Down in Peaceful Podcast Valley

Friend, if you're sitting there thinking "Man, there is nothing exciting happening in my earholes today!" well guess what? You're in luck because I had the good fortune to guest on the most recent episode of The Evolution of Horror, wherein host Mike Muncer and I discuss a veritable slew of animal attack movies from the early 1970s (and even a wee beyond). Anyone who's been haunting Stately Final Girl Manor for a minute or two knows that animals run amok is one of my favorite sub-genres, and we hit on pretty much all my faves over the course of the conversation: Frogs, The Swarm, Ants!, Kingdom of the Spiders, Day of the Animals, and on and on. I just love 'em, and I could have talked about them all day if the bandwidth allowed.

So! If you'd like to give it a listen, you can do so right on the Evolution of Horror website, or wherever you get your podcasts. My goodness, these movies rule.

Day 24 - "Mother of God...they'll kill all of us!"

As someone who is vehemently opposed to humor in all forms, I tend to avoid horror-comedies. Sure, a little of one in the other is fine, but I like to keep the funny and the scary separate like a cinematic McDLT. That's my excuse, anyway, for being an animals run amok aficionado who had never seen Piranha (1978) before last night.

I can think of no other reason why I wouldn't have chomped this one down ages ago. Everything else point to it being made just for me. A 70s animal attack movie from Joe Dante, with a cast one only dares to dream of:  Bradford Dillman, who famously fought the fire-farting cockroachs of Bug! Keenan Wynn of television's Dallas! Barbara Steele, star of this year's SHOCKtober! Dick Miller! Kevin McCarthy! Paul Bartel! Melody Thomas Scott of The Young and the Restless! It goes on and on. And just went you sit up on your fainting couch, you find out that John Sayles wrote this shit and you say "WHAT!" and you immediately come down with another case of the vapors.

All this to say, the three people who called Piranha a favorite horror movie in 2020 were really on to something, because it's a lot of fun. Yes, I say this even though it has some comedy in it!

A couple of horny young folk break into a disused military testing facility and decide that a giant murky pool is a great place for some skinny dipping. After something (spoiler: it's piranhas) in the water noms them a shitton of times, the horny young folk are dead.

Feisty skip tracer Maggie (Heather Menzies) searches for the horny young folk with the help of local reclusive drunkard me Paul (Dillman); they make their way to the testing facility and drain the murky pool, only to be scolded by local weirdo scientist Dr. Hoak (McCarthy). Hoak explains that the murky pool was not only full of the leftovers of the military's biowarfare experiments, dubbed Operation: Razorteeth...it drained right into a nearby river. 

Two points of note: one, I never thought I'd get the chance to describe a character as a "feisty skip tracer," so Piranha has already proven to be a gift. Second, I loved the little stop-motion dude in Hoak's lab and was really hoping to see more of him!

Maggie, Paul, and Hoak set off down the river on a raft to warn as many folks as they can about the incoming piranha threat, making stops at the summer camp where Paul's daughter is staying and a new resort run by Dick Miller. The military is called in to help clean up the mess, and Barbara Steele is one of the military scientists. Yes, Piranha keeps giving and giving.

There is a lot of carnage in this movie: women, children, Paul Bartel...those piranha don't care who you are, they will swim in, make a gurgly woobwoobwoob noise (not to be confused with a Three Stooges woobwoobwoob noise), and nibble you to death, turning the river red with your blood. It's so great. 

The characters were charming and weird (thank you, John Sayles), there was no skimping on the attack scenes (thank you, Joe Dante), and abrupt-as-hell ending aside, I enjoyed the heck out of this (thank you, three voters). Except, of course, for all the times something funny happened. Those parts were the worst. If anyone says I so much as cracked a smile during this movie, I'll say I was hacked! 

SHOCKtober Day 6

Everybody knows that animals run amok and disaster movies are two chaotic tastes that taste *chef's kiss* perfect together, and no single movie demonstrates this quite like The Swarm. It's absolutely everything I could want in a disaster epic of any ilk, never mind one about killer bees!

It's director/producer/disaster king Irwin Allen going way too far, creating a bloated messterpiece that pushes the boundaries of common sense in every respect. The endurance test of a run time is a whopping 157 minutes but it feels more like a good three weeks or so. Romantic subplots are so ill-fitting that they come off as crammed into the proceedings with a crowbar. Terrific character actors (Ben Johnson, Richard Widmark, Fred MacMurray) and trash cinema icons (Cameron Mitchell) go toe to toe to toe with enough Oscar-winning actors to fill the entire Shrine Auditorium several times over. Lee Grant, Patty Duke, Henry Fonda, José Ferrer, Michael Caine, Olivia goddamn de Havilland...all of the scream, yell, and/or worry about bees and I could not be happier about it. 

Children die! Elders die! A (model) train rolls down a hillside and explodes! The Gulf of Mexico is set on fire!

Characters say things like "Houston on fire...will history blame me? Or the BEES?"

With all of the too too way too much-ness in The Swarm, how am I to choose only one favorite character? Hell, the whole movie could be my favorite character! 

But after I calmed down a little bit, the answer became obvious, and so today's spotlight rains down upon...

THE GIANT BEE HALLUCINATION IN THE SWARM (1978)

The Swarm is a movie overstuffed with patent absurdity, but still the big bee stands hovers alone in ridiculous. You see, the bees in The Swarm are a mutant strain of Africanized killer bees, which--along with the Bermuda Triangle and quicksand--were a very big worry back in the day. The Swarm does its best to play into the public's fear (and mild xenophobia) over these bees and so unlike their real-life counterparts, these movie bees are super deadly. You probably got that thanks to the "killer" right there in the name! 

4-5 stings will take you right the fuck out (to Heaven), but if you only get stung a little bit, you'll get sick and...hallucinate giant bees. Thank you, The Swarm, for this. It is so stupid. Thank you.

MAN, I LOVE THE SWARM!

I've seen stuff!

Good news, my dudes: yes, I may look it on the outside and feel it on the inside, but as it turns out I am not actually dead! I've been doing stuff and things, writing stuff and things about horror games over at Kotaku, eating stuff and things...just lots of stuff and things. "Is this pertinent?" you may ask.

I may respond, "What, like you have anything better to do than read my rambling nonsense? But also yes, it's kind of pertinent because some of those stuffs and things I've been doing are horror movies."

Then I would hasten to add "I mean I've been watching horror movies, not doing them. That would be impractical and likely unhygienic."

"Yes," you might reply. "I figured."

Anyway, rather than recount our entire imaginary conversation, why don't I recount some of MY OPINIONS regarding some of the movies I've watched over the last eight years (or however long it's been since I last posted)?

Blood Diner (1987)

Now that I've finally seen Blood Diner, I can shuffle off to that great blood diner in the sky knowing that my time here on Earth was...not necessarily well-spent, I suppose, but it was definitely spent.

You will have a lot of questions before, during, and after you've seen Blood Diner. The biggest question of them all, however, is "Wait, did I see Blood Diner?" for even as the end credits roll, you will not be sure. This is because Blood Diner isn't a movie you watch...Blood Diner is an experience that happens to you and sometimes at you.

This horror-comedy about a couple of wackadoo brothers attempting to resurrect a goddess for some reason (I think that's what it's about?) exists entirely in its own universe...and I don't mean that in some "Marvel Universe" or "Star Wars Whatever" way. I mean its "universe" is solely the mind of director Jackie Kong's made manifest and the center of that universe cannot hold. There are no rules whatsoever; people do not act like people do, but sometimes not-people do act like people do. I know that doesn't make sense, but when that statement is refracted through the Blood Diner prism it kind of does. The whole movie is like that, a cacophonous assault on your eyes and ears so jam-packed with what-the-fuckery in every inch of the frame, you will wonder–even as you're dazed and dizzy–just how this movie happened. You will wonder what it's supposed to mean. You will come out the other side–if you come out the other side all all–wondering who you are and questioning your reality.

So yes, I loved it. I think? It's not good, but it's also a blessing. I think? I laughed unironically. I think? Blood Diner is perhaps a bit like Schrödinger's Horror Movie, as it simultaneously exists and doesn't exist. It's the only movie I've ever seen that I'll never forget, but I also can't remember anything about it.

Veronica (2017)

So there I was, just a-loafin' on the couch and a-scrollin' through the Netflix when I spot Veronica, the tale of a Ouija Board gone wrong but a possession gone oh so right. It's written and directed by Paco Plaza, one of the creators behind [REC] and since I fucking love [REC] forever and always, I decided to give it a shot. This was unusual for me, as my usual solo Netflix experience is "browse for 45 minutes, add 12 things I'll never watch to my queue, turn off Netflix." Sometimes that last part is "put on an episode of a reality show about prison life and fall asleep fifteen minutes later." This time, though, I was excited enough to follow through on the whole "movie watching" thing.

Veronica is...fine. While I did not wish that I'd opted to fall asleep to an episode of Lock Up or Lockdown or Lock This Way instead, I was decidedly underwhelmed. It's a veritable checklist of "spooky stuff" every horror fan has seen before: there's a creepy nun, a mouth that opens unnaturally wide thanks to CGI, a shadowy figure standing in the corner, a "based on a true story" angle, blah blah blah. It's perfectly serviceable, to be sure, in particular the strong performances from the children in the cast. But I hoped for more thanks to the [REC] pedigree and my fondness for a possession tale.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I got a text from a friend a couple of days later asking if I'd seen it yet. Apparently it'd been making the rounds on the social medias, with folks claiming it's so puke-in-your-pants scary that no one could finish watching it. Are you imagining my surprise? It was a big one.

Look, I love a bit of William Castle chutzpah, a touch of Herschell Gordon Lewis moxie. You know, that good ol' fashioned horror movie barfbaggery wherein you need an insurance policy lest a film scare you right to death. Hype posts on Faceplaces ain't that to me, though. In this era of Russian bots and FAKE NEWS and endless trolling everywhere, it simply feels like another lie on the fire. Because it's a lie! Veronica might be the scariest thing you've ever seen if you've never seen another horror movie. And you might not finish watching it if you decide to, like, go to bed instead.

Dead Awake (2016)

Oh dear me.

The phenomenon known as sleep paralysis (that state between sleeping and waking where you can't speak or move but you're totally aware of things happening around you) is terrifying...but not terrifying enough, says Dead Awake. What's even way more terrifyinger is, like, a "hag" who comes to you seeking skin moisturizer kills you when you're in the grips of sleep paralysis.

I mean. This is not a good movie, but then I don't know what I was expecting. I only watched it because I saw that it stars Jocelin "House of the Devil" Donahue as twins. Twins! Who could resist a horror movie with twins? But trust me, these are no fun time horror twins à la the dueling Daphne Zunigas in The Initiation. These twins are not having fun at all, a fact owing largely to how you can tell throughout that Jocelin Donahue knew this movie would end up a big pile. Boy, was she right!

Jocelin Donahue deserves better. Friend o' Final Girl Brea Grant deserves better. Swimfan deserves better. I know that I for sure deserve better!

Editor's note: I know that Jesse Bradford is not the swim fan in Swimfan, rather he is the swimmer. Still, when he popped up on screen I said "Hey! Swimfan!" so there you go.

Editor's second note: Also I know that "House of the Devil" is (probably) not Jocelin Donahue's nickname, but since that's where you probably know her from I put it in quotes like that. I am just saying.

Deadly Eyes (1982)

Ohhhh baby, now we're talkin'. Here's a movie I deserve!

Before I talk about what makes Deadly Eyes so great, let me clear the air: the giant rats of Deadly Eyes do not, in fact, have deadly eyes. They're just big rats, and as such they have deadly mouths. While Deadly Mouths is a more truthful title, it's not as good as Deadly Eyes, however, so here we are. I want total transparency here.

Now then. As science and math have proven time and time again, contaminated grain + rats = large rats with a taste for human flesh. That's just nature, and that's really all there is to this movie. So what makes it a superlative animals run amok flick? Two things:

1. In much of the film, the rats are played by dachshunds in rat costumes.

I'll get to #2 after you've had some time to recover from that information.

2. No one is safe from these hungry rats! Deadly Eyes does not discriminate, nor does it give a fuck. Are you an old? CHOMP. Are you a toddler? CHOMP. Are you a main character? CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP. Deadly Eyes does what it wants, and what it wants is to eat everyone without prejudice nor a lick o' CGI in sight. It's so great.

The Nest (1988)

Watched The Nest the same night I watched Deadly Eyes and had an inadvertent Lisa Langlois creature double feature, highly recommended.

As science and math have proven time and time again, biohazardous waste + cockroaches = cockroaches with not only a taste for human flesh, but also with the ability to somehow mutate their victims into cockroach-victim hybrids.

As you may have surmised, The Nest is not entirely serious. It's not necessarily a horror-comedy, but it is a Concorde Pictures/Corman production and it definitely leans into the campiness. It feels like a 1950s monster movie by way of 80s synthesizers and garishness. It's frequently gross, always ludicrous, and doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's pure drive-in style fun.

The poster, seen above, has always filled my mind with questions, none of which have really been answered after seeing the film. Still lingering in my brain:

Is that a giant cockroach? Or is it a very tiny woman? Am I supposed to be turned on by this image? It is everything wrong perfect and right with 1980s videocassette box aesthetics.

The Ritual (2017)

I don't know if The Ritual is actually super terrific or if I was high on too much Riunite but man, this shit did it for me! I was into it, my friends, cowering behind a blanket and feeling all kinds of tension. I was creeped out but good, like I haven't been in forever. This is some Blair Witch on steroids business and it worked: it's got woods, woods, and more woods; dark woods; scary stuff in said woods; a village in the woods full of creeps; some of the best creature design I've ever seen. Beyond that I don't want to give anything away, so let's just say that I love all of those things very much and I loved this movie very very much, a real gem. And you can trust my opinion on that: I have a horror blog!

Tragedy Girls (2017)

Another wee little gem, Tragedy Girls is to slasher flicks what Shaun of the Dead is to zombie flicks. Both a self-aware satire of and straight play of its genre, it's full of clever dialogue, charming and charismatic characters, a few outrageous set pieces, lots of humor and even more blood. Brianna Hildebrand and Alexandra Shipp are terrific as Sadie and McKayla, death-obsessed teenage besties hungry for social media hits who must create their own content when the town's psycho doesn't murder enough for their liking. It's a neon- and gore-drenched good time.

So there you go, a roundup of MY OPINIONS about some of the horror movies I've seen sort of lately. See you in another eight years!

SHOCKtober: 469-449

Once more unto the ONE VOTE each, my friends.

469. Mirrors -- 2008, Alexandre Aja
468. Mother's Day -- 1980, Charles Kaufman
467. The Mothman Prophecies -- 2002, Mark Pellington
466. The Nail Gun Massacre -- 1985, Bill Leslie & Terry Lofton
465. Nailbiter -- 2013, Patrick Rea
464. Nang Nak -- 1999, Nonzee Nimibutr
463. Natural Born Killers -- 1994, Oliver Stone
462. Night Gallery -- 1969, Boris Sagal, Steven Spielberg, Barry Shear
461. Night of the Demons -- 1988, Kevin Tenney
460. Night of the Lepus -- 1972, William F. Claxton
459. Night of the Living Dead -- 1990, Tom Savini
458. Nightmare Man -- 2006, Rolfe Kanefsky
457. No Telling -- 1991, Larry Fessenden
456. Offerings -- 1989, Christopher Reynolds
455. Opera -- 1987, Dario Argento
454. Pan's Labyrinth -- 2006, Guillermo del Toro
453. Peeping Tom -- 1960, Michael Powell
452. Persona -- 1966, Ingmar Bergman
451. Phantasm IV: Oblivion -- 1998, Don Coscarelli
450. Phase IV -- 1974, Saul Bass
449. Piranha -- 1978, Joe Dante

I love love love that Night of the Lepus employs the "slo-mo = bigness" technique. You will believe a rabbit can be really big.

Also, let us thank The Nail Gun Massacre for one of the greatest lines of dialogue in the history of cinema:

"Remember when you could sit outside and not worry about the mosquitos and the killers?"

SHOCKtober: 554-534

Oh my child, we are still deep in ONE VOTE EACH territory.

554. Don't Go to Sleep -- 1982, Richard Lang
553. Don't Look in the Basement -- 1973, S.F. Brownrigg
552. Don't Open the Door -- 2014, Danny Foxx
551. Dr. Giggles -- 1992, Manny Coto
550. Dracula -- 1931, Tod Browning
549. Dracula A.D. 1972 -- 1972, Alan Gibson
548. Dracula Has Risen from the Grave -- 1968, Freddie Francis
547. Dream Home -- 2010, Ho-Cheung Pang
546. Duel -- 1971, Steven Spielberg
545. Dust Devil: The Final Cut -- 1992, Richard Stanley
544. Eden Lake -- 2008, James Watkins
543. Elle -- 2016, Paul Verhoeven
542. Empire of the Ants -- 1977, Bert I. Gordon
541. Eve's Bayou -- 1997, Kasi Lemmons
540. Eyes of Fire -- 1983, Avery Crounse
539. The Fall of the House of Usher -- 1928, Jean Epstein
538. Feast -- 2005, John Gulager
537. Final Destination 2 -- 2003, Davis R. Ellis
536. Final Destination 3 -- 2006, James Wong
535. Final Exam -- 1981, Jimmy Huston
534. The Food of the Gods -- 1976, Bert I. Gordon

Ugh, Food of the Gods would be a 100% perfect movie if it weren't for its use of real rats. I can't abide it! Real animals getting injured (at best) was too shocking and too much of a bummer the first (and only) time I've seen the film. Really sucks all the fun out of it for me. What a drag.

Man there's a lot of great advice in this little chunk o' list!  The basement? Don't look in there! The door? Don't open it! Sleep? Don't go to there! I'm hoping we saved some lives today.

awesome movie poster friday - the JAWS edition!

"The birds...they're acting funny."

When I bought a VHS copy of The Birds II: Land's End (1994) for a dollar, I was pumped. Not only was it, you know, a dollar, but this wholly unnecessary sequel has the reputation of being a big pile. "It's supposed to be terrible," I told a friend. "I can't wait!" She thought that was an odd reason to buy and/or look forward to a film, and on the one hand I agree: I mean, I do want horror movies to be good. On the other hand, though, bad animals run amok movies are my soulmates. Directing duties on The Birds II are attributed to Alan Smithee, which had me even more excited. In case you don't know, "Alan Smithee" is a pseudonym used by directors who want to disavow any involvement with the film s/he directed for reasons that, per the rules of the Director's Guild, cannot be disclosed. The man behind the Smithee in the case of The Birds II is Rick Rosenthal, who also helmed Halloween II. Use of the pseudonym was abolished in 2000, and frankly that's the only reason I can think of why Rosenthal wouldn't use it to distance himself from the abysmal Halloween: Resurrection, which he wrought upon the world in 2002. But! That's neither here nor there.

Ohhhhhh how I want to punch Halloween: Resurrection in its stupid Michael Myers Dot Com face despite the Katee Sackhoff and Busta Rhymes-ness of it.

Sorry, it's just that Resurrection is one of those movies that makes my blood pressure rise. For the good of both my health and staying on topic, I should really start talking about The Birds II.

The film begins as an official-looking man pulls a bird of the water that looks like a leftover from the Exxon Valdez disaster. He gets out some official-looking beakers and vials and starts to do some science, but he's interrupted by a brutal bird attack. They take his eyes and his dignity as action music blares; the music and the copious blood remind us that we're not in Hitchcock territory anymore. Of course, you may have assumed that from the start.

Brad Johnson stars as Ted, patriarch of what is surely the most irritating family ever to walk the Earth. His wife May (Chelsea Field) is alternately angry and insipid. Their daughters Something Starts With 'J' #1 and Something Starts With 'J' #2 are straight-up brats. They fight, call each other names, and bitch about having to spend time at an old house on the beach at Land's End. Even the dog in this family is annoying. Really, Ted is the only one who's fairly tolerable, and that's because he spends most of his time quietly moping about their son who died five years ago. At any rate, they're all at Land's End on some sort of "work vacation" for mom and dad. The "How was your day?" questions and the incessant whining of the girls were a constant reminder that family life is a fucking drag.

Look, I'm gonna save both of us a lot of time. A bunch of nothing happens, and then the birds get frisky. They start dive-bombing people here and there, scratching a forehead or biting some hair. Ted thinks is this wholly unnatural behavior and he should know- he's a high school biology teacher. He tries to warn the Mayor that something hinky is going on, but in typical politician in an animals run amok movie fashion, the Mayor won't do anything about it because doing so may negatively affect the town's Fishing Industry Parade Festival and economy. However, two people believe Ted: a weird old dude who live in a lighthouse, and Tippi Hedren. Well, not Tippi Hedren, exactly, but rather Helen, the character she plays. That's right, Tippi Hedren is in The Birds II, and she's not portraying Melanie Daniels. I hate when that happens.

The birds increase their numbers and get more and more bold. Flocks of them enter The Ted Family's home (sorry, they don't have a last name) and make with the pecking and the scratching and the nom nom nomming. They cut the phone line and the power, and the scene is not at all unlike the siege scene you've seen in any number of zombie movies- it was rather Night of the Living Dead, actually. There's a bitchin' dog vs. bird fight, and later the weird old dude falls from the lighthouse sans eyes after a bird attack.

In typical politician in an animals run amok movie fashion, the Mayor learns too late that the threat is REAL- like, he finally gets it when hundreds of birds take on hundreds of people near the marina. He tries to assemble a shotgun-wielding posse, but it's an idea that was doomed from the start. The Ted Family takes a little boat in an attempt to get back to the mainland, but then the birds take off and try to beat them to it. The (abrupt) end.

Now, I realize I haven't made the best case for The Birds II: Land's End here. Surely Rick Rosenthal's use of "Alan Smithee" doesn't make a good case for it, and neither do the ubiquitous reviews that give it 1.5 stars at most. I got it expressly because I thought it was going to be terrible, and yet...I did not find it to be terrible. Why is this? Hmm. It's a question I've been pondering since I rewound the tape. Earlier that that, perhaps, for even as the birds were doing their thing, I found myself shocked at the fact that what I was watching wasn't making me laugh or want to kill myself.

Is it because mere days ago I saw Birdemic: Shock and Terror, surely the worst movie ever created, and now I've gone numb? This may be a part of it, especially considering the fact that both movies are about [SPOILER ALERT] birds.

Aside: I'm going to write about Birdemic, but I'm not sure exactly what yet, nor am I sure where the writing will end up. I will say this much: if it ends up at a theater near you, GO. You think Troll 2 is the worst movie ever? Think again. You know how I've thought for YEARS that Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is as amazingly good as bad movies get? I WAS WRONG. There's a new King.

Aside Over: On the other hand, there's no denying that The Birds II isn't actually much good. There's far more melodrama and talk than action, but still- I found that enjoyable in a made-for-TV sort of way. I was most pleased at the fact that the birds were not made out of computer. Imagine that! Animals run amok movies may be more popular than ever thanks to the schlock churned out by the SyFy Channel, but I get tired of the CGI-ness of it all. These were real honest-to-goodness birds a-peckin' and a-flappin', and I was thankful for it.

Because I am really in the minority regarding the merits of The Birds II, I can't really recommend it: after all, your brain not be as soft as mine apparently is right now. Honestly, I hope Birdemic has ruined all moviekind for me, raising my tolerance for crap to the point where everything is shrugged off with a casual "Well, it wasn't as bad as Birdemic..." I don't know, I might be way too forgiving of animals run amok movies for a time. We'll just have to wait and see. I know enough, however, to say that I realize The Birds II isn't good, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it...and that's okay. A dollar well spent, I say!

The Year in Horror: 1977

Boy, do I have fond memories of the Lisa, Lisa films. While the sequel, Lisa, Lisa 2: The Cult of Cult Jam was a gory delight, it's the third in the series (Lisa, Lisa 3: Full Force Never Dies) that truly, terrifyingly rox my sox.

Okay, so I made that up. But really, doesn't the world need more Lisa Lisa jokes? Yes...yes, it does. Some of you may be more familiar with Lisa, Lisa under its video release title: Axe. I've never seen it, but it's one of those movies that's simmering in my brain. I'm not sure if it's good sleaze or bad sleaze, so I never make the move to bring Axe home with me. Good sleaze is great fun and all, but a night with bad sleaze can leave you infected. Not that I know, of course- I am just saying.

The point is, I came across this ad for the drive-in and my first thought was something decidedly old person-ish; you know, "Golly, those were the days!" or "Gee, my old LaSalle ran great!" or "I hate the young!" or something. Then I looked up Lisa, Lisa because, truth be told, I had no idea what it was. Then I discovered it was released in 1977. Then I ate a sandwich while thinking about how 1977 was a fucking great year for horror (yes, much like 1981). Then I started this post...and that gets you pretty much caught up with my day so far.

Oh yes, my friends, 1977 was awesome. Let's take a look, shall we? Come, let's venture back to a time when John Carpenter's Halloween was still a year away!

What the masters of horror were up to:

• Dario Argento began his "Three Mothers" trilogy with the candy-colored witches in ballet school masterpiece Suspiria.

• Wes Craven traveled into cannibal country with The Hills Have Eyes.
• George Romero released Martin, his non-traditional vampire flick. I want to like Martin more than I actually do.
• Tobe Hooper brought us Eaten Alive, a bizarre, ugly film that made for a strange follow-up to his classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Eaten Alive is perhaps most notable because it features The Man Who Would Be Freddy Krueger, Robert Englund...or maybe because of the giant crocagator.
• Mario Bava's last film, Shock, was released in the U.S. as Beyond the Door II despite the fact that it's not a sequel- both films simply feature child actor David Colin Jr. Using this logic, I've decided to start calling Christmas with the Kranks "Terror Train 2".
• David Lynch began his career in mindfuckery in earnest with Eraserhead.

Kids Kill the Darndest Things:

• Young Cathy was cursed in...Cathy's Curse. You know, I think Cathy's Curse is a film like Rumplestiltskin for me. You know, I've talked about that phenomenon, how Rumplestiltskin is terrible while I'm watching it, but when I'm thinking about it later I remember it being awesome and I want to watch it again...only when I succumb to the urge, I remember that it's terrible, and so on and so on in an endless cycle of pain and happiness. I just read my review of Cathy's Curse and it looks so good I want to pop it in when I'm done writing this, but I know that I probably shouldn't- "probably" being the operative word.

• In The Child, Rosalie somehow controls a little zombie army. They do her bidding, killing her enemies and finishing her math homework. Okay, so they just kill people. It's a weird movie that's frustrating at times, thanks largely to awful dubbing, bad sound editing, and a grating soundtrack. Despite its shortcomings, however, The Child is The Awesome.
• Audrey Rose, a tale of reincarnation, wasn't nearly the epic horror film I'd built it up to be in my mind in the years before I saw it. I'll admit: this MAY be a problem with me, not the movie.

Animals Run Amok!

• The late writer/director William Girdler graced the world with Day of the Animals, featuring a topless Leslie Nielsen wrasslin' a bear in the rain.
• Joan Collins battled giant ants in Empire of the Ants. Somehow, it turned out not to be the greatest film of all time: another of life's mysteries.
• There are so many things to love about Kingdom of the Spiders, if I were to list them all I'd be here forever and frankly I just don't have that kind of time. Therefore, I'll just mention the best thing about it: The Cow Who Can Act.

1977, The Year That Keeps on Giving:

• Nazi zombies ahoy in Shock Waves!
• Exorcist II: The Heretic, or as it was known upon its re-release years later, Exorcist II: What the Hell Were They Thinking?
• Warning: The Sentinel is a film that shows things you can't un-see. It may, however, be worth the risk.
• The Haunting of Julia really needs a DVD release, dammit.
• Less deserving, perhaps, is The Town That Dreaded Sundown, a quasi-slasher flick based on a true story. I like it, though I'm not entirely sure why.
• Julie Christie gets it on with a computer in Demon Seed.
• Haunts is an obscure sleaze-fest featuring scissor murders, sexual hangups, Aldo Ray, Cameron Mitchell, and an ending that makes the whole thing worthwhile. I watched it with the intent to review it here, but then I never did. Maybe I should do it...although I kind of just gave a one-sentence review, didn't I? What more do you want from me??
• Honk...honkhonkhonnnnnk! The Car vroomed out of Hell and into our hearts.

See? I wouldn't lie to you...1977 was fucking awesome. Some of horror's greatest filmmakers were making great films, and there was a little something out there for everyone. Whether you're into killer cars, killer kids, or killer killers, you can travel back to that magical year and have your thrills. I'm gonna go give 1977 a hug, and resist the urge to watch Cathy's Curse.

Edited for bonusosity! Here's some stuff I missed, as pointed out in the comments...

• David Cronenberg brought porn star Marilyn Chambers into the seedy world of mainstream horror cinema in Rabid.
• Bo Svenson stars as Gar, a faded-from-glory Olympic skier who faces off against a rampaging Snowbeast in...umm...Snowbeast.