Pick a Post 19: Halloween Sensation Part Two

Fear has many eyes and can see things underground, said Don Quixote. And that was before he read the League of Tana Tea Drinkers' Halloween 2009 Pick a Post Sensation. Feel free to indulge yourself. Go on, it's almost Halloween!

Day of the Woman vents her wrath on those annoying couples' costumes!

The annoying costumed couple. We all know them, we all hate them, and we all avoid them like the plague.

Drunken Severed Head pokes a finger at the Hand of Glory!

When I was a kid, the magazines CREEPY and EERIE kept the spirit of
Hallowe'en burning in me all year 'round. In one of them, I was
introduced to the legendary device of dark magic, the hand o' glory.

Classic-Horror dares to let its staff loose on Shocktober Classics!

This year, we're letting the staff decide what they want to review, leading to an eclectic selection of titles, with something to please
everybody.

Lost Highway finds 10 top movies for your Halloween viewing pleasure!

The season of ghouls and things that go bump in the night is upon us once again. This means Lost Highway is digging up another list of some must see horror films to check out when all your trick or treaters have gone to bed.

Freddy In Space sniffs pumpkin fumes too long and has Halloween flashbacks!

Before we get real deep into the Halloween 2009 posts, let's take a look back at some of the posts I made last year around the greatest time of the year!

Dinner With Max Jenke has a Halloween costume meltdown!

A few weeks before Halloween in 1978, as I walked through a Kaybee’s toy store with my mother, I spotted an actual, honest-to-God, officially sanctioned make-up kit for The Incredible Melting Man.

Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies looks gazes at the other faces of Bela Lugosi!

Bela Lugosi was nearly fifty years old when he stepped in front of the cameras to perform the role that would forever define his cinematic identity, and had already seen more hardship, adventure, and professional success in his life than most people could even dream of.

TheoFantastique pays a visit to Halloween folklore and death festivals!

What contribution do the perspectives of festival and Folklore studies bring to an understanding of Halloween?

Cinema Suicide notes how John Carpenter revolutionized horror!

John Carpenter’s Halloween, following in the set ‘em up and knock ‘em down stylings of Psycho and Black Christmas, sent shockwaves through movie studios who all jumped hungrily on the gravy train.

Moon Is a Dead World looks at Hey Arnold's Halloween specials!

I guess it's time for another Halloween special post, huh? This time, I'm bringing you another throwback to my childhood with Nickelodeon cartoon series Hey Arnold!

And room for one more...

Zombos' Closet of Horror has a M'eye'Graine!

Photo of Vincent Price in Masque of the Red Death courtesy of Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans.

Pick a Post 19: Halloween Sensation Part One

I bid you welcome. Read freely, and enjoy this special League of Tana Tea Drinkers Halloween 2009 Special. But be warned; like reaching deeply into the bottom of a trick or treat bag after a long night of haunting for sweets, you never know what you may find...

Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies dives deep into their Halloween memory in search of the Creature From the Black Lagoon!

Every October I regress in age to that wide-eyed, still blessedly un-diabetic boy, with an insatiable craving for peanut-butter taffy and a strong desire to revisit those flicks that made me love horror in the first place. I've watched and re-watched them all over the years, and they never fail to return me to that innocent, enthusiastic place, where everything was yet to be discovered, and nothing--not even black-and-white films from the 30s, 40s, and 50s--was old.

TheoFantastique draws us a pretty picture of Halloween animation classics, from Linus to Bugs Bunny!

One of the great things that I associate with the fall and the Halloween season is a collection of animation that I have enjoyed over the years. As children in the not too distant past, viewers had to wait for the whims of the major networks to air these programs, but now with DVDs, the Internet, and YouTube it is possible to add these materials to a video collection, and to enjoy them any time the viewer likes. With this post I will share several animated programs that I have enjoyed over the years.

Dinner With Max Jenke scares up the Season of the Witch in Halloween III!

Rather than a thug in overalls slaughtering promiscuous teens, Season of the Witch instead offered up a certifiably zany plot involving no less than Stonehenge, pagan magic, killer robots, and Halloween masks with frigging laser beams. Far-fetched? Hard to swallow? Bat-sh*t insane? Yep, Season of the Witch is all of that.

Cinema Suicide provides us with mood music for a Halloween night!

The general Halloween aesthetic has a tendency to put the brakes on my wildly fluctuating taste in rock and for the entire month, a few days leading up to and a few days trailing out of, my playlist stabilizes and all I listen to is music inspired by or directly related to Halloween, horror movies, the spooky and the scary. To illustrate my point, I present to you the following 13 examples of Halloweeny or horrifying music.

Day of the Woman carves up the history of Jack O'Lanterns!

The Irish brought the tradition of the Jack O'Lantern to America. But, the original Jack O'Lantern was not even a pumpkin.

Igloo of the Uncanny wonders what if? with An American Werewolf In London!

This isn't the first time I've watched An American Werewolf in London. It's my favorite horror film, so I've seen it a lot since my first viewing aged 11. Back then, armed with a clunky VHS recorder and a taped copy of the film, I learned to recite all the dialogue (this was before puberty kicked in). But don't worry, I'm not going to do that today.

Moon is a Dead World gets graphic with Wildstorm's Trick 'r Treat!

Surprisingly, the comic adaptation of Trick 'r Treat feels
fairly consistent considering the use of four different artists. I love how the aspect of using references to other scenes comes into play with the comic as well as the movie; the only problem I had with this was that sometimes the characters look drastically different than they did in the other chapters.

Freddy In Space does Halloween right with UNICEF!

Ya ever feel like you wanna make a difference, at least in some small tiny little way? Well I feel that way today and I feel like I just might be in a position to do so. Most of us may be too old to Trick or Treat For UNICEF, but we're never too old to lend a helping hand to those who need it, so I've decided to launch the first annual Freddy In Space Trick 'r Treat For UNICEF campaign and I need YOUR help!

And room for one more...until part two.

Drunken Severed Head shares the Halloween reminiscences of Joe Moe!

Known for many years as a caretaker to Famous Monsters editor, punster, film fan and collector extraordinaire Forrest J Ackerman, Joe is a beloved, friendly figure on the horror film convention circuit.

Pick a Post 17: Worst Horror Movies

Beware! The members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers dig six feet deep to uncover their favorite worst movies. Beware!

Final Girl goes all ugly over The Cavern!

...You know, if today's movie, The Cavern (2005), had arrived with its other title, WIthIN, plastered on it, I may have skipped watching it on principle and saved myself some pain.

Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies doesn't find pleasure in Goregasm!

...Think of a GWAR video, only without the showmanship, musical proficiency, and insightful social commentary. Think of a Troma movie without the high production values and delightfully cosmopolitan sense of humor. Think of all those dead baby jokes you and your friends used to tell in junior high, but without the rapier wit. Got it? Formed a picture of that movie in your head?

Evil on Two Legs couldn't run fast enough from End of Days!

...the first thing one notices is that this film is dark. i don’t mean se7en dark, like in terms of “mood.” i’m talking doom3 dark without the flashlight mod kind of dark. this is what happens when you let the director be his own dp… (pun alert) in light of this, i’ve taken the liberty of brightening up the screenshots so you can actually make out what’s going on.

Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire wants its time back after Exterminator City!

...Disclaimer: The opinions reflected in this article are mine and mine alone and don't reflect the opinions of the fine, upstanding, and thoroughly delightful gentle people at "Ultra Violent Magazine." Even though those bastards sent me this movie and expected me to review it for their publication without any appropriate warning.

Classic-Horror wishes Left in Darkness was left in darkness!

...Left in Darkness is a varicose mess playing with half-realized ideas that its makers do not seem to grasp at all. Unsurprisingly, it's produced by Stephen J. Cannell, who has created a small industry out of turgid, pseudo-intellectual horror films. So few films make me speechless in their awfulness, but this one wins that extremely dubious distinction.

Cinema Suicide couldn't exorcise the Turkish Exorcist in Seytan!

...Part of the charm of watching Turkish knock-offs is that they rarely, if ever, come subtitled. Watching them, you have no idea what is happening. You’re often left with the vaguest notion that familiar characters from better known Hollywood movies are doing very strange things for mysterious reasons and that’s alright. However, I managed to find a subtitled copy of Seytan, better known to the west as Turkish
Exorcist, and found that the subtitles don’t clear anything up.

Horrors Not Dead can't hate The Chaos Experiment enough!

...There are bad movies. There are stupid movies. There are shitty movies. There are awful movies. And there is Philippe Martinez’s THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT, which is an awful shitty, awful stupid, awful bad movie. And I’d say that’s an awful shame because it has Eric Roberts, Armand Assante and Val Kilmer in it, but that would be a lie. It’s not a shame.

Moon is a Dead World goes collegiate with Sorority House Vampires From Hell!

...When I popped the DVD in, I was already ready for a terrible movie, and then
when the first five minutes came rolling by with a woman dancing topless during the opening credits, along with bad 90s metal, I was totally bored. Another 5 minutes brings another woman who dances while annoyingly bad CGI effects talk gibberish about an alien sending a vampire down to Earth. I'd had almost enough of the softcore porn environment, so luckily we moved on to the real story.

Zombos' Closet of Horror shuts the door on Murder-Set-Pieces!

...Around two-thirds into Murder-Set-Pieces I looked at my watch. I don't do that often when watching a film. In this case, though, I looked at it twice. I really wanted to get it over with, and, unlike some reviewers less meticulous (or masochistic) than me, I always watch the whole movie just to make sure I don't miss anything that remotely resembles art, or scares, or anything that stands out as a memorable horror-moment. I was disappointed that I didn't find anything like that here.

And room for two more...

Cinema Fromage is left speechless after watching Hard Rock Zombies!

Day of the Woman explains why she hates HellRaiser!

...So here it is...only in my words :) Enjoy, and by the way....no matter what you comment me, you WON'T change my opinion on it.

Until next time, then.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Macro's High-Quality Movie Scans!

Pick a Post Sensation 18: Favorite Novels

Beware!

The members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers dig six feet deep to uncover their favorite novels for your edification pleasure and horrific delight.

AttentionDeficitdisorderly conjures up The Stand and It for starters!

...A couple days ago I finished rereading Stephen King's The Stand for the fourth time, I think. If it's not his best book it's in the top two, and it has the added bonus of boasting the best film adaptation of any of King's works. That's not to say that the TV miniseries of The Stand is better than Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, of course, just that it's a better adaptation.

Cinema Suicide stalks zombies in World War Z!

...World War Z takes the zombie setting and presents it as though it’s a retrospective piece of nonfiction. It takes place an unspecified number of years after a zombie plague outbreak greatly reduces the world population and is then brought under control. While it’s certainly a pulpy read and presented in a series of interviews with fictional survivors, it goes at the setting from the perspective of an author who studied at the same school of the living dead that I did.

Horror's Not Dead enjoys a chilling summer night in Summer of Night!

...There is an unexpected advantage to being my age. I’ve been around, sure, but there is still so much outside my footprint. I’ve got feelers out everywhere, normally yielding at least a geographical plotting of everything in the arena even if I never take he/she/it one on one, but from time to time something I had no inkling even existed blindsides my radar and when that happens I feel like Jed Clampett. A month ago I had never heard of Dan Simmons. After having finished his early ’90s novel SUMMER OF NIGHT, I can declare full bore that I am now seeking out every syllable the man has ever put his name on.

Lost Higway finds The Drive-In, a B-movie with blood-topped popcorn, made in Texas!

...I've always had a fascination with the drive-in culture and mythos. Those times of watching a great b-movie out under the stars and making that long walk to the snack shop for that buttery snack are some of my best teenage memories. I've gathered quite a few books about their history so a few years back when I ran across a novel with the "Drive-in" in it's title, I had to give it read.

It's described as a living B-movie where the patrons of a drive-in become characters in a b-movie and are being directed by some malevolent alien forces. That sounded like fun campy storytelling to me and even it's book cover suggested a sort of "Hitchhiker's Guide" silliness. Don't be fooled. This book is dark, twisted and bleak Blood cults, cannibalism and the worse of humanity take root as societal norms break down and the horrifying popcorn king begins it's reign of terror. Lansdale's descriptive storytelling and compelling characters made it's somber outlook on society all that more visceral to me. I found myself more trying to endure it's twisted story than be entertained by it. I even had to take a break and watch a sitcom just to have a warm fuzzy feeling again. Retroman Steve says check it out, but you'll likely never look at drive-in popcorn the same way again.

And finally...

Fascination With Fear tells us a Ghost Story!

...When I was quite young, I was busy voraciously reading Stephen King when I happened upon this book at the book store and thought it looked right up my alley.

Ghost Story [by Peter Straub] is the slowly unwinding tale of a group of elderly men who have grown up together in a bucolic upstate New York town, and who keep themselves busy by getting together frequently to exchange frightening stories. They call themselves 'The Chowder Society' and they have a secret from their youth that is the basis of the supernatural horror that crawls under your skin while reading this book.

When the men were young, they were enamored with a young woman names Eva Galli. They spent all their time with her, until one fateful night, she is accidentally hit on the head. Believing her dead, they panic - no one wants to ruin their bright future, so they stuff her in a car and send it into the lake. Unfortunately, their medical knowledge is not top notch, and as the car is sinking they see something so terrifying they are scarred for life, each of them. Eva, at the rear window of the car, is not dead. Her bizarre grin is in full view as the car sinks out of sight.

Many years later, Eva re-surfaces as Alma, and when one of the men dies of fright, his fellow accomplice's trepidation turns into intense fear as each man struggles to defeat the evil. To tell more would ruin the satisfaction someone could get from reading this story for the first time. I know when I did, it was something that I won't forget.

Pick a Post Sensation 16: Favorite Horror Movies

Beware! The members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers dig six feet deep to uncover their favorite terror movies for your Halloween edification pleasure. Boo!

Dinner With Max Jenke says Let's Scare Jessica To Death:

No other horror film has given us a heroine as memorably fragile as the title character of director John Hancock's unusually sensitive shocker Let's Scare Jessica To Death (1971) and sadly, it's unlikely that we'll ever see her kind again.

Final Girl beams over The Shining:

It had been some time since I'd seen The Shining, and while I've always enjoyed it (and gotten some good creepy scares out of it), what struck me most while watching it today was the beauty of the whole thing. Visually, The Shining is one of the most stunning films I've ever seen- finding a horror movie to top it in that regard would be no easy task.

Fascination With Fear bites into JAWS:

It is known as the "father of the summer blockbuster", being the first movie to blow the pants off the box office in such a way that people lined streets in front of theaters just to see it.

Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat conjures up The Blair Witch Project:

Let me say right off the bat that I don't expect to change anyone's mind here. This is a movie for which the phrase "you either love it or hate it" was invented. I remember seeing it on opening night in a theatre: Half the audience booed and yelled at the screen as the closing credits rolled, while the other half looked as though they'd just been eyewitnesses to a plane crash.

Classic-Horror goes to Hell for Jigoku:

While the direction may be understated, the writing is not. Most of the characters we meet are waist-deep in sin, most of it particularly heinous.

Slasher Speak bedevils us with a top ten list of all-time favorites. Creepy!:

The truth is that slashers are not the only films of the genre that I enjoy; actually, my #1 horror film of all-time is not a slasher film at all. So I
thought I'd share my non-slasher Top Ten horror movie favorites for those curious as to my alternative tastes in terror.

Vault of Horror blames it on the movie that started it all:

Those who have read my intro to the right know how I got my first truly visceral shock watching The Exorcist as a little tyke. There were also all those classic Universal and Hammer flicks that syndicated TV piped my way on lazy weekend afternoons. But the one that grabbed my attention and didn't let go, the film that truly sparked my lifelong fascination with the horror genre, was ROTLD (as its fans so succinctly call it.)

And room for two more...

TheoFantastique makes The Final Cut:

For those interested in moving beyond the need for acompletely satisfying cinematic experience, it is worth watching and enjoying for those who would like to enter into science fiction’s ability to stimulate reflection on our own lives as we enter into stories involving our speculative future.

Zombos' Closet of Horror fears the Night of the Demon:

Contrary to Jacques Tourneur's preference for implicative events and obfuscating-shadows to force uncertainty of what's really happening and a did-I-see-what-I-just-saw? feeling, there is no doubt whatsoever a fire demon is coming to horribly mangle one, very skeptical, Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews) for daring to expose devil-cult leader--and part-time children's magician--Karswell (Niall MacGinnis).

Until next time, then.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans.