Tag Archives: horror news

Lists

10 Characters from the “Halloween” Franchise Who Definitely Deserved It

Image Leave a comment

The HALLOWEEN franchise is, without a doubt, a favorite topic of discussion here on NN and if you’ve ever looked at my list of pieces whether here on this blog, or elsewhere I’ve written for the past 10 years, you’ll come to the very correct conclusion that yes, I’m a superfan and could probably write about the subject forever without repeating myself once. However, there’s one thing that hasn’t been discussed by me, or really much anywhere, and that’s a hot take on who in the entire series of films actually deserved to die in these movies. Sure, there’s been talks here and there in forums; perhaps an article by some dopey website that aren’t even catered to horror fans. So, as a superfan myself, I’m obliged to take on the task, throw my rage at the keyboard and say “FUCK THESE GUYS, THEY HAD IT COMING.”

And no, as annoying as Tina can be in HALLOWEEN 5, she didn’t make the cut.

So let’s start slashing our way into these insufferable sons of bitches.

10. Bob (HALLOWEEN 1978)

If you’re wondering why I think Bob deserved to be strung up in the Wallace’s kitchen, the guy DID joke about ripping an eight-year-old girl’s clothes off. Plus because of his death, we wouldn’t have gotten one of the coolest shots of the entire franchise right here:

9. Kelly Meeker (HALLOWEEN 4)

The Haddonfield homewrecker, Kelly Meeker, the sheriff’s daughter, is just a total bitch. When Rachel confronted this hoe about sleeping with her boyfriend Brady (another fucking hoe) Kelly basically told Rachel that it was her fault that her man looked away and decided to spend Halloween with her instead. Ugh. She had it coming when Myers cleverly used a shotgun on her without pulling the trigger. Also, thanks for the Halloween costume inspiration!

But seriously, much love to the sweetheart that is Kathleen Kinmont. Only a fantastic actress can make us hate like that.

8. Mikey (HALLOWEEN 5)

An obvious choice if there ever was one. This prick had zero redeeming qualities. The guy only cared about his car and his dick. Tina, honey. You almost made the list because of your “electric connection” to toxic men.

Al least when you were riding with Mikey 2.0, you weren’t being verbally abused.

7. Pretty Much Everyone in HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION

I’m just going to make a bold statement and say that every single person who died in HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION, had it coming and I felt not a bit of sorry for any of them-including Laurie Strode. Everybody was just so dumb – downed and straight up intolerable. Be it their lack of common sense (Laurie with her wanting to “make sure” and that cameraman who just stood there waiting for Michael to slash his ass), or the entitlement of the entire cast of the “Internet reality show”. I literally cheered for every single one of them to go down. And let’s face it- the one guy who isn’t even really an actor per se, Busta Rhymes, is the only watchable thing in this movie at all.

Shout out Horror Net for putting together this kill count for RESURRECTION.

6. John Strode (HALLOWEEN 6)

Another no brainer is the abusive piece of shit John Strode. The uncle of Laurie Strode is one we were all very happy to see go down when it fianlly happened- and the fact it was extra violent was even more bittersweet. Smacking around your wife and kids in a horror movie gets your head blown up. Those are the rules!

5. Dr. Ranbir Sartain (HALLOWEEN 2018)

The idea of an anti-Loomis running around Haddonfield is entertaining. But I think Micheal was just as tired of hearing him talk as the audience was. Totally deserved that curb stomp. We can all only hope that we possess the superhuman strength, endurance, and durability in our 60s that Michael Myers has in this movie.

4. The Coroner Paramedics (Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN 2)

As much as I despise this movie and quite frankly, think pretty much everyone in Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN flicks deserve what they get, this scene in particular in RZ’s H2 is fairly satisfying and brutal enough to win a Golden Chainsaw award in 2010. The pair of nasty jackasses “joking” about necrophilia with dead women was enough for me to give this film a shout-out when Michael did his thing. And it was a beautiful service for the rest of us.

3. Ronnie (Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN 2007)

I don’t even need to explain this one-just roll that beautiful bean footage. I do think he got off way too easy though.

2. The Entire Halloween Kills Mob That Made Lance Tivoli Commit Suicide

EVIL DIES TONIGHT. And you know what, it sort of does when this asshole mob out of pure fear, drive a man, Lance Tivoli, to his own death in a case of mistaken identity as the mob believes him to be Myers unmasked. To make it worse, the man suffered from severe mental illness. It’s a terrible tragedy to have someone who cries out for help, actively seeking medical assistance, and suffers a deathly fate for simply existing.  So yes; I’m gonna let Joker take this one for Tommy Doyle and the mob of Haddonfield:

1. Michael Myers (Halloween Ends)

If you’re shocked to see Myers at number one, you just might be a sociopath. Listen, he did humanity a couple of favors by ridding a few insufferable twats from the Earth. But he also killed a lot of innocent people too, and plenty who didn’t deserve it. Danny Trejo anyone? I think the way he died was a bit weak and sort of a cop out, but then again there’s a lot I don’t agree with HALLOWEEN ENDS, and it has nothing to do with Corey. I actually thought him being the new Myers was a cool direction to go- until they killed him and fucked up their own potential. But eh, take what we can get for now, I guess. Let’s just hope the next set of reboot films gets things right this time.

Before anyone asks me why I didn’t place Conal Cochran on here, it’s because he knows his Halloween folklore, so he gets a pass from me. I respect that kind of knowledge.

Editorials

Unsung Heroes: Video Rental Shops Inside Grocery Stores

Image 3 Comments

Long before Redbox, grocery chains were a formidable competitor for video and game rentals.

Many, MANY moons ago, I grew up in a quaint neighborhood where I had the privilege of having both a community center and a shopping mall about a mile away from my house. Just past the community canter and a bridge to the freeway, stood an array of stores that served my childhood basic needs, such as a McDonald’s, Naugles, Pizza Hut, Sav-On Drugs Pharmacy, the ALL IMPORTANT Mom-and-Pop video rental store Action Video, and our local Smiths grocery store-which also harbored its own video rental shop inside the store walls.

It’s another store inside a store! Cue it Mike!

Being able to grab a package of Magic Middles, some cherry coke, and a rental copy of Creepshow 2 is an experience that only 80s and 90s kids really got to live through, and I’m pretty happy I was a part of it. Although I have heard some whisperings throughout the Internet of some being active in small towns around the USA, they have mostly been lost to time and overshadowed by their big brothers of local video rental stores and the dreaded Blockbuster mass market for people looking back on video rental days with their nostalgia hats on; and I personally think they deserve a lot more respect dammit.

To be clear, I was a pretty loyal customer to Action Video, the fact that my mother worked at the deli inside Smiths sometimes made it more convenient for me rent or her to pick up and drop off my weekend requests if they were available. Plus, it never hurt that the clerk gave me free boxes of Raisinets. Also, there was something quite charming about them. They were small, quaint, and very personable. Hell, some of them even donned the ever mysterious black curtain!

It was also something to look forward to if you so happened to be dragged against your will to go grocery shopping with your parents because at least you could make that request to rent Sleepaway Camp a lot more convincing since you (or they) didn’t have to walk a few store pegs down to retrieve it; just to the front of the store by the smokey slot machines!

Don’t forget your free kid cookie card that allows you one free fresh chocolate chip cookie from the bakery on the way up there!

I also have to appreciate that if Action Video or your preferred video rental stop were out of stock of your wishlist movie or NES game, you could usually rely on ye-old tiny faithful here to at least have ONE copy of what you were wanting. Yeah, the place was like the size of my living room, (at least this one was anyway) but goddamn if they couldn’t fit at least 3,000 movies in there with their magic bred’ skills. Napoleon Dynamite would have pleased. These places did well enough mind you, but I just don’t think they had the kind of foot traffic a full sized store would have- hence the chances of your beloved rental being there even higher.

So indeed, I just wanted to take a portion of my day and salute these little video shops inside grocery chains. You made that Saturday morning food shopping trip a little more tolerable.

Editorials

Here’s The Story Behind Those Opening Credits In “HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS”

Image 3 Comments

In case you’re new here, I hold HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS on a ridiculously high pedestal. It’s the ultimate 80s horror slasher sequel where a lot of nostalgia resides. It brings back characters from a horror franchise in the CORRECT way while giving us new characters to the plot who are actually likable. And it’s the only entry in the series where we get a glimpse as Michael Myers in a very KEN form.

Fun in the Sun Myers is not to be trifled with.

Ok so maybe those are just my biased opinions, but there’s one thing that we can all collectively agree on making it a fact: the opening to RETURN is regarded as one of the greatest things about the movie, and stands as possibly, one of the most atmospheric intros for the Halloween holiday of all damn time. Something so simple as a few eerie scenes of a basic farm shot on the dusk of Halloween Eve in the middle of fuckwhere America, with no context, set the tone and the mood for the whole film. As light slowly fades into dusk throughout the secular shots of the farm in Autumn along with a sinister soundtrack that crescendos into your very spine, the message to the audience is clear: Evil is coming, and it is angry.

Back in October, celebrating HALLOWEEN 4‘ 35th anniversary, I spoke with director Dwight Little about his experiences and memories of the film. Of course, one of the questions I asked was about that marvelous intro and how the inspiration for such a departure from the previous two Myers films’ i.e. pumpkin credit intros, came to be. My instincts on the answer to this being something much deeper than just a few shots on a farm that were taken for budgetary reasons that just happened to strike gold, turned out to be correct.

You know, we put a LOT of energy into that, and I had asked the writer on set, ya know, how much do we actually KNOW about the origins of Halloween? I looked up some references on it and found out there’s some old Scottish agricultural tradition where the fields have gone bare and everyone has to do their last harvest to get ready for the Winter. And so there’s all this iconic imagery of scarecrows and pumpkin men, and looking back into the roots of it all is how we came up with that title sequence that seems so beloved. I just didn’t want to do the pumpkin [intro sequence again] and wanted to try something else.

So when people say, “It ain’t that deep.” Yeah. Yeah, it is. The fact that the opening sequence provides hidden context into old harvest culture and using imagery that we all associate with the Fall and Halloween seasons in a much deeper way was a clever move. To a superstitious agrarian society, not only would scarecrows keep birds away from crops, but they could also scare children away from the fields where there might be strange things hiding. The hanging ghost on the farm, representing Myers returning from the dead, is another, with Danielle Harris’ name (who plays Jamie Lloyd-Myers’ niece) splashed on the screen next to it as if to say he’s coming back just for you, babydoll. Although that in itself is MY OWN speculation, let me just have that theory, fellas.

You can read the entire interview with Dwight Little here.

It’s just a beautiful new way to look at those banger opening credits. Don’t you think? So with that in mind, let’s just bask in all its malevolent glory, eh?