"Too Much Horror Business" by Kirk Hammett

For as long as he can remember, Kirk Hammett has found fascination, escape and even love within the world of horror movies. From nervous yet enthralled nights spent cowering behind the family sofa as another Universal Studios horror classic played on the black and white TV, to the recent years which have seen Hammett gather one of the largest private collections of movie poster art & memorabilia in the world, Kirk's love of the genre has never wavered. As the lead guitarist of rock superstars Metallica, Hammett has been able to indulge this passion and procure the art and artefacts from the world of fantasy and horror, which are only available to a select few. Each piece Kirk has bought holds emotional value for him, each one a memory, whether as a child or today. For this reason, Kirk has previously been highly reluctant to discuss or divulge the details of a collection of toys, posters, and props, which has developed a legendary reputation amongst horror enthusiasts and Metallica fans alike. Until now. "Too Much Horror Business" is the definitive record of his collection and the emotions attached to it. Presented in a full-colour, larger format volume, with three gatefolds, the book does real justice to his treasure trove of horror. This book is augmented with pages of handwritten notes and thoughts, plus a series of, conversation-interviews, which will offer a chronological thread starting with the young Hammett growing up in the Bay Area. For fans of horror, "Too Much Horror Business" will be an exciting journey through unique properties and pieces. For fans of Metallica, it will be the ultimate book about Kirk Hammett. And for the casual reader, "Too Much Horror Business" will be the rock 'n' roll coffee table book that offers an intriguing view into the mind of a horror-obsessed, superstar guitar hero.

-Amazon.com

The first time I can remember seeing anything related to Metallica was in a 1989 issue of Collectible Toys & Values, featuring all things related to Batman (the then current Tim Burton movie as well as the comic and 1960s television series). There was a photo of "Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett", an avid comic book collector, holding a copy of Detective Comics #27, the very first appearance of Batman, which he'd just purchased at a comic book show. Honestly, that photo sort of brushed under my radar, but little did I know that I'd just had a first encounter with the guitar player for what would eventually become my all-time favorite band.

Flash-forward to the present day and Kirk, his love of Horror, and his collection of posters and props are the stuff of legend among Metallica fans worldwide. He's worn countless Horror t-shirts on-stage in the late '80s (Night of the Living Dead and Hellraiser, to name a few), but aside from the odd photograph or video snippet in Some Kind of Monster, Kirk has never really shown much of his collection off to the public. So, when I won a Meet & Greet with Metalllica on 1/31/09, I knew I had to ask him about his collection.

We talked briefly about Chiller Theatre conventions (in '90/'91/'92, Kirk was often seen on-stage and in print wearing a t-shirt for Horror-Thon -- Chiller's original name -- or a Tor Johnson Chiller Theatre tee). I asked if he still gets a chance to go to them; he said not really, but he is still good friends with the show's creator, Kevin Clement. I then asked if he ever considered doing a book one day about his collection; more or less a coffee table photo book just detailing what he's got. He said he had actually been thinking about doing one, but it'd been very time-consuming just cataloging everything because, well, there's so much of it!

















Kirk and I at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ 1/31/09.

More than a year went by before "Too Much Horror Business" (awesome title, btw) was finally announced and I couldn't believe my ears! Not only was Kirk finally doing a book on his collection, but the man was clearly not bullshitting me when I asked him about it way back when (of course, any Metallica fan knows how down to earth and real those guys actually are).

Recently, Kirk was on VH1 Classic's "That Metal Show", where he briefly discussed the book with hosts Eddie Trunk, Don Jamieson, and Jim Florentine. On the show, Kirk displayed a proof for the intro spread, where he's posed with life-size statues of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. What's cool about the statues is that they're wearing the actual, screen-worn costumes Karloff and Lugosi wore in The Black Cat and White Zombie respectively.

Regardless of how you feel about Metallica, if you're a Horror movie fan, this book will definitely be worth checking out. From the sounds of it, once "Too Much Horror Business" is released, we'll be seeing some long lost treasures.

Early reports are saying it's due out 10/1/12 (Kirk did say he was going to be working on it during Metallica's break in the early part of 2011), more information is available from Amazon.com.

Terror Train (1980)

After the one-two punch of Halloween and The Fog in 1978 and 1979, respectively, Jamie Lee Curtis was well on her way to claiming the title of "Scream Queen". With 1980's Terror Train, she officially embraced that title.

Terror Train has all the basic elements of a really good slasher movie...

-a cruel prank that went terribly wrong
-isolated location (in this case, a train)
-list of disposable teens with little character development
-killer with a cool mask/costume (more on this later)
-cool kills

Plot-wise, Terror Train has a pretty simple (and unique) setup. A year earlier, some freshman frat brothers and their girlfriends orchestrated a prank that took a very cruel turn for a young pledge named Kenny Hampson. Now, as seniors, the same fraternity is throwing a New Years Eve costume party, their "last big college party" (what are they gonna do for the rest of the school year? Must be a pretty lame fraternity, eh?) on a train. Faster than you can say "All aboard!" someone begins picking off people one-by-one and it doesn't take very long for Jamie Lee to figure out who it is.










Released during the first wave of Halloween knock-offs, Terror Train is easily one of the best of the bunch, sitting pretty closely with My Bloody Valentine in my eyes. One of the picture's most unique attributes is the setting: trains themselves can be kinda creepy, what with those narrow hallways and basically nowhere to go, right? Add to that a night time landscape set in the dead of winter and there's a recipe for goose bumps.

The train itself is a pretty ominous being, if not a character itself. That first opening shot during the credit sequence with the door of the train house slowly rising before the train starts plodding from within the smoky/foggy white light completely sets up the mood of the film. The train's whistle is also effective, as it sounds eerily like a co-ed screaming for her life.

One of the great strengths about slasher movies from the 70s and 80s is how much of their casts were complete unknowns. Any horror fan will tell you how distracting it can be with a cast populated by familiar faces (which is always one of the main complaints against modern horror). Aside from Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner (of Die Hard) and screen veteran Ben Johnson, the cast is mostly Canadian actors, all unknown to US audiences. Oh, and there's also a young David Copperfield as the "is he the killer or isn't he" Strangely Antisocial Magician character.

Speaking of Copperfield, a sizable portion of the movie is devoted to his magic routine and several tricks that he performs. I wish one day we'd get a commentary track from director Roger Spottiswoode, which could maybe shed some light on this part of the film. Was Copperfield, at the time pretty much an unknown illusionist, fairly strict on what could or couldn't be shown of his tricks and how they were to be filmed? Or were his tricks merely special effects? While he certainly wouldn't be winning any awards for his acting (he's obviously just playing David Copperfield here), he does pull off a convincing sense of suspicion whenever he's on-screen.

Jamie Lee Curtis is in fine form here as Alana, the girlfriend of one of the ringleaders of the prank their group wishes to forget. Unlike the rest of them though (either those directly responsible or those who merely follow), Alana feels bad about what happened -- as well as her role in it -- to Kenny. Aside from all of that, she's graduating early, which is essentially Creative Writing 101 stating that Alana is a smart cookie. Jamie Lee As Scream Queen always personified what the "Final Girl" character should be. She's smart, strong, and doesn't really take shit from anyone, including Doc, the self-appointed fraternity leader and the one with all the good ideas.










Doc, as played by Bochner, is a character cut from the same cloth as Keir Dullea's Peter in Black Christmas. He's moody, arrogant, conceited, and basically thinks his shit don't stink. He's also pretty much a tool, leaving the viewer wondering why anyone in their right mind would follow this guy's direction, let alone be his friend. Doc is the archetype of the boyfriend/jock who fends for himself and would probably use his girlfriend as a human shield in the face of the killer. His girlfriend is Alana's best friend, Mitchy, and well...there's some strange swinger vibe between them as they both ditch their significant other for an attempted romp with someone else's lover.

Another odd character is Alana's boyfriend, Mo (played by Timothy Webber, surely a long-lost brother to Sam Raimi). While he probably has the best intentions, he always winds up disappointing Alana and falling prey to Doc's juvenile pranks and jokes. On top of that, he blindly follows Doc in wandering off with a drunk co-ed behind Alana's back. WTF, mate?

Anyway, the coolest thing about Terror Train is the killer, Kenny Hampson. Since everyone is wearing costumes on the train, Kenny is able to change disguises as he racks up his body count. He's even able to make a Groucho Marx mask creepy as all hell! But, easily taking the crown for creepiest mask is that of an old man. Looking like a cross between a troll and a hairless version of Fluffy from Creepshow, the Old Man mask stands neck and neck with the Groucho mask as being the most effective and scary of Kenny's disguises.










Even with his face covered by a mask, Kenny's eyes stare daggers into his victims, potential or absolute.

In the end, Terror Train somehow slipped through the cracks in the wake of the mainstream popularity of the Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises. The VHS was long out of print for years (I initially had to resort to a fullscreen R2 Spanish import disc with a print that looked as though it'd had been buried in a coal mine) until 20th Century Fox finally decided to put it out on disc in 2004. I'm convinced big studios take so long to release classic horror titles on DVD because they're anxiously putting every single waking minute of creativity into creating a brand-new cover because the original poster/video art that convinced many a viewer to check it out in the first place completely sucks (end of sarcasm). The print looks good and, while it's essentially a barebones release (aside from the dirty, old fullscreen version on the flipside), it does contain the original theatrical trailer!

Anyway, yeah . . . definitely see Terror Train. It's crucial viewing for any self-respecting slasher fan. See it!

Friday the 13th: A Trip Back To Camp Blood

Alright, so it's actually Saturday the 14th at this point . . . but who's really keeping track? Actually, come to think of it, somewhere in the Friday the 13th series, this blog post would be perfectly acceptable as taking place on the "very next day" (see Part II and Part 3D. So, anyway, enjoy this photographic tribute to original Friday the 13th!

One of the coolest things about growing up in New Jersey was some of the amazing history and connections to things I'm interested in. Let's see, you got the home of The Misfits up in Lodi, there's the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, the Jersey Shore, and of course, Troma Films. But, this one definitely takes the prize -- in 1979, a small group of filmmakers headed by Sean S. Cunningham were making a little Horror picture that they were hoping would become the scariest movie of all time.

Little did they know.

Taking a page from John Carpenter's Halloween and Bob Clark's Black Christmas, Cunningham's aptly titled Friday the 13th shot in northern New Jersey in and around the towns of Hope and, of course, Blairstown. Camp Crystal Lake itself is actually a local Boy Scout camp called Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, which may or may not still be active today (I say this because I've heard all sorts of conflicting reports that the camp was sold to the nearby Blair Academy school, with intentions to demolish it and turn the grounds into athletic fields).

DVD screen captures are on the left side of the page, with my photos on the right side.

Our first location is Main Street in downtown Blairstown. Seriously, this is pretty much the hub of Blairstown and the Friday crew utilized a lot from this location. Through some creative editing, the small strip of Main Street becomes all of the town of Crystal Lake. In the film, the first "present day" footage we see is of Annie, the cook for the soon-to-reopen Camp Crystal Lake. She crosses a small bridge as she enters town and heads.

As you can see in the photos, not much has really changed. My picture was taken back in 2008, but things really haven't changed since then. I have no idea what happened to the original bridge, but I'm sure the concrete needed significant repair work over time.

Still, regardless of the changes that have taken place, it really is a sight to behold as you first turn onto Main Street. If you're turning left onto the street, you cross the bridge, with the wall on your right, leading to the Old Mill.




Built in 1825 and acquired by the Blair Academy in 1903, the Old Mill was eventually placed on the State and National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior, so I'm pretty sure it ain't going anywhere.

In the film, Annie walks through the Old Mill's classic arch ways.

This location is right next to the bridge, so this one of few geographically correct locations in the film. As you can see in the pictures here, nothing has really changed (the pic here is actually from 2004, but again, it still looks the same).

It's also worth noting that the road to Camp No-Be is actually the one in the picture that winds off and up to the left. So, um, Annie . . . you're going the wrong way!











Here, Annie lazily wanders through the tunnel before exiting through one of the arches.

The smaller arched windows have been updated with solid panels of wood, though still keeping the original color scheme. I'm also pretty sure the overhead lights were added in recent years, though.










Annie walks through the second arch.










This is where things get interesting....remember what I said about the producers using some clever editing to make Main Street seem a lot bigger than it actually is? In the start of this scene, Annie comes in from one end of the street and here, she's coming from the opposite end.

In the screen capture, I'm not really sure what the red building Annie is walking down in front of. As you can see in the modern pic, the building has since been painted a ghastly light blue color. Why? I have no idea, but it's pretty much an eyesore as far as I'm concerned.

It looks like the building right next to it has had a bit of a facelift, though.










Next up is one of the most famous locations, which to this day, remains pretty much identical as to when Enos, the Truck Driver, drops Annie off at "the crossroads" . . . the Moravian Cemetery in Hope, NJ.

Hope is actually south of Blairstown, so Annie has quite a trek ahead of her if she's still walking to Camp Crystal Lake, don't you think so?

I remember the first time I actually went to Blairstown to check out the locations back in 2003; as we were heading north, I looked down the road to the left and immediately recognized the location. The Moravian Cemetery is just outside of Hope, NJ and, as you can see in the pictures, it looks pretty much the same.











The next location is the Blairstown Diner, where Steve Christy has a meal before making his way back to Camp Crystal Lake. And, personally, I think Sandy was totally flirting with him and trying to pick him up.

The diner, as it appeared in the film, looked pretty much the same on the exterior until at least 2004. The picture above is from 2003 and you can clearly see the large DINER marquee was still on the roof and the original green color to the exterior was still in place.

Unfortunately, sometime in 2004 or 2005, the diner was remodeled and "modernized" so to speak. I never did get to see it with the DINER marquee lit up (the place used to keep very odd hours, so I might have driven all the way up there in the evening, only to find it closed!). The interior of the diner is now very different, resembling your typical American diner establishment, with a large dining room area.





Above, this is what the diner looks like today.










Inside, Steve Christy sits at the counter as he finishes his coffee and Sandy tries to work her magic on him. "Two and a quarter."

In the film, Sandy's back is the front of the diner. I'm not sure if there was a large dining area in there (behind Steve, a little further down the wall) as it stands today. And, frankly, I don't remember it that way in 2004 when I went inside and had a seat at the counter, pretty much exactly where Steve sat.

At that time, my wife (then my girlfriend) Sandee and I were hesitant to go into the diner, as I'd heard urban legends that the locals are too fond of their town's connection to a cheap slasher movie from the 1980s. So, as we walked up to the counter and ordered a Coke, Sandee was able to take a pic of me (she was standing where the small booth is behind Steve Christy in the screen capture). I do remember that booth was either completely busted up and removed or in the process of being removed, as I don't recall an actual seat or table in that spot.

I used to go up to Blairstown every Friday the 13th and have lunch at the diner and, as it stands, it's not a bad little place! The food is great and the service is friendly and inviting. I highly recommend the chicken fingers and fries!

It's a shame though that everything had to be remodeled in the Blairstown Diner, but I completely understand the need to change with the times, ya know?











The last location I was able to get to was Camp Crystal Lake itself. I'm sure you've seen other blogs with actual photos of the camp (many of the cabins and other buildings are still standing and look the same, aside from a fresh coat of brown paint).

However, when I finally was able to find the Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco itself for the first time in 2004, I was really hesitant to step onto the grounds, as I'd heard that the staff aren't very welcoming to Friday fans (obviously).

It's quite a trip driving up the dirt roads to the camp itself . . . it definitely feels like you're in the movie!

Just before you reach the first main building (in the film, I think it's the Office that Alice and Bill break into to check the phonelines), Crystal Lake itself is immediately to the left (it's actually called Sand Pond)!

Anyway, needless to say, we didn't get very far on our drive onto the grounds, as we were immediately greeted by someone who wasn't straight up rude, but they weren't exactly extending an invitation to come on in and take pics. So, the above photo of Sand Pond is the only real photo I've got from the camp.

I'll tell you, taking a trip up to Blairstown is incredible and, if you're a Friday the 13th fan, you gotta go! Just driving in that area strikes a nerve (try playing the soundtrack as your driving around up there, too). I think it's definitely time to take another trip up there some time real soon . . .

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972)

After George Romero redefined what the living dead should (and could) be with Night of the Living Dead in 1968, there were scores of imitators. Most of them came from Europe (one of the best being George Grau's Let Sleeping Corpses Lie in 1974), but there were only a few American imitators.

This is one of them.

The story is pretty simple: a group of struggling actors accompany their hack of a leader to a remote burial island for criminals and general lowlifes; some real scum and villainy. The group is lead by the quasi-Manson, Alan (played to annoying perfection by Alan Ormsby, who also handled the make-up effects); basically, he knows these young actors are starving and hungry for work, so they'll do pretty much anything he says.

Alan's plan is to commit a little grave-robbing and hold a seance to raise the dead; knowing full well he's full of shit and merely wanting to have a laugh or three at the expense of his "children" in tow.

The catch? It works.

Before they know it, the acting troupe is surrounded by the living dead and seek refuge in an abandoned house (presumably the home of island's caretaker perhaps?).

Sure, the movie itself is really slow and the zombies don't show up until pretty much the last half hour or twenty minutes . . . but, there's just something about it that works. Honestly, I almost look at it as a prequel to Night of the Living Dead (the ending was later ripped off by Lucio Fulci for 1979's Zombie [aka: Zombi 2]).


The sequence where the dead return is truly creepy; director Bob Clark (of Black Christmas, Porky's and A Christmas Story fame) presents the action in an almost nightmarish way. Strange sounds pop from the soundtrack, a heavy mist envelopes the burial ground like a tablecloth, and some interesting zombie make-up all come together to make this sequence work.





If you're into gore, this movie might not be for you. Sure, there's a little bit of blood, but nothing to go hog wild over and, honestly, if you're a fan of Romero's zombies, you'll probably be disappointed.

One of the coolest things about the DVD version of this movie is the print quality. It looks like complete garbage. There's some incredible print damage, but it's not like the bootleg quality of Abby or Curtains -- just good old fashioned noise in the picture and scratches; hell there's even some really terrible color tone shifts and parts where the edge of the picture turns a minor red color! I love it! This really adds to the atmosphere and, for me, the overall enjoyment. I seriously can't imagine this movie looking as good some of the Blu-Ray remasters Anchor Bay or Blue Underground have released in recent years.

In the end, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is a fun little movie that certainly has its faults, though it more than makes up for them with its charms and payoff. See it!

My Bloody Valentine: 3D (2009)

Remakes are always a tricky proposition. On one hand, the original is usually hailed as a classic and deemed "perfect" with no need to be touched. On the other, there is always room to explore a particular angle left out of or not even thought of in the source material. Happily, My Bloody Valentine 3D (MBV3D) succeeds where few have.

The general plot remains the same as the 1981 slasher classic; after a terrible accident in the Hanniger Mine, Harry Warden snapped and took his bloody revenge. Years later, he returns and the killings begin once again.

MBV3D picks up where the original left off with, what it is pretty much a condensed version of the original's finale; workers at the mine are throwing a party and boozing it up . . . with Harry Warden on the loose, after a terrible accident there which left him in a coma for the last year.

The love triangle of Tom (aka T.J.), Sarah, and Axel is still prevalent. Here Supernatural's Jensen Ackles stars as Tom. Right from the start, there is tension between Tom and Kerr Smith's Axel -- and it's obviously over Sarah (played by Jamie King). After Harry Warden shows up and starts slaughtering people, Tom is left for dead in a mass confusion with Axel, his girlfriend Irene (played by Betsy Rue) and Sarah feeling for safety. Ten years later, Tom returns to town and finds things aren't exactly as they were when he left . . .

Axel is now the Sheriff (taking over from Tom Atkins' Burke) and is married to Sarah. Like the original, that love triangle still exists and it serves as a springboard for some intense moments between Tom and Axel. But, the one that remains the same is that a similar string of murders by someone in a miner's outfit (complete with the eerie combination of the gas mask and miner's headlamp). Is it Harry Warden?

The script by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith is fun and intelligent for what it is. Let's face it, MBV3D is not out to win any Oscars. If you go to see to be enlightened, you're at the wrong movie. If you go into it expect a fun time and a roller coaster ride into Hell (as the posters are saying), you will have a grand old time! Farmer's writing has happily improved since he wrote Jason X and with Smith at his side, he creates a world familiar to longtime fans of Harry Warden, while at the same time bringing them something new.

The acting is pretty solid all around, with Tom Atkins pretty much stealing the show everytime he's on-screen. He plays Burke as if he's in a B-movie and does his dialogue with the perfect delivery; seriously, some of his early scenes recall 70s drive-in double features. The major letdown though is Jamie King as Sarah. King plays the role by the Slasher genre rulebooks and, well, Sarah was never your standard throwaway Slasher character. Although that problem begins with the writing, King's performance dumbs down the character so much to the point that she falls into the standard Slasher cliches of moving too slow or just standing there when something bad is happening. Kerr Smith is also pretty intense, as well, playing nicely off of Jensen Ackles; the suspense of the Miner's true identity, coupled with the tension over Sarah gives these two actors a lot to work with.

Where the original MBV was heavily cut by MPAA censors, special Effects supervisor, Gary Tunnicliffe pours on the gore for Harry Warden's 3D debut! Victims are dispatched in a manner of colorful and grizzly ways enhanced by the amazing 3D effects! Like the Friday the 13th series, this is absolutely a bodycount movie and the kills are so cartoonish that you're bound to have a good time. Again, people come to see movies like this to see the effects and the gore; and in that regard, MBV3D delivers across the board.

Since this is, afterall, a remake of a classic movie loved by many -- including director Patrick Lussier -- you may be wondering if there are nods or homages to the original Canadian classic. Of course there are! Lussier updates a couple classic kills that are even more spectacular given the recent DVD release of the original in its uncut form. In fact, there are plot elements in MBV3D that make watching the original even more interesting considering what some of the newer versions of favorite characters do this time around....

And, speaking of familiar territory, Lussier has stocked his cast with some genre favorites to appease the hardcore Horror hounds in the audience. As I said before, Tom Atkins (The Fog, Escape From New York, Creepshow, Halloween III, Night of the Creeps, Lethal Weapon, Maniac Cop, etc.) is on-hand, chewing up scenery and stealing the show right out from under the younger actors. Then, there's John Harrison (composer for Creepshow, Day of the Dead, director of one of the Dune TV movies, and of course, the "Screwdriver Zombie" in Dawn of the Dead) as the foreman at Hanniger Mine. Harrison has a bit role, but any George Romero fan will recognize him and smile. And, speaking of Romero, there's one more alum creeping about . . . Bingo O'Malley ("Jordy's Father" in Creepshow and "Valdemar" in Two Evil Eyes) appears as Sherrif Burke's right hand man, Hinch. Sure, to the average moviegoer, these cameos are insificant, but to those "in the know" it's a nice way for Lussier to show he cares and respects the fanbase.

The 3D technology has drastically improved from what many from my generation remember in, say, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare or Friday the 13th Part 3D and Jaws 3D. Gone are the red and blue lenses in the cardboard glasses (at my screening, there was a metal detector outside the theater to ensure none of the state of the art 3D glasses walked). Also gone is the almost instant headache that feels like an icepick is being driven into one or both of your eyes! The 3D here really kicks off with the depth of field on-screen in terms of the actual mine itself. Of course, some of the effects are throw-backs to 3D fun of yesterday with objects either popping or, um, flying directly at you....yes, there were a few parts where I actually blinked and flinched. Some of the scenery looks breath-taking in three dimensions as well -- especially the wooded areas surrounding the mine.

However, MBV3D is not a perfect movie. As I said earlier, Jamie King's portrayal of Sarah was a letdown. Perhaps if she'd studied the original movie a little more and identified with the character, she could have made Sarah more believable. Granted, no one is asking for the opposite end of the stereotype -- ie: Lt. Ripley or Sarah Connor, but it just would've been nice for her to have some depth. Also, some of the guys out there my hoot and holler and drool over Betsy Rue in all her naked glory . . . but really, I think the nudity was a bit overdone (the same way Danielle Harris' was in Rob Zombie's Halloween). Another point of centention surrounds the believablity of the actors' ages; time shifts ten years and hardly any of the actors look different from the way they are in the beginning. Only Kerr Smith grows some facial hair and, from what I've read, Tom Atkins actually looked younger in the beginning.

Lastly, the movie could have been a minute or two shorter. The ending they went with is a bit redundant and it would have been more effective for that "one last scare" moment had things been trimmed just a bit.

Overall, MBV3D is a fun little movie that ushers in the next trend for Horror: the 3D movie. Yes, there is a plethora of 3D-based Horror movies coming out later this year or early next year (I'm looking forward to Final Destination 4 and Alexandre Aja's remake of Piranha). While it was also released in the standard 2D version (which I plan on seeing), I cannot recommend seeing the 3D version if it's playing near you! See it!

The Shining (1980)

How many "Scariest Movie of All Time" lists have been made since the beginning of the Horror picture? Quite a bit, no? Chances are more than a few titles on those lists are adaptations of Stephen King books and, I'm also willing to bet that The Shining is right up there.

By now, it's pretty well known that Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of Stephen King's 1977 novel about a haunted hotel taking its toll on a broken man differs greatly from its source material. Sure, it's not a page by page recreation of King's work, but Kubrick succeeds in making The Shining completely his own.

In case you're not familiar with the story, Jack Torrence (in a tailor-made performance by Jack Nicholson), a writer with an hopelss affinity for the bottle, is hired to be caretaker during the winter months at the Overlook Hotel. To keep him company, Jack brings along his mousey wife Wendy and their borderline autistic son, Danny. Almost immediately, strange things start to happen and it's quite apparent that the Overlook Hotel has some skeletons in its ballroom (the previous caretaker, Delbert Grady, killed his family and then himself).

The Shining is more than just a mere Horror movie; it's an exercise is fear and almost like watching a nightmare. Even if you've read King's novel, although you may see traces of its plot devices in Kubrick's film, it's still unclear what exactly is going on. In fact, the stedicam shots of Danny tearing through the Overlook on his big wheel are even terrifying!

Many could argue that Kubrick's film is a series of surreal images, strung together with the loose twine of Stephen King's novel. Kubrick uses static shots (or at least shots with very little to no movement) as he crafts some of the most memorable bits of The Shining: Jack, sporting an early beard and a black turtleneck as he stares at Wendy and Danny playing in the snow, the Grady twins in the hallway, and of course, the blood coming out of the elevator. It's as if Kubrick was trying to conjure up childhood nightmares as he made the picture!

At the end of the day, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, though flawed in the eyes of many (including King himself, who wrote the 1997 Mick Garris-directed ABC mini-series remake), stands on its own as a seminal masterpiece. Twenty-seven years after the fact, it still holds up as one scary as hell motion picture! See it!

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

"From the heart comes a warning filled with bloody good cheer. Remember what happened as the 14th draws near."

My Bloody Valentine is truly one of the best slasher pictures to come out of the first wave in the early 1980s. From start to finish, it's got the perfect formula: it's set on a holiday, likable characters, a solid setting, a tragic backstory, and a flawless killer. So, why has MBV fallen under the radar for so many people? For starters, when it was released in '81, Horror movies were enduring a lot of criticism for their portrayal of graphic on-screen carnage and, well, the MPAA swung its old proverbial axe down. Paramount Pictures caved in and cut MBV and Friday the 13th Part II (also released that near) of nearly all the gore footage fans would come to see. Aside from that tragic flaw (which Lionsgate may be correcting with a brand new special edition DVD due January 13th...just before the 3D remake hits theaters on the 16th), My Bloody Valentine is a true classic that any self-respecting Horror fan should have at least seen, if not own.

The story revolves around the Canadian mining town of Valentine Bluffs, where a certain holiday is pretty much the focal point, with locals looking forward to it every year. But there's also a heavy curse weighing in over the town; twenty years before, as the townspeople celebrated Valentine's Day, five miners were trapped in a cave-in at the Hanniger Mine. It took six weeks to find the men and, by then, there was only one survivor who had gone mad. His name was Harry Warden. And exactly one year later, Harry took his revenge in a bloody rampage, warning that if the town ever celebrated Valentine's Day again, he would return. Now, with Harry in a sanitarium, the young people in town decide it's a great idea to celebrate the holiday of the town's namesake. And then the murders begin to happen . . . again. Caught in the middle of the nightmare is the desperate love triangle of T. J., Sarah, and Axel.

As I said before, everything is solid with this movie. I can remember seeing it for the first time many years ago either on a late night movie channel or the USA network (more likely the latter). Right from the opening scene of a couple in miner's gear embracing before the woman is brutally impaled on the spike from a pick-axe, I knew MBV was something worth checking out! The writing and directing is tight enough that it keeps the viewer guessing throughout -- yes, there are a few surprises to be found in the Hanniger Mine. The acting is pretty much on par with what was found in cheap Horror movies on this era, but that's not necessarily a bad thing; for all intents and purposes, it's got "Fink" from Meatballs in it.

If you've read any of this blog before, chances are you've seen me talk about how Horror movies from the 70s and early 80s had "the look" -- MBV has it as well! There's just something about it that demands the respect it deserves. Also, even though it's not the theatrical version, just look at that poster art, will you?!? They don't make 'em like that anymore folks. As I said earlier, with a remake (in 3D no less!) set for release in January, here's hoping that a whole new audience and...generation (yikes)...finds the original My Bloody Valentine. See it!