31 days of horror part 5: the Final Frontier.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Last night I watched HAUNT, a fun, fairly tense and gory take on the "extreme haunted house" phenomenon. This is what THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT should have been. It takes a while to get going but once it does it's a blast. Absolutely nothing new here but it's executed with panache and obvious love for the slasher genre. As far as I can tell there's no BD available but Amazon shows a dvd in stock early next month (way to time this to catch the Halloween crowd...cough cough). I rented it on Amazon Prime.

Thanks for this. I like it. Another "pretty good" horror flick.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Another re-watch: NIN's The Broken Video. This definitely counts as horror as it should but weirdly I didn't see it pop up too much in the tape trading circles back in the day.

[Mark Tolch Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mark Tolch]

Another re-watch: NIN's The Broken Video. This definitely counts as horror as it should but weirdly I didn't see it pop up too much in the tape trading circles back in the day.

Ha, I think that I was almost single-handedly responsible for getting that out in my area back in the day. Bought a bootleg of that tape in Toronto, ran off a billion copies, and a buddy of mine sold them out of a record store in our town for 20 bucks.

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

Another re-watch: NIN's The Broken Video. This definitely counts as horror as it should but weirdly I didn't see it pop up too much in the tape trading circles back in the day.

Someone I knew got a copy back in 94. Assuming it was made from Gibby's copy cause it cut out where that copy did.

Fell asleep before the Halloween Hootenanny ended. Barely made it thru Halloween 4,so when Halloween 5 started I said fuck it and went to sleep.



TITLE-Friday the 13th Mother's Day
SOURCE-Fanmade audiobook

Not long after Jason goes to Hell,the 9th film in the Friday the 13th franchise,a series of young adult horror novels was started. From what I can find there is 5 books in this series and all are written by Eric Morse. These books are long out of print. Hell the publisher doesn't exist anymore. And now copies of these novels sell for way too much money,last time I looked average price for Friday the 13th Mother's Day is 30 bucks.

Thankfully a fan has taken all these novels, and a bunch more. And made them into audio books. He narrates the book. Doing voices and adding sound effects and transitions. Earlier this month the fan posted links to all the ones he has completed and posted to Youtube. I took a handy dandy youtube video ripper and converted,so far,the first 4 novels in this series into mp3 files. Then for 4 nights and one long day of grocery shopping/cleaning the house I listened to Friday the 13th Mother's Day.

Set not long after the end of Jason Goes to Hell,Friday the 13th Mother's Day has a fairly simple plot. A hunter is out in the woods in the Crystal Lake area. He sinks into some quicksand. Then get possessed by the spirit of Jason. Since Jason is in Hell from what I have read his spirit will possess people in these novels. Which hell Jason was possessing people in Jason Goes to Hell. Once possessed the hunter starts heading towards Camp Crystal Lake.

Our teens are your normal group of teens that in movies are friends but in the real world they would never hang out. You got the popular boy who is a jokester and a douchebag. The handsome popular boy that every girl wants,who is also a secret douchebag. The late teen hippie couple,of course they drive a van and smoke lots of pot. The sexy forgein exchange student from France.The slightly overweight nerdy good guy. Then our lead a girl who's mother is over protective.

The Jokester kid talks everyone into going camping out near the now long closed Camp Crystal Lake. He even calls the lead girl's mother and by pretending to be the schools Vice Principal manages to talk the mother into letting her daughter go.

Ok so we got Jason who is possessing a hunter on his way to Camp Crystal Lake. And a group of high school teens heading to that area to have sex and drink. A really basic plot that has been done many times in various slashers.

This being a young adult novel of course the kills are not that gory. And the sex scenes are very tame. I was surprised though at how good the book is. It was rare that I read young adult horror ficiton. As a kid I read Edgar Allen Poe and other classic horror like that. THen by the age of 8 I was borrowing Stephen King novels from my Uncle and reading them. So I just kinda skipped the whole young adult horror genre. Plus when I was in the age group that genre is aimed at,there really wasn't that much YA horror being pubslished. This was years before Goosebumps or Fear Street.

Our lead girl is the final girl,big surprise. After all her friends are killed,some in prety neat ways,she escapes the killer by getting into a canoe and going out on Crystal Lake....

Yea the novel is pretty much a remake of the original Friday the 13th. But with small stuff changed. And as for the Mother's Day subtitle...the book is set over Mother's Day weekend. There is a short scene in which someone finds a Mother's Day card Jason wrote to his mom!!! That and the second day of the teens camping trip happening on Mother's Day are the only connections to the subtitle of the novel.

If you want to read this book your two options are pay what I think is way too much for a fairly short and a bit above average YA horror fiction book. Or search Youtube for the books full title. The Audiobook version I listened to is by 80s Horror Librairian,or something like that. He also has a bunch more Friday novels,some Elm Street novels and even 1 Final Destination novel.

Friday the 13th Mother's Day Audiobook gets a B-.

Last two days COdyLL has covered Werewolf 1996 and The Haunting 1999

[George Barry Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close George Barry]

Just saw Michael Pink's Dorian Gray (2016) performed by the Milwaukee Ballet, music by Philip Feeney. The dancing, music and design are very fine and overall I enjoyed watching it. However, the story telling is problematical. The character of Lord Henry Wotten is a non-dancing, speaking role. As written, he is drained of depth, there only to awkwardly supply plot points in a snippy fashion. Complete ballet on Vimeo (the only place I know where to see it), along with several other Pink, Feeney ballet collaborations. I haven't watched their Dracula yet, though I've listened to the score which I liked. (and) Their Peter Pan is just wonderful. So, if any of you kids want a ballet for Halloween, you might want to check them out.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

1408. An okay film.

Cannibal Holocaust. An immortal masterpiece. The Citizen Kane of cannibal movies!

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

TITLE-Pac's Scary Halloween
SOURCE=Netflix

I am old enough to remember the early 80s Pac-Man cartoon The one that most people now only know cause Boomerang/Cartoon Network show the Xmas special most year.

And that cartoon was fun. A few years back I see there is a new Pac-Man animated tv show. A co production between the US and Japan. It is computer animated and very different from the old Hanna Barbara one.

I had seen a few episodes and enjoyed them. So when I was looking for some animated Halloween specials I hadn't seen on Netflix and saw that this new Pac-Man series had a Halloween Special I downloaded it to my tablet. And finally got around to watching it today while taking a friend's mother grocery shopping

Pac-Man and his two friends end up at a haunted castle. Where a brain in a jar wants to plant his brain into Pac-Man's body. This brain is known as Pacenstein!!!!

Gotta talk about Pac and his 2 friends costumes.


Pac has snakes on his head so I am assuming he is a Medusa. Oddly sometimes these snakes appear to be living and react to stuff and other times they appear to just be fake snakes.


THe lady pac man,I think her name is Cyberllina,is dressed up as the lead villain.
Then the big stupid pac guy,Spiral I think is his name, I think is dressed up as a radish.....

Pacenstein puts his mind into Pac Mans body. Which turns his main part of the body a lighter shade of yellow. But Pac Man's mind has turned the brain in the jar to a bright yellow color.

Another new thing is there is more than just the ghosts from the original Pac-Man arcade game. The original ghosts are working undercover for Pac-man. And the girl ghost is in love with Pac-Man.

THese good guy ghosts and Pac's two friends find the brain that has Pac-man in it now. ANd they set out to find Pacenstein,in pac-man's body.

The lead villain has a sidekick who's forehead looks like a butt..Not sure if that is on purpose...Wait he just got called DR Rumphead. It is on purpose.

The ghosts find Pacenstein. Pacenstein eats them which leaves just their eyes. Just like in the games.

Pacenstein tries to eat a elderly pac-person. Then throws her up. Which brings out a bunch of Pac-villagers with torches.

SO Pacenstein eats a power pellet gets ice powers and the villagers run off.

THe villagers run into the Pac Friends with the brain. Pac-man Brain tries to explain and hte vilagers dont believe him. So the pac friends are getting chased by the angry vilagers and now some spooky wolves. Spiral and the girl eat power pellts. Spiral becomes a fly like thing. THe girl becomes a spider???

But the webs and flight ability of the two defeat the wolves. But the villagers catch up with them. Right then the power pellets wear off.

OK seems that butthead ghost is named DR Buttocks. I would have loved that name when I was 8.

Ghosts attack the pac friends. But the pac friends just play football with pac-man brain in jar and get away.


And while they are surrounded by ghosts,monsters and villagers COUNT PACULA saves them !!!!!!!

Since Pac man and the pac friends are fighting Pacenstein,Pacula is gonna help them. Cause Pacenstein makes too much noise and keeps Pacula awake LOL.

Pacenstein shows up at the party Pac man was expected at and he eats everything. Pacenstein eats a power berrie,what they call power pellets in this. It gives him electrical powers. Then he shape shifts into a Pac like KING KONG!!!!

Pacula,and the Pacfriends show up to fight off Pac-Kong. Pacenstein shifts back into Pacman shape to brag. ANd that was just dumb why not stay in the Pac-Kong body?

The villains start doing a version of the THriller dance? Pacenstein eats a bunch more ghosts. Gives some bad oneliners. And after the villains attack Pacman brain ends up in a punch bowl!!

THe big nosed green pac dude saves everyone while driving his Pac-banana vehicle. He has a brain switching ray. FUcks up and Pacman goes from the brain in the jar into Pacula's body. How is this gonna end they got like 2 minutes left.

Pacman/Dracula eats a power berrie that makes you smart. Deus Ex Machina.........Yep he comes up with a idea to the brains back in the right places. His hEAD grows so big he falls over on pacenstein!

Big nose green pac guy uses a machine to get all the brains back into the right bodies. And it ends with a dance remix of the game music from the original pacman arcade game.

Pac's Scary Halloween gets a C+.

And CodyLL covered Blair Witch 2

[Matt H. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Matt H.]

Whoa, Newt, you better take it easy with all of this intense horror you've been watching - you're gonna have nightmares!

[Gary Banks Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Gary Banks]

The Addiction-Really wanted to see this one and wound up buying it. Nice use of black and white and the linking of vampirism to heroin addiction. Not sure how many replays it will get, but worth a watch.

The Ghost Of Frankenstein-Finally the price on the came down enough to justify buying it solely for this movie and Son Of Frankenstein. Nice to see it in hi-def.

Castle Of Blood (US)-One of my top 5 of all time. I usually save this one for Halloween but had to jump the gun on it. This is the hi def, run through a grinder print that is an extra on the Nightmare Castle bd. The Synapse print is much better, but this is the one I first saw back in 1969 and have loved it ever since.

Hercules in the Haunted World-Originally released in the US with Castle Of Blood, it made for a fine double feature.

Web Of The Spider-Hey, look what I found! The remake of Castle Of Blood. On its own, it isn't a bad film. Not as good as its sire, but nice to see Kinski as Poe. Viewed the non Italian version.

1-Guru, The Mad Monk 2
2-House Of Evil 3
3-Starship Troopers 7.5
4-The Robot Vs The Aztec Mummy 4
5-Tarantula 7
6-Rodan 6.5
7-Horror Hotel 10
8-Castle Of Evil 7
9-et Mourir de Plaisir 8.5
10-Godzilla,KOTM(2019) 8
11-Shin Godzilla 8
12-Sinister Invasion 1
13-Secret Of The Blue Room 8
14-Evil Ep 1
15-Evil Ep 2
16-Thriller-Incredible Doktor Markesan
17-Violent Midnight 6
18-Pumpkinhead 5
19-Carnival Of Souls 9
20-Beast In The Cellar 6
21-Deranged 7
22-The Seventh Victim 9
23-the Cured 0.5
24-Ercole al centro della terra 9
25-The Addiction 6
26-The Ghost Of Frankenstein 7
27-Castle Of Blood 10
28-Hercules In The Haunted World 9
29-Web Of The Spider 7.5

[Dick Ringeisen Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dick Ringeisen]

Thanks for this. I like it. Another "pretty good" horror flick.

Last night I watched HAUNT, a fun, fairly tense and gory take on the "extreme haunted house" phenomenon. This is what THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT should have been. It takes a while to get going but once it does it's a blast. Absolutely nothing new here but it's executed with panache and obvious love for the slasher genre. As far as I can tell there's no BD available but Amazon shows a dvd in stock early next month (way to time this to catch the Halloween crowd...cough cough). I rented it on Amazon Prime.

Skimming through here earlier this weekend, Friday, something like that, I looked up some information on this film, and it looked interesting enough.

I thought it was pretty decent. Not excellent, but, a decent time. It did need a bit more of the story elaborated on in a few spots, but, it was decent. Also, the background with the woman and the bed, it just didn't seem necessary.

I had a better time with this, than Hell Fest. However, Hell Fest had a few other things going on, that this movie didn't.

*******POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW**********************



Not to spoil too much, but, why is it a bunch of folks with tattoos and piercings, and implants are the ones doing this? Is that supposed to make it more scary? I could understand a character or 2 being like that, but... Also, what is with the others that are just messed up looking? It felt like part of the story was missing. That was something with teh way Hell Fest ended. It had a decent ending, but the delivery was missing something. A similar type of reveal, of mostly normal, everyday folks would have had a bit more punch.

Also, when that guy has some paperwork on a clipboard from a hospital, how did he get that? Not only that, but why did he need that if he already had that info from the phones? At one point he recites adresses for the relatives of some there.

I like Haunt, but, I felt it needed a bit more work. A decent time, but, with just a bit more time polishing the script, it could have been better. Not bad for a, "Direct-to-video" horror film.

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

Whoa, Newt, you better take it easy with all of this intense horror you've been watching - you're gonna have nightmares!

LOL Yep.

Each year I try to throw in stuff that people can watch with their kids. Started doing it a decade ago when I would go stay 2 weeks in October with my cousin. Which meant during the day I had to babysit her then 4 year old. Introduced him to stuff like Hocus Pocus and Ernest Scared Stupid.


TITLE-Zombies vs Strippers
SOURCE-The Dead Walking 10 movie DVD set from Echo Bridge

Yea I grabbed this set back months ago. Friend of a friend works at a tiny pawn shop in a tiny town east of me. Tells us that as long as we buy at least 10 bucks worth we can get dvds/blu rays for a buck each. So we went one day and got all kinds of stuff. Grabbed this set mostly cause it was 10 films for a buck and Zombies Vs Strippers sounded like it would be either so bad it was good or just straight up trash.

First off Echo Bridge put 5 films on each single sided DVD. So these movies are heavily compressed. It looks like those vhs rips to DVD-r you would see SumGuy selling at cons in 2003 thru 2005. Watchable and the audio is clear,but it isn't crisp and someimes the sound is a bit muffled.

I start the film see it is not long,1 hour and 15 minutes,and it is from Full Moon. Which means it is either gonna be boring and not worth watching. Or cheesy as fuck and somewhat entertaining. Thankfully it is the latter.

A shitty strip club,the Tough Titty,is about to close. This is the last night it is open,cause the owner has sold the land and building. Then some zombies invade.

A group of survivalist end up in the club. Which adds some action. But yea there isn't much to this really short film. Tits,short bursts of low budget action and a few laughs.

Oddly Full Moon got no one known for this film. Well outside of the actor who has played Hambo in a few of the modern Full Moon films. He has a cameo in this.



The gore effects aren't bad. Some are practical some are digital. And both are cheaply done but not at the level of say a Made for SYFY movie.

I was surprised at the lack of nudity in the film. I figured it being Full Moon they would go all out. But nope.

There is a stand out scene near the end. The bouncer has been infected and is having sex with one of the strippers when he turns into a zombie. SHe doesn't realize this and gets bit. So a bit later our two leads,the sleazy strip club owner and the lead brunette stripper,bust in on the two zombies banging away!!

Not long after this a flood of zombies invade the club and in a scene I am sure Charles Band ripped off from Return of the Living Dead Part 2 well... Just look at the pic below.

Michael Jackson Thriller era zombie appears LOL. And the black stripper,named Vanilla,of course makes a comment about this.

For a modern era Full Moon film this isn't bad. The low budget is very obvious. But the fx work isn't as bad as most modern Full Moon movies. The acting is a hair above what you normally get from a newer Charles Band film. What surprised me is how little nudity there is in the film. It being about strippers,set at a strip club and coming from Full Moon I was expecting piles of at least topless nudity. I mean it isn't like there is no nudity,but there is way way less than I expected. I do like how Band is inserting tiny things in most of the newer Full Moon movies to show they all happen in the same cinematic universe.

As far as I know this is the third stripper vs zombies film made in the US. There is Zombie Strippers,which I reviewed a few years back. That one has Robert Englund and Jenna Jameson. Then there is Zombie Zombie Zombies. Haven't seen this yet.

Zombies vs Strippers gets a C-.


And CodyLL covered Ghost Ship

[Ignatius Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ignatius]

Day 26: NIGHTMARE CASTLE - A bit too slow, pokey, and flatly directed for the most part, but livened up by some strong sadism and the presence of Barbara Steele. Nice to have Steele's actual voice on the dub track as well, though the other voice actors are atrocious.

Day 27: THE KEEP - Why doesn't this work? The visuals are gorgeous, with evocative effects work, but none of the emotional or story beats land. I suspect the issue lies in the book-to-screen adaptation; Mann's script feels like it must have stripped out all the uncinematic aspects of the original novel but failed to replace them with anything. The story seems to be missing a significant amount of connective tissue - something exacerbated by Mann's unwillingness to settle on a primary character. Gorgeous and intriguing, but a failure.

Day 28: FINAL DESTINATION 5 - Better than the fourth film, not as good as the first three. The death scenes lack some of the Rube Goldberg machine ingenuity of the franchise's best, but are perfectly adequate when they're not being dragged down by goofy FX and in-your-face 3D. The attempts at comic relief are also risible. But the story ends up going in an interesting direction and gets points for attempting a big twist ending, even if it feels too clever by half.

Also watched a couple of extra short films: BROKEN - Y'all talking about this one reminded me I'd never got around to watching it. I imagine it would have been far more effective seeing it as a tape bootleg back in the day, but it holds up remarkably well. The jittery editing isn't quite to my taste, but the film does a superb job blending real and fake in a way that makes it difficult to tell where the line is drawn.

PIG - This one really fucked me up and I can't put my finger on why. The effect may have been lessened if there were a sense of despair, or any emotion at all. Instead, all that's present is pure abject horror.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

.
Day 27: THE KEEP - Why doesn't this work?

I think because it really, really appears to be an episode of Doctor Who but Doctor Whos not in it. I kept waiting for him to show up. He didn't.

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

TITLE-Knock Knock
SOURCE-Lionsgate Blu Ray

Yea I know this is a remake of of the mid 70s film Death Game AKA The Seducers. And Colleen Camp comes back for this remake. ANd yea I have seen piles of reviews of this film online. Calling it a piece of shit.

Back in late Oct 2015 I was sent a DVD rip of this film. Tossed it in planning on doing some editing while watching it. And it caught my attention enough I didn't anything edited.

Keanu Reeves is married with 2 young kids. His wife and kids leave for the weekend. And he settles in to do some work. While listening to some records Keanu fires up a bowl and hears a knock at the front door.

That's Ana De Armas on the left and Lorenza Izzo on the right
At the door is two wet and cold young women. Played by Ana De Armas,best known for her role in Blade Runner 2040,and Lorenza Izzo,the ex MS Eli Roth and best known for her lead part in The Green Inferno. They are lost and need to borrow a phone to call someone. Reeves lets them in and well shit goes downhill from there.

Reeves tries to be nice and helpful. Calls them a Uber,which will be there in 45 minutes. Throws their wet clothes into the dryer. And even shows off his DJ skills.

Knock Knock then morphs into a 90s era ERotic Thriller,I kept waiting on Shannon Tweed to show up. The ladies are in the bathroom,Reeves comes in to bring them their clothes and let them know the Uber is there. They seduce him. And after a long night of sex Reeves passes out.

The next morning Keanu wakes up to discover the two women are still there and made a mess of his kitchen. He is gonna call the cops to get them to leave when the women reveal that they are underage.


Basically Knock Knock is a home invasion movie mixed with a 90s SKINAMAX erotic thriller.


Sure you can figure out the ending. And the womens' reasoning for doing what they are doing is kinda bunk. But there is so much right with the film. The soundtrack and score are good. Love him or hate him Eli Roth knows how to frame a shot. And does some neat things with light in Knock Knock. And yea it helps that Ana and Lorenza as stunning beauties.

This is pretty much a 3 person film. Would be neat to see it adapted to a stage play.


Ana De Armas is pretty good in her role. I had never seen her before this film. She has the right look for the part she is playing. In that looking at her you can't tell how old she is. She could be mid 20s but then she could be 15. The only real flaw in Ana in this film is sometimes cause of her accent I had trouble understanding what she was saying. IIRC Ms Armas is from Cuba. So when speaking English she does have a bit of an accent. But it isn't a big flaw. And the film has well done subtitles.



Lorenza Izzo is gonna be a big star. After seeing her in this and Green Inferno I saw proof that she is a really talented actress. Able to do comedy,drama and horror. Plus she has this great sense of timing. I hope her divorce from Eli Roth doesn't cause her to not get as many roles in English movies.


Keanu Reeves is an actor that has a very limited role he can play. In that role he is damn good. But try to put him into a role that isn'tin that limited range and you get shit like Bram Stroker's Dracula. Thankfully Reeves is great in this. But then he is just playing a older stoner music buff. Which from what I have read is really who Reeves is.

The Blu ray of course has a audio commentary. Which is fairly entertaining. You get Roth,his then wife and Colleen Camp on it. There is a handful of deleted scenes,and you can see why they weren't included in the film cause they aren't good.Plus a halfway decent making of the film.

Knock Knock gets a B.

And CodyLL covered They from 2002

[Mark Tolch Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mark Tolch]

CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE - Cause Scott said so.