue of the summer, right after the May issue on French gore. At least in my opinion. Close after the August issue is the June issue, on Japanese horror, and then the Hellboy one - for some reason, I wasn't big on it. Maybe because I have no real interest in seeing the movie.

When I get back to school, one of the first things I'll do it get my Friday night film club going again. Most of what I show is horror, but I also show random obscure movies. I don't think I've mentioned this before either, but I'll end this blog entry with the movies we watched last year in film club.

Pink Flamingos

Suspiria

The Devil's Backbone

Funny Games (the original, though it doesn't exactly matter)

Cannibal Holocaust

Blood and Black Lace

Man BItes Dog

Cemetery Man

The Iron Rose

El Topo

Sleepaway Camp

Ma Vie En Rose (little gay boy, not Edith Piaf)

Eraserhead

Cinemania

Sisters

Favorites: Pink Flamingos (I love John Waters), Suspiria (duh), Man Bites Dog, Cemetery Man, The Iron Rose, Sleepaway Camp (again, duh), and Sisters. I'll tentatively add Cannibal Holocaust to the favorites too. I don't think I ever want to see that poor turtle being torn apart ever again, but I'm glad I watched this. This was one of the movies I was too afraid to see until I decided to show it in film club (Man Bites Dog and Pink Flamingos were two others on that list - so were Irreversible and Audition, and I saw those this year too!). I'm really glad I saw it. It had a great (scary) message and I enjoyed it a ton more than "House On The Edge of the Park" which, if I'm not being a dumbass, is done by the same guy - Ruggero Deodato.

With that, it's time for dinner. Maybe I should ask my mom if we can cook ourselves a turtle. :D

The reason I haven't posted much lately is because I was really not doing much horror activity. I went to Walla Walla last weekend with my dad, where the closest I got to seeing a horror movie was when we almost watched "Ugetsu" and then didn't because it was too late. Since I got back, I haven't been watching as much horror as I wanted to, but that was for a reason... sort of.

The "reason" is because I watched an early 80s horror comedy called "Student Bodies," and that got me in the mood for a ton of trashy 90s movies like "Scary Movie" and "Not Another Teen Movie," which I've been watching online just for fun. As for "Student Bodies," I didn't think it was all that great but I also didn't think it was awful. There were some parts that were downright funny and then there were parts that were so over-the-top they weren't even funny anymore. I thought they tried a bit hard with it. It really is an 80s "Scary Movie," but there weren't all that many movies for them to make fun of so they made fun of "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th." It was made in 1981 and I think that it would have done better if it had been made in the mid-to-late 80s because the slasher genre was really still just developing in 1981. If they had made it later, they could have parodied more movies and altogether made a better film. On the other hand, it wasn't terrible. Some parts were genuinely funny, and that Malvert guy was SO WEIRD!!!! He looked like he had no bones!!!

Yesterday I watched a couple of movies. The first was "The Monster Squad," which I LOVED (and loved even more when I found out it was directed by Fred Dekker, who also did "Night of the Creeps," which is AMAZING. "The Monster Squad" was a lot like "The Goonies," but for some reason I didn't really like "The Goonies" when I saw it for this first time last winter. It was too long and intricate. "The Monster Squad," on the other hand, had everything "The Goonies" had but in a much shorter time frame, which meant they had to cut out all the shitty parts, haha. I also thought it was funnier and certainly more up my alley than treasure-hunting is, although I admit I was put off at first by the traditional monsters, since they're so basic. But it was done really well and I would certainly show it to my children (assuming I ever have any, of course). It's very straightforward, a good way to get your kids familiar with their monsters. Dracula hates garlic and can be killed (along with other vampires) by a wooden stake. Werewolves can be killed by silver bullets (and the werewolf was played by Napoleon Dynamite's uncle, which was funny), and Frankenstein... well, just treat him nice and he'll be eating out of the palm of your hand. Awesome movie.

The second one was the original "Dracula," which I'm ashamed to admit I'd never seen until last night. It was between that and "Eyes Without A Face," which I think I'll watch right after I finish this. My friend told me that Bela Lugosi can only be watched in the dark, so I watched it around midnight in a pitch-black room. She was right. I mean, I'm sure this must have been a real shocker when it came out. Nowadays it's pretty silly, and so is the original "Frankenstein" (which I HAVE seen, heh), but in the dark it is still pretty effective. At the end when I turned the lights back on all the scariness seemed to go away and that's when I realized that I actually had been fairly frightened by it, though mostly by that crazy guy's laugh. He reminded me a lot of Peter Lorre. This movie is certainly not frightening at all by today's standards, but I think it's aged pretty well (the quality wasn't the best). Of course, I think that about everything I see because I'm really not a typical 90s child. I grew up on Buster Keaton, not Full House. The point is, I liked this.

And now I'm off to watch "Eyes Without A Face."

Friendly horror quote before I leave:

"I don't know how much movies should entertain. To me, I'm always interested in movies that scar. The thing I love about "Jaws" is the fact that I've never gone swimming in the ocean again."

-David Fincher

So I was lying in bed this morning, looking all over my bedroom at the pictures that I have posted on nearly ever spare inch of wall. I put most of this stuff up when I was 14, 15, and 16 and so a lot of it is movies that I loved back then but am indifferent to now. Since I'm not home for eight months of the year, I haven't bothered to update anything. One of the pictures that I glanced over at was a small poster of "The Ring." That made me start thinking about how I got into horror in the first place. I think I may have already mentioned that my dad showed me a ton of Hitchcock movies and read me some Poe and that is one of the reasons I got into horror. Lots of things sort of pushed me along in the horror direction for a lot of my young teenage life, but I don't think there's a single thing that pushed me over the edge as much as "The Ring" did.

I was thirteen when it came out, and several of my fellow-eighth graders came to school telling everyone that it was quite "creepy." Naturally, being a "creepy" buff, I gathered my right arm (my best friend, who watched all the 80s horror movies with me last summer) and we hauled our skinny eight-grade asses to the movie theatre.

"Creepy" was an understatement, at least to me. Just because scary things fascinated me, it didn't mean they didn't scare me out of my absolute wits. I was covering my eyes throughout the entire thing and cowering under my seat. I missed nearly every scene, even covering my eyes during the investigation parts that weren't even scary. The atmosphere of the film alone was enough to send me running out with my tail between my legs, but I stayed throughout the entire thing, bugging my friend and the lady beside me (who'd brought her eight-year-old son!) to tell me what had happened in every scene that I missed (which was nearly every scene). When this hell finally ended, I was sweating and shaking and the little boy with the woman was crying in her arms. My friend thought it was a pretty good flick, nice and creepy (what the hell was the matter with these people!?!?! didn't they get SCARED!?!?!?!). I couldn't eat dinner that night and I couldn't sleep all night. I kept hearing that awful ring TV noise in my head and expecting Samara to jump out of the corners. The worst part was, since I hadn't seen most of the movie from covering my eyes, everything I'd missed I filled in with my imagination, which made it a hundred times scarier. I'm not exaggerating when I say I was terrified for a year.

Yet somehow I couldn't stop talking about it. Though I was still scared half to death, I began to relish my fear and told my other friend all about it and how scary it was. She's shy but isn't nearly as fearful as she appears to be (that's still the case, I was surprised that she was up for watching "Inside" with me in June), and she began to get a bit curious. She decided she wanted to watch it, and after I vehemently refused to watch it with her, I finally agreed. I was still terrified and extremely apprehensive, but somehow was looking forward to it. Instead of going to the Homecoming dance at my high school, I went to her house and we watched "The Ring." And this time I actually watched it. We only closed our eyes when the dead girl popped up in the closet, and again when I thought the guy popped up in the end. Ha - he actually pops up later, along with a flashback of the girl, so we kind of lost on that one (though not as much as her sister did when we woke her up with our screaming).

After that, I was completely obsessed. I was obsessed for at least two years, maybe a bit more. I found out that this was a remake and rented the original from Blockbuster. I found that the Japanese one wasn't nearly as intense and downright frightening as its remake, though it really was "creepy." Ironically, I probably would have enjoyed that one much more as a thirteen-year-old, just because it's more suspense-based than anything else. Anyway, after watching "Ringu" I bought "Ringu 2" and "Ring Ø: Basudei" from amazon and watched those. I bought and read the manga and the trilogy of books by Koji Suzuki. I rented "Rasen" and "The Ring Two" (which I didn't like quite as much) and "The Ring Virus" from South Korea (did not like it either). I even managed to do a Ring-based geometry project in 10th grade (does the angle at which Rachel falls into the well affect when and where she will hit the opposite wall?).

This is actually kind of embarrassing when I look back on it, but I know it's essential. After having my pants scared off by America and then being fascinated by the eerie suspense stuff that the Japanese seemed to be doing, I started going a little nutty over Asian film. I watched "Uzumaki" and "Kairo" and "Battle Royale" (I bought the book and some of the manga, too). I watched "Dark Water" and "Ju-On" and briefly skipped over to China for "The Eye" and South Korea for "A Tale of Two Sisters" and "Whispering Corridors." In San Francisco, I bought and watched "Suicide Club" (awesome!) "2LDK" (awesome and funny) and "The Red Shoes" (not so much), which is from South Korea. I watched "Shutter" and spent some time working up the nerve to watch "Audition" (finally watched it last spring). Like I said, I went crazy. The movies I mentioned are just the ones I can remember.

Along the time that I mentioned, mostly in my junior and senior years, I got interested in horror from the 70s and hopped back over to America for that. My 70s search brought me to "Suspiria" and Italy, which took me all over Europe. And now, I'm open to horror from every corner of the globe. I think that what happened to me with "The Ring," as pathetic of a story as it is, is a perfect example of being so afraid of something that it fascinates you. It's that mix of fear and fascination that keeps me going today.

And today... let's see. Well, yesterday, actually, I saw two movies, one with my friend (back from China! yay!). That was "Wolf Creek," which I liked. I'm really not a huge fan of things jumping out at you. Hitchcock was right in saying that "there is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it." As a matter of fact, I've found that the bang actually brings some relief to the situation instead of fear. When you expect a bang and it never comes, the tension is still there. This movie did that quite well, I think. And I really don't get it when people say this is a rip-off of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." The similarities are far and few, I think.

The second one I saw was "Pumpkinhead." I rented it mainly because it's the subject of this month's Rue Morgue and I like having seen a movie before reading about it. It's pretty campy and damn fun, so naturally I loved it and now I can't wait for my idiot Borders branch to get the magazine already. This is getting pretty long though, so I think I'll stop.

Wait, one last thing about "The Ring": when I was 14 or so, maybe 15, I was talking to someone online. Someone I hadn't met. Maybe it was on the imdb boards. Anyway, I asked them what their favorite movie was and then they asked me. Of course, I said "The Ring." I don't remember what they said word for word, but they basically said, "wow. that's an old movie." I was pretty taken aback at that, honestly. I really don't remember exactly how old I was, but the movie hadn't been out for more than two years for sure. I really don't get people like that, but oh well.

So I know this isn't a horror quote, but I think it's fun. And I like to leave with quotes.

"Unfolding in front of us is a scene so chilling, so horrific, so utterly bizarre that if you look real close and real fast--you can actually see Alfred Hitchcock in the background, cleaning the windows."

                                                      -Party Monster by James St. James

This will be short, since I'm about to head out on a day drip to Port Townsend - possibly the most haunted town in the state of Washington :) - and I've been pretty busy all week long. I do have one or two things to talk about, though.

First, I just got a phone call from my brother in Russia, where he lives. He's taking a trip to Italy with his girlfriend and wants to know if I want anything from the Dario Argento store. DO I!?!?!?!?! That's the exciting news.

The movie news goes as follows: This week I haven't been watching as many horror movies as I will be watching soon. I've had my boyfriend visiting me from Oregon, and he doesn't like horror movies. Fortunately for me, we do this thing where we pick a couple of movies each and then watch them all. I picked "The Vanishing," which I wrote a review about, and "Nattevagten," which I would write a review about if I had a chance to see it twice... but I don't. In fact, we almost didn't get to see it at all. We just got a TV at my house, and we don't have a VCR. The movie was on VHS. I almost rented a VCR for $10 and a $25 deposit, but at the last minute my friend let me borrow her VCR. So "Nattevagten" (1994), remade as "Nightwatch" with Ewan McGregor, was really good, although I think a more appropriate English title would be "Night Guard" or "Night Watchman." Oh well. I first heard about it in a little teeny book my cousin's wife got me at City Lights for my birthday called "100 European Horror Films" (link below).

Basically, it's about a law student who gets a job as a night watchman at a mortuary. He needs a job to get him through school and thinks it will be easy money. Unfortunately for him, there's a lot in store for him. Nothing out of the ordinary happens the first night he's there, but it's quite obvious how extremely terrified he is. Somehow, the film makes you feel like you're in there too. You have to walk past all those dead bodies down there. You have to sit and wait for the dead-body-is-actually-alive alarm to ring as well as he does. It's already terrifying. But then it becomes even more terrifying when things actually begin to happen. Things begin to happen when the murdered bodies of prostitutes begin coming into the morgue. I won't give any more away, and I wish I could actually write a review of this but I always like to see a movie more than once (The Vanishing I had seen a long time ago - or at least most of it. I felt like I knew it well enough to write it with only one viewing fresh in my mind) before writing about it.

Another movie we saw was neither of our choices - it was my dad's, and it wasn't really a horror movie. It was more of a thriller. It was called "Tell No One" and we went to see it at the Egyptian Theatre in Seattle. It was probably the scariest thriller I've seen, though. It was very edge-of-your-seat, and though I didn't absolutely love it (or that damn shaky camera), I thought it delivered the suspense quite well. It's about a guy whose wife is murdered but eight years later he receives an email from her. When he begins to investigate, people start dying and he is suspected. This wasn't bad, not horror but involves serial killers and such, and I liked it.

Off to Port Townsend. I checked out a few movies from the library and hope to watch them soon. "Wolf Creek," the Geoffrey Rush "House on Haunted Hill," and Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere."

100 European Horror Films:

http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_2538.html

Well, that's what I wanted it to be - but I'll admit I did see more than 80s movies. My best friend and I got back from a 3-week hike in Spain (somehow managing to get back without killing each other) and I decided that, to finish off our last summer together (before I went off to college and she went off to Seattle), we really needed to see some horror movies... some I'd never seen before and felt guilty about it. Another friend of mine, who introduced me to Rue Morgue and grew up in the 80s, was always giving me lists of 80s horror movies that he'd grown up on and felt were essential. Last summer really was more the "summer of horror" than of 80s movies because we watched much more than the 80s stuff, but our focus was primarily in that "Friday the 13th" area. (The problem with getting into a genre is that once you think you're getting the hang of it, you find out how much you're really missing out on. The biggest thing that came out of our 80s summer was the realization that there is still a ways to go.) The point of this blog entry thingy is mainly to cover the horror movies seen last summer, using my handy review notebook as a reference (and to remind me of what we saw), and to just say a little about each one. I do this a lot. It's a hobby.

Day One:

1. We started with Friday the 13th, just because it's one of the big(gest) ones. I remember that my biggest nitpick with this one was that the funny guy died within a half hour or so. Also, the impression I got from this one is that it's really much better in good company. My friend and I watched it on our moth-eaten couch from the mid-70s, eating chocolate and scaring the shit out of each other in suspenseful scenes. I don't remember being too highly impressed with this as a film, but I do remember being able to see why it was so popular when it came out. Not to mention the music actually is kind of creepy.

2. Next we went with Silent Night, Deadly Night, because my Rue Morgue buddy was always telling me to watch this one. This is the one where Linnea Quigley gets impaled with antlers, I believe. By this time I had learned to really not expect a masterpiece (I might've been expecting that from Friday the 13th) and I think that's why I managed to enjoy it a bit more. (One of the things I wrote in my movies notebook: Basically, you watch this to yell at the people on-screen. "You stupid moron, do not answer the door.") Sometimes you really do need to see that type of movie. I haven't seen the sequel, by the way, but I've seen a clip of the garbage day scene and heard that it's one of the worst movies ever. Is that true?

3. We ended the day with Sleepaway Camp, because it was getting dark and I thought it would be the least scary one. What's funny is that they got scarier as we went along. Silent Night, Deadly Night was just a tad bit more frightening than Friday the 13th (probably because I'm more likely to be killed by a crazy Santa Clause than go to summer camp). Sleepaway Camp was a whole different story. It was really, really stupid at first. I enjoyed the stupidity of it and my friend and I got a kick out of calling out the horrible 80s clothing (cut-off T-shirt, knee socks with shorts, etc.). We watched it without any idea of knowing the twist at the end or that there would even be one. In fact, we were confused because the identity of the killer seemed so obvious it was almost sad. (One thing that we did notice: at the beginning, when the family gets torn into by the idiots on the boat, we noticed that the son survived - not the daughter - and wondered why she seemed to be alive at her aunt's house. Ha ha.) For some reason, though, I could tell this one would be my favorite out of the three we saw that day - I couldn't figure out why. Toward the end, we began to guess what the twist was and, though we guessed right, when the twist popped up I can't believe how much it scared us. I think it was the face that thing was making and the creepy-ass laugh. We also thought it was ironic that we saved the one we thought wouldn't scare us for last and in the end it was the only one that actually even slightly gave us the creeps.

That's the only day I really remember exactly what we watched, so here's the rest of the month or so:

1. There were only one or two days when we only saw one movie, but one of those days was our Night of the Living Dead day. I'd never seen it before, and I honestly wasn't much of a zombie fan (that's changed in the last year, though I never really noticed how or when or why). When I first saw this I appreciated it but didn't love it (again, that's somehow changed in the last year). My highest praise for it was that it was a brilliant idea to make it in black and white, because that makes it timeless. All the gore in this is obviously fake, but in black and white you really can't tell. Another thing I really remember enjoying was how ironic the whole movie was. In the end, I'm quite aware of how great this movie is.

2. American Psycho was some random day. I realize that both that and Night of the Living Dead are not from the 80s, but I mentioned above that not all of these are. My first comment in my movies notebook is "What an odd little movie." Another thing I noted: "Basically what I learned from this movie is that I need to read the book." Oops, haven't yet. The reason I decided to see this besides the fact that I like horror movies is that I learned about it in the documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated." I was shocked that it was initially rated NC-17 because of THE SEX????? What???? The violence is so much more intense in this than the sex. Anyway, my last comment on this is that I really don't think they could have picked a better actor for this. Christian Bale was definitely the guy to do this. Listening to his little informative spiels as he was beating people with axes and chainsaws in his Howl voice (Howl's Moving Castle) was incredibly effective for this. In the end, that was what made it for me.

3. One of those days we mistakenly watched an awful movie called Cheerleader Camp. I rented it because I was inspired by Sleepaway Camp and thought I might be pleasantly surprised by it. (Later, my Rue Morgue buddy told me he could have warned me against it. How ironic.) Okay, so there were maybe two scenes that made me chuckle, mostly ones involving mascots trying to eat sandwiches or drunk camp counselors asking themselves if they are okay (and then reassuring themselves that they are), but overall it was terrible. The murders were bad, the acting was awful and the screenplay was even worse than the murders and acting put together. The dream sequences were just plain annoying and what was up with those red fade-outs? Overall, this was a very educational experience for me. It is the syllabus for the class "what makes a movie truly and honestly, suck a fart out of a monkey's asshole, bad."

4. April Fool's Day was a very nice change. As far as crappy 80s slashers go, this one was fantabulous. And though I won't give away the ending, I will say that this is one of the few movies they at least have an explanation for why the bodies, blood and gore is all so fake. Though this movie isn't exactly complex, it is slightly more so than many other slashers I've seen. It's amazing how much a little complexity will cut a fine line between cheesy and classic (Cheerleader Camp vs. April Fool's Day). One of the most amazing parts of this movie was not actually in the movie at all. At some point, my friend and I noticed that a Strauss piece that was playing in one scene was an ironically fitting soundtrack. We were content in listening to it for several more scenes until we paused it and realized that it was not coming from the movie but from the kitchen, where my mom was listening to it. It was really funny how fooled we were. We were giving the movie way more kudos than it deserved for something that wasn't even in it. Ha.

5. One day we decided to go Asian and watch Whispering Corridors. I don't know why I was so convinced that this was Japanese. I guess I read some misinformed person's review or something, or maybe I thought that "Memento Mori" was a Japanese phrase and that is the sequel to Whispering Corridors. Anyway, I was distracted for a little while there because I couldn't figure out why a Japanese movie would have characters with Korean names, would have people speaking something that sounded a little bit more like Korean than Japanese, and why the beginning titles had looked suspiciously like Korean letters instead of Japanese. Eventually I figured it out, but I just had to share a bit of my stupidity. Anyway, I felt that this movie was more intriguing than it was frightening. It was a little creepy how the ghost girl really didn't let anyone escape, but overall I wasn't very scared by this. I did find it interesting that I've noticed that Korean movies tend to have more a twist than Japanese movies though. Japanese movies really seem to just go with the flow instead of planning ahead. This was particularly a slick ghost movie, though it wasn't supposed to be. It was pretty raw and that seemed to work well for it. It was a little confusing, though, and I haven't really worked up the interest to see the rest of the trilogy.

6. The next one, Stacy, I think I watched with a different friend, another horror-freak (she's been my main horror movie buddy this summer, though I've had no company whatsoever since she trotted off in early July to visit her family in China for a chunk of the summer). What I liked about this one was that it was really pretty funny. The Near-Death Happiness was hilarious, and I loved the opening scene. My friend and I both agreed that this would have worked better as an anime, mainly because they could really have gone nuts with the violence. The Stacys were already like live-action anime characters and I really didn't think it would make that much of a difference.

7. Visitor Q wasn't really a horror movie. I saw it a year ago and am still not entirely sure how to respond to that. Why don't you watch it and let me know?

8. The Bird With The Crystal Plumage is, I think, one of the earliest Argento films I've seen. I've seen the Cat O' Nine Tails, which I think is a bit earlier, but I really can't remember. (I just imdb'd it - Crystal Plumage is his first and Cat is his second.) Anyway, this was when he was really trying to make a terrific first movie. You can see a bit of Hitchcock in this one - lots of suspense, and a very straightforward murder mystery-type story. I didn't like it quite as much as Tenebre and Deep Red, etc., but it's certainly much more impressive than some of his later movies. The Card Player, for instance. I can't believe how disappointed I was in that one. Anyway, I really did like The Bird With the Crystal Plumage.

9. My Rue Morgue buddy recommended High Tension to me, and I watched it on my own. My first impression was that the title does not lie. This movie is very tense!!! High tension all around for High Tension. Though this film didn't really have such an original twist, I didn't exactly see this coming and it did surprise me very much when I saw what the police saw on that television camera in the gas station. I've seen this a couple of times and I've found it that I enjoy it more and more each time I see it. Again, I didn't love the twist because it was so unoriginal, but that's really okay because the rest of the movie makes up for that.

10. I started watching Se7en when I was sixteen or so, on my own at around midnight, and turned it off five minutes in. I knew that it would be my type of movie - I read the synopsis and knew right away that I would love it. Unfortunately, gluttony is one of my worst fears and the thought of someone being force-fed to death is downright terrifying to me. I turned it off when I was sixteen and finally got around to seeing it last summer with my best friend and my then-boyfriend. Once we got past that awful scene, the rest of the movie really had me riveted. Kevin Spacey rules the film, I think, though I'm really glad I saw American Beauty before this or I wouldn't have been able to enjoy it to its full extent. What I mean by this seems like my type of movie is that I'm pretty fascinated by killers who have such a creepy M.O. thingy - like killing according to the seven deadly sins.

Day I Don't Know What:

1. I remember that we watched the following three all in one day. We started with Slumber Party Massacre. The only thing I really liked about this was its score, though I can't remember it a year later. It's just what I wrote about in my movies notebook. I don't remember being highly impressed with this one. Two things that bother me to no end in a slasher: a) when people go looking for the killer. The killer might as well have set a mousetrap for these idiots. b) when they don't make sure the killer is dead!!! This movie did okay on a, but b... not so much! Another thing my friend and I found.... puzzling, to say the least: later I'll mention Sorority House Massacre. What I won't mention is that we started watching the sequel to that, but we never finished it. What was weird about Sorority House Massacre 2 is that there are flashbacks in it to what happened in the sorority house, but the flashbacks are footage from the ending of Slumber Party Massacre! The movies are not related, plot-wise. This was so weird!

2. The second one we watched was Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers. Like the first one, props on the creative murders such as the outhouse death. Besides all that, it wasn't too amazing. Grown-up Angela has nothing on her younger self. She's just a nice person with a nasty side, whereas younger Angela was creepy through and through. Also, she was a boy. Overall, this was more cheesy fun than anything else. We did have fun making fun of how crappy some of those actors were.

3. Sorority House Massacre was really not all that bad. Last I checked, it had 2/10 on imdb while Slumber Party Massacre had about 4/10. Maybe I was getting used to all the shitty movies, but I really did like this one more than the latter. Absolutely no masterpiece whatsoever, but it was certainly much more well-made. The main character was pretty cheesy, but she did have a little bit of depth at least. The acting wasn't much (neither were the outfits), and it had cheesy dream sequences. But it also delivered one or two decent chills (or maybe it was just nighttime). Again, the victims weren't complete idiots, which was nice. If you must watch crap, watch this crap - it's probably the closest you'll get to a polished turd.

That was pretty much it except for a Masters of Horror episode, "The Fair-Haired Child," which did not impress me (to say the least). At the beginning of the school year I did see a few more, including "Happy Birthday To Me," which I loved. This is getting really long though, so I'll head out now. But I'll leave with a quote from an amazing 80s movie I saw early this May --

"Okay girls, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, your dates are here."

"What's the bad news?"

"They're dead."

                                                                          -Night of the Creeps

One last P.S. - In unintentional celebration of 80s horror, I've been reading Clive Barker's 1984 story "The Midnight Meat Train." :)

Thoughts accumulated throughout the day:

Something that comes out of a deprived childhood in which we didn't even own a TV is that I've missed a lot of big stuff over the years. I've missed a lot of horror movies. I've missed a lot of regular movies. I just watched The Shawshank Redemption a couple of weeks ago for the first time. The problem is, I usually can't decide between a well-known horror movie (or movie in general) or one that no one has ever heard of that I read about in one of my obscure film books. Usually I pick the latter, with the thought that enough people have seen the more well-known horror movies and the amount of more obscure horror films I've seen will balance out the well-known ones I haven't seen. But in the end, when I'm chatting with horror-buff friends and have so far impressed them with my knowledge of obscure Italian gialli, etc. and they mention how something in some other movie is similar to The Fly and don't I agree? And I have to admit that I ... er, haven't.... seen it. On the other hand, I'm not a complete dodo when it comes to the big stuff. I've seen The Exorcist, Carrie, Psycho, Alien, The Thing, Rosemary's Baby, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, Night/Dawn/Return of the Living Dead, The Shining etc. But then there's the ones I've missed: Child's Play, The Fly, Carnival of Souls, etc. For those and many, many more, I am ashamed. I try to watch a new movie every day and I try to make it horror. The next three on my list are The Vanishing, Nattervagten, and The Stendhal Syndrome.

I just finished watching The Howling, which I've heard is terrific. As far as the horror sub-genres go, werewolf is not all that appealing to me. On the other hand, I liked An American Werewolf in London, so I gave this one a shot and I did enjoy it. Very raw, very grainy, and the ending was everything that I like in a horror twist: sad, yet horrific. For some reason, the end kind of reminded me of They Live - I don't know why. The one (slight) problem I had with this movie is that scene where Karen is in the doctor's office toward the end and that one guy comes in (dammit, I can't remember his name, but he was Marsha's brother) and starts transforming into a werewolf. The problem I have with this scene is that he seems really distracted with his transformation and she has a good three or four minutes to get away safely but just stands there screaming and yowling. Maybe she's in shock, but really - if I saw someone grow two feet of hair in ten seconds and grow about six inches worth of extra jawbone in another thirty, you can bet I'll be scampering out of there faster than a startled cat. There's time for shock later.

Lately, I've been trying to read more horror as well as watch it. I've read some Jack Ketchum and Stephen King, my dad got me hooked on Poe when I was in third grade, and I don't think I've forgotten a single ghost story I've heard since the age of five. I've also read some H.P. Lovecraft, but not as much as I would like. So this week I've read two short stories (I would have read more, but I've had young cousins over and they demand at least some attention throughout the day :D): "The Colour Out of Space" by H.P. Lovecraft (I've missed huge chunks in the literary world as well) and "The Empty House" by Algernon Blackwood. "The Empty House" was really a straightforward ghost story (what else to expect from a book titled "Ghost Stories Chosen By Edward Gorey"?) about a man and his aunt who try to spend a night in a haunted house and basically just encounter ghosts. I sort of wanted and expected more of a twist, but the story did still hold my attention. I also got a book the other day, a collection of short stories titled "Outsiders" and it features work from Jack Ketchum, Clive Barker, etc. I read a couple of those, but I'm not sure how into it I am yet.

What I'm REALLY excited about is the six things I'm currently expecting in the mail (soon to be seven, I hope). Two of them are back issues of Rue Morgue. One is issue #37, the Haute Tension issue, and one is... I think it's 55, which deals with Jean Rollin/erotic horror, though I debated whether I should buy that or the Fulci Halloween issue. I'll get that one later, though, for sure. One is a book, Flowers In The Attic. Three are books that my aunt has ordered for me (I requested them) as a birthday present: "Bad Blood: The Illustrated Guide to Psycho Cinema," "Men, Women, and Chain Saws," (on gender roles in horror), and "A Taste of Blood: The Films of Herchell Gordon Lewis." The seventh is hesitant, I'm waiting for a reply, but it's a collection of short stories by Bentley Little. How exciting!! I'm slowly adding to my collection of horror books. Later I'll go into more detail, but I think I'm done for now. I don't know how to tag this post, since I mentioned so much stuff. I guess I'll just tag what I talked most about.

I'll leave with a rather depressing-cause-it's-true (though that's debatable): "The success of the horror genre has led to its downfall." -Dario Argento

Since this is my first post, I can't really think of anything really specific to start on or to go from, so I suppose I'll start by introducing myself a bit. Like I said in my main profile, I'm 19 (newly). My favorite color is blue, specifically robin's egg blue, and most of my clothes are at least some shade of blue. I'm a blonde half-Mexican. I have no tattoos and have never dyed my hair, and I have thirteen piercings, including each individual ear piercing. I have seven on both my earlobes put together, and then I've got my rook pierced (google image it if you don't know what that is - it's kind of hard to explain). I have my nose pierced, my belly button twice (one on top and one on the bottom), and I've got a pair of my clavicles done. I have no favorite movie. Music-wise, I listen to Kraftwerk, Queen, The Beatles, Manu Chao, and Gogol Bordello. During the school year, I have a weekly film night where I show all kinda of weird-ass movies, mostly horror, though the others get tired of that. That's all I can think about to write as a general introduction. I'm assuming that the fact that I'm a horror freak goes without saying.

I'll go ahead and mention the last few horror movies I've seen and what I thought of them. It's easy to do, since I have been keeping a notebook for over 2 years now where I write a little bit about every movie I've seen, and it's just a habit now. Starting with two days ago and going back....

1. Frailty (2001) - I mostly heard good things about this before I saw it, both from this site and from an ancient issue of Rue Morgue magazine (which I'm crazy about, I keep ordering back issues). I heard that it was fresh, original, and after watching it concluded that it was a horror movie cleverly disguised as a twisted family drama. It stars Matthew McConaughey as a grown version of Fenton (Matt O'Leary, in flashbacks) the son of a single father (widower, I think, creepily played by Bill Paxton). McConaughey is telling and FBI agent about his father, who claimed to have visions from God and angels that their family was destined to clean the Earth of demons. In flashbacks, the demons look like real people, but Fenton's father claims to see all their sins when he touches them. Fenton's brother, Adam, believes their father, but Fenton isn't quite as easily convinced. It's not a particularly scary movie, and it never says for sure whether or not there actually are angels and demons or if Adam and the father are just insane. The horror really lies in the implication that there might be angels and a God who orders people to do what in the Bible says they shouldn't be doing. I'm not religious, but I still find this a bit creepy in the context of the film. Not bad at all, really eerie - and why the hell didn't Matthew McConaughey stick to this kind of film? I see him in movies and I just can't stand him. He's watchable in this, but it was still hard for me knowing that he's in a lot of piece-of-shit movies nowadays.

2. May (2002) - This is another drama-like horror that could actually be considered to not be a horror movie at all. I thought this was kind of a mix of "Carrie" and "Amélie" as I was watching it. At the beginning, I had the thought that I would absolutely love it, just because the beginning is stylishly and beautifully shot and was funny in a way. I did like it, but I don't know if I would say in the end that I loved it. One of the things that put me off is that it was literally painful (and not in a good way) to watch May try and have a conversation with someone. I'm not exactly the most social person on the planet, but I've figured out over time what is appropriate and what is not. Even Carrie wasn't this antisocial and awkward. On the other hand, there's a scene where the guy she likes (loves), Adam, asks her a story about work and she tells him it will be gross. He says that he loves gross things, so she tells him this incredibly gruesome story about a dog that was pretty disgusting but it would just make my eyes widen if I heard it in real life. In the film, you can tell he's completely disgusted because he can't finish his lunch. I thought this was actually one of the less awkward parts until I saw his reaction, and then I had to wonder about him. He wanted to be grossed out! Anyway, like in "Carrie," (but nothing like it at all) there's a big bloody showdown at the end. This entire scene is actually pretty funny. May is clever to do it all on Halloween. The score during the part where she's sewing is really pretty, and the very end of the film is rather beautiful in a very spooky way.

3. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - I made the mistake of reading the book first. I loved the book, and I really could not get over how different this was. In fact, it was so different that I could barely even consider them to be related. First of all, they changed it from a small town in the book to San Francisco in the movie. As a film, I thought this was actually pretty well done, and Donald Sutherland is terrific as usual. Jeff Goldblum is also fun to see in this. The most redeeming factor (for me) is how incredibly creepy the ending of the film was. Unfortunately, since I read the book, I had that story planted in my head and while I was watching the film I felt like I knew what the story should be and it kept slipping through my fingers.

4. Boy Eats Girl (2005) - The main thing I can remember about this is that it was sort of cute, but in a dull way. It's about an Irish high schooler who is depressed because he thinks he sees the girl he likes with someone else. He accidentally dies and his mother uses a magic book to bring him back to life, but she forgets the magical ingredient, so he comes back wrong - with an appetite for human flesh. This sparks a zombie epidemic. As far as I can tell, there's no way that this kid can survive because he's living unfairly after being brought back to life. The fair way to do it would be for him to die again and stay dead. Even though his death was an accident, he still died fair and square. As for the big showdown of the movie, which involves a "Braindead" lawnmower-esque scene (only with a tractor) was sort of ruined in the way that it was really not at all hardcore, and all the rubber body parts flopped around uselessly. I wasn't a huge fan of this one.

5. Dawn of the Dead (2004) - I don't think I'll write much about this one, since most of the people who will be reading this will most likely have seen this and formed their own opinion. The reason I didn't see this a long time ago is that I typically stay away from remakes, but I was finally drawn to it when I heard so many good things about it and heard the Johnny Cash song in the opening credits. This, to me, was more action than horror, and a pretty good action movie at that. My favorite scenes, probably, are the ones with the guys playing chess on opposite roofs. One thing that irked me: Sarah Polley was so obviously in love with her husband. I know she doesn't have much time to mourn, but I found it a bit hokey that she could so quickly fall in love with the TV guy. Another good part: the zombie baby.

6. Fido (2006) - This is probably the cutest zombie movie I have ever seen. I would probably show it to my mom, who rarely likes anything more intense than "Benny and Joon." Not only is the film itself beautiful, with the colors and the score, but the story really is extremely sweet. It's about a small community in the 50s, who keep zombies as servants as long as they're wearing a collar that makes them harmless. A family of three (one little boy) is one of the last households to obtain a zombie, whom the little boy names Fido and soon befriends. Not a typical zombie movie or a typical horror movie, but still very good.

These are only the last six - I've also recently seen Mulberry Street, The Signal, The Machine Girl, Teeth, Inside, The Stepford Wives (1975), and Let's Scare Jessica To Death. I might write about those later, maybe not. Although you can find my review of Inside on this website, at this link - http://www.best-horror-movies.com/inside-2007-horror-movie-review.html

THANKS FOR READING :)