13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2009: Night #13 Poltergeist

Ah! It's Hallowe'en! How are you my pretties? Ready with your candy and drinks to settle in for our movie of the dark night of nights? Good. Sit back and press play on the number one pick for Hallowe'en and my all time favourite horror movie, Poltergeist. This week I read more than one article talking about people's memories of their early horror movie experiences and the sense of great fear, dread, and trepidation of but immense attraction to particular films and shows. For me Poltergeist stands as one of my experiences like that. The commercials and trailers for Poltergeist were terrifying and I loved every jangly-nerve, heart beating hard moment until I could see the movie. I saw it short weeks after Xtro on that same video disc format. I don't know how many times I watched it that weekend, but it was a lot.

One thing I always say about Poltergeist is that it is the most beautiful horror movie I've seen. Some of the scenes are just as awe inspiring as they are creepy or scary. Beyond the visuals there is also the family component that adds so much to the movie. The horror is so much the better for the contrasting scenes and for the real tension created because we feel for this family. The movie touches on a lot horror staples providing a great smorgasbord of terrors. Then there are the imagined horrors behind the scenes. The Poltergeist trilogy has been considered cursed, what with the deaths of Dominique Dunne (murdered), Julian Beck and Will Sampson (cancer), and finally child star Heather O'Rourke (disease). On the other hand Craig T. Nelson has done more than all right.

Mood: festive.

Music: This Is Halloween by Danny Elfman off of The Nightmare Before Christmas (soundtrack).

13 Nights of Hallowe'en: Night #8 The Mangler

For those who think that the movie from last night had
a good pedigree, this one will be mind blowing. The movie is “The Mangler”. Let’s start from the considerable bottom and move up. At the bottom on this impressive horror chain is Ted Levine, instantly recognised at the drop of this line... “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.” Rising higher we come to the director of this movie. It is none other than Tobe Hooper director of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”. Hooper also has credit for work on “The Mangler” screenplay. Next up is an actor whose work nearly everyone knows but yet many do not know his face. Even from this movie they won’t know his face. He is of course Robert Englund, famous for he of the burned face and finger-knives, Freddy Krueger!

One might think that this is enough of a collection of horror’s best. How could it get any better? Easy. “The Mangler” is based on one of the short stories of Stephen King. The movie takes the story and adds onto it in nice ways. Some people don’t like that. Numerous people do not like the movie at all. However, when the complaints involve the idea that Englund is terrible in everything, then obviously they are not the right audience for “The Mangler”. It could be said quite insultingly these people don’t know horror, on that count at least. Same situation for complaints essentially about King’s story. “The Mangler” is a blood drenched, body mangling, capering and leering, antacid chewing, masterpiece. Watch it for what it is and you won’t be left flat... or pressed and folded.

Mood: frivolous.
Music: House of 1000 Corpses by Rob Zombie off of Sinister Urge.