Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween All!  Yay it is that wonderful time of year again.  I love Halloween for a number of reasons but here are a few of my favorite.

• Excuse to dress up in costumes and you have no fear of being judged for doing such.
• Eating lots of candy (something I have thus far failed to achieve).
• Watching lots of good horror movies.

I choose to focus on the last point here.  I am a pretty big horror movie fan and so have taken the time to watch several so far this week (and intend to watch some more tonight).  The movies I have watched so far this week are as follows.

On Monday night Mad and I watched “The Messengers” which was a somewhat creepy movie.  I think it came out about a year or so ago.  Not bad, had some genuinely scary moments, but not all around the best horror movie I have ever seen.  I’ll give it credit for not being altogether overly cheesy (which is a major flaw in a vast number of horror movies) but it still didn’t quite hit the nail on the head for me.  I’d give it a general grade of B.

Tuesday night I watched “Night of the Living Dead,” the original one from 1968, not the 1990 remake.  What can I say, I could write a whole huge post on this movie alone and how it is absolutely fantastic.  If you know me or have read several of my posts you probably have a pretty good idea by now that I am a pretty big zombie fan.  Well “Night of the Living Dead” is really where our modern interpretation of zombies come from.  This is the first George A. Romero (who to some, myself included, is a living legend) zombie movie and probably his best, though his original “Dawn of the Dead” is really very good too.  By today’s standards “Night of the Living Dead” probably would not strike very many people as an extremely scary movie (except maybe the scene when the little girl zombie kills her mum, that part always freaks me out).  But even without getting people absolutely horrified it is still an amazingly well done film that transcends its genre to become a successful social commentary.  Essentially it is a story of “us vs. them” but the dynamic is not just us the “living” vs them the “dead” but also based on race and class and demand for available resources.  Not only did “Night of the Living Dead” introduce us to the modern perception of zombies (even though in the movie they are never called zombies, they are referred to as ghouls) but it also made the zombie movie and archetype through which to comment on conditions in the world.  Amazing film.  It has been several years since I last watched it and it was wonderful to see it again.  If you have never seen “Night of the Living Dead” check it out on Hulu. 

Wednesday night i watched another older horror movie that i haven’t seen for several years, that being Clive Barker‘s “Hellraiser.”  I remember the first time I watched it back in high school thinking that “Hellraiser” was one of the most gruesome movies I’d ever watched and, watching it the other night, even though it is over twenty years old (it originally came out in 1987) I still feel that it is pretty bloody and gross.  Sure, it is a bit dated, and probably not as extreme as some of the more recent horror flicks, but it is still bad ass.  The Cenobites, especially Pinhead, are some creepy mother fuckers.  Again, not too scary but definitely worth the watch.  I really like Clive Barker’s ability to create a genuinely creepy story.  I’ve heard some rumor that there may be a remake of the original “Hellraiser” in the works, which would be awesome if it is well done.

Those are all that I have watched so far.  I have “Shadow of the Vampire” sitting on my desk and might try and watch it tonight.  It is a great twist on “Nosferatu” which itself is still probably one of, if not, the greatest vampire flicks of all time, even considering that it is a silent movie.

Hope everyone has an enjoyable Halloween.

~ by Nathaniel on October 31, 2008.