Halloween Horror Marathon 2018

[Monterey Jack]

Halloween Horror Marathon '12

Halloween Horror Marathon '13

Halloween Horror Marathon '14

Halloween Horror Marathon '15

Halloween Horror Marathon '16

Halloween Horror Marathon '17



[door sequence runs in reverse]

[INTERIOR: SATELLITE OF LOVE BRIDGE]

[JONAH HESTON enters the frame from screen right, wearing his usual yellow jumpsuit. He is perusing a clipboard and looking perturbed. He bumps into CROW T. ROBOT, causing him to drop said clipboard to the table with a clatter]

CROW: Hey, watch it, meatbag…!

JONAH: Excuse me, but I was just going over our schedule of films, and found some interesting oddities.

CROW: Enlighten me, oh be-jumpsuited one.

[TOM SERVO enters from screen left, whistling.]

TOM: Greetings, my fellow cinema torture-ees! What’s going on?

JONAH: Oh, well, as I was saying, it seems like we have an awful lot of horror movies scheduled for the next thirty days or so.

CROW: [scoffs] Like that’s anything unusual.

JONAH: [thinks about it for a second] No, I don’t mean horri-BLE movies, but *horror* movies. You know, creaking doors, cheesy rubber bats flying around on strings, that sort of thing?

TOM: That *is* unusual. I know we get sent lots of crummy movies, but usual there’s at least the spice of variety to make out dreary existence of slavery somewhat more tolerable.

CROW: What, they can’t bother to send us a decent Sword & Sandal flick? Some nice, oiled pecs…?

[JONAH and TOM give CROW a look]

CROW: [taking a step back] What…?

JONAH: Well, going over the list, there are different *types* of horror movies on the menu, but still, it seems oddly…specific a genre.

[suddenly, alarms start blaring, and lights begin to flash]

JONAH: What the…?! Cambot, give me Rocket #9…!

[EXTERIOR, SOL]

[we see a tinkertoy shuttle docking]

[INTERIOR, SOL]

[The doors open…and reveal JOEL ROBINSON and MIKE NELSON, who enter in a cloud of photogenic Tony Scott steam. Both men are considerably older than the last time they entered the Satellite of Love, and yet are still clad in their trademark red and green jumpsuits, respectfully.]

TOM & CROW: [excited] JOEL…! MIKE…!

[THE BOTS happily embrace their former co-hosts as JONAH looks on in perplexity.]

JOEL: [frowning] The hell…?!

MIKE: [trying to disentangle Crow’s net from his belt] Hey, nice to see you too, buddy, but…how did we get here?

JONAH: Uhhhhh…

TOM: Oh, right, the new guy…

CROW: [Gesturing to Jonah] Yeah, we work with this mammal now.

JOEL: Dr. Forrester is still doing this silly experiment?

TOM: Well, a Forrester is…

JONAH: [making the “time out” gesture with his hands] Hold it, who the heck are these guys?

TOM: What, did you think you were the *only* man trapped in outer space riffing on bad movies with a pair of robots?

CROW: Yeah! There were, like… [glances at JOEL and MIKE, rolls his eyes around a bit as he calculates] …two others before you.

JONAH: This doesn’t explain what they’re doing here now.

JOEL: [confused] I’d like to know that, too.

MIKE: [holding out hands in a placatory manner] Now-now, let’s not panic, people, I’m sure there’s a very logical explanation for this.

[everyone in the SOL bridge looks at him for a very long beat]

MIKE: I don’t know what that logical explanation is, if that’s what you’re getting at…

[JOEL buries his face in his hand]

JONAH: Why don’t we just call Kinga and Max and see what they have to say, hmmm?

[JONAH taps the button]

JONAH: Come in Moon 13, please respond…

[INTERIOR, MOON 13]

[Instead of Kinga Forrester and Max aka TV’s Son of TV’s Frank, we see a sandy-haired man, approximately mid-40’s, inside the Moon 13 hangar. He smiles as he looks up at his captive audience]

MONTY: [smiles] I thought you’d be calling…

[SOL]

JONAH: [confused] Who are you?

[MOON 13]

MONTY: Who I am is unimportant. What is important, is that I now control the horizontal. I now control the vertical. I now control the films you are to watch for the next lunar cycle.

[SOL]

JONAH: So why’d you bring back these other clow -- [JOEL and MIKE give him a look] – uhhh, former experimentees? And why nothing but horror flicks?

[MOON 13]

MONTY: [looks confused] You do know what the particular lunar cycle concludes with, correct?

[SOL]

JONAH: Uhhhh…

JOEL: Wait a minute…

MIKE: You don’t mean…?!

CROW & TOM: …HALLOWEEN…?!?

[MOON 13]

MONTY: [touches nose] Correct, my little lab rats! And to give you all a bit of a treat to go along with the tricks you’re accustomed to, I thought I’d bring back some old hosts to add a bit of spice!

[SOL]

JOEL: [under breath] Terrific…

[MOON 13]

MONTY: And, to sweeten the pot, some of this month’s movies will actually be… [TARANTINO SNAP ZOOM into face] …good.

[SOL]

[JONAH covers his eyes with joy. JOEL slaps his hands to the sides of his head with anticipation. MIKE covers his mouth to suppress a squeal of excitement]

CROW: Uhhh, not to rain on anybody’s parade, but…why? Who are you? Why bring back Joel and Mike?

[MOON 13]

MONTY: Uhhh...it's just a TV show, and you should really just relax?

[SOL]

CROW: [nods] I can go with that.

[MOON 13]

MONTY: Okay, then, everyone hit the restroom, and remember to keep all arms, legs and other appendages safely inside the theater at all times. Oh, and free popcorn and ram chips for all, because... [pulls lever]

[SOL]

[lights start flashing, alarm sounds, shakey-Cambot feature is activated]

JONAH: Oh, we've got...

JOEL: ...horror movie...

MIKE: …siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiign...!!!!

CROW: I call dibs on sitting next to Joel!

TOM: Not if I get there first...!

[Everyone scrambles to the left and right as the DOOR SEQUENCE runs, opening to reveal...the 2018 Horror Movie Marathon]

[AndyDursin]

Yay MJ is cranking it up! Never too early...its been Halloween at Stop & Shop since July 5th.

[Monterey Jack]

Yay MJ is cranking it up! Never too early...its been Halloween at Stop & Shop since July 5th.

Tell me about it...I work there!

-The Little Stranger (2018): 7/10



A slow-burn period psychological thriller with modest paranormal overtones is the right tack to take for an “appetizer” to my October main course. Set in 1948, The Little Stranger features Domhnall Gleeson as Dr. Faraday, a morose man called to the evocatively crumbling Hundreds Hall to tend to a young maid (Liv Hill) who has faked “stabbing and burning” pains in order to be let loose from her service to the lady of the house, Carolyn Ayres (Ruth Wilson), her domineering mother, Angela (Charlotte Rampling), and her brother Roderick (Will Poulter), left horribly battle-scarred from the War. It seems there are uneasy spirits from the past about…or is it just psychological stress from the isolation? Literate, well-acted and eloquently scored by Stephen Rennicks, The Little Stranger, well-directed by Lenny Abrahamson (Room…the Oscar-winning one, not the Tommy Wiseau one), will probably take too long to get to the creaky-door chills for hardcore horror fans (although there’s a startling early scene where a party guest’s young daughter gets horribly mauled by Carolyn’s dog), but this is more of a dissection of inwardly-focused psychological torment in a post-war England than a flat-out genre piece. For what it is, it’s an astutely-observed look at a specific time and place, and it certainly has a handful of effectively disquieting moments, but the crowds lining up for more obvious shudders with The Nun would likely find it lacking. A good film, though.

[Monterey Jack]

-The Nun (2018): 7.5/10



The latest entry in the “Conjuringverse” skips back to 1952, where a malevolent spirit named Valek has infested the grounds of a Romanian monastery, bringing the interest of a priest (Damien Bichir) and a young novitiate nun (Taissa Farmiga, kid sister of Vera “Lorraine Warren” Farmiga) to investigate the supposed suicide of a young nun discovered by a groundskeeper (Jonas Blouquet) from a nearby, highly superstitious village. Once there, they find their minds suffused with eerie visions and more corporeal threats. Not up to the heights of the two Conjuring films directed by James Wan (or even the unexpectedly good Annabelle prequel, Creation), but superior to the flat-footed Annabelle, The Nun certainly knows how to generate a palpable sense of dread, but it also trumps in some well-worn genre clichés, and some of Bloquet’s attempts at comic relief rankle a bit. Plus, there’s another attempt – like Creation – to weave this film’s events into the larger tapestry of the “franchise”, but this time it works a little more seamlessly. I’m sure the movie will make a mint, but the best films in this series to date have featured James Wan behind the camera, and I hope he returns for the third Conjuring that’s in the planning stages.

[Monterey Jack]

Pred-a-thon...!

-Predator (1987): 8.5/10



With the latest installment in the franchise due out this Friday, time to dig in like an Alabama tick. The 1987 original remains a quintessential hunk of 80's action cinema, a canny mixture of Rambo and Alien featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger leading a pack of highly-trained special-forces operatives (including fellow future governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Carl "Apollo Creed" Weathers and Lethal Weapon screenwriter and future The Predator director Shane Black) into a sweltering third-world jungle in order to rescue some high-value targets, only to find themselves relentlessly picked off one-by-one by an intergalactic big game hunter (the 7' 2'' Kevin Peter Hall, underneath a terrific makeup design by Stan Winston). This is a movie that -- for all the bubblegum one-liners and unfettered, high-octane machismo on display -- plays with audience expectations in a fairly ingenious way, stripping away Arnie's comrades and weaponry piece-by-piece until it climaxes in a mano a mano slugfest between Predator and prey where the Schwartz is forced to outthink his hulking adversary. It's positively primal, and director John McTiernan (who would go on to make Die Hard and The Hunt For Red October in rapid succession, an impressive triple-whammy he's never lived up to since), aided by Alan Silvestri's memorable, percussive score, generates true action-movie jollies in the first half and true, sweat-inducing suspense in the second. This is a piece of red-meat action/horror cinema that'll make you a goddamn sexual Tyrannosaurus...just like me.

[Monterey Jack]

"WaNt SoMe...CaNdY…?"

-Predator 2 (1990): 5/10



Weak sequel transplants the action to the "jungles" of a FUTURISTIC!!! 1997 L.A., as a police detective played by Danny Glover keeps finding the members of rival gangs found slashed to ribbons, until he's clued in by government stooge Gary Busey that it's not a form of violent one-upsmanship between them...they're all being stalked by another intergalactic big game hunter, one armed with a new arrangement of weaponry in in town with a few days...to kill. Director John McTiernan, who brought such an elegant, sinuous widescreen skill to the cat & mouse suspense of the original is here replaced by anonymous B-movie hack Stephen Hopkins (Judgement Night, Blown Away), and the resulting film is embarrassingly cloddish and blunt-witted in comparison, rife with 80's buddy-cop clichés (gee, what's going to happen to the lead detective's partner...?), ridiculous stereotypes (a scene with a pack of cartoonish Jamaican gangbangers rolling up in a limo with gigantic plumes of marijuana smoke billowing out the doors is a visual right out of a Naked Gun movie) and sub-par creature effects. The late, great Bill Paxton provides some stray yuks as Glover's new partner (he's one of two actors to have had the privilege of being killed by a Predator, and Alien and a Terminator. Name the other and win a Kewpie Doll...!), but otherwise this is weak sauce, and the blatant plagiarism of Aliens (where Busey's team of government Redshirts get taken apart in a literal slaughterhouse while Glover watches via closed-circuit cameras) is so brazen James Cameron should have sued. It's no wonder the franchise dried up after this installment and went into hibernation for two decades (the Alien vs. Predator movies barely count).

[AndyDursin]

It's hard to believe PREDATOR 2 was written by the same guys and produced by most of the same folks too. But it's no wonder Arnie and everyone else turned it down.

I think so much of the appeal of PREDATOR, the original, is the element of surprise -- and that's regrettably not something you can ever recapture once you've seen it. Before the film opened, there were hints as to what Arnold was up against, but it wasn't blatantly spelled out in the advertising or trailers. Walking into the theater on opening night, you weren't totally sure what you were in for, and I remember people getting into it -- there were a few people who thought the creature was silly and you could hear some guy in the back yell out "....AND THERE HE IS!" once Arnie appeared from the rubble at the end...but the experience was still great to have. Alas, once you've seen the creature and know what it can do, that element is gone, and the Predator itself isn't very charismatic or interesting on its own.

From the sounds of it, Black has tried throwing all kinds of stuff into this new movie, which I can understand because the main concept was done so well in the first film, that there was no real way to exploit it going forward without just doing the same thing again -- and not as well (as 2, along with the lame Adrien Brody film and the AvP pictures showed).

[Monterey Jack]

-Predators (2010): 7.5/10



A damn sight better than the anemic second installment, this belated entry in he franchise (produced a solid two decades after part two) finds a gaggle of Earth's nastiest mercenaries and killers (a motley, engaging crew including Walton Goggins as a hick death row inmate, plug-ugly Danny Trejo as a Mexican cartel enforcer, and a surprisingly commanding Adrien Brody, among others) dropped off via parachute onto an alien game preserve on another planet and find themselves hunted by a trio of freshly-designed, 'roided-up Predators (who have a "classic", Stan Winston Predator chained to a post for not very well-explained reasons). Produced by low-budget wunderkind Robert Rodriguez and slickly directed by the unfortunately-named Nimrod Antal, Predators has fun with it's very varied group of victims and playing off of iconic moments from the original (including a great showdown between a Predator and a Yakuza gangster armed with a vintage Samurai sword), and adds a few wrinkles to the usual proceedings, like a pack of "Predator Dogs" used to flush out the group and soften them for the kill (more could have been done with this, frankly). There are certainly flaws (a "surprise" revelation about one of the group late in the proceedings is telegraphed from a million miles away), but I've always found this to be a solid and underrated entry in the franchise.

[Monterey Jack]

I think so much of the appeal of PREDATOR, the original, is the element of surprise -- and that's regrettably not something you can ever recapture once you've seen it. Before the film opened, there were hints as to what Arnold was up against, but it wasn't blatantly spelled out in the advertising or trailers. Walking into the theater on opening night, you weren't totally sure what you were in for...

Until you sat down in the theater and there's a SPACESHIP in the opening credits.

One wonders if that wasn't a studio note, and if the original conception of the film truly did keep the identity of whoever was killing off Arnie's men nebulous until late in the film.

One thing I like about the first Predator is how it switches gradually from a testosterone-fuelled "typical" 80's Arnie action romp in the first half to a truly suspenseful cat & mouse horror film in the second half. Even the idea that Arnie had to outthink his opponent was his own suggestion (when he read the script and saw a typical hand-to-hand slugfest as the climax, he said, "No, he is a monster, I am a man, he would destroy me"). Even as early as '87, that must have been a true surprise for the audience, to see the biggest and baddest of the 80's action stars using his wits instead of his fists as the film wound down.

[AndyDursin]

Exactly -- I wonder if the original script opened like that. The scene looks and sounds pretty much identical to Carpenter's opening of THE THING -- was it tested with that, to the point where they basically just reprised it? It'd be interesting to know.

One thing I like about the first Predator is how it switches gradually from a testosterone-fuelled "typical" 80's Arnie action romp in the first half to a truly suspenseful cat & mouse horror film in the second half. Even the idea that Arnie had to outthink his opponent was his own suggestion (when he read the script and saw a typical hand-to-hand slugfest as the climax, he said, "No, he is a monster, I am a man, he would destroy me"). Even as early as '87, that must have been a true surprise for the audience, to see the biggest and baddest of the 80's action stars using his wits instead of his fists as the film wound down.

It was, and the way the movie was marketed, it looked like it was just "COMMANDO in the jungle" -- or at least, you could say Fox made a concerted effort to downplay sci-fi elements. That may have been because they didn't want audiences back then thinking it was TERMINATOR or something like it (like "Arnold's in a sci-fi movie again!").

And you're right, only when you saw the spaceship at the very beginning were your suspicions totally confirmed as to what the movie was. Still they kept the creature's reveal very late, and McTiernan did a terrific job building that up so you weren't entirely clear what Arnold was up against until the "cat and mouse" section.

[AndyDursin]

This draft of the script, at least, didn't open that way...

https://sfy.ru/?script=predator

1 EXT. OUTER SPACE 1

The infinite blackness punctuated by a billion stars.
As we slowly DESCEND through the varied shades of blue
of the Earth's atmosphere, we HEAR the first strains of
a haunting, Central American FLUTE, joined by a swelling
background of JUNGLE SOUNDS. We descend further,
through a lush JUNGLE CANOPY, backlit by a setting sun.

DISSOLVE TO:

2 EXT. JUNGLE COASTLINE - DAY (MAGIC HOUR) 2

Through a collage of shimmering HEAT-WAVES, a dark,
OTHER-WORLDLY OBJECT drops INTO VIEW, backlit by the
fiery, ORANGE-RED sphere of a setting tropical SUN,
heading slowly towards us, floating, as if suspended by
the rising heat of the jungle.

Continuing to approach, the shimmering object resolves
into a MILITARY ASSAULT HELICOPTER, its rotors strobing
in the fading sunlight. Drawing closer, the SOUND of
powerful TURBINES, throbbing in the heavy air, becomes
dominant, overpowering.

Guided by COLORED SMOKE and LANDING LIGHTS, the chopper
looms hard INTO VIEW, pitching forward and settling to
the ground, kicking up a maelstrom of dust and vegetation

[Monterey Jack]

Exactly -- I wonder if the original script opened like that. The scene looks and sounds pretty much identical to Carpenter's opening of THE THING -- was it tested with that, to the point where they basically just reprised it? It'd be interesting to know.

Hell, even The Thing kind of goofed with its "crashing saucer" opening. The first 20 someodd minutes of the film create this great mystery about "What the hell happened here, Mac?" while they're exploring the ruins of the Norwegian camp, but one wonders how people would have reacted to the dog coming apart in the kennel if they had ZERO idea of what to expect, instead of being primed for it by thinking, "Okay, it's an alien".

The "Honest Trailer" for Predator humorously lampshades this.

[Monterey Jack]

-The Predator (2018): 7/10



Eccentric entry in the long-running action/sci-fi/horror franchise is rife with the quirky tastes of writer/director Shane Black (who co-wrote with his old 80’s compadre Fred Dekker, and I can’t for the life of me remember the last time I saw his name attached to a movie), which will probably delight his cadre of fans (amongst who I claim happy residence) and confuse the hell out of anyone expecting a straight-up genre piece. While the film is messy and bears obvious scarring from studio-mandated reshoots, there are enough looney touches to please fans of Black, who utilizes his usual bag of narrative fetishes (kids placed in highly-dangerous, bloody situations, off-center, blisteringly profane line readings…all that’s missing is his customary Christmastime setting, this film swapping it out for Halloween). There are several points in the film I found myself barking out spasms of what-the-hell-am-I-watching laughter, but in the best possible sense of the phrase, and the film is filled with nasty bursts of violence butted up against weird, almost Coen-esque dialogue and situations. While the film is certainly not perfect (and ends with one of those Independence Day 2 / Pacific Rim: Uprising-style “call to arms” sequel-baiting closers that’s a real groaner), I’ll happily sit through anything Black makes, and fans of his will probably get more out of this than the average filmgoer.

[Monterey Jack]

-Fade To Black (1980): 5.5/10



Fitfully effective tale of a young movie fanatic (Dennis Christopher) who identifies with the cinema so fervently he's willing to strike out at anyone who tries to shake him from his "unhealthy" fantasies, eventually leading to a spate of murders inspired by classic films (like corny riffs on Christopher Lee's Dracula and the Universal Mummy flicks and pushing his hateful, wheelchair-bound aunt down a flight of stairs in an homage to Richard Widmark's giggling killer in the noir classic Kiss Of Death). There's the germ of an interesting and even resonant idea here (especially for someone who knows, all too well, the intoxicating allure of living vicariously through pop-culture avatars), but it's given rather plodding treatment, with only sporadic suspense and some fairly poor acting (look fast for early screen appearances by Peter Horton and a very young and skinny Mickey Rourke, and listen for an early score by Craig Safan). A watchable enough movie (streaming on Amazon Prime at the moment), but nothing I'd ever sit through again.

[AndyDursin]

THE BRIDE
7/10



A box-office flop from August of ’85, Columbia’s “The Bride” is a flawed but generally underrated picture — an overtly romantic remake of “The Bride of Frankenstein” that’s much more interesting for its “secondary” plot than its principal one. As the titular heroine, Jennifer Beals looks fine but comes off as stilted opposite Sting’s smug doctor. More effective is writer Lloyd Fonvielle’s tale of the original, cast-off monster (Clancy Brown) finding his way in the real world with the help of a circus dwarf (David Rappaport from “Time Bandits”). Handsomely shot by Stephen H. Burum and graced with one of Maurice Jarre’s four marvelous scores from 1985 (“Witness,” “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” and “Enemy Mine” also comprised the quartet), “The Bride” is both a bit flabby and hampered by an ending that wasn’t fully realized. Frankenstein fans are also likely to dismiss the lack of terror and gothic atmosphere — but on its own terms it’s worthy of reappraisal, especially now in Shout’s splendid Blu-Ray (out this Tuesday).

The Sony licensed transfer (1.78) and 2.0 DTS MA stereo sound are each excellent, with new, lengthy interviews on-hand with both Clancy Brown and director Franc Roddam, who seemingly set out to make something a little different than the love story he ended up with. Roddam’s 2001 DVD commentary has also been ported over, one where he doesn't seem overly enamored with Jarre's score.