October Horror Movie a Day 2014

[Compound]

During the past few years, we on the forum have been celebrating October by watching horror movies, trying to meet the goal of a horror film a day. Although one or two of us get a little try hard about it. (cough) Anyway, to our newer members, here's an encouragement to join in.

For an example, here's the 2013 thread.
Here's the 2012 thread.
And here's the 2011 one.
And 2010.

Here's the general rules:

Ah, well, it's that time again...ghouls, ghosts, zombies, vampires, werewolves, and other horror icons Hollywood has long since run into the ground are out in force for the Halloween season, and what better way to celebrate that banality than to indulge in every horror film one can get?  Yes, see if you can pull off a horror movie a day for the 31 days of October.  Let's see, what were the rules from last year?

1. Movies cannot be pre-loaded...that is, if you cannot watch 3 movies on the 1st and have them count for the 2nd or the 3rd as well.  However, the opposite is fine...if you miss a day due to some extenuating circumstances, you CAN make up the day.  This is in place to keep the moviewatching in the spirit of the season and not simply to watch more movies than everyone else...it SHOULD take all month.

2. The definition of horror varies, and thus what is acceptable is VERY wide ranging.  This includes suspense films with psycho killers (i.e., Hannibal Lecter) and films of other genres that include horror elements (the entire Alien oeuvre...yes, even those AvP crossovers).  However...and this is to be made perfectly clear...romantic comedies with no actual horror are NOT permissible, no matter how "horrific" it was to sit through it in the theater.  This means that the Twilight movies are allowable, but are not counted twice as being doubly terribfying.

3. Riffed versions are not only permissible, they are actively encouraged.  If this is a reason to get you to buy Ghosthouse at long last, by all means, enjoy.  This includes iRiffs, by the way.

4. Each film in a series DOES count as a separate entry.  So, if you have all the Nightmare on Elm Streets, Friday the 13ths, Saws, etc. lined up, your month may be a set.  We're not (necessarily) looking for originality, just to get into the spirit.  I would assume those would get a bit boring after awhile.

5. Reviews are also encouraged, especially for more obscure titles or ones you have not seen before.

6. The movie watching begins 12:00 A.M. October 1st and ends 11:59 October 31st.  For your sanity, base it on your personal time zone.

7. (EDIT) Extra bonus rule!  Nearly forgot about this from last year...Halloween Specials do count, but ONLY IF THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN AN HOUR LONG ON TELEVISION.  If it's a half-hour special (Peanuts Halloween, Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, et al.), you need to watch two.  In other words, spend at least an hour with your favorite nostalgic Halloween haunts, if it's a tradition.

If there are any challenges from other forum members, they'll be put here.

[Darth Geek]

I like that iRiffs are included.

Hor-Riff-ic has 20, and RoninFox has 7 that would be considered horror. There should be a point goal for doing all of them or something.

[Compound]

Some challenges from past years have included:


*Watch a film from each decade of film making (1930s- 2010s)
*Watch a B/W movie
*Watch a riffed film
*Watch an entire series of horror films from start to end
*Watch a film with Fill in the Blank (Vampires, zombies, Psycho killers, mummies, werewolves, killer robots, ghost, killer animals, killer aliens, giant monsters, etc.)
*Watch a film originally made in a non-English speaking country
*Watch an original SyFy film
*Watch a 3d Film
*Watch a film and its sequel
*Watch a horror film that's supposed to be a comedy on purpose
*Watch a film set on a holiday other than Halloween
*Watch a film with a certain guest star. Let's say Christopher Lee this year.


Other folks will need to create the funny names.

[Relaxing Dragon]

As usual, I'd love to do this one, and as usual, outside circumstances will probably force me to fail. Sooner than usual this year, actually, given that I'll have next to no time on the first to watch much of anything. Still, I'll give it a shot.

[SJP]

Huzzah!  Was just about to start the thread and saw it was already up.  Nice.

My only caveat is that I just moved into a new place in August and am still trying to work out the balance between work, movies, and horror-themed games (and my girlfriend, if time... I kid, I kid!).  But on the plus side, I now have Hulu Plus and Netflix, so I won't have to dig around as hard to find stuff as I used to...plus my trip to Wizard World Chicago landed me with a copy of Spookies, which I haven't seen in years.  Any movie with farting mud monsters HAS to be good, right?

[Darth Geek]

Oh man, I haven't seen Spookies in AGES.

And damnit, it seems Netflix doesn't even have it on disk.

[Quirk]

They're not exactly horror movies, but the Van Helsing, Ghost Rider, and The Covenant QuipTracks are free during this month.

[Darth Geek]

Those movies are all scary in their own way.

[Compound]

And a running tally of my viewings:

Oct 1: John Dies at the End (2012, Cosmic weirdness)
Oct 1: Fright Night 2: New Blood (2013, vampires)*
Oct 1: Detention of the Dead (2012, zombies)
Oct 2: Dead Before Dawn (2011, Zombie demons. Zemons.)
Oct 2: Reality Horror Night (2011, Ghost)*
Oct 2: Vampire Killers (2008, Vampires)*
Oct 2: Devil Fish aka Monster Shark (1984, Protoshark) (Not the MST3k film of the same name)*
Oct 3: Inhuman Resources/ Redd Inc. (2012, Psycho Boss)*
Oct 3: Clownhouse (1989, Giant sharks. No, actually clowns.) *
Oct 3: Creepshow III (2006, Anthology)*
Oct 4: V/H/S 2 (2013, Anthology) *
Oct 4: Death by VHS (2013, Anthology)*
Oct 4: Neverlake (2013, Spirits)*
Oct 5: Zombie Night (2013, zombies)* Asylum! And a SyFy film to boot!
Oct 5: Ghost of Goodnight Lane (2014, Ghost)*
Oct 5: The Monkey's Paw (2014, Monkey's Paw. And Potassium Benzoate)*
Oct 6: Outpost: Black Sun (2011, Undead Nazis)*
Oct 6: Strange Frequency (2001, Anthology) *
Oct 6: Hack O' Lantern (1988, Satanists)*
Oct 7: The Returned (2013, Zombies. And Man)*
Oct 7: Bad Biology (2008, Mutant humans)*
Oct 8: Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014, Multiple Sharknadoes) *
Oct 9: Godzilla vs. Destroyah (1995, Godzilla or Destrroyah)*
Oct 10: Pep Squad (1998, Psycho)*
Oct 10: Decampitated (1998, Psycho)*
Oct 11: Strange Frequency 2 (2001, Anthology)*
Oct 11: Don't Go in the House (1979, psycho)*
Oct 12: Quatermass and the Pit/ 5,000,000 Years to Earth (1967, Martians)
Oct 13: The Corridor (2010, cosmic strangeness)*
Oct 13: Demon House/ Night of the Demons 3 (1989, demons)*
Oct 14: Flying Monkeys (2013, deadly flying monkeys)*
Oct 15: Planet of the Vampires (1965, space incorporeal beings)*
Oct 16: The Old Dark House (1963, psycho)*
Oct 17: The Ghost Goes West (1935, Scottish Ghosts)*
Oct 18: Seed 2 (2014, Psycho)*
Oct 19: Beast of the Yellow Night (1971, Demonic Curses)*
Oct 20: I Bury the Living (1958, Cursed Burial Plots) *
Oct 21: Ghost Train (1941, A Ghost Train. Kinda)*
Oct 22: Q (1982, Quetzalcoatl)*
Oct 23: Food of the Gods (1976, Giant Animals)
Oct 24: Nymph/Killer Mermaid (2014, A mermaid. Duh.)* The only Serbian release on my list, BTW.
Oct 25: Village of the Damned (1960, Space Children)*
Oct 26: Kronos (1957, Alien machines)*
Oct 27: Last Slumber Party (1988, Psycho)
Oct 28: Memorial Valley Massacre (1989, Psycho)*
Oct 29: Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Meyers (1995, Psycho)
Oct 30: Ghost Voyage (2008, Spoilers)*
Oct 31: Terror at Tenkiller (1986, Psycho)


A wee bit late updating my list.

[Compound]

Fright Night 2: New Blood (2013)*

On a field trip to Romania, Charlie Brewster discovers that his college professor is actually a vampire, the infamous Elizabeth Bathory, who is feeding on the blood of virgin women in order to sustain her youth.

Okay, with the name Fright Night 2, who thought that this would  be a sequel to the 2011 remake of Fright Night with Colin Farrell?  Nope. Okay, how about it being a remake of the 1988 Fright Night 2? Nope. It's another remake of the 1986 Fright Night. Same characters. Same plot points. Charlie Brewster spots a vampire. No one believes him. Brewster goes to alleged spook expert Peter Vincent for help, only to discover he's a fraud. The vamp turns his friend Evil Ed into a vampire.  But Vincent sees the light and helps Charlie as the vamp goes after Charlie's girlfriend. The end. Sigh. Oh, but the male vampire in Fright Night was named Jerry Dandridge and she's named Gerri Dandridge. Hurr hurr.

The shame here? They could have very easily remade Fright Night II. It wasn't a bad film and had an easily recyclable plot- sister of vampire from first film comes back to get revenge on the guy who killed her brother. Plus switch who is in distress in this one from girl to guy. Done. Instead, well, they just remade the last film.

And a random thought. At one point, Peter Vincent is in a Romanian strip club and, ahem, “tips” her a dollar. I have to ask, how useful is a buck to her? I can't imagine that our local strippers would be thrilled to look in their g-strings and discover a bunch of rubles and pounds. Does the strip club have a currency exchange counter? Do the Romanian banks have a strip club outlet? See, when I get bored with a film, I start wondering about crap like this. Anyway, give this a pass.

[SJP]

Day 1: Demons (1985)
Day 2: The Dunwich Horror (1970)
Day 3: Night Wolf (2010) (And technically, Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001))
Day 4: Paranormal Asylum (2013)
Day 5: Darkness Falls (2003)
Day 6: Friday the 13th (2009)
Day 7: Dracula Untold (2014)
Day 8: Halloween (1978)
Day 9: Odd Thomas (2013)
Day 10: V/H/S/2 (2013)
Day 11: Spookies (1986)
Day 12: Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)
Day 13: The Monster Squad (1987)
Day 14: Alien (1979, 2003 Cut)
Day 15: Severed: The Woods of the Dead (2005)
Day 16: Nomads (1986)
Day 17: Hellraiser (1987)
Day 18: House of Wax 3D (1953)
Day 19: The Blood Waters of Dr. Z (MST3K, 1971/1999)
Day 20: The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
Day 21: The Chair (2007)
Day 22: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Day 23: Jess Franco's Count Dracula (1970)
Day 24: The Children (1980)
Day 25: Slugs (1988)
Day 26: House on Haunted Hill (Rifftrax Live, 1959/2011)
Day 27: The Horror Show, aka House 3 (1989) / The Fly (1958)
Day 28: The Crucible of Horror (1971)
Day 29: Pharaoh's Curse (1957)
Day 30: Anaconda (Rifftrax Live, 1997/2014)
Day 31: Van Helsing (2004)

[SJP]

Demons (1985)

Sort of a double post, but this is my first review as opposed to my movie tracker post...

A bunch of people go to a German theater to see a free movie.  One of the moviegoers scratches herself on an enchanted mask and turns into a drooling, pus-filled, clawed monster that infects the other moviegoers.  Hijinks ensue.

I love this movie and watch it from time to time, but this viewing really struck me with how silly the whole thing is.  The plot makes nearly zero sense (while its sequel really DOES make zero sense), but it's still filmed in such a wonderfully goofy way to make it a D-grade joy from beginning to end.  I love how some Italian movies just seem like someone woke up from a nightmare and just decided to film it, regardless of what the final product would actually look like, and this is one of the most obvious examples.  Recommended.

Riffability: Extra High.  The dubbed pimp voice is a highlight.

[JimJ]

Going to try to do at least one movie per day that I haven't seen before.

Day 1: Jug Face (2013) 2/5
Day 2: Willow Creek (2014) 2/5
Day 3: All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006) 2.5/5
Day 4: Maniac (2012) 4/5
Day 5: Contracted (2013) 3/5
Day 6: Haunter (2013) 3.5/5

[Soguru]

Going to try to do at least one movie per day that I haven't seen before.

Day 1: Jug Face (2013) 2/5

No relation to Homer Simpsons football, affectionately referred to as "Stitchface".

[Compound]

Dead Before Dawn (2011)

A college? High school? Student  is watching over his grandfather's occult shop so that grandad can go to an awards ceremony...

...no, grandad isn't Jack Marshak...

… and when his friends break a cursed urn and after being informed that they were cursed,  his friends joke that, and see if you can follow this. “At 10 PM anyone they make eye contact with will kill themselves and then come back as a zombie. No, a zombie possessed by the demon of the urn. And then the zemons will try to kill them by hickeying them to death, but the cursed ones can gain complete control over the zemon by french kissing them. Oh, and if they don't reverse the process by dawn, it'll be irreversible.”

Yeah, taunting a cursed item is never a good idea.

Needless to say, all these things occur. Let's run down our cast. We've got our main character, Casper,  who accidentally makes eye contact with his mom who then takes a bath with a toaster. His BFF, who's on a date with her T.A. boyfriend and that's not creepy at all. He jumps off the balcony. The QB, the jerk jock, the jerk's girlfriend and the head cheerleader are all at the football game. Yep, everyone at the game dies. Oh, and the stoner dude who makes a living selling mugs on line. He makes eye contact with a half dozen people on the way to mail out a mug.

All hell begins to break loose and the group and the crew makes their way back to the occult shop. Grandad (Played by Christopher Lloyd)  starts to fill them in on how to reverse the curse but they make eye contact and he goes zemon. Skipping ahead, the group heads back to campus, grab the stuff needed to reverse the process, lose half the cast, complete the ritual and then graduate from college. (Still not sure on that. The cheerleader outfits all have “H.S.” on them.) Oh, and then they break the cursed urn again.

Eh. It's okay. The cast is at least able to act, which isn't always a given in the films I watch in October. The makeup work is actually pretty damn effective. But the plot is fairly by the numbers, excepting the whole “Eye contact causes zombies” thing. Not the best, but worth a watch, I guess.

Gratuitous references to other films:
*One character offs himself by grabbing a beehive. He's allergic to bees. And he gives the “not the bees! Ah! They're in my eyes!” speech as he goes.

*Casper's mom is hit by a car while chasing him. The car's being driven by a very thinly disguised Tucker and Dale.