13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2009: Night #9 Evil Dead

If I've had great movies and classics up to this point welcome to the next step up. I am one of the ones who prefers the original Evil Dead to the more comedic sequel as a matter of preferring pure horror movies overall. I rather believe that Evil Dead is indeed the Ultimate Experience in Grueling Horror. Not that there aren't rougher movies, though those tend to lack the elements I require to call a movie horror rather than a sub-genre or related one. Not that there aren't more horrific movies, they lack the grueling bit. I think this because, well, it's Evil Dead and its vicious, and violent, and rakes poor Ash over the coals even though the rest of his friends really get it too. Director Sam Raimi and his friends actor Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert created an institution.

I was rather late to the party watching Evil Dead. I didn't see it until my early college days. I remember seeing the second one in the local video store but never the first so thankfully I did not see them out of order. I would not suggest seeing the trilogy out of order. I had from a source I no longer recall heard something about an alternate version of the scene with Cheryl in the woods ending with two Cheryls. Where this bizarre and by all accounts imaginary alternate scene was dreamed up, I do not know and seems limited to whomever it was that told me the tale. Cheryl's woods scene as it stands in the movie is one of those moments everyone talks about. It is also one of the scenes that got it labelled as another of the video nasties.

Mood: taunted.

Music: Perfect Crime by Guns N' Roses off of Use Your Illusion I.

13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2009: Night #8 Xtro

This is likely the first real horror movie that I ever saw. I mean that wasn't on TV during the day. I don't remember seeing any at night by then. However I don't clearly remember any of the movies I must have seen during the day on weekends. When I first saw Xtro the format was videodiscs. They were before real laser discs, and before VHS, though Betamax had come on the scene and the store was renting a few of those too. For me Xtro is an infamous movie. I wasn't the only one my age to see it, but really, that said, we were all too young. I remember wanting to see Halloween 3 but being denied by my parents so a scary movie masquerading as science fiction was a good choice. That they never saw the nudity or gore was a small miracle given the number of times I watched it.

As much as I'm against spoilers, sometimes if a scene is early enough in the film I will let things slip. Xtro contains one of these things you need to let slip so that people will know just what kind of movie it is. For Xtro that scene is where a woman is attacked by an alien and within minutes violently gives birth to a full-grown man. To this day the movie still remains one of my favourites. It took what seemed like forever for it come out on DVD, finally doing so in 2005--at least in North America. Xtro was of course one of the British video nasties, though this time actually from Britain. Despite its origins the film bore credit screens with the old New Line Cinema logo and was one of the Smart Egg pictures; a pair of company names that stood for horror even before New Line hit it super huge.

Mood: fine.

Music: Distant Skies by Stratovarius off of Fourth Dimension.

13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2009: Night #6 Silent Night, Deadly Night

Oddly enough it just wouldn't be Hallowe'en without a Christmas themed horror film. The mother of them all as far as I am concerned is Silent Night, Deadly Night. I've also been known to call it the Carrie of slasher films. It really is a phenomenal movie and of course it is also an incredibly infamous film surrounded by immense and intense controversy. The venom pitched at this movie is almost ludicrous. Most of it was sight unseen and a lot of it just plain incorrect in its assumptions. My favourite thrashing involved a complete demonisation and smear campaign against all of the actors painting them as cavorting monsters. The comment that the movie makes--and there is one to be seen, not in a bad preachy way, but by example--is entirely lost on detractors and in a lot of cases fans alike.

I really have to give kudos to Robert Brian Wilson as Billy the star of Silent Night, Deadly Night. People focus on the monosyllabic portion of the movie (PUNISH!) and disregard the lead up (NAUGHTY!) where Robert makes you really feel for Billy and is just phenomenal as looking like someone just sick with fear. Seriously, the humanity he gives to the role prior to the breakdown is great. He has a haunted, tormented look almost worthy of James Brolin in the original Amityville Horror. Speaking of actors, Will Hare as Billy's grandpa is probably the creepiest old codger this side of Julian Beck in Poltergeist II, which is really saying something. I also have a soft spot for Britt Leach as Ira Sims the toy-store owner. Lastly, though it is not available anywhere, the soundtrack is exceedingly cool especially the creepy "Santa's Watching" song.

Mood: creepy.

Music: The Night Santa Went Crazy by Weird Al Yankovic off of Bad Hair Day.