31 Demonic Days and Nightmarish Nights of Halloween: 2023 Edition!

[Jared]

October 1st. 1- The Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (2023)
October 2nd. 2- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
October 3rd. 3- Warlock (1989). 4- Warlock: The Armageddon (1993). 5- Warlock: The End of Innocence (1999)
October 4th. 6 - Isle of the Dead (1945)



During the Greco-Turkish War, a hardnosed general and a reporter get quarantined on a small cemetary island with a group of civilians due to a sudden (and mysterious) plague. Karloff is great, but the guy playing the reporter seemingly doesn't know this is supposed to a scary situation. The movie looks good, but would have looked even better had Val Lewton actually directed it. It's short and isolated, it feels like it could have been a stage play.

No. 4 Maximum Overdrive (1986)
]

The best thing about that movie, for my money, is that AC/DC did "Who Made Who" for its soundtrack.

[Sean Whitmore]

October 4th. 6 - Isle of the Dead (1945)

During the Greco-Turkish War, a hardnosed general and a reporter get quarantined on a small cemetary island with a group of civilians due to a sudden (and mysterious) plague. Karloff is great, but the guy playing the reporter seemingly doesn't know this is supposed to a scary situation. The movie looks good, but would have looked even better had Val Lewton actually directed it. It's short and isolated, it feels like it could have been a stage play.

Just watched this one as well. TCM runs it every year like clockwork, and I catch it every time. This movie grows on me more and more each time I see it. Still second to The Body Snatcher in terms of Lewton/Karloff collaborations, but both of them are far above most of Karloff's post-Universal work.

[Sean Whitmore]

1a. Dracula 2000 (2000)
1b. Dracula II: Ascension (2003)
1c. Dracula III: Legacy (2005)
2.The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
3. House on Haunted Hill (1959)
4a. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)
4b. Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
5a. Isle of the Dead (1945)

5b. The Night Flier (1997)

Available on Youtube!



Slight, but fun. Anoher Stephen King take on modern-day vampires in small-town America. Feels a little more like a made-for-TV movie than a theatrical feature, but it's carried well by the late, great Miguel Ferrer. And I'm a fan of any vampire story where the vampires are more unknowable creatures and less bad guys you get into fist fights with.

[Astral Disaster]

It was a busy day...

15. Idle Hands (1999) - Horror comedy about an ultra-lazy stoner/slacker who's hand becomes possessed and murders of its own volition. Apparently a huge box office bomb, only making a little over $4 million on a $25 million budget, and received overwhelmingly negative reviews. I liked it, definitely seen a lot worse.

16. Willy's Wonderland (2021) - Action comedy horror featuring a silent, soda-chugging Nic Cage trashing animatronic furries possessed by the spirits of a murderous satanic cult.

17. Absurd (1981) - The Italian version was titled Rosso Sangue (Red Blood) and is also known as Anthropophagus 2, Zombie 6: Monster Hunter, Horrible, and finally The Grim Reaper 2. Not particularly good, but not unwatchably horrible either, has the feel of a lot of typical 70s Italian giallo films, while ripping off and repackaging more than a few ideas and scenes from John Carpenter's Halloween (though there are a few times it almost seems like some of the Halloween sequels ripped off this movie in return). Worth it for the gory and (I'm guessing) unintentionally hilarious final scene.

18. The Witch Who Came From the Sea (1976) - Fueled by repressed memories of being raped by her father as a child, a disturbed woman embarks on a killing spree targeting potentially domineering men.

19. Berberian Sound Studio (2012) - Psychological horror about a British sound engineer recruited to work for an Italian studio on a disturbingly graphic horror film (or possibly docu-drama). We, the audience, never actually see any of this film within a film, and are only given hints of its depravity via the recording of dialogue, sound effects, and music, along with occasional short descriptions of the action in certain scenes.

[Moon Ronin]

No. 5: Silver Bullet (1985) on MAX



The small city of Tarker’s Mill is startled by a series of sadistic murders. The population fears that this is the work of a maniac. During a search a mysterious, hairy creature is observed. This strange appearance is noticed once a month. People lock themselves up at night, but there’s one boy who’s still outside, he’s preparing the barbecue.

Every one needed an Uncle Red growing up. A drunk multiple divorcee that teaches you card games and dirty jokes. Gives you fireworks under the table and sups up your wheelchair to a point that it can compete in Motocross. Yes we all needed some one that will be there when you need adult help to hunt a werewolf when being stalked by one. This is the Gary Busey'est of Gary Busey roles.

[Iron Maiden]

I hadn't noticed this thread until now so I will be playing catch up

1. The Legend of Hell House (1973)




I remember seeing this movie back in the 1970s on TV but for some reason this is not an easy one to find. I ended up buying access to it on Amazon. Based on the novel Hell House by Richard Matheson who also wrote the screenplay.

Cast: Clive Revill, Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowell, Pamela Franklin, and Gayle Hunnicut. Michael Gough, a frequent player in the Hammer Horror films, has an uncredited appearance in the film.

Physicist Dr. Lionel Barrett (played by Revill) is enlisted by eccentric millionaire Rudolph Deutsch to undertake an investigation on the afterlife at Belasco House, a notorious haunted house with a sordid history. The house was originally owned by Emeric Belasco, an perverted millionaire and supposed murderer, who disappeared soon after a massacre occurred at the home during one of Belasco's "parties".

This film was preceded by 1961's The Haunting of Hill House which also has a similar plot.

[Sean Whitmore]

1a. Dracula 2000 (2000)
1b. Dracula II: Ascension (2003)
1c. Dracula III: Legacy (2005)
2.The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
3. House on Haunted Hill (1959)
4a. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)
4b. Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
5a. Isle of the Dead (1945)
5b. The Night Flier (1997)

6a. Happy Death Day (2017)
6b. Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

Been meaning to watch these forever, I've just never gotten around to them before now. The first one's a pretty solid horror-comedy; basically Groundhog Day as a slasher, with the day resetting every time the heroine is killed. Jessica Rothe carries it all very well.

The second one really does stray pretty far away from the "horror" part of horror-comedy, but screw it, I'll include them both.

[Jared]

October 1st. 1- The Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (2023)
October 2nd. 2- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
October 3rd. 3- Warlock (1989). 4- Warlock: The Armageddon (1993). 5- Warlock: The End of Innocence (1999)
October 4th. 6- Isle of the Dead (1945)
October 5th. 7- Doppelganger (1993)



Good Drew is being haunted by an Evil Drew...or is she? All I can really say about this movie is that I'm surprised it isn't more famous in the Bad Movie 'verse for how batshit crazy it gets at the end. Suddenly it's like you're watching a different movie...and then suddenly it's *another* different kind of movie.
Also featured a random Danny Trejo sighting

On YouTube I also watched an animated short, Viy, about an old Russian folklore. A year or two ago I watched the 60s movie of the same name, and this is the exact same story, just abbreviated. It's an interesting little tale, though it probably works better if you have some native knowledge of the title character. I guess it's kind of like having Bloody Mary or Bigfoot show up in a movie for somebody who has never heard of them before, you can still get the basic context but the feeling definitely isn't the same.

Feels a little more like a made-for-TV movie than a theatrical feature, .

An odd case, this one. It was a TV movie in America. And this was before "It's not TV, it's HBO" so it definitely counts. Months later it did get a theatrical release here but obviously that didn't hit big.

[Astral Disaster]

20. Frankenhooker (1990) - New Jersey power plant employee, and brilliant med school dropout, Jeffery Franken loses his fiancée, Elizabeth, in a grisly lawnmower accident. Managing to save her head, he resolves to bring her back and sets to work constructing a new body for her using NYC prostitutes. Low budget horror/comedy featuring serviceable acting, with Patty Mullen as the "monster" being the standout, I found her exaggerated physical movements and facial contortions quite entertaining. Pretty tame by today's standards, though some will object to the amount of bare female breasts on display.

21. The Fog (1980) - John Carpenter directed supernatural horror. The coastal community of Antonio Bay is celebrating its centennial, but on the eve of festivities a long hidden, dark secret is uncovered, and the ghosts of the shipwrecked Elizabeth Dane return to exact revenge on the descendants of those who murdered them.

22. The Wicker Man (1973) - A British police sergeant travels to the remote island of Summerisle to investigate the report of a missing girl, and is shocked to find the community steeped in pagan practices, which clashes with his devout christian beliefs. He ultimately comes to believe the girl is to be sacrificed during the island's May Day festival to assure a bountiful harvest, but comes to discover he was being misled, and has, in fact, been the intended victim all along.

23. Carnival Of Souls (1962) - Low budget b&w film which lies somewhere between art house and horror, the film often has an unsettling, surreal, dreamlike atmosphere which is accentuated by its eerie organ score. After a traumatic car accident, a woman leaves town to take a job as a church organist in Utah. She is haunted by visions of a silent, pale faced man and curiously drawn to an abandoned carnival where she will meet her ultimate fate.

[Scott Taylor]

8. Lady Frankenstein (1971). Frankenstein's daughter continues her dads work, after he is killed by his own monster, by transplanting his assistant's brain into his more well-endowed mentally retarded servant so they can have sex, sex, sex. Well, I can see why this movie has a reputation. It has Corman levels of depravity, but without enough humor, and is just about as low budget as they come. Its been compared to Hammer films but nah. All the Hammer movies are better than this, with the possible exception of Satanic Rites of Dracula.

[Iron Maiden]

Actually he hadn't grown to hate the role yet, it wasn't until years later when he was typecast because of this film that he'd grow to hate it a bit. But when this was filmed he was still very much happy in the role, and saw it as his big break. He was very much taking it seriously and bringing his A+ game to it, however you feel about his actual performance (which we strongly disagree on btw, but that's just down to personal tastes).

There is another vampire film called Return of the Vampire (1943) where he played a vampire called Armond Tesla. It's considered an unofficial follow up to Dracula because Columbia didn't own the rights to use Dracula. This would be the last time Lugosi would get top billing on a film. After this, he would be in films of low quality except perhaps for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which IIRC his last time working for Universal and playing Dracula

[Sean Whitmore]

1a. Dracula 2000 (2000)
1b. Dracula II: Ascension (2003)
1c. Dracula III: Legacy (2005)
2.The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
3. House on Haunted Hill (1959)
4a. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)
4b. Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
5a. Isle of the Dead (1945)
5b. The Night Flier (1997)
6a. Happy Death Day (2017)
6b. Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

7. The Old Dark House (1932)



I put this one on here every year, because I happily rewatch it every year. My favorite Universal horror movie that doesn't star one of the classic monsters, and as good or better than many of those.

It's streaming on something called Fandor, but I saw it on my trusty blu-ray.

[Astral Disaster]

24. The Witch (2015) - Subtitled "A New England Folktale", and in a lot of ways it is more that than a horror movie, at least not a horror movie in the typical, contemporary fashion of blood, gore and jump scares, but rather one representative of the time and sensibilities of the period depicted. After being banished from their settlement over religious differences, a family sets up a small farm on the edge of a secluded forrest, they are soon beset by a series of misfortune and death, causing their already tenuous existence on the frontier to grow ever more grim. Is the witch of the woods real or just an imaginary manifestation of the family's religious fervor?

25. The Lords Of Salem (2012) - Probably Rob Zombie's most original and ambitious, imo, efforts as a filmmaker to date, it dispenses with his usual menagerie of redneck trailer park caricatures for a more grounded and relatable cast of characters, which is quite a departure from form itself. A radio DJ in Salem is targeted by three witches for retribution because of her family connection to the witch trials of the late 1600s.

26. Häxan (1922) - from the Wikipedia page: Häxan (Danish title: Heksen; English title: The Witches or Witchcraft Through the Ages) is a 1922 Swedish-Danish documentary-style silent horror film written and directed by Benjamin Christensen. Based partly on Christensen's study of the Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th-century German guide for inquisitors, Häxan is a study of how superstition and the misunderstanding of diseases and mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts. The film was made as a documentary but contains dramatised sequences that are comparable to horror films.

27. Suspiria (1977) - An American ballet student is accepted at a prestigious German academy, but after a series of strange events, deaths, and murders, discovers the school is a front for a coven of witches.

[Jared]

October 1st. 1- The Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (2023)
October 2nd. 2- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
October 3rd. 3- Warlock (1989). 4- Warlock: The Armageddon (1993). 5- Warlock: The End of Innocence (1999)
October 4th. 6- Isle of the Dead (1945)
October 5th. 7- Doppelganger (1993)
October 6th. 8- Dracula in Instanbul (1953)




Drakula Istanbul'da is a Turkish movie adaptation of the Turkish novel adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic. Names and locations are changed, but the main beats of the story are essentially the same, with the third act resembling the Lugosi film. One might expect Islamic symbols to be used instead of Christian, but nope, it's just all garlic instead. This was on Youtube. The picture and audio quality were bad, while the subtitles were inconsistent at best.

The actor playing Dracula is pretty good, but unfortunately largely offscreen for long chunks of the film's second half. He's also made to look most undignified late, when he's in a suit running away in the street from a single man. Still more dignity than his downfall in Billy the Kid vs Dracula, though.

It's not one of the better adaptations by any means, but it's a fun as a curiosity or if you're a semi-completionist about Drac, like me. This the probably the most famous version of the story that I hadn't seen yet.

[Yun Lao]

Been a while since I've done one of these. This year, I've decided to do things a bit differently and am rolling for a theme for each week, Mon-Fri, while leaving the weekends as free days. For this first week, I ended up rolling for Universal horror.

------


10/01: Clive Barker's Book of Blood
Year: 2009
Director: John Harrison
Online Synopsis: "A paranormal expert discovers a house that is at the intersection of so-called "highways" transporting souls in the afterlife." (IMDb)
My Thoughts: I decided to start my month off by picking a movie at random and once I saw an image of a woman holding a whole piece of heavily scarred human skin, I figured I would have a good one. I was partly right. I liked the world-building around said human skin and its role as a book of the dead, but it's mostly a framing device for a decent haunted house story. Not my favorite of the adaptations of Clive Barker's work, but it was interesting enough. A word of warning; this film is labeled as an "erotic horror", and while it's fairly vanilla for Barker, there's enough scenes to make things awkward.

10/02: The Wolfman
Year: 1941
Director: George Waggner
Online Synopsis: "Even a man who is pure at heart/And says his prayers by night/May become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms/And the moon is full and bright." Upon first hearing these words, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney) dismisses them as childish federal. After all, this is the 20th Century; how can a human being turn into a werewolf? Talbot soon learns how when he attempts to rescue Jenny Williams (Fay Helm) from a nocturnal attack by a wolf..." (IMDb)
My Thoughts: I didn't really have a plan when it to picking the order of which Universal horror to start with, so I just went with the first one to pop up and thus, it was this. It's proven a bit difficult to explain my thoughts about this one, having rewrote this a few times. Out of the five I've watched, this one had the longest set up before the monster mash, so it felt like we didn't get enough time with the titular Wolfman as opposed to Larry. Still, there were some interesting parts to it, such as clash of modern reliance in medicine and technology vs the superstitions of old and Larry's struggle to determine what is real and what is in his mind. So while I believe it's lacking a bit in the wolf department, it was still an interesting watch.

10/03: The Mummy
Year: 1932
Director: Karl Freund
Online Synopsis: "A resurrected Egyptian mummy searches Cairo for the girl he believes to be his long-lost princess." (IMDb)
My Thoughts: Surprisingly, this was my favorite out of the five, which I was not expecting. While our mummy doesn't remain in bandages for long, it was refreshing to find the titular creature as this danger hidden in plain sight and still be creepy enough when he wants to be (on that note, this movie had the best use of the "brighten around the eyes" effect that others had used). I found the plot to be engaging and its no surprise that the 1999 remake borrowed so heavily from it. Definitely worth a watch.

10/04: Dracula
Year: 1931
Director: Tod Browning
Online Synopsis: "Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula bends a naive real estate agent to his will, then takes up residence at a London estate where he sleeps in his coffin by day and searches for potential victims by night." (IMDb)
My Thoughts: With as many remakes and re imaginings as there are, I was surprised to find that I had never watched the one with Bela Lugosi. The story is... well, if you've seen one Dracula, you pretty much know it. I personally kept thinking back to Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Still, the sets of Dracula's castle were amazing for their time and like any Dracula film, Renfield was easily the best character aside from the titular vampire. It's a classic for a reason, so I'd definitely recommend if you already haven't.

10/05: Creature from the Black Lagoon
Year: 1954
Director: Jack Arnold
Online Synopsis: "A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study." (IMDb)
My Thoughts: Before seeing this film, I had never really put much thought into the Gill-man; I knew it existed, obviously, but not much else. While the set-up and story were fairly boiler-plate for such a film nowadays, I still found it engaging and they didn't waste much time before getting to the monster mash, which I appreciated. Speaking of appreciation, this film also had one of the best supporting character in the form of Lucas. Overall, I enjoyed it.

10/06: Frankenstein
Year: 1931
Director: James Whale
Online Synopsis: "Dr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses." (IMDb)
My Thoughts: Decided to save my favorite monster for last, and much like Dracula, found it odd that I had never seen the original (Note: actually, there was a film made before it in 1910). Having mostly know the original tale thanks to the novel, I was confused by a few of the changes, primarily in that our main protagonist is named Henry, not Victor. The film starts us off in the middle of his grave robbing spree and soon enough, we're at where most other adaptations would have saved for much later in the film. Despite this head start, it's pretty abrupt how Henry goes from caring for his creation to wanting it dead, even though it's frustratingly obvious that most of the issues coming from the monster originate from the fact that Fritz will not stop shoving a torch in its face! In the end, the monster and its creator find themselves at the iconic burning windmill and I have to admit, I felt pretty bad for the creature. I definitely liked this one and am eager to see what else they did with the creature in the following sequels.


10/07: House
Year: 1977
Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Online Synopsis: "A schoolgirl and six of her classmates travel to her aunt's country home, which turns out to be haunted." (IMDb)
My Thoughts: After a week of Universal films, I decided to see something completely different as a palate cleansing and... yeah, this was definitely different. The best way I can describe this film is if the Scooby Doo gang found themselves in a horror movie made by the Beatles during a trip in Japan. Strangely, I think it was the prevailing sense of whimsy that made things so unnerving to me. It wears down your guard, and I found myself saying aloud, "Maybe things will be all right?" And that's how it gets you. A lot of the deaths remind me of Evil Dead 2, where it's so off the wall that you just have to accept that a ceiling light just bit a girl a half, or that another girl is beaten into submission by mattresses and pillows and later stuffed into a grandfather clock. Worth a watch if you looking for something out of the ordinary, but be careful what you wish for.