31 Days of Halloween (October 1st through 31st)

[Siddon]

31 Days 31 Monsters

October 12th: The Brain That Wouldn't Die! (1962)







Dr. Bill Cortner (Jason Evers) saves a patient pronounced dead, but the senior surgeon, Cortner’s father (Bruce Brighton) condemns his son’s unorthodox methods and transplant theories.

While driving to his family’s country house, Cortner and his beautiful fiancée Jan Compton (Virginia Leith) get into a car accident that decapitates Jan. Cortner recovers her severed head and rushes to his country house basement laboratory. He and his crippled assistant Kurt (Leslie Daniels) revive the head in a liquid-filled tray. Jan's new existence is agony, however, and she begs Cortner to let her die.

Cheap thrills were abound in this one, I actually kind of sort of loved it. Everyone in this movie is terrible, the acting is bad but they do so many things right. The film has this great balance of suspense where you have a monster on the other side of a door, a decapitated woman going mad, and a guy trolling his city looking for a woman whose body he could steal. It's very a good black comedy is the vein of Frankenhooker, they also have a damn good monster that they save for the last five minutes.

October 1st - Daimajin: Monster of Terror (1966) ****1/2 stars
October 2nd - Tarantula (1955) ***1/2 stars
October 3rd - The Living Skeleton (1968) ***
October 4th - Son of Frankenstein (1939) **
October 5th - Reptilicus (1961) **
October 6th - The Undying Monster (1942) *****
October 7th - Them!(1954) ***1/2
October 8th - Night of the Blood Beast (1958) **1/2
October 9th - Black Moon (1934) **
October 10th - Island of Doctor Moreau(1977) ****
October 11th - Phantom of 10,000 Leagues (1955) **
October 12th - The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1965) ***1/2

[Jared]

October 1. The Crooked Man (2016)
October 2. Creature (1985)
October 3. Twins of Evil. (1971)
October 4. The Vampire Lovers (1970)
October 5. Lust for a Vampire (1971)
October 6. Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)
October 7.
October 8. Corpse Bride (2005)
October 9. Blade II (2002)
October 10. Vampire Hunter D (1985)
October 11. The Wolfman (2010). Sorority Row (2009).
October 12. Nothing but the Night (1973)
October 13. It Came From Beneath the Sea. (1955)
October 14. Countess Dracula (1971). The Frighteners (1996).

October 15. The Devil's Tomb (2009).



Prior to his recent TV comeback, Cuba Gooding Jr. spent years in B-movie Hell. In this one, he's got Ron Perlman, Ray Winstone, Taryn Manning, and the girl from Battlestar Galactica: Razor with him, and you can see on their faces that they all know exactly where they are and they don't like it. Oh, and Henry Rollins...but let's face it, he kinda belongs there. Taryn Manning plays a character who *isn't* a drugged up skank, which is a novel change.

The basic premise is that some soldiers have to go into a secret underground bunker in Iraq to retrieve a scientist after he the base goes dark. Turns out that they uncovered some ancient evil man wasn't mean to find, blah blah blah possession, corpses, demonic temptations. It's a like a shitty version of Prince of Darkness meets Doom (the movie). All the money seems to have been spent on the actors, getting a almost an entire ensemble of recognizable B-listers instead of just one or two. The movie couldn't even do basic research right: Nephilim are *not* fallen angels, they're human-angel hybrids. I know google still worked in 2008.

Bottom line, don't bother with it. It's not entertainingly bad, it's just dull. I very nearly fell asleep.

The Frighteners is a movie I saw on the big screen when it came out but was pretty disappointed by the results while I liked some elements in it. It such such an uneasy balance between horror and comedy and Jackson has done better in that department before. But it's been so long since I've seen it that maybe I would enjoy it more now? I wonder.

I had actually seen it once before, probably ten years ago. But I'd forgotten almost everything that happens in it. Both times my general impression was that of being mildly entertained. In hindsight I do which I'd tracked down the director's cut this time.

[Da Boat]

Cuba was like "show me the money!" and then he was like "there is no money?!! come on!".

[Da Boat]

October 15 - Penny Dreadful(2014)



This series I discovered a few years ago cause of these very boards. I was lurking and there was a discussion about how much it was difficult to have a good movie franchise around a menagerie of monsters and the movie Van Helsing was taken as an example. And a poster mentioned that Penny Dreadful got that right. It came out of nowhere cause really nobody was talking about this series anywhere. There was no buzz, nothing. So out of the blue I ordered it from my local music/DVD shop and then I got it and was shocked of how good it was, it really was in my favorite style of genre. Classic monsters, modernized with a more realistic edgier way of the best current top drama series and favorite actors of mine like Timothy Dalton and Eva Green. Green has never been as good as she is here in ANYTHING. The auteurs or filmmakers pushed her like I've never seen anyone pushed anybody before as far as emotional torture and Green just go all out and she has no ego or innibitions. She's been naked before but here it's almost xxx level and all on the service of the character and the part. It's amazing. And it's also a return to form for Dalton. It's great seeing him work with quality material on screen finally.

You get everything here from a link to Dracula(Mina's father leading the charge), you've possibly the Devil concubine, Victor Frankenstein, The Frank. Monster, the Wolfman, Dorian Grey and more to come.

I had not seen it a in a while and this show is so visually gorgeous. At the 15th, I watched the very First Episode and it's a good introduction. But the majority of the other episodes are far better.

[Death&Return of Superman]

Finished watching Penny Dreadful shortly after the third season went up on Netflix. The first time I ever watched it was the first episode of season two, which did not sell me on it at all, in fact it kind of made me not want to watch any of the show at all again ever at all. But I stated watching it from the beginning a few weeks back and really got into it. It's not the best of things, but everyone in it is really good, and it's a really enjoyable watch. It also seems very The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, both comic and movie; there were a number of times where I saw direct correlations between them and was like: Oh, that's interesting and or funny. I think the strangest thing about the whole series is Dorian Gray doesn't actually go anywhere. He's alway this character on the outside of the main thing doing his own thing, and than it just feels like the show ended before they could get to what they wanted to do with him. Also seemed weird how they introduced Dr. Jekyll in season three, and than never went all the way with him—just made me wish he hadn't been there.

The show didn't come out of nowhere. They made a pretty big of it before it started. There were also a number of genre series being announced at the same time, NBC had Dracula, Crossbones and Hannibal, and Fox was kicking around a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen show that never materialized. Remember seeing a number of trailers and commercials for Penny Dreadful before its release.

[Sean Whitmore]

Penny Dreadful was definitely taken from us too soon. I believe the creator when he says it ended the way it was always supposed to, but I don't believe for a minute it ended when it was supposed to.

[Sean Whitmore]

October 1 - The Body Snatcher (1945)
October 2 - Isle of the Dead (1945)
October 3 - Dead Men Walk (1943)
October 4 - Cat People (1942)
October 5 - An American Werewolf in London (1981)
October 6 - Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)
October 7 - The Old Dark House (1932)
October 8 - Silver Bullet (1985)
October 9 - Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)
October 10 - Bedlam (1946)
October 11 - Scream and Scream Again (1970)
October 12 - Shin Godzilla (2016)
Son of Dracula (1943)
October 13 - Doctor X (1932)
October 14 - Son of Frankenstein (1939)
October 15 - Mighty Joe Young (1949)

Another monster movie that's not really horror, but, whatever. I'd never seen it before, but this was really good. A worthy spiritual successor to King Kong, with stop-motion animation by Willis O’Brien and a young Ray Harryhausen that's simply amazing for the time.

Doubling down:

Monster House (2006)

A perfect Halloween movie for kids, but also charming enough for the young-at-heart old slobs like me. I honestly think that if this had been done in live action and aimed at slightly older kids--some light, PG profanity and a couple deaths that actually took--it might have gone down as one of those semi-classic "feels like it was made in the 80s but actually wasn't" movies.

[batnbreakfast]

Penny Dreadful Season One is time well spent and I'm sincerely loving it but S2 feels kinda wrong and I can't put my finger to why it goes downhill. Is S3 better?

Ash vs Evil Dead is all I hoped it would be. I give it a 8/10 since I only remember not enjoying 2 from 10 episodes.

As for movies I've watched Jeeppers Creepers (2001, for me its pretty much everything I want from a horror movie) and Warlock (1989). Boy, do I love Warlock.

[Death&Return of Superman]

Penny Dreadful was definitely taken from us too soon. I believe the creator when he says it ended the way it was always supposed to, but I don't believe for a minute it ended when it was supposed to.

I'm not even sure it ended the way it was always supposed it. I'm not really sure how much longer they could have taken the Dracula thing out, so I'm thinking he would have shown up this scenes anyways. The show really feels like it was building Dorian Gray for a big villain stop, (or maybe The Bride) because than what the hell were they even doing with Gray in this show? He wasn't ever part of the group, he's just this weird satellite character that gets even further away in season two, and ultimately goes nowhere.

Penny Dreadful Season One is time well spent and I'm sincerely loving it but S2 feels kinda wrong and I can't put my finger to why it goes downhill. Is S3 better?

Ash vs Evil Dead is all I hoped it would be. I give it a 8/10 since I only remember not enjoying 2 from 10 episodes.

As for movies I've watched Jeeppers Creepers (2001, for me its pretty much everything I want from a horror movie) and Warlock (1989). Boy, do I love Warlock.

I think I might say it's better. There's an episode where Vanessa is put under hypnosis so she can remember something that happened while in Bedlum, and it's probably the best episode of the series. The only down side of season 3 is it builds up cool that's that ultimately go nowhere because it's the last season.

Season 2, like volume two of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, doesn't have the characters together so much. Unlike LoEG, the Penny Dreadful has a hard time balancing that, so it feels a bit all over the place at times where the first season is more focused on one goal. If Penny Dreadful Season 2 had been a book or a movie I'm guessing some of the characters wouldn't even be there, but it's a show and people are cast, so what the fuck you gonna do, not us them? Season 3 actually has the main characters even more separated, but it seems they got a better handle on making that work that go around.

[Death&Return of Superman]

31 Days 31 Monsters

October 12th: The Brain That Wouldn't Die! (1962)






Dr. Bill Cortner (Jason Evers) saves a patient pronounced dead, but the senior surgeon, Cortner’s father (Bruce Brighton) condemns his son’s unorthodox methods and transplant theories.

While driving to his family’s country house, Cortner and his beautiful fiancée Jan Compton (Virginia Leith) get into a car accident that decapitates Jan. Cortner recovers her severed head and rushes to his country house basement laboratory. He and his crippled assistant Kurt (Leslie Daniels) revive the head in a liquid-filled tray. Jan's new existence is agony, however, and she begs Cortner to let her die.

Cheap thrills were abound in this one, I actually kind of sort of loved it. Everyone in this movie is terrible, the acting is bad but they do so many things right. The film has this great balance of suspense where you have a monster on the other side of a door, a decapitated woman going mad, and a guy trolling his city looking for a woman whose body he could steal. It's very a good black comedy is the vein of Frankenhooker, they also have a damn good monster that they save for the last five minutes.

October 1st - Daimajin: Monster of Terror (1966) ****1/2 stars
October 2nd - Tarantula (1955) ***1/2 stars
October 3rd - The Living Skeleton (1968) ***
October 4th - Son of Frankenstein (1939) **
October 5th - Reptilicus (1961) **
October 6th - The Undying Monster (1942) *****
October 7th - Them!(1954) ***1/2
October 8th - Night of the Blood Beast (1958) **1/2
October 9th - Black Moon (1934) **
October 10th - Island of Doctor Moreau(1977) ****
October 11th - Phantom of 10,000 Leagues (1955) **
October 12th - The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1965) ***1/2

Remember seeing this a few years back and being kind of surprised by how much I ended up liking it. It was basically remade in '90 with Frankenhooker, and that movie is fucking great.

Frankenhooker also fixes the most egregious oversight of The Brain That Wouldn't Die—it puts the cyclops brain thing from the poster in the movie.



You've got the second year at the bottom as '65.

[Da Boat]

Penny Dreadful was definitely taken from us too soon. I believe the creator when he says it ended the way it was always supposed to, but I don't believe for a minute it ended when it was supposed to.

Of course it was cancelled early, it's cause it was a show I enjoyed! lol

I have either the worst luck with TV shows or I love stuff that the majority don't. Penny Dreadful was really designed for me. Bear in mind it wasn't perfect but we finally had a monster show with the old myths that was good.

From what I heard it was a show that cost too much for the ratings they got. And when Eva Green couldn't continue, the creator didn't see the point to keep going. It's clear that she was his favorite character and at certain points I felt the show was too much about her(even as great as she was). I felt it should have been equal repartitions with all this league of menagerie of monsters but more often than not it wasn't. Bear in mind I have no watched Season 3 yet. (BTW, did we finally see Dracula?).

-------------------

October 16 - The Island(1980)



LEAVE ME ALONE, DON'T YOU KNOW I'M MICHAEL KANE?



I always saw bits and pieces of this movie when I was a kid but never had the chance to watch the whole thing but it made a mark back then. After seeing it now, I thought it would have been scarier and more sadistic but it somehow felt more comical at times. It's about modern day pirates and they are psychopaths. But since they are very uneducated and have lived on the same Island for generation, they speak weirdly so they speak like from 1950s pirate movie characters but it make sense, right. They never put a whole phrase together for example.

It has a few interesting things in it like them trying to turn Kane's son against him. I guess it's like a coming of age story, of becoming a man and the relation father-son.

BTW back when I first saw it wasn't there a scene where the hero kills one of the pirates' monkey? It was one of the most craziest things from it yet when I saw it today, the scene wasn't in it. Maybe it was from another movie or was it edited?

[Death&Return of Superman]

Yeah, Dracula is the main villain of season 3, and season 3 is very much playing off Dracula. Probably more Bram Stoker's Dracula than the actual book.

I kind of wonder why Vanessa Ives isn't Lucy. Her character is meant to be Mina's best friend, and her personality before everything happened kind of seems to be a play on the sexual Bram Stoker's Dracula Lucy. She really seems to be the shows version of Lucy, they just don't call her that for whatever reason. Could have been Mina and Malcolm Murray wasn't Lucy's not Allan Quatermain father as well.

[Tazirai]

[Da Boat]

Yeah, Dracula is the main villain of season 3, and season 3 is very much playing off Dracula. Probably more Bram Stoker's Dracula than the actual book.

I kind of wonder why Vanessa Ives isn't Lucy. Her character is meant to be Mina's best friend, and her personality before everything happened kind of seems to be a play on the sexual Bram Stoker's Dracula Lucy. She really seems to be the shows version of Lucy, they just don't call her that for whatever reason. Could have been Mina and Malcolm Murray wasn't Lucy's not Allan Quatermain father as well.

Just didn't want to get sued by Alan Moore.

There was book that came out a few years ago written by Bram Stocker's Great Grand son called Dracula Ressurection. Most of it was really good and they went back to what happened after Dracula died. The book was set at the beginning of the 19th century where you see the Dracula theater plays, etc...And you watch what happened to all these characters. The way they wrote Arthur Holmwood, Lucy's husband was very much Alan Quatermain-ish. He's become this rich adventurer that has seen it all and he became harden by life, have been involved in wars, etc...

[Siddon]

31 Days 31 Monsters
October 13th The H-Man (1958)







A mysterious blob terrorizes a town in post war Japan. Great FX for the time, actually great FX for now, this is a TOHO movie that doesn't have a Kaiju and it's a pity they didn't make more of these. I think the plot actually moves along better when you aren't building towards this giant monster rather having this sneaky blob creature taking people out one by one, I watched the dubbed English version but I think I'll watch the slightly different Japanese version at some point.

October 1st - Daimajin: Monster of Terror (1966) ****1/2 stars
October 2nd - Tarantula (1955) ***1/2 stars
October 3rd - The Living Skeleton (1968) ***
October 4th - Son of Frankenstein (1939) **
October 5th - Reptilicus (1961) **
October 6th - The Undying Monster (1942) *****
October 7th - Them!(1954) ***1/2
October 8th - Night of the Blood Beast (1958) **1/2
October 9th - Black Moon (1934) **
October 10th - Island of Doctor Moreau(1977) ****
October 11th - Phantom of 10,000 Leagues (1955) **
October 12th - The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962) ***1/2
October 13th - The H-Man (1958) ****