Happy Halloween, kids!

You have been warned.

Top Five Scary Movies

In honor of Halloween, which is every day in my world, I tried to resurrect the old Top Five list I used to so enjoy. So, I asked a bunch of people to provide me with their Top Five Scariest Movies. We'll see how it goes.

So, first off, I gotta come up with my picks.
1. THE GRUDGE
2. THE SHINING
3. THE RING
4. DEAD SILENCE
5. AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005)I notice that most of these movies are recent, and there's a reason for that: I saw them in the theatre. Home video--or worse, television with commercials--just offers too many distractions, too many escapes, and stuck in a darkened room with a huge screen (and hopefully nobody text messaging across from you) is really the way to immerse yourself in the experience going on in the film. And I do have a great fear of ghosts, which I think all the above have in common.

You know what was really scary? DRAG ME TO HELL. The thing with that is, there was so much splatstick and comedy in it that you tend to brush off the fear easier than many horror flicks.

So, I asked a variety of people for their picks this time around, and the first to respond was Liz M. She included a practical essay for each entry. Her picks:

1. The Exorcist
2. The Shining
3. Se7en
4. Silence of the Lambs
5. Psycho Tyranist was next to respond (strange, since I sent him the request last). His picks:

1. Halloween (I still have to run from the dark when I'm done watching it)
2. The Exorcist
3. The Shining
4. Alien
5. Black Christmas
He and I watched the 1974 BLACK CHRISTMAS a couple months ago, and I was really surprised by how scary and well made it was. Especially since we both liked the 2006 remake when it came out. After watching them both back to back, the remake kind of blows.

My evil cousin Ryan sent in his response: "I don't think my opinion here would be very useful." At least he was honest.

Big Bob Freelander sent in a similar list (except his reason was that it's too hard to decide). He put THE CHANGELING on and nothing else.

Chemist Jeff said:
"I can't really recall that many that were truly scary. Yes a bunch of them startled the crap out of me, but that's not what I think of as far as being scared. So my (short) list is:"

1) Prince of Darkness
2) The Omen
3) Exorcist
4) Nightmare on Elm Street (the first one)
5) Big Mama's House (this was actually number one, but it's not really in the spirit of the question so I relegated it...)

Beta Ray Charles sent in:
I guess I haven't seen many, either. Or at least, not many good ones so my list will have some unorthodox ones, for sure.

5. The Grudge
4. The Fly (1958)
3. Terminator 2
2. This House Possessed*
1. Poltergeist

Prison Guard Johnny sent me:
1. Scream
2. The House on Haunted Hill
3. The Shining
4. Dead Girl
5. The ExorcistActually, he put BABY GENIUSES first, but I figured it would skew the voting. We want scary-fun, not scary-veryverywrong.

After a while, Evil Cousin Ryan did send it a list (he's not a big fan of Horror), which went like:
1 Terminator
2 Aliens
3 Alien
4 I know what you did last summer

I sent out my request several days ago, hoping I'd be in time for Halloween. But more than half the folks I asked for answers never got back to me. If they do, I suppose I can change this around, but until then, our winners are:
1. THE SHINING
2. THE EXORCIST
3. THE GRUDGEBut the weak turnout may be a reminder of why I let the Top Five lists die.

Rish "The" Outfield

*Apparently, this was, ironically enough, a movie about a possessed house. He said a scene where someone was taking a shower and the water suddenly became boiling hot and killed them stuck with him for years.

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Oh, merciful Lord, no.

"Dollhouse" addendum

Folks, it would be douchie (Dush-y?) of me to not post about the "Dollhouse" episode Jeff and I watched tonight. The reason: it was really, really good.

Yeah, I've bagged on the show of late, and I said recently that I hope that Joss can go on to a good show soon, now that "Dollhouse" is going to be canceled.

But maybe I spoke too soon (oh, not about the cancellation; they may as well start the "only four more episodes left"-type ad campaign), as I sure would hate for the rest of the bunch to be as good as the last one, and have my negativity posts be my final word.

So, the episode in question, "Belonging," written by Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon, was unusual, in that Echo was a supporting character throughout. It something of an origin story for Sierra, and it went miles toward making Sierra, Adelle, and especially Topher into sympathetic characters. I never liked Topher from the very beginning, and except for the birthday episode, I got the impression half of the writers felt we weren't supposed to like him (despite the other half's filling him with clever/cute dialogue).

I've noticed Eliza Dushku's performances really vary, and while she's always nice to look at, sometimes she can't pull off the acting without visible effort. But in this episode (and the one before, where she had a lot more to do), she was very, very good.

There were a couple of really great, interesting, and thought-provoking moments in this episode. Commander Will Riker himself, Jonathan Frakes, directed the episode, and while I'm not suggesting he's slumming it doing episodes of television (he's got a "Castle" airing in just a week or two) and a wildly uneven couple of "Librarian" TV movies, but the man directed STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT. That alone should get him work on Sci-Fi, time travel, and horror movies.

Well, if anything, I'll check out the last episodes in December with a bit more anticipation than I otherwise would have.

Rish "Glass Is Half Fu--" Outfield

"Thrill Me!"

I just had to drop a quick post to mention that one of my all-time favorite movies, NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, finally came out on DVD today.

I first saw NOTC in junior high, when I hadn't seen a ton of horror movies, and even though I loved it then, I had no idea what a special, uniquely great movie it was. Was it any wonder that, after that, I expected all teen horror films to be scary, funny, well-written, enjoyable, sad, realistic and surreal, only to find that most of them aren't any of those things? The film is considered a B-Movie, and if that's what it is, it's the best B-Movie of all time*, with a plot that goes something like . . .

A canister filled with alien slugs crash-lands in the woods in 1959, infecting a frat boy who dies and is placed in cryogenic freeze. In 1986, a couple of geeky best friends, in order to try and impress a beautiful sorority chick, pledge a fratrnity, and are told to steal a dead body and put it on a rival frat's doorstep. The body they grab turns out to be the one in cryogenic storage, and still harbors the space slugs, which go on a rampage, entering the dead and living alike and turning them into zombified incubators for more of the alien parasites. And somehow, hilarity ensues.

The film was made on a low budget in 1986 by twenty-six year old writer/director Fred Dekker. I worked in 2001 at a video store in Los Angeles, and before I was unceremoniously fired, met Dekker several times, as he was a regular customer. I showered him with praise for NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, and he was happy to talk about it, telling me time and time again that he didn't know when it was coming out on DVD.

Well, there were rights issues, music issues, and general headaches due to the property changing hands, so it wasn't until October 27th, eight years later that it finally came out (if you think about UMD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray, there have been three video formats since then, crazy).

I'm not writing this to encourage people to go out and buy NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (though if you want to, I'll not stand in your way), but just to mark the occasion (I was watching the special features on the DVD and would've felt guilty if I hadn't said something). There are very few movies that only get better with repeated viewings (WRATH OF KHAN and HOT FUZZ come immediately to mind), and this is one of them. Dekker's not made a lot of stuff in the decades since, and very few people have heard of NOTCs, but I just had to say a few words, since the film brought me joy twenty years ago, and even more today.

Rish "Afternoon of the Creeps" Outfield

*Unless TERMINATOR is a B-Movie. Not sure exactly on the 21st Century definition.

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Here's another one that would be really nice.

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Keep those cards and letters coming, folks.

"Dollhouse" countdown begins

So, Jeff and I watched another episode of "Dollhouse" this week. It was the one where Echo is replacing a mother who died and gets this motherly instinct so powerful it continues when she is wiped. It was alright, had a couple fairly good moments, but nothing close to what I'd need to care when I hear that the show is being taken off the schedule during November sweeps.

Sweeps are when networks sell advertising space, and hence, is when the special guest stars, the big-budget episodes, and the entire run of ABC's new "V" are put on the air. For a show to be taken off the air during those months is pretty indicative of its fate.

"Dollhouse" hasn't been canceled yet, but their parking spots are already been divied out to somebody new.

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My cousin mentioned yesterday that he is enjoying these.

Darn. Just when I was phasing them out.

Happy October

Everyone's entitled to one good scare.

fiX fLiX XVI

'Nuff said.