Halloween Horror Marathon 2020

[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

Halloween Horror Marathon '18

Halloween Horror Marathon '19



[INT. LIVING ROOM, NIGHT]

This is the domicile of JACK SKELLINGTON and his wife SALLY. They have lived in their HALLOWEENTOWN home for the last 25 years. The living room is festooned with cobwebs (with phrases like “BOO!” and “HAPPY HALLOWEEN!” meticulously woven into the strands) and several decades’ worth of fascinatingly gnarled and morbid knickknacks cover the various shelves and end tables. The well-worn and much-loved couch sits pointed at a large-screen television set currently broadcasting a festive Holiday classic, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. The chorus of buzzing cutlery and shrieks emanating from the speakers is currently turned down as SALLY, her long red hair now streaked with elegant threads of gray, emerges from the kitchen with a bowl of dip, which she places on the coffee table between the couch and the TV. Bugs and spiders crawl out of the bowl as they places it down, but she scoops them back in with a large wooden spoon she pulls out from inside her sock as the DOORBELL emits a festive scream.

SALLY: Jack, darling! Company!

Enter, bounding down the spiral staircase, JACK SKELLINGTON, every bit as elegantly emaciated as ever, his trademark tuxedo immaculately pressed, his bat bowtie slightly askew. His face breaking out into a cheerfully ghastly smile as he pecks his wife on the cheek.

JACK: Splendid! The guests have finally begun to arrive…!

Sally quickly straightens Jack’s tie before he crosses the room and opens the door to reveal EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, frizzy hair exploding in every direction, standing with his trademark appendages folded politely across his chest. He's dressed a little too formally for a casual Halloween night movie marathon get-together.

JACK: [enthusiastic] Eddie, my boy, please, come on in!

EDWARD: [meekly] Okay.

Edward enters (not neglecting to stomp some late-October mud from his boots onto the doormat) and sits down on the couch, taking great care to not puncture the armrests with his sharp digits. He studies the plate of horrible hors d'oeuvres on the coffee table and, with great care, extends his pinky finger to spear a jellybean eyeball, which he pops into his mouth. He chews without much enthusiasm.

JACK: [sitting down beside Edwards on the couch] How goes the ice sculpture business these days, Ed?

SALLY: [off-screen from the kitchen]: I believe he prefers “Edward”, dear.

EDWARD: [looking up, mouth full] Yes…?

JACK: Selling any more to that nice “Penguin” fellow from Gotham?

EDWARD: [swallows] Sometimes.

JACK: Very good! I imagine his new nightclub will look quite upscale with those.

[doorbell screams]

JACK: Ah, more guests!

he opens the door to discover the MARTIAN AMBASSADOR, its pulsating green brain concealed beneath a clear glass dome. Its ping-pong ball eyes skitter from object to object in the room.

JACK: Do come in!

The Martian glides into the room, tosses its red cape onto a spare chair, and settles onto the couch.

MARTIAN: Ack-ack-ack…Ack-ack!

Jack flips a switch on a box on the edge of the coffee table labelled “MARTIAN TRANSLATOR”

TRANSLATOR: [monotone] Greetings to those not of the green skin.

JACK: How was traffic between here and Alpha Centuri?

MARTIAN AMBASSADOR: Ack-ack-ack...ack-ACK!

TRANSLATOR: [monotone] Many asteroids were avoided. Odds of successfully navigating said asteroid field were approximately 3,720 to 1.

JACK: Oh, you never need tell me the odds, good sir! [holds up bowl] Bean dip?

The Martian Ambassador sticks a finger in the dip, and smears it across the face of his dome.

MARTIAN AMBASSADOR: Ack-ack-ack...Ack-ack!

TRANSLATOR: [monotone] Earth sustenance is incapable of permeating hermetically-sealed environmental face dome. Brainstorming possible solutions.

[doorbell screams]

JACK: You calculate, Mr. Ambassador, and I'll see who's arrived.

Jack opens the door to discover a moldering, undead COURIER, holding out a letter.

COURIER: [croak] Letter for mister..."SKULL-INGTON"...?

JACK: [sounding slightly wounded] Yes, that would be me.

The courier hands over the sealed envelop, respectfully tips his worm-ridden head, replaces it upon his neck, and lurches down the street upon his appointed rounds. Jack tears the envelope open and begins to read.

JACK: Hmmm, there are only three words printed upon this mysterious missive..."Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice...Beetlejuice?"

With a loud "POOF", the personage that thrice-repeated name belongs to appears on the couch between Edward and the Martian Ambassador, who both spread out as far as they can to give him more room.

BEETLEJUICE: Yo, Jackson!

JACK: [groans] Yes, Mr. Juice, I don't believe I extended you an invitation to this particular movie party.

BEETLEJUICE: Hey, give a ghoul a break! It took me thirty-two years to get to the head of that stinkin' waiting-room line, and I'm very behind on my cinematic experiences.

He stuffs a handful of snacks into his mouth and grins as bugs as worms squirm out and fall onto the couch. Edward looks nauseous, while the Martian Ambassador maintains a bug-eyed poker face. Sally emerges from the kitchen and fixes Jack with a glare.

SALLY: [through gritted teeth] Jack...darling...I thought we discussed this.

JACK: [defensive] He tricked me! I had to read the letter he sent!

BEETLEJUICE: [looking back over his shoulder] Yo, Sal ol' gal, still lookin' good!

SALLY: [looking directly as Jack as she responds with icy calm] Why thank you. I do try to keep up with my exercise.

BEETLEJUICE: [turns around and drops Jack a sly wink] Sure keepin' her figure in check, eh Jackie?

[doorbell screams]

JACK: I'll...just get that.

Jack turns around more to avoid his wife's glare than anything else as he opens the door to find EMILY, the Corpse Bride herself, standing there, looking resplendent in her beguilingly tattered bridal gown. SCRAPS, her skeletal canine companion, bounds in and places his front paws upon Jack's leg, barking excitedly.

JACK: [beaming, as he absently pats Scraps upon the head] EMILY, how wonderful of you to join us! We needed a feminine perspective on our movie night!

Emily enters, her bridal train trailing behind on the steps, which Jack carefully keeps an eye on so as not to accidentally close it in the door. Beetlejuice looks up and does a classic, Tex Avery-worthy DOUBLE TAKE.

BEETLEJUICE: [under breath] Unholy moly!

He rudely shoves the Martian Ambassador aside to make room for Emily, who sits between Beetlejuice and Edward on the couch. Beetlejuice looks lecherous as he sticks a finger in his mouth and hurriedly smooths back his unkempt eyebrows. Edward merely looks terrified.

BEETLEJUICE: Hey-hey-hey, Jackie-boy, you didn't tell me a perfect "10" was gonna show up! Had I known, I woulda brushed my teeth, or somethin'.

Emily daintily places a finger under her nose.

EMILY: Might I suggest you try proper dental hygiene even when not in the presence of a lady...?

Beetlejuice starts digging in his pockets for a breath mint as ZERO, Jack's ectoplasmic dog, drifts into the room, he and Scraps exchange a friendly sniff before Zero alights upon Edward's lap. This elicits a rare smile from the notoriously shy and withdrawn man as he uses his razor-sharp forefinger to gently "pet" Zero's head. Zero emits a couple of echoey barks in response as he floats around three times before settling in for the night's entertainment on Edward's lap. Edward continues to smile softly, relishing in the canine companionship.

JACK: [addressing the couch] Now that the gang's all here --

Emily's EYEBALL pops out and lands in the potato chips. Beetlejuice's search for a breath mint stops as he stares in shock. From the empty eye socket emerges MAGGOT, a...well, maggot who has taken up residence inside Emily's comely cranium.

MAGGOT: Wait, wait, I was using the restroom!

EMILY: [cross], Well, how am I supposed to enjoy the 3D like this?

MAGGOT:, Oh, excuse me, madam...

Maggot leaps from Emily's eye socket and does a SWAN DIVE into the potato chip bowl, and stars rooting around. He emerges from the salty snacks balancing Emily's dislodged eyeball on the tip of his tail.

MAGGOT: I believe you dropped this.

EMILY: Or perhaps you were overzealous in your attempts not to miss the first movie, hmmm?

Emily daintily pops the eye back into her empty socket like an errant contact lens. Beetlejuice continues to stare, slack-jawed.

BEETLEJUICE: [awed] That...may be...the sexiest thing I have ever seen.

Beetlejuice skootches over on the couch and places a hand on Emily's thigh, which she swats away disdainfully.

JACK: [attempting to regain his composure as he clears his throat] Yes, as I was saying, this year's Halloween night marathon of horror movies --

BEETLEJUICE: [interrupting] Is there any other kind, amirite...?!

He looks around for props, finds none in the stony glances of the other guests, settles back into the couch with crossed arms and a surly countenance.

JACK: [glaring] -- is a varied Trick Or Treat sack. Many, many treats are to be found within, but I cannot promise there aren't a few tricks set to pop out at a moment's notice.

Edward looks vaguely distressed. The Martian Ambassador stares goggle-eyed as he attempts to stick a potato chip into his mouth, which crumbles against his dome and dusts the couch cushions with crumbs. Beetlejuice once again attempts to sneak a feel of Emily's thigh, and receives a hard, backhanded swat against his chest in response.

JACK: [continues] Yet even the worst horror movies have their place, to let us know what not to do, the amuse us with their ineptitude, to be dissected alongside like-minded enthusiasts of the macabre. This year, the living room with be...OURS!!!

Applause breaks out from the mingled guests, as well as a volley of barks. Jack sticks a disc into the DEAD-VD player and settles into his customary recliner next to the couch. Scraps leaps up into his lap as Jack scratches him behind the ear (or, at least the spot on his skull where he ear used to be) and presses PLAY on the remote. Sally, before retiring for the night upstairs, dims the lights as the obligatory FBI warnings on the flickering television screen go away to reveal...the 2020 HALLOWEEN HORROR MARATHON.




This year's Marathon is dedicated to the memories of Stuart Gordon, Max Von Sydow, Wilford Brimley, Ennio Morricone, Ian Holm and Lee Fierro.

[Monterey Jack]

As I like to ease into a month's worth of horror gorging gradually, with films that edge up to the genre without quite passing over, I tend to start with tense thrillers, so for my first pre-meal appetizer...

-Jennifer Eight (1992): 8/10



Classy, engrossing thriller about a burnt-out L.A. cop, John Berlin (Andy Garcia), who re-locates to a small California town after the collapse of his marriage, and becomes embroiled in a cold case involving the murder of several unidentified young women code-named "Jennifer". Following clues and intuition, be becomes convinced the link between the women is that they were all blind, and his investigations into a local school for the visually-challenged leads his to Helena (Uma Thurman), a beautiful young music teacher who may have been a "eyewitness" of sorts to the man who may have offed her former, now missing and presumed-dead roommate. Assisted by his former partner (Lance Henriksen), Berlin delves into the clues that connect the various slayings even as he and Helena begin a tentative romance that is frowned upon by his superiors.

Writer/director Bruce Robinson is working from basic genre archetypes (the Wounded Hero with a Troubled Past, the tremulous blind heroine in need of rescuing), but the resulting film -- from that immediate, post-Silence Of The Lambs period where psychotic serial killers stalked the multiplexes and medium-budget, slow-burn thrillers aimed at adults could find an audience -- is tense, engrossing and well-performed. Garcia brings his saturnine charisma to the proceedings, broken up with zealous outbursts of Pacino-style overacting ("If he's in the ROOM with her, she's...DEAD!!!"), and Thurman's ethereal, melancholy loveliness is used to good effect as she melts through Garcia's defenses. The movie also looks fantastic, with gorgeously gloomy, rain and snow-swept cinematography by the gifted Conrad L. Hall and set to a haunting score by genre favorite Christopher Young (replacing a less-effective effort from Maurice Jarre). The film's conclusion is disappointingly abrupt, like there's a denouement that was lopped off in the editing process (it doesn't conclude so much as STOP), but other than that, this is an underrated suspense piece that's perfect to curl up with as the crisp fall nights start.

[Monterey Jack]

BTW, a scene from Jennifer Eight was used as stock footage in a first-season X-Files episode, "Lazarus".

[Paul MacLean]

The Haunting (4/10)

Nothing is worse than a horror movie that isn't scary. The Haunting is a near-total misfire, with big, imaginative sets, but little else going for it. The essential plot is sound, but the script could have use another re-write. Characterization is shallow, with Liam Neeson playing a researcher who lures test subjects to an old, gothic mansion on the pretext of taking part in a sleep study (when in fact the mansion is haunted and he wants to study how people process fear). Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a shallow, bisexual bimbo, with Own Wilson as usual playing "the doofus". Bruce Dern appears in a throwaway cameo (and he probably only took the job to get a free trip to England, where the mansion exteriors were shot). Only Lili Taylor (as the main character) has any real depth.

The film is very blandly photographed -- which is astonishing, considering director Jan de Bont was for many years a cinematographer. Boring, high-key lighting pervades most of the film -- perhaps de Bont wanted to make sure the cool sets were sufficiently visible, but this is the kind of film which needed spooky, expressionistic lighting (think Alien, Harry Potter -- or Black Rain, which de Bont actually shot!). Instead the whole film is flooded with un-scary, reassuring light -- with no shadows for the characters (or audience) to fear.

Big, looming CGI apparitions show-up at the climax of the film, but fail to generate any thrills or scares. CGI monsters, for whatever reason, are just not scary.

Jerry Goldsmith's score is one of the film best attributes. Unlike his more forté horror scores (The Omen, Alien, Poltergeist) the music in The Haunting is far-more subdued -- moody, with a subtle tension, but moments of poetic beauty as well. After years of trying to "re-invent" himself with a more stripped-down style, by 1999 I think Goldsmith was willing to be himself again, as this, and The 13th Warrior were a welcome return to the kind of work more typical of his 1980s output. (As an aside, I think Goldsmith made a huge mistake by opening the soundtrack album with the "calliope" music -- a cue which makes sense in the film, but not on disc, and it immediately puts-off any listener who hasn't seen The Haunting.)

I do give kudos to the filmmakers for casting Lili Taylor in the lead instead of Catherine Zeta-Jones or other "A-list beauty" (and kudos to the studio for allowing it). Taylor's performance is one of the few really outstanding elements of The Haunting. Unfortunately, other then her performance and Goldsmith's score, everything else comes-off as a bland, boring cliché.

[Monterey Jack]

The Haunting is TERRIBLE, and compared to the 1963 Robert Wise film or the recent Haunting Of Hill House Netflix series from Mike Flanagan is akin to a fart in a church.

Only good part is Catherine ZEE-TAH Jones' cleavage.

[AndyDursin]

It's that time of the year! I will enjoy seeing what you cook up, seeing as I have to turn off trailers for anything remotely scary on TV in front of Theo, much less have the opportunity to actually WATCH something scary.

That said I never like having to defend a compromised movie but there are FAR worse, irredeemable movies in the horror genre than the '98 HAUNTING. I mean come on, compared to some of the gutter-level dreck that's out there in this field? This movie is at least a high class physical production with great art direction (REAL SETS), a decent late era Jerry score, glossy widescreen cinematography and enough entertainment value to go around.

It definitely has problems and creaky dialogue but it has a few spooky moments, a cute Lili Taylor and is sufficiently entertaining. I wouldn't go higher than a couple of stars (and a half maybe) but I'd gladly take it over any slasher movie in existence. And definitely over most of Mike Flanagan's output too, which includes the boring, overpraised HAUNTING and icky-gross dud DOCTOR SLEEP.

[Paul MacLean]

That said I never like having to defend a compromised movie but there are FAR worse, irredeemable movies in the horror genre than the '98 HAUNTING. I mean come on, compared to some of the gutter-level dreck that's out there in this field? This movie is at least a high class physical production with great art direction (REAL SETS), a decent late era Jerry score, glossy widescreen cinematography and enough entertainment value to go around.

Obviously it was better than a "Jason" or Texas Chainsaw sequel -- but as a high-profile, "tent pole" release featuring A-list talent, I think The Hanting fell totally flat. For me it was bereft of dramatic tension, and the characters were hopelessly vacuous. I also found it totally lacking in any sort of spooky atmosphere, and boring -- I even fell asleep at one point. Honestly, I think Ghostbusters was a scarier movie!

And it really appalled me that a cinematographer-turned-director would call for a lighting style that is the antithesis of what makes a movie look and feel scary. I can see why Caleb Deschanel quit the production.

[AndyDursin]

I part company on that end. I thought the production design, the Art Deco look of the house, was compelling and interesting to look at. I actually liked that it didn't look like every other horror movie in existence. The bedposts with the kids creeped me out too.

I mean, the movie has a lot of issues, no question, but it was built more along the lines of being a "horror fantasy funhouse" type of thing like POLTERGEIST -- for a broad PG-13 audience -- as opposed to a straight-up remake of its predecessor. It's bombastic and shows obvious signs of Spielberg influence but I felt it was watchable. Not GOOD, but watchable. And sometimes watchable because it wasn't good (Zeta's vampy performance, Owen Wilson's demise

[jkholm]

Looking forward to this year's marathon! MJ, do you pick everything out in advance?

[Monterey Jack]

MJ, do you pick everything out in advance?

I tend to "wing it" based on what my mood is that day, and how much free time I have. Since I scheduled a week's vacation from work to start on October 3rd, it'll be a great excuse to work my way through the Shout Factory boxed sets of The Fly and The Omen (sans the crappy remake, which I reviewed in last year's thread). I'm always please when I find ways to "connect" two movies, and I have some ideas in mind already. Regardless, you'll all know soon enough.

[Monterey Jack]

Would you like to know more...?

-Starship Troopers (1997): 10/10



Director Paul Verhoeven's gonzo mixture of hard-hitting sci-fi action, social satire and stomach-churning violence isn't a "horror" film in the strictest sense, but hey, James Cameron's Aliens hews closer to action and sci-fi, yet is frequently put into the "horror" category as well, so this will suffice as another second-cousin to the genre that will work as an appetizer for the full meal of October. His loose adaptation of a Robert Heinlein novel didn't earn many points from fans of the author, but taken on its own merits, it's a bloody hoot, rife with still-astonishing visual effects, superbly-realized action sequences and amusingly vacuous human "drama" as a near-future Earth finds itself under siege from the "Arachnids", the hideous alien race from the nearby planet of Klendathu who have taken human incursions into their territory as a sign of war, and have retaliated with extreme prejudice ("Goddamn Bugs wacked us, Johnny!"). The response from us? Swift, amoral and unthinking re-retaliation, as waves of dispensable, heavily-armed ground troops ("More meat for the grinder") are sent in order to wipe out the alien scum, in sequences that brim with blood & thunder excitement and graphic gore as only the Mad Dutchman Verhoeven can deliver. The film's political subtexts are barn-door broad (even as the film eerily predicted 9/11 and the subsequent "War On Terror" in the early 00's), but it's just a glaze of satire frosting on top of a solidly-constructed cake of WWII-inspired "grunts on a mission" action. The characterization of the film's absurdly good-looking cast (Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, Jake Busey and a pre-"coming out" Neil Patrick Harris amongst them) is paper-thin, but that's part of the satirical hash of Ed Neumeier's screenplay, and when the action is delivered with such bravado and technical acumen, why carp? In the era of bland, canned PG-13 blockbuster cinema, it's a pleasure to be reminded of a time when a filmmaker like Verhoeven would be trusted with a $100+ million budget and total creative control, and while the film didn't hit the box office heights of his previous pair of sci-fi/action classics (Robocop, Total Recall), it's held up better than the majority of F/X-driven event cinema of the late-90's, and still offers a blast of bombastic, amoral fun.

[Monterey Jack]

-The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020): 4/10



Tepid sequel to the slightly-less-tepid Netflix original finds Cole Johnson (Judah Lewis) a social pariah in high school, no one -- from his peers to his parents to his teachers -- believing his wild adolescent tales of the Satanic cult that tried to take his blood two years earlier. His attempts to ingratiate himself with the hot neighbor girl, Melanie (Emily Alyn Lind), he shared a smooch with on that fateful night during a retreat to a boat party on a secluded lake leads to another bout of gory mayhem, as the stereotypical meanies who tormented him two years ago return for another shot at his virginal blood required to finish the ritual that will allow them to live forever.

Returning director McG (co-scripting with THREE other writers, always an encouraging sign), helms the routine mayhem with his usual jittery, over-stylized visuals, and the lack of Samara Weaving as the titular babysitter Bee from the original (aside from a brief, "contractual obligation" cameo) shears the material of the one performer who really dug into the material with the right mixture of snarky humor and genuine malice. It's not funny, it's not scary, and even the "outrageous", cartoony violence plays like hand-me-downs from the Sam Raimi playbook, only with little of the anarchic ebullience that marked Raimi's Evil Dead movies (and noticeably poor visual effects). Time to tell this babysitter that we've grown up, and that her services are no longer required.

[Monterey Jack]

-Creepshow (1982): 7.5/10



I could also crossbreed this with the "Movies With The Nephew" thread, although this one was with the other nephew, and his sister (and her boyfriend) We watched George A. Romero's loony horror anthology (spun off from the pages of the cheerfully gruesome 1950's E.C. horror comics that Romero and screenwriter Stephen King grew up on), a quintet of terror tales that range from the rote (the revenge-from-the-grave potboiler "Father's Day") to the inspired (the waterlogged wonderfully-titled "Something To Tide You Over") to the just plain gross (the bugged-out "They're Creeping Up On You"). It's disgusting, it's corny, it's ham-fisted...but it's also done with great style and affection, played to the hilt by actors all clearly in on the joke (with a mugging King himself as the titular lunkhead in "The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verill" and a marvelously sinister Leslie Nielsen in "Tide" getting top props) and with gruesome, color-drenched photography that makes the images pop off the screen like pages from a well-thumbed comic.

[Monterey Jack]

-The Hunt (2020): 3/10



Hey, here's an original idea...a bunch of unrelated characters wake up in a strange place and are relentlessly hunted by a pack of killers for...uhhhh reasons. The five-thousandth rehash of the ancient Most Dangerous Game formula was originally supposed to come out in late 2019 but got bumped to a March 2020 release slot due to the "controversy" swirling around it...only to hit theaters less than a week before the Covid pandemic shut down theaters nationwide (insert Nelson Muntz "HA-ha...!" GIF here). It probably wouldn't have done much more business had they stuck to the original release date, as it's a desperately inert film with a jokey tone that results in precious few actual laughs and "social critique" on the level of those lousy Purge movies, a film so outraged about Outrage Culture that it doesn't have a clue how to coherently formulate a satirical attack on the subject matter, and just lobs toothless softballs at the wall hoping one will stick. I wouldn't mind that so much had it delivered some actual laughs and thrills, but -- aside from a well-choreographed final catfight scene right out of the room-destroying Kill Bill playbook -- it just lies there, barely making to an 85 minute runtime sans credits. The only really notable aspect of the film is how casually it knocks off some of the more recognizable members of the cast, but this ain't no Psycho, and Ike Barinholtz is no Janet Leigh.

[Monterey Jack]

Already have my Thursday kick-off mini-marathon planned, thanks to a fortuitously-timed steelbook purchase, so stay tuned...!