Tag Archives: 80s Horror

Editorials

Here’s the Facts: “Halloween II” is the Scariest Halloween movie of the Franchise

Image 4 Comments

It’s been 40 years since studios practically begged Carpenter for a sequel to his monumentally successful Halloween movie; and an unforgettable one at that. I realize this might be a hot take dubbing Dick Warlock King Myers over his amazing predecessor Nick Castle- but I’ll die on this hill. Warlock scared the ever-loving shit out of me as a kid in this simply fantastic sequel more so than the original.

John Carpenter’s Halloween was everything a perfectly effective horror slasher should look like without the heavy gore effects. The film used tension-building sequences paired with genius camera work and of course, the infamous score by Carpenter himself that practically made the movie what it is today. When Halloween II came around three years later, the film allowed Myers to continue his killing quest but in a much more sinister tone; if that were even possible but hey- here we are. The sequel was Halloween on steroids (by 1981 standards anyway), with both an angrier Myers and soundtrack to accompany him during his “walk”, and it made The Shape that much scarier.

Here me out but first, enjoy the greatest pumpkin intro of the franchise that breaks apart into a grim, grinning skull foreshadowing that is a lot more evil and death was built into this installment so hold onto your kitchen knives ladies-especially YOU Mrs. Elrod!

Now, after Loomis unloads all his bullets into Michael and he simply just walks away from the scene, he slinks into a neighboring home occupied by the Elrods who are winding down from the night with a couple of ham sandwiches and a viewing of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead; or at least they think they are. Michael, in a very ballsey fashion, opens up the back patio door to the kitchen where Mrs. Elrod is preparing her sleepy husband some food, and had her back not been turned, she would have been extra meat for those sandwiches for sure. Myers just grabs the knife sitting on the cutting board and walks out, and Mrs. Elrod lets out a blood-curdling scream that would wake the dead once she sees the missing knife and drips of blood all over the counter. This then grabs the attention of her own neighbor, Alice Martin, who unfortunately doesn’t get away so lucky; and that’s when we see that Myers really isn’t fucking around in the sequel. In the first film, Myers, while it was at random, set his sights on a specific group and stayed the course. Even people getting in his way, by just basically being in his path, didn’t get the slash treatment. Marion Chambers, while he scared her goddamn good, he didn’t kill her. He just needed the car and he very well could have.

Same for little Lonnie- Myers seemed to get off just as well in putting a good fright into his victims while maintaining his kill course targets. BUT, Alice, performing her civic duty upon hearing her elderly neighbors’ screams, got her brutally murdered most viciously and we get our first real jump scare in the sequel. Why? My best-educated horror guess is because she WAS simply in his path and now we know that absolutely NO ONE is safe this time around.

It did its job too. Scared the piss out of me when I first saw it.

Moving on to a now hysterical Loomis who in the first film kept his composure throughout quite well, damn near shoots a kid because he is wearing a similar mask to Michael’s. May as well have anyway since we all know how that scene worked out. The good doctor, throughout the franchise sinks deeper into madness in his fight to stop Michael and, in doing so, endangers those around him. Just look what happened to poor Ben Tramer and then the deputy at the end of the film. The guy was just doing his job-he certainly didn’t ask for this shit.

That’s just terrifying.

Even more horrifying is the scene with the razor blade in the apple. Good LAWD seeing that as a child was traumatizing, almost even more so than Myers on a rampage itself. The lore and urban legends swirling around Halloween night of bastards putting arsenic and razor blades in candy for kids put the fear of GOD into a lot of parents and even some anxious kids as well. Well, in Halloween II they made it real, and it was real disgusting at that. Fairly brilliant writing to add that little extra tidbit in there. Also, full disclosure, for years as a kid, I thought this was an ice cube in the kid’s mouth until my father corrected me; and that totally blew my mind and horrified me. I’m all about transparency here.

Now, aside from a crazy Loomis, laced candy, and an angrier score by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth, we have to discuss the biggest sell here as to why Halloween II is much scarier than its predecessor- and that everyone is DICK WARLOCK.

Nick Castle did an absolute bang-up job as The Shape in the original, but it was Warlock’s menacing force of nature that gave Myers a more evil presence. Kind of like what Kane Hodder did for Jason Voorhees, Dick did for Michael and he nailed it as what I think, is the perfect personification of Michael Myers. Many see his moves as robotic in nature, but I think that is precisely what makes The Shape slightly scarier. As stated earlier, Myers is more focused and determined to get the job done this time around sort of like a Terminator. And honestly, would there be anything more terrifying than Michael Myers as a goddamn Terminator?! I think not… The guy walked through a glass door without hesitation without any problem to get to Laurie for fucks’ sake. Just straight through the thing! Or the fact he’s walking down a steep set of stairs without looking at his feet or holding onto anything in that mask that you and I both know is obstructive somewhat in the very least.

That’s just gangster.

Stabbing down at empty pillows, getting his hand almost caught in an elevator door, and his quick- jolt-like movements without using all of his body parts are just nothing short of brilliance on Warlock’s end. Without ever saying a word, a grunt, or even having that heavy breathing as pronounced as it was in the first movie, Warlock managed to give us a more pissed-off Myers and execute it perfectly. I just wish we would have seen more of him in subsequent sequels. But hey, we’ll always have his robotic, malevolent force in Halloween II and Season of the Witch.

Making a good argument for Halloween II being the scariest installment of the Halloween franchise isn’t a hard task, but hey if you disagree , let me know below! Also, if you haven’t already picked up this masterpiece, or have it in your collection, I always prefer the 30th-anniversary edition Blu-Ray from Shout Factory, as it contains the bonus feature of Terror In The Aisles! There are a few third-party sellers, and it’s most definitely worth having a copy of this one in particular.

Now if you know what death is like amazing grace sitting on your face, be sure and get this sequel in during Halloween week!

Editorials

40 Years of “A Nightmare On Elm Street”: How Freddy Changed The Game In The 80s and Beyond

Image 1 Comment

The year was 1984.  The very first commercial for the revolutionary Apple Computer premiered at the beginning of the year, foreshadowing an irreversible change in the way we live for an entire generation. While one can argue this may very well be, the most significant moment in ’84, (or hell an entire decade), most horror fans may dispute that. 40 years ago, one of horror’s biggest and influential icons was born from the mind of the late Wes Craven-Freddy Krueger. Robert Englund gave him a body, Craven gave him the brain- see what I did there- and unleashed Freddy Mania unto the generation that became the golden era for Slasher movies; and shows no signs of slowing up all these years later.

While I can’t speak for every single child of the ’80s, Freddy Fever rose high and rampant over the course of a decade, introducing an entire generation to the horror genre due to Springwood’s Slasher popularity. Nancy said it best, “Every kid knows who he is. He’s like Santa Claus.” 

And even celebrated much more so by the horror fandom than the generous, jolly ol’ dude. With on-screen heroes emerging in the decade like Indiana Jones, Rambo, and pretty much any Arnold Schwarzenegger film, Freddy rose to the ranks as a hero of a generation of horror movie fans by being nothing more than the ethos of pure evil-slapstick comedy added later-which only BOOSTED all the diehard FredHeads (myself included) to put him on a higher pedestal; rounding out the Holy Horror Slasher Trinity with his buddies Michael and Jason.

I mean, you’ve really made it when MTV (when it was, you know, amazing) lets you VJ and just end up doing whatever the fuck you want. That’s some star power.

And it all stemmed from an idea inspired by real-life horrific events that dated back a decade earlier.

As most of you are aware by now, Craven was enthralled by a story he came across in the LA TIMES about a family who had survived the Killing Fields in Cambodia. They made it safe and sound to the United States, but their young son was soon terrorized by horrible nightmares and was eventually found dead.

From Vulture Magazine, circa 2014:

“He told his parents he was afraid that if he slept, the thing chasing him would get him, so he tried to stay awake for days at a time. When he finally fell asleep, his parents thought this crisis was over. Then they heard screams in the middle of the night. By the time they got to him, he was dead. He died in the middle of a nightmare. Here was a youngster having a vision of a horror that everyone older was denying. That became the central line of Nightmare on Elm Street.”

All that being said, WHAT exactly had the youth of our generation so insanely captivated by, well, a brutal child killer? I can only speculate on watching Freddymania evolve throughout the ’80s, and ’90s, to today’s hardcore fan base that follows Freddy and Friends to the ends of the Earth via social media and horror conventions (I’m totally one of those people), and speaking with fellow FredHead buddies. And the answers are pretty quite simple: The children are the warriors of this horror franchise. They are the ones who recognize the evil while the adults stand around with their thumbs up their asses. THEY are the ones who stand together, (just look at Dream Warriors) and face their enemy head-on. So it’s only natural an adolescent would gravitate toward something they could possibly relate to. Society is often guilty of not listening to our youth, and A Nightmare On Elm Street made that loud and clear, folks.

Another reason, and this is personally true in my case being a female, is that each of the NOES films gave us the absolute, most ass-kicking heroines that any young girl would be proud to look up to. First off, let’s just get this right out of the way- Nancy is the goddamn Queen. Even though it was quite clear that she was slowly getting edgier as the film progressed- to be fair she was working on a week’s worth of almost no sleep while Fred was trying to murder her– she really had the most logical and sturdy head out of EVERYONE in that entire film. Including her parents. Not to mention, she went full Rambo on Krueger’s ass. I’m not going to sit here and try to argue how she managed to set all those booby traps, fall asleep, and capture Freddy all in twenty minutes of film time. Let’s just appreciate the fact that this girl went balls to the wall, going as far as tackling her predator to the ground WWF style in one giant FUCK YOU to his face. And then she turns her back on him and calls him “shit”.

Goddamn. GIRL FUCKING POWER.

35 Years of Freddy: A Clawed Imprint On An Entire Generation

Prior to Heather Langenkamp’s debut as a horror heroine, there really hadn’t been too many “final girls” who actually used their wit and a bit of critical thinking to overcome danger. Sydney Prescott said it best, “Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door.” Ironically, another character of Wes Craven-which is a big reason why I adore him and the strength he gave his female heroes.

The stupid girl trope in horror movies had always really bothered me until I got a dose of Nancy. The only other final girl that came remotely close to being a full-on badass that any young girl would admire prior to NOES, is Amy Steel’s Ginny from Friday the 13th Part 2. Nancy is Ginny turned all the up. And I respect the fuck out of it. We finally had someone willing to fight back with both her mind and skills she obtained. The strong female presence would continue throughout the franchise, and personally, I really think it made other horror films and franchises really think twice about the dumb girl victim angle. Post 1984, the main female characters in BOTH Friday the 13th and Halloween, respectfully, had a bit more fight in them. Think of Megan from Jason Lives, or Rachel from Halloween 4 who helped break the cycle. We can thank Nancy for that.

If someone wants to chime in about Jamie Lee Curtis, don’t make me remind you that just screamed her way through the first one until Loomis saved her ass; and then again in the sequel. A sequel where she literally laid in a parking lot where help was 10 feet away and waited to call out until they were gone.

I fucking love these movies to death, but I can never get past the stupidity of that.

Last but not least, A Nightmare On Elm Street has always been seen by me as a “comfort horror film”.  Over the years, I’ve written several articles on how horror films actually soothe my anxiety- And the NOES films are exactly that for me. Comfort in times of stress and the harsh realities of the real world. I refer to films like these in a term I coined, “FANTASTICAL HORROR”. Films like Halloween and Friday the 13th (only the first, after that they became FANTASTICAL), were very much real to me. THAT SHIT COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN. It’s very plausible an escaped lunatic could go on a killing spree or a deranged childless mother going apeshit on a group of kids. With NOES, mehhhhhhhhh, highly doubt a burnt-faced demon is gonna kill me in my dreams. This is not to say that one could never die in their sleep, or to take away the fact that the movie is really terrifying in other aspects. But, it’s not realistic to me. And that’s ok! In times of real-world tragedies, shitty adult issues, and when the world seems so ugly that you want to pack up and move to Mars, Freddy, and the gang are here to take us to Dream Land. To a place that takes us out of reality and into the world of Fantastical Horror.

You know, kinda like Harry Potter but cooler. Don’t you Hogwarts fans @ me.

Happy 40th anniversary, Freddy and the gang. And to all my fellow sons and daughters of 100 maniacs who keep the fandom of this movie as strong as ever. We are all his children now and forever.

35 Years of Freddy: A Clawed Imprint On An Entire Generation

On a last note for all you Fred Heads, make sure you grab the latest revised edition of “NEVER SLEEP AGAIN” that has all new information about the making of the movie via the cast and crew! The book releases on November 9th, 2024 and you can grab it here on Amazon!

Retro Reviews

It’s Time to Embrace “The Fly II” as the Solid Monster Movie it Set Out to Be

Image 1 Comment

Let’s face it. Martin is pretty fly for a monster alley.

It was February 1989 and a pretty highly spoken about film around the Mom-and-Pop video store (ACTION VIDEO) where I had frequented, rummaging around the horror video section like the very young gorehound I was, had just been released. At the time, I had only actually seen bits and pieces of David Cronenberg’s body horror masterpiece, THE FLY, mostly because I was six-years-old, and I had only caught a few scenes of the film courtesy of my cousins. The word around the video store via the owner and employees was that THE FLY II was highly anticipated around there, and I distinctly remember hearing those adult horror fanatic conversations as a young genre fan who had just made her crossover into able to rent slasher movies; (A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday the 13th, etc…) I was truly fascinated by ugly movie monsters, so my parents allowed me to rent THE FLY for a watch so I could be cool like the clerks at Action Video. And holy fucking gross-out I had no idea what I was getting into.

And to be quite honest, nothing grossed me out and stuck with more than the hand-wrestling scene.

Now, being six-years-old, I didn’t really understand the true complexity of THE FLY. I knew it was gross, but also kind of sad. I also knew I kind of really dug it. So I had BEGGED my mother for us to go see the sequel because I knew it had to do with Brundle Fly Jr; and I had to see what the fuck would come next after this. She reluctantly agreed, and guess what? I lasted 30 mins before I began crying hysterically inside the theater over a beautiful dog that was turned into mush. I was immediately taken out and brought to the nearest Toys ‘R’ Us to try and help soothe my hyperventilating ass.

I cried for a damn week, y’all. Also, I’m reliving some PTSD and welling up now, even thinking of that image. Excuse me while I go cover my dog in kisses and hugs.

Anyway, it took me a few years and a lot of balls to finish the movie, I think I may have been around 12. Getting past the traumatic dog scenes was just as hard as it was the first time, but I managed to push through it- and beyond the PTSD, I actually rather enjoyed the movie.

Listen, we all know THE FLY II is in no way better than its predecessor, so let’s just get that out of the way. That being said, the sequel had some massive shoes to fill and with all the low-critic scoring on this one, I’m here to say that’s a bit unfair. Directed by the first film’s makeup and animatronic effects specialist Chris Walas, with a screenplay by Frank Darabont and Mick Garris, the sequel suffered “intense meddling” by studio execs on what they wanted to see; and according to Darabont himself, these were people that hadn’t even SEEN the first movie! That in itself is a crime and makes me want to regurgitate my own acid reflux.

That being said, THE FLY II went through at least several different ideas, scripts, and rewrites before settling on what we know starring Eric Stoltz as Martin Brundle (fun fact: Keanu Reeves was the studio’s first choice to play Brundlefly 2.0, but he turned it down), and Daphne Zuniga who took some time off from the Planet Druidia to play his love interest. We open with a woman who is supposed to look like Geena Davis giving birth in a laboratory surrounded by the assholes of Bartok Industries. She dies in childbirth as a horrified and hysterical and also now crippled, Stathis Borans looks on as what is pushed out is a wriggling larva pod (I’m so glad his smart ass in this movie) and the baby is now the sole property of Bartok Labs and what we see from the get-go, a very evil Dr. Bartok himself. The larva pod cracks and out comes a perfectly, beautiful baby boy! Or, well, so it looks like.

They name him Martin and the child grows at an enormous rate. When he’s 11 months old he looks like he is four; and to top it off his IQ surpasses that of even his own father, who he was told died of an aging disease that was passed down onto him. By year two, he looks to be about 10 and is becoming more curious about the world outside his small one, where he’s closely monitored. He eventually manages to copy a passkey that allows him to wander about the facilities late at night. He ends up in a room filled with animals that are used for experiments and befriends a cute Golden Retriever. He visits the dog often and it becomes his only friend and companion in a world where he’s led to believe he’s going to die soon from his disease. Then, that one part happens that fucking traumatized the hell out of me.

In one part of the facility, Seth Brundle’s telepods are being experimented with and of course, they decide to use Martin’s new friend as a guinea pig. And well. Ya’ know. Didn’t turn out so well. And poor Martin watched the whole thing.

Fast-forward to Martin (Stoltz) at his fifth birthday party and he is a fully grown man at this point. His gift from Dr. Bartok is his very own “private apartment” which turns out to be anything but, and his own work area where he can work on the secrets of his father’s telepods. Since Martin doesn’t sleep. he works all day and night and befriends Beth ( Daphne Zuniga) a night shift worker at the labs. The attraction to each other is noticeable right away and is kind of sweet. Kind of like watching a teenage kid discover love for the first time.

She invites him to a party at the lab and this is where the real heart of the story begins: Martin discovers that his dog hasn’t been put down, but rather being kept at the bottom of what looks like a dirty, dungeon. The mutated dog is in pain and barely mobile and Martin bursts into tears and runs away only to return later that evening and euthanize his old friend.

Things start to hit the shit fan from here.

Just like with Seth, Martin slowly begins to transform. The trigger point was an accident with an injection that left a wound that instead of healing began to ooze and drip out slimy, sticky goo. Just like with his discovery of the dog, he also finds out his real fate and what he is turning into and that Bartok is truly excited for his transformation. Hell, he straight up tells Martin upon the discovery, that’s why he’s kept him there and calm all those years. A truly devastated Martin, who looks at Bartok as the only parental figure he’s ever known,pushes him to the side and goes on a rampage inside the labs until he finally escapes. Ending up at Beth’s home, they both go on the run from Bartok and his cronies until Martin is physically unable to run anymore. A horrified Beth says he is getting worse.

But you know what, Martin at this point is starting to embrace this shit and delivers the best line of the whole movie.

Caught and taken back to the lab, Martin makes the full transformation and that’s where THE FLY II really starts to shine as a GREAT special effects monster movie of the 80s. The revenge and rampage of Martinfly is fucking perfect. IN Cronenberg’s THE FLY, we sympathize with Seth, and we feel sorry for him, but we’re really rooting for Geena Davis as Seth has completely lost his humanity side and just has “Insect Politics”brain. With Martin’s transformation, he is COMPLETELY in control. His humanity is still there. He might be a homicidal fly on the loose killing everyone in that lab, who goddamn deserves every bit of it mind you, but he still loves the puppies! And the puppies totally love him.

I fucking love this so much

Also, can we sit and appreciate the makeup effects? Chris Walas nad his huge team of artists really pulled it off here in making something similar, yet totally different from Cronenberg’s version. In fact, one could arguably say, superior in some regard as the devil is always in the details. You could see every damn insect hair on Martin’s body as clear as day and for me personally, it’s right up there with Pumpkinhead as far as extremely well-thought-out monsters go.

The killings along the way on the final rampage are gory as HELL. Also, quite satisfying as unbeknownst to Bartok and his cronies, Martin has actually figured out the cure for himself that involves swapping his DNA with another healthy human via the telepods. Of course, the human donor would render up dead pretty much so Martin, because he’s a pretty nice guy for a fly, never once considered it an option. Until NOW.

SPOLIER ALERT: Don’t continue if you’ve never seen this.

In a twist of beautiful fate and poetic justice, Martin has a showdown, wild west style, in the telepod lab with Bartok and once he tries to harm Beth, who was being held as bait for Martin, and then Martin being shot at by Bartok, Martin has enough of this shit and grabs that fat fuck, dragging him to the telepod for some Gene Swapping Therapy.

Once the teleportation is complete, Martin and Bartok are fused in a gooey mess but only by some sort of slime. Martin returns back into his human self as the gene swapping therapy was successful and Bartok.. Got his just deserts as he comes out looking just like Martin’s beloved dog. The kicker is he is placed in that SAME gross dungeon, force-fed gruel and to live the rest of his miserable and painful days paying for his karma as a terrible human.

I’ll never watch that dog scene again, but I’ll watch this a million times.

THE FLY II may not be the masterpiece that Cronenberg made, but it certainly has its own merits and deserves a little praise for the things it set out to accomplish with so much standing in the way. It’s a great revenge film with a cool as hell monster. It also has one of the most brutal kill scenes I’ve ever seen.

OOOOOOF.

Leave your thoughts down in the comments below!