The penguins alone could not have saved us

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 31

2009-10-31T06:52:26Z

Well, there's the usual fare today: Halloween and most of its sequels, AMC's showing Night of the Living Dead multiple times today, and the premium movie channels are repeating their usual fare. Here's a few new ones in case you decide to stay at home, turn the lights off, and either dole out candy to strangers at the door or pretend you're not at home.

5:00 AM [Turner Classic Movies]
Dead of Night (1945)
"Apart from my bit of nonsense, the curious thing is that all of you, even Sally, seems to have had one of these extraordinary experiences."
"Well, perhaps they aren't so extraordinary. Perhaps they happen to most people."
"Oh, you mean there's a ghost as well as a skeleton in everyone's cupboard. That's a pretty thought!"
"And what's the ghost in your cupboard, Doctor?"
"Well, there was one occasion in my professional career that made me wonder. Made me wonder quite a lot."

7:00 AM [Comedy Central]
Shaun of the Dead
"As Bertrand Russell once said, "The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation." I think we can all appreciate the relevance of that now."
"Was that on a beer mat?"
"Yeah, it was Guinness Extra Cold."
"I won't say anything."
"Thanks."

9:00 AM [Turner Classic Movies]
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
"A brass unicorn has been catapulted across a London street and impaled an eminent surgeon. Words fail me, gentlemen."

10:45 AM [Turner Classic Movies]
Diary of a Madman
"... the vulture has eaten the pigeon; the wolf has eaten the lamb; the lion has devoured the sharp-tongued buffalo; man has killed the lion with an arrow, with spear, with gun-powder; but the *"Horla"* will make of man what man has made of the horse and of the ox; His chattel, His slave, and His food, but the mere power of His will. Woe to us!"... Guy de Maupassant

1:00 PM [TV One]
Blacula
3:00 PM [TV One]
Scream, Blacula, Scream
"You shall pay, black prince. I shall place a curse of suffering on you that will doom you to a living hell. I curse you with my name. You shall be... Blacula!"

2:00 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Cat People (1942)
3:30 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
The Curse of the Cat People
"What should I tell my husband? Naturally, he's anxious to have some word."
"What does one tell a husband? One tells him nothing."

5:00 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
"When you went to see the good doctor, before you left you said... I almost thought, well what did you think? Maybe that you saw a little bit of ME, Hyde in him?"

6:05 PM [Encore Mystery]
Jacob's Ladder
"Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth."

6:15 PM [Encore]
Twilight Zone: The Movie
"So, you had a pretty big scare up there, huh?"
"Oh yeah!"
"You wanna see something really scary?"

8:00 PM [Encore]
Carrie (1976)
"Got Satan's Power."
"It has nothing to do with Satan, Mama. It's me. Me. If I concentrate hard enough, I can move things."

9:45 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Circus of Horrors
"Quick, get her to a doctor. And send the clowns in."

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Voice Letter

2009-10-31T06:04:37Z

Lee Sang-Ho - Prologue from Bushinsaba
Matt Fink - Theme from Child's Play
Lee Byeong-hun - O sacrum convivium (Vocal) from Voice Letter
Kou Nakagawa - Requiem from Tokyo Gore Police
Jerry Goldsmith - Main Title from Malice

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 30

2009-10-30T07:25:51Z

One more day to go...

SyFy Channel
1:00 AM
Leprechaun
3:00 AM
Leprechaun 2
Start off the early morning with a double feature of everyone's favorite wee Irish sociopath. The first one's known more for being one of Jennifer's Aniston first roles, but I like to think of it as the movie where someone gets killed with a pogo stick. The second one has more of a romantic subplot to it, but let's face it: one only watches these movies for the crazy death scenes.

Turner Classic Movies
Boris Karloff Marathon!:
Since I have seen none of these movies, all descriptions are taken from TCM's website. But hey - an entire day of Karloff! You can't beat that.
5:30 AM
The Ghoul - An ancient Egyptian returns to punish those who violated his tomb.</b>
7:00 AM
The Black Room - An evil twin brother disposes of his enemies in a secret death chamber on his estate.
9:15 AM
The Walking Dead - A framed man comes back from the dead to seek revenge.
10:45 AM
The Man With Nine Lives - A doctor's attempts to cure cancer lead to a series of grisly murders.
12:00 PM
Before I Hang - A mad scientist experiments with a serum tainted with a psychopath's blood.
1:15 PM
The Ape - A mad doctor dresses as an ape to kill victims for their spinal fluid.
2:30 PM
The Devil Commands - A scientist kills innocent victims in his efforts to communicate with his late wife.
Plus a repeat at 3:45 PM of Isle of the Dead, already covered in this journal.

AMC

8:00 PM
Young Frankenstein
"From that fateful day when stinking bits of slime first crawled from the sea and shouted to the cold stars, "I am man.", our greatest dread has always been the knowledge of our mortality. But tonight, we shall hurl the gauntlet of science into the frightful face of death itself. Tonight, we shall ascend into the heavens. We shall mock the earthquake. We shall command the thunders, and penetrate into the very womb of impervious nature herself."

10:30 PM
The Amityville Horror (1979)
This movie teaches us three things: don't invest in dubious real estate, giant pigs are terribly frightening, and just because a book says it's a true story doesn't necessarily mean it's true. With James Brolin and Margot Kidder.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Tokyo Gore Police

2009-10-30T06:50:28Z

I have to admire this band's ingenuity in using TGP's footage to make their own music video for their song.

When Japan does sociopolitical commentary, they do so with style...

You can look at Tokyo Gore Police in one of two ways.

1 - It's a clever satire on what would happen if the National Police Agency was allowed free rein with no oversight, press coverage, or citizen's actions group. Naturally, lack of monitoring leads to corruption and our heroine must ultimately be the one to remedy this matter, as well as avenge her own activist father's death.
2 - It's a kick-ass movie in which our heroine mows down mutants before mutating herself, leading to an incredibly gory battle in which the main villain propels himself with his own rapidly gushing blood.

Kou Nakagawa - Tokyo Gore Police Main Theme
Mad3 - Jack The Violence
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Date With The Night
Radio Active - Dead
The Fratellis - All Along The Watchtower

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 29

2009-10-29T07:06:46Z

Another day of horror movie repeats and bad ~~Sci-Fi~~ SyFy originals - you'd be better off watching clips of Dark Shadows on YouTube, although... let's just say AMC has a particularly interesting movie early this morning.

4:15 AM [American Movie Classics]
Pinata: Survival Island
A pinata kills college students on an island. Yes, you heard me.

A pinata.

9:15 AM [American Movie Classics]
Dracula (1979)
There are basically two types of Dracula movies: ones in which he's the villain (Hammer horror, Bela Lugosi), and ones in which he's the hero. In this case, Frank Langella plays the count as a romantic, who is basically the only decent guy around for miles. So what if he sucks blood? At least he's able to show his love towards his brides. With Sir Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing and Donald Pleasence as Dr. Seward.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Epitaph

2009-10-29T06:00:26Z

--Bum-Sik jung & Sik Jung, 2007

Seoul National University Choir - Kyrie Eleison
MONO & World's End Girlfriend - Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain #2
Clint Mansell - Together We Will Live Forever
Larsen - The Snow
Deathprod - Treetop Drive 1
Dmitri Shostakovich - Chamber Symphony For Strings Op. 110a Allegro Molto
Arvo Pärt - Litany
Philip Glass - November 25: Morning
Muse - New Born

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 28

2009-10-28T07:12:48Z

1:00 AM [SyFy]
The Deaths of Ian Stone
It's like Groundhog's Day except that our main character gets murdered a number of times before he realizes what's going on. With bonus hockey!

4:30 AM [American Movie Classics]
And Now the Screaming Starts
Stephanie Beecham marries an English lord and for a wedding present, gets informed of the family curse by getting raped by a ghost with no eyes or a right hand. Peter Cushing tries to save her, but alas, vengeance for an ancestral assault will prevail.

8:00 AM [FX]
Urban Legend
Did you hear the one about the movie with Alicia Witt and Jared Leto as college students investigating a series of murders based on urban legends? It totally happened, except that it also had the girl from the Noxema commercials, young Lex Luthor, Pacey, and Freddy Krueger.

9:30 AM [American Movie Classics]
The Return of the Living Dead
Do you like zombies? Do you like stupid survivors? Do you like punk rockers taking off their clothes in the middle of a cemetery to do a gratuitous naked dance? If so, then you've come to the right place.

10:00 AM [Showtime]
Burnt Offerings
Karen Black and her family move into a decrepit Victorian house, not realizing that such houses are intrinsically evil and want you dead. And if the only catch to renting the house is that you take care of the old lady in the attic, you should probably run before the house eats you alive. Literally.

2:00 PM [American Movie Classics]
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Before there was the cult television show, there was the movie with Kristy Swanson as Buffy and Donald Sutherland as her Watcher. And Luke Perry, when he was still considered to be dreamy, not "where are they now?" caliber. Bonus Hilary Swank and David Arquette.

11:00 PM [Independent Film Channel]
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
If watching this and "The Hills Have Eyes" has taught me anything, it's that you should never go on road trips. Ever.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Hansel and Gretel

2009-10-28T05:22:12Z

Where the children aren't quite that vulnerable, the witch isn't a woman, and the parents are the ones lost in the woods...

Hansel and Gretel, the 2007 Korean film, is one of those dark fairytales where part of the entertainment of the movie comes from figuring out just what is going on. Some of it is pretty evident early on: the kids are clearly up to something, and when their parents disappear, leaving the hero, a stranded motorist, alone in the house with them, he has to figure out exactly what that is. He doesn't really have a choice in the matter, given that every time he tries to leave, his path must end back at the house.

But it's when this off-putting preacher shows up that you know something is definitely wrong and the rest of the movie starts veering towards the horrific side. There's flashbacks, an epic battle, and even a nice, happy fairytale ending, which given how most of the movie went, seemed unlikely to happen. It's actually a decent twist on the tale, one in which the adult is the one who has to find his way back.

Lee Byung-woo - Hansel and Gretel
Lee Byung-woo - Lullaby from A Tale of Two Sisters

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 27

2009-10-27T07:32:40Z

A few horror movie marathons today, in case you don't want to change the channel...

9:00 AM [SyFy]
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
"It has been established that persons who have recently died have been returning to life and committing acts of murder. A widespread investigation of funeral homes, morgues, and hospitals has concluded that the unburied dead have been returning to life and seeking human victims. It's hard for us here to be reporting this to you, but it does seem to be a fact."

9:00 AM [Spike]
Friday the 13th Part III
11:00 AM [Spike]
Friday the 13th Part II
Spike has its own double feature of Friday the 13th sequels, albeit not in order. Watch the third one first, where you find out Jason survived his attack at the hands of the two survivors in the previous movie. Then watch the second one to find out who's killing the teenagers at Crystal Lake and who survives. Spoiler hint: it's Jason and it's the people you saw at the beginning of the movie you watched right before this one.

6:00 PM [American Movie Classics]
Halloween (1978)
8:00 PM [American Movie Classics]
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
10:00 PM [American Movie Classics]
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
AMC has a mini-marathon of Halloween movies: the awesome original, the fourth one where Laurie has a daughter who goes crazy (not in later continuity), and the fifth one, in which the crazy daughter sticks around where her uncle tried to kill her in order to give him another great shot at killing her.

5:00 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Poltergeist
7:00 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
The Power
9:00 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
The Haunting (1963)
11:00 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Village of the Damned (1960)
Meanwhile, TCM has a great evening slate of movies: the first Poltergeist where we learn that building a housing development over mass graves is probably not the best idea; The Power where George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette are menaced by a killer psychic; the original The Haunting which still has some of the spookiest haunted house shots I've ever seen (interior and exterior); and the original Village of the Damned, where creepy-eyed children want you to do what they say and they'll kill you if you don't. Theme of the evening: psychic powers only lead to disaster.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Kuroshitsuji

2009-10-27T07:05:05Z

During a rather gruesome ritualistic sacrifice, a boy makes a pact with a demon. He loses an eye and will eventually lose his soul, the demon gets to be one hell of a butler, and bodies start stacking up.

I'm not entirely sure how they're going to do a second season of Kuroshitsuji, given where the anime left off (everyone's dead and London's toast), but I'm sure some sort of deus ex machina/it was all a dream/"hey look over there: a ninja!" will be involved. In the meantime, I'll enjoy rewatching the first season and its strange, anime-only detour into apocalyptic angelic hijinks.

David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World
Matthew Good Band - The Fall of Man
Placebo - Lazarus

And what is it about destroying London in supernatural horror? Between Kuroshitsuji and Hellsing, it looks like it's the new Tokyo (Godzilla not included).

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 26

2009-10-26T07:24:24Z

4:30 AM [American Movie Classics]
The Innocents
Movie adaptation of The Turn of The Screw, otherwise known (by me) as the novella where the governess is crazy, the children are screwed-up, and the ghosts may or may not be manifestations of repressed sexuality.

7:15 AM [American Movie Classics]
The Fly (1958)
"Help me! Help meeee!" Ah, good times. This is the original film, where Vincent Price, for once is not the mad scientist, but the brother of one. The type of scientist who invents a teleportation device, has a horrible accident, and ends up with his head on the body of a fly and the fly's head on his human one. And all Vincent can think is "For once, it's not me experimenting with unmentionable horrors."

9:00 AM [G4]
The Toxic Avenger Part II
Have your Troma fix with the return of Toxie! Guest stars include Michael Jai White and Go Nagai, the guy who created Devilman and Cutie Honey.

10:00 AM [FX]
Vampires
James Woods kicks vampire ass with the help of Daniel Baldwin and the only woman with a major part in the movie is a vampirized hooker. What makes this even better is that this is on basic cable in the morning - so I'm sure there won't be any obvious censorship. Hee.

5:30 PM [American Movie Classics]
Exorcist: The Beginning
There are two versions of the prequel to The Exorcist. The author called one of them "a handsome, classy, elegant piece of work." He said that watching the other one the "most humiliating professional experience. Guess which version this one is.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Ghost Hunt

2009-10-26T06:56:44Z

Quick summary: there's ghosts (or psychic manifestations) and it's up to Kazuya Shibuya (spoiler alert: not his real name), a teenage supernatural expert; Mai Taniyama, a high school student he roped into helping him; his laconic assistant, Lin Kouji; and a number of psychic/magic contractors he hires for various reasons to solve the mystery and dispose of any evil spirits along the way.

Not as light as it initially appears, Ghost Hunt can pack the horror into some of its episodes. If you ignore the whole seeming shoujo concept of the arrogant guy and the plucky girl who tags along and acts as both comic relief and love interest (the latter, to my utter relief, does not happen in the anime), it's actually pretty creepy at times (especially in Arc 7).

With that in mind, have some fairly cheesy tracks for it.

Matthew Sweet - Scooby Doo, Where Are You?
Squirrel Nut Zippers - Ghost of Stephen Foster
Jonathan Coulton - Creepy Doll
[I've used this last track before, but it's too good for one of the episode arcs not to use it]

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 25

2009-10-25T07:24:08Z

To make up for missing yesterday, have a day insanely full of horror - LMN, AMC, and Sci-Fi are all having marathons, and TMC provides some reliably classic films. I'm just providing a small selection - there's over twenty movies on today that haven't popped up yet in October.

12:50 AM [Lifetime Movie Network]
The Sight
Every time I watch this, I feel like they were planning to make a series out of it - young architect finds out he can interact with ghosts and must stop a murderer before he kills another. Oh, and he has a dark vision of a future where everything is destroyed. Then at the end, mysterious organization seems to be stalking him. Sadly, it never goes beyond this movie, so feel free to make up your own explanation for the loose plot threads.

1:25 AM [HBO Zone]
The Omen (1976)
Diplomat and his wife unknowingly raise the Antichrist as their son after a baby switch in Rome. Maybe the fact that the kid was named Damien should have tipped them off. Anyhow, a number of people die in rather gruesome ways (impaled on a church spire, decapitated by glass, hung at a birthday party), evil triumphs at the end, and we get three more sequels plus a remake.

3:00 AM (1932) [Turner Classic Movies]
Doctor X
I cannot write a summary any better than this delightful IMDB one so here you go:
The New York newspapers have dubbed him "The Moon Killer." He stalks the streets at night, strangling and cannibalizing men and women, young and old. There have been six victims so far, and the police believe that a scientist at the Academy of Surgical Research is responsible. Is it Dr. Wells, with the missing left hand, who studied cannibals in Africa? Is it Dr. Haines, who looks at erotic magazines and once may have cannibalized a fellow while adrift at sea? Is it Dr. Rowitz, who analyzes moon rays and writes poetry? Is it Dr. Duke, an obstreperous paralytic? Or is it Dr. Xavier, a.k.a. Dr. X, who runs the academy? Dr. X's young and lovely daughter will be instrumental in solving the crime, as will the hysterical maid and the sinister butler. Our trip through this morbid tale is guided by the wisecracking reporter who will find himself toe-tagged, gassed, tossed around and generally manhandled before the mystery is solved. -- J. Spurlin

4:30 AM [Turner Classic Movies]
The Mystery of the Wax Museum
There's a wax museum with figures who look strangely like missing people. Gee, I wonder if there's anything sinister happening. Surely, a man called Ivan Igor wouldn't be up to no good? The best thing about this original version? No Paris Hilton.

6:00 AM [American Movie Classics]
The Frighteners
One of the more underrated Peter Jackson films, this one stars Michael J. Fox as a psychic conman who gets caught up in some ghostly murders. Jeffery Combs gets the best lines, however. "Sheriff! You are violating my territorial bubble."

10:30 AM [American Movie Classics]
Wolf
Jack Nicholson gets bitten by a wolf and starts turning into one. Michelle Pfeiffer finds the new him sexy. James Spader is reliably sleazy about it all.

2:00 PM [SyFy]
Rose Red
Stephen King's miniseries entry into the world of haunted houses that kill people, this one has bonus Julian Sands in it. Basically, obsessive researcher gathers a team of psychics and the last heir to the house ostensibly to explore it (but actually to wake it up). Naturally, things go horribly wrong (or right if you're the researcher), people start disappearing, and Mr. King stops by to deliver pizza.

5:00 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
The Blob (1958)
Alien from outer space tries to eat an entire town. But it didn't count on Steve McQueen. Warning: Title song is highly catchy.

6:30 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Die, Monster, Die!
Boris Karloff and H.P. Lovecraft: two great personalities that should go well together, but thanks to this being a loose 1960s adaptation of "The Colour Out of Space," it's not as good as it could be. Needed a bit more otherworldly horror, less young lovers bumbling about.

6:30 PM (1980) [American Movie Classics]
The Shining
AMC seems to be in the Jack Nicholson mood today as it releases another of his horror performances. This time, he's the writer who goes crazy in a winter lodge with his freaked-out wife and their psychic kid witnessing it all. Creepy twin girls in a hallway, "Redrum", "All work and no play..." you know what I'm talking about.

9:30 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Nosferatu (1922)
Silent, black and white movie adapted from Dracula, with names changed because of the whole lawsuit thing. It is the Alpha of vampire movies - required watching for all horror fans (and for that matter, all movie fans).

11:15 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Diabolique (1955)
The original complex French thriller where a wife and a mistress plot to murder her jerky husband. The murder seems to be pulled off fine, but then the body disappears and creepy things start happening. Ending is deservedly famous for its twist.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust

2009-10-25T06:25:13Z

So very beautiful and awesome - I love everything about this movie: the tragic relationship between Charlotte and Maier Link (insert your own spelling here), the enigmatic Vampire Hunter D, the futuristic-gothic-western hybrid setting of the film, the gorgeous artwork... there's a reason it took so long to make a sequel to the classic original movie, and that was because they were saving up to make something great like this.

E Nomine - Die Suche/Der Schwarzen Reiter
Cradle of Filth - Stay
After Forever - Who Wants To Live Forever
Deine Lakaien - Love Me To The End

Now if only Castlevania would get a proper adaptation that would do justice to its own gothic setting ... oh, now it's set to be directed by by one of the guys who did Saw?

Crap.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Doomed Megalopolis

2009-10-24T06:58:16Z

Another fine entry in the grand tradition of supernaturally plagued alternate history Japan. This time, it's an odd one set in 1912, where the government is modernizing Tokyo to make it competitive with the rest of the world. Oh, yeah, and there's a sorcered named Kato who wants to destroy it all, using first the powers of a girl named Yukari, and when that doesn't work, her (and his) daughter Yukiko. Meanwhile, some onmyoji named Hisai is fairly ineffective at stopping it all, so it's up to a shrine maiden named Keiko to save the day.

This is another one of those films where there's a bit of squickiness to it - let's just say there's a brother that loves his sister a bit too much and leave it at that. But hey, you also get an underground dragon, the Great Kanto Earthquake, the spirit of a samurai named Taira no Masakado who'd actually rather not destroy the world if it's all the same, and a final plan to destroy Tokyo by using the moon's gravity in true supervillain style. It certainly makes more sense than the live-action version, and if you like alternate histories, it's a well-plotted one.

Garmarna - Klevabergselden (Kleveberg's Fire)
Inkubus Sukkubus - Paint It Black

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 23

2009-10-23T07:16:51Z

4:30 PM [Independent Film Channel]
Pumpkinhead
Keep away from Pumpkinhead,
Unless you're tired of living,
His enemies are mostly dead,
He's mean and unforgiving,
Laugh at him and you're undone,
But in some dreadful fashion,
Vengeance, he considers fun,
And plans it with a passion,
Time will not erase or blot,
A plot that he has brewing,
It's when you think that he's forgot,
He'll conjure your undoing,
Bolted doors and windows barred,
Guard dogs prowling in the yard,
Won't protect you in your bed,
Nothing will, from Pumpkinhead.

5:00 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Night of the Hunter
Rev. Harry Powell: I can hear you whisperin' children, so I know you're down there. I can feel myself gettin' awful mad. I'm out of patience children. I'm coming to find you now.

8:00 PM [American Movie Classics]
Alien
Ash: You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.
Lambert: You admire it.
Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.
Parker: Look, I am - I've heard enough of this, and I'm asking you to pull the plug.
Ash: [Ripley goes to disconnect Ash, who interrupts] Last word.
Ripley: What?
Ash: I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies.

10:30 PM [American Movie Classics]
Aliens
Newt: My mommy always said there were no monsters - no real ones - but there are.
Ripley: Yes, there are, aren't there?
Newt: Why do they tell little kids that?
Ripley: Most of the time it's true.

11:15 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Pretty Poison
Dennis: Boy. What a week. I met you on Monday, fell in love with you on Tuesday, Wednesday I was unfaithful, Thursday we killed a guy together. How about that for a crazy week, Sue Ann?

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Mermaid Forest

2009-10-23T06:55:03Z

Sort of touching story if you discount the constant near-deaths and gruesome maimings, it's the story of a man who ate mermaid flesh (long story short: makes you immortal if it doesn't kill or mutilate you first) and a young woman he encounters a few centuries later, who has also eaten mermaid flesh, due to some twisted mermaid plot. They decide to travel together, encountering others who have eaten mermaids, or want to eat mermaids, and stopping them from committing horrible acts.

It's all about mermaids, in other words, and immortality - the main hero, Yuta, just wants to grow old and die, and Mana comes to realize she just wants to be with Yuta (and possibly not get kidnapped so much).

As I said, sweet if you ignore the deformed monsters they encounter along the way which remind them of the atrocities committed in search of the immortality they achieved.

Cherly KaCherly - Underwater sleep while trying not to breathe
Willits + Sakamoto - Umi
My Brightest Diamond - Like A Sieve

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 22

2009-10-22T07:35:01Z

Not a great day for horror - you might be better off reading a good book, like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or World War Z or something else zombie-related.

11:00 AM [USA]
The Skeleton Key
You could do worse than seeing Kate Hudson get terrorized in a eerie New Orleans plantation house. She's a hospice caregiver in charge of taking care of John Hurt. Gena Rowlands is his wife and Peter Sarsgaard is the family lawyer who Kate strikes up a romance with. It's not a great horror movie, but there are some mildly decent twists to keep it at least worth a basic cable watch.

11:10 PM [Encore Mystery]
Psycho III
Anthony Perkins is back as Norman Bates, but I still feel Jeff Fahey's role in the movie is the creepier one. Anyhow, you know the drill by now. Mother obsession, people get killed, and a random ex-nun falls in love with Norman.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Wicked City

2009-10-22T05:59:53Z

Wicked City is one of those movies I'm glad I watched, if only so I can say, "Yes, I have seen it and now I feel like I should shower in bleach." But I can't complain - I did the research and I knew what I was getting into.

Really, the premise is pretty nifty - there's a truce between the demon world and the human one enforced by the Black Guard. Makie, demon officer by night, fashion model by day, and Taki, human guy with a big gun and a libido to match, are in charge of protecting a lecherous version of Yoda so that a peace treaty can be renewed and a bloodbath avoided. Naturally, there are those who wish to stop it, demon asskicking must ensue, and anyone looking for any kind of female empowerment in the movie should probably run far, far away from this one.

I'm just saying there's quite a bit of nonconsensual hentai action going on. And while I'm into supernatural organizations keeping peace in the world, I'm not really into the other thing. Despite all of that, it's still very good - the noir atmosphere is pitch perfect and for an anime from the 80s, it holds up quite well.

Just beware of the tentacles.

Hybrid - Hooligan Spirit
The Cure - Want
Apocalyptica - Worlds Collide

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 21

2009-10-21T07:19:39Z

1:00 AM [Turner Classic Movies]
The Old Dark House (1932)
Now this is more like it. The original film, not the William Castle version, this stars Boris Karloff as the creepy butler of a gloomy, deranged family. There's pyromania, alcoholism, religius fanaticism, and just plain strangeness with some great dialogue.

8:30 AM [SyFy]
The Insatiable
One of my favorite direct to video releases, it's the story of a young man who captures a vampire serial killer after he fails to kill her, having fallen in love. Mind games ensue, Michael Biehn plays a former marine in a wheelchair, and if you like bunnies, you probably shouldn't watch this.

2:45 PM (1991) [Independent Film Channel]
Afraid of the Dark
Odd movie where a young boy, facing an operation to recover his sight, believes that someone is stalking and killing blind women in his neighborhood. But is that actually happening? The second half goes into some bizarre territory and let's just say an unreliable narrator is putting it mildly.

8:00 PM [American Movie Classics]
Ghostbusters
Ray. If someone asks if you are a god, you say, "yes!"

10:30 PM [American Movie Classics]
Ghostbusters II
If my hands weren't tied by the unalterable fetters of the law, then I would invoke the tradition of our illustrious forebears, reach back to a purer, sterner justice, and have you BURNED AT THE STAKE!

Double feature on AMC, you can study up on all the ghost fighting while you're waiting to see if they're actually going to make a third one or not (still in scripting, release date says 2012, so I wouldn't get too excited yet). But hey, you can keep yourself company with the Stay-Puft Man, the most adorable giant marshmallow ever.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Demon Prince Enma

2009-10-21T06:54:56Z

A fairly short anime series (4 OVAs) based on an older anime/manga I haven't seen, Demon Prince Enma is about a fire-based demon named Enma, who comes to earth to get rid of other demons that have escaped from Hell, along with an ice demon named Yukihime (who has that whole forbidden, two different worlds love going on with Enma), a kappa named Kapaeru, and a hat that's really an ancient demon named Grandpa Chapeauji.

It's a a bit of spoiler to say that you shouldn't get too attached to any character in the series. These OVAs have a nasty way of killing off the nicest ones - and also the most developed, character-wise. And the ending has all sorts of vicious moral lessons to impart on certain characters. Watch out in the fourth OVA for the painting depicting the Dance of Death because it's going to be the biggest clue to the entire series.

Sixteen Horsepower - Sinnerman
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Mercy Seat

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 20

2009-10-20T07:03:56Z

A nifty TCM marathon of William Castle today, most likely to commemorate the fact that his movies are getting a fairly substantial DVD release this week.

5:00 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Mr. Sardonicus
Man gets his face frozen into a huge grin when he robs a tomb. Since this is pre-Nip/Tuck, sadly, there will be no viable plastic surgery option for him.

6:45 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
Strait-Jacket
Joan Crawford murders her husband (Lee Majors!) with an axe and is released twenty years later to live with her brother at a farm. Then people start getting killed with an axe. Apparently, when this movie was first released, Castle handed out cardboard axes to people. Man, where did those days go?

8:30 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
The Tingler
Vincent Price figures out that when your spine tingles, it just means there's a parasite on your back feeding off your fear and the only way to destroy it is to scream. To ensure that happened in real life, Castle equipped theater seats with buzzers and put fake nurses in the theater lobby. Matinee makes so much more sense now.

10:00 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
13 Ghosts
Guy inherits haunted house and must get rid of ghosts to keep their real estate investment from killing them. Filmed in "Illusion-O", which is an odd sort of 3D that doesn't really work (you can choose whether or not to see the ghosts with special glasses except that you can totally see them without the glasses).

11:30 PM [Turner Classic Movies]
The Old Dark House (1963)
Remake of the 1932 James Whale movie, I have never seen this version. However, since it's a William Castle, expect unintentionally funny moments, some truly terrible acting, and plenty of schlock.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Shutter

2009-10-20T06:37:33Z

They remade this with Joshua Jackson, and it wasn't completely horrible, but you still should stick the original Shutter.

It's a bitter little morality tale of sorts, except that it has crazy ghosts and creepy photos. There's a couple that runs over a woman and then leaves her body in the road, which of course, is totally the correct thing to do if you want to suffer horrible consequences. And they do, as the photographer starts seeing strange things in his pictures and his girlfriend investigates why his friends keep dying.

It's got more than a few twists, so I won't spoil it, but everyone gets what they deserve in the end.

Badawi - Entrance
String Quartet - Sunburn

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Horror Movies for Oct. 19

2009-10-19T07:03:27Z

If we can take anything from this day, it's that writing books drives you crazy, though the bright side is that it also gives you the power to manipulate time and space. Good times there.

2:00 PM [SyFy]
In the Mouth of Madness
An insurance investigator is hired to find out what happened to a popular horror writer. It turns out everything he's written about really exists (or does it?) and oh yeah, there's a lot of Lovecraftian talk about ancient gods retaking the earth. Insanity, forbidden manuscripts, someone named Pickman... that certainly doesn't sound familiar.

5:30 PM [MoreMax]
The Guardian (1990)
Family hires a nanny who turns out to be a tree-worshipping Druid who wants to sacrifice their kid. Lesson to be learned here: always background check.

5:50 PM [Encore Drama]
The Dark Half
Underrated movie based on Stephen King book about a writer who tries to kill off his pseudonym that has managed to come to life and is now committing violent, gruesome acts. The movie ends fairly happily, the book less so.

31 Days of Halloween 2009 - Blood: The Last Vampire

2009-10-19T07:01:43Z

There's so many version of Blood: The Last Vampire, it's hard to know where to begin. There's the original animated movie, the manga, the novels, a video game, an anime series that spawned its own novels, manga and video game, and a live action film. The last will be released onto DVD in the U.S. this week.

Basically, all feature the same concept: a girl named Saya with varying levels of vampirism (usually full-blooded) and a sword who fights other vampire-like creatures called Chiroptera. Naturally, there's quite a bit of blood. And you can't forget the schoolgirl uniform - it's to Japanese horror what teenagers having sex are to American ones.

Pretty cool - the original anime movie is the scariest and makes an excellent double feature with Vampire Hunter D.

BLAM HONEY - Enlarge Disorder
UNKLE - Nursery Rhyme/Breather
Add N to (X) - Revenge of the Black Regent