'The Uninvited'

I have mentioned in the past that Americans suffer from a sort of trauma or syndrome which makes them unable to enjoy a decent movie unless it is spoken in their own language. After dwelling a while on this, I think there's a little more to this trauma (other than money, of course. Money is present in every instance). I think Americans must have some sort of problem with the Axis producing movies out of more or less original ideas when they've been adapting comics and cartoons into film for years now. As such, as soon as someone from that part of the world makes a decent, high-grossing movie, America is quick to do the same, or take the same concept and remake it. Envy does kill: the deformed incubus of this process is a lousy, unfinished-looking movie, with its corners cut so that one concept can easily be absorbed by the minds of a completely different culture from the one that spawned it. If not, take a look: Honogurai mizu no soko kara (2002) became Dark Waters (2005), Ju-On (2002) turned into The Grudge (2004), Chakushin ari (2003) was sent to the West as One Missed Call (2008), Ringu (1998) went The Ring (2002) and I'm only mentioning a few. And of the aforementioned, I only liked The Ring, both as standalone movie and remake.

Following in this tradition, The Uninvited, having dropped on my lap this very year, is a remake of a Korean movie called Tale of Two Sisters, which won several awards in Fantasporto 2003. I came to watch it when everyone else did, about two or three years later. I enjoyed Tale of Two Sisters, but it wasn't an epiphany. It's not like the first time I watched Ju-On and spent a week with nothing else in my head. It's not like being twelve, watching The Exorcist for the first time and instinctively knowing this is one of the movies that revolutionized the industry. But it was an interesting movie, with an ending twist I did not completely guess. It kept me amused and I'd sit through it again happily. If this had made my top 20 favorite movies, I might be angry as a crow at the idea of a remake. But as it is, I can't help but simply feel nauseated and annoyed.

So, much like Tale of Two Sisters, The Uninvited tells you the story of a teenage girl who has just returned home from a mental hospital after being convicted over grief for the death of her mother and attempted suicide. She comes home to her father, her sister and their evil stepmother, who used to be Mum's nurse. The problem is, our heroine can't remember the circumstances of her mother's death, and little by little it starts dawning on her, as the ghost of her mother keeps haunting her, that the stepmother might have had a little bit to do with that. Then you have a pretty shitty twist ending. Charles and Thomas Guard did this, their first theatrical movie (which is always a good bloody sign), with Emily Browning as Anna (psycho teenage haunting victim, and you also know her from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events), Arielle Kebbel as Alex (her feisty sister who does a lousy job keeping up with her Korean counterpart, previously seen in The Grudge 2) and Elizabeth Banks as the stepmother Rachel Summers (seen very often in romantic comedies, which is also a good fuckin' sign!) I should warn you at this point that SPOILERS will haunt you if you keep reading from here on, so if you're yet to watch this and you don't like them, you know what to do.

(I also want to leave you a note that this movie should't be confused with 4 Inyong shiktak, a 2003 Korean flick which also came to the West under the name The Uninvited. What I'm reviewing here is the 2009 American version of Tale of Two Sisters, just so we're clear.)

First of all, the concept of hauntings is common to both Western and Eastern cultures. It may change slightly, but it's common (in Japan ghosts walk funny and make odd noises, and in Indonesia you have pocong which comes wrapped in its own shroud, we at this side of the globe seem to like unseen ghosts better - the poltergeist, for instance). I was sort of glad that The Uninvited decided to keep cultural visions of ghosts separate: in this, every ghost you see looks Western, no ladies in white crawling and doing odd noises for us. So, from here on, all we need is to transplant the concept and we're done, okay?

Nope. Seemingly, the premise behind the Korean version is also too complicated for American audiences. So they did take the best part of the concept away: trying to figure out when you have hallucinations and when you have ghosts. After my second watch of Tale of Two Sisters, I realized that this was slightly more complicated than it seemed at first. Since I knew what was coming - Soo-yeong has been dead all along and the stepmother might or might not have had an affair with Soo-mi's father, yet she definitely doesn't live in the house - Soo-mi might be hallucinating of her sister and the stepmother, or she might hallucinate about the stepmother and be haunted by her sister's ghost, or she might take up personas of both at different times (in the dinner party scene, Soo-mi obviously took up the persona of her stepmother), it's pretty open to interpretation. The movie does its best to subtly tell us that there are ghosts in the house, namely Soo-yeong and the girls' mother, since people other than Soo-mi see them and they can't all be hallucinating.

On their attempt to tone down the original story (or perhaps trying to complicate it to show some creativity, I'm not sure) screenwriters managed to make a split personality movie. What was the problem with keeping this movie about the four people who actually matter: the two girls, their father, and the stepmother? Instead, you get two misshaped subplots: one about Anna (playing Soo-mi's part) and a would-be boyfriend, which adds absolutely nothing to the situation and seems like an excuse to slide in two or three more spooky scenes that aren't all that spooky; and the huge - nay, humongous subplot about the murderous, identity-changing stepmother. In The Uninvited, the stepmother is pretty much real, and apparently, she does hold an affair with Anna's father, having moved in with him. What may or may not be real is the fact Anna gets haunted by a little girl and two boys who were murdered by her stepmother while she was destroying the life of another family before coming into Anna's. And by the end of the movie, we're hinted towards the "not guilty" - Anna was influenced to believe this by another patient in the mental hospital. So... what for?

One of the cool things in the Korean movie was that Soo-mi hated her stepmother for three reasons: thinking she was taking her mother's rightful place (since the stepmother pressured the father/helped commit the mother to a mental hospital and thus led the mother to commit suicide the very day she was supposed to be taken there) and harming Soo-yeong (since Soo-yeong tried to save her mother when she found her hanging in the closet and ended up suffocating when the closet came crashing down on her) but also transferring her own feelings of guilt (everyone heard the closet crashing and nobody bothered to see what was going on, and Soo-mi attempts to place all the guilt she feels for not checking on Soo-yeong into the stepmother persona). What you end up with is a very subtle and passive-aggressive hatred which, considering none of these people is actually present, sounds even more apeshit if you try to face all dialogs having in mind the only people there are Soo-mi and her father.

In the American version, Anna is the sole responsible for the accident that took her mother and sister's lives. No suicides, and the stepmother was actually having an affair with the father already. She attacks the stepmother all the same, but because of an imagined fear that she might be a murderer. The whole "murderer stepmother" subplot doesn't seem to fit well anywhere! The Uninvited ends up being more confusing and less interesting. Before, you had an easy-to-follow plotline that was highly subjective. Now, you have a pretty objective, one answer only, hard-to-keep-track-of plot!

Let me also sneak this in: what the fuck sort of unimaginative title is this? Oh, it matches the unimaginative poster like ugly shoes to an ugly purse. Right. I'm sorry.

From here on, you already know a movie cannot stand on its own legs if said legs are sound effects, special effects and acting. Especially this sort of sound effects (unimportant. Dramatic chords here and there, it would be just as bad if there was none), special effects (I see decomposed and deformed bodies are in again. Funny, I thought that had gone away with the 70's. Also, blue is the new "realistic", like brown in gaming) and acting. Let's face it: most actors in this are way out of their league. Kebbel is the only one that's ever been in a horror flick before, her part in Grudge 2 was minor, and even if The Uninvited asks for more presence, her part is still very small. Even if she did want to add up to the movie, there aren't many ways in which she could. Browning wasn't all bad, but again: this movie can't stand up on her alone.

Overall, it's a bad counterpart to Tale of Two Sisters. Watch that if you're looking for an hour's worth of entertainment, forget about The Uninvited and don't give a cent to watch this. It's one of those bland, flavorless and American-oriented flicks I find unimaginative and not really worth any money or time. I've lost the time up until now. Don't do the same!

'Dead End'

Dead End is rather obscure. I've been looking for information regarding it and it's a pain in the crack. The directors are ghosts (pun obviously intended), the actors are hard to track and try as I might, I can't find the fuckin' theme song anywhere. Which is a pity, because I actually like it.

Here's what I found. Apparently two men, called Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa (I knew it couldn't be made by Americans...) both directed and wrote this, Andrea being a little more popular than his partner in crime and having also written and directed a movie called Big Nothing (2006). As actors are concerned, by far the most known is Ray Wise, playing Frank. You will recognize him from Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003), Good Night and Good Luck (2005), probably 24 (playing Vice President Hal Gardner), and the Western adaption of One Missed Call just last year. Plating the mother, Laura, you have Lin Shaye from Snakes on a (Motherfuckin') Plane. Mick Cain and Alexandra Holden are TV series actors, the Lady in White starred also in American Beauty (1999) and that's about it. This movie appears very early on any of their careers and apparently did a lot of good for them all. In fact, it won its directors several awards and a nomination in Fantasporto. I can see why: you look at this from a distance and you honestly think, like I did, it's gonna suck...

If you ever took a countryside trip somewhere during the night, you know it's spooky. It's miles and miles of trees, not one car in sight, no lights, nobody to help you if something happens. And if you're taking a trip, let's say, South, you know a good part of your way will be made in a straight line, in the middle of miles and miles of trees. It's spooky shit country. Scary stuff is begging to happen. And the USA, who have some of the most crowded cities in the world, and some of the greatest lengths of free woodland crossed by roads known to Man, is the perfect place for something like this to happen. Dead End is about a family on their usual yearly pilgrimage to Grandma's house for Christmas dinner. The father decides to take a shortcut through the countryside, and eventually the whole family finds itself trapped in a looping road, which seems to go nowhere, while a ghostly woman dressed in white and a black car seem to chase them about, killing one by one. At this point the movie is already pretty spoiled, so I'm gonna leave my usual SPOILERS alert here. Don't want to have this one wrecked for you? Don't read past the red. And this is the sort of movie that really spoils if you know the story.

What happens here is explained in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This family is caught in a pre-death dream. They all doze off inside the car -including at one point the father, who is driving. The car crash they think they nearly had, they actually did have. And in the dream, they proceed to die one by one, presumably in a way representative of how they died in reality, and usually starting from the one who was killed faster (mauled into shit) onto the one who survived the longest (heart attack, we assume), up to the sole survivor. I liked how this was done, because not only this logical order was respected, but even the entities haunting the family in the woods have a meaning: the lady in white was in the car they hit, and the man in the black car was the one who reported the incident and called an ambulance for the sole survivor of the crash.

While actors are pretty much unknown, I did like the acting. A lot. A lot indeed, keep in mind this is the B-series, and we were taught not to expect much from that. All my five R go to Lin Shaye, who did one of the freakiest death scenes I had ever seen, and looked positively terrified (or insane) throughout the whole thing. The weakest actor, in my opinion, was actually the first to go. Cheers!

The sound is amazing. You hear all sorts of noises while the family is stranded in the road. Common woodland sounds, odd background music, strange stuff from everywhere... I mean, turn the lights off and the sound up and try it. It was one of the few movies I showed my family they watched in complete silence from the beginning to the end: no comments, no jokes. And, once again, this is a B-series. Went straight to video. I found it by sheer chance because, as you can see from the above picture, the cover is nothing special. Nothing that would've caught your interest up first. Reeker (2005) was much inferior and had a much more mysterious cover, in my humble opinion. So what happened here? How is it this managed to be awesome where others fail?

It went by everything I have been saying throughout the years. Good usage of a small budget: they can't show a lot of things because they don't have the cash for awesome special effects, they keep most stuff hidden. In fact, this is one of those movies where it doesn't make much sense that you see a lot of stuff. We're in the middle of nowhere and it's dark...

Then, not over-complicating the plot. You don't have the budget to manage a lot of things, so don't add a lot of things. A family, a car, two antagonists, one stretch of woodland road as scenery. They're going to their Grandma's, they get stuck, they die, small twist at the end (in fact, a twist within a twist, if you fast-forward the credits and see the small scene right after them), that's all. Nothing big. The creators realized that this wasn't supposed to be impressive. Nobody needed to get out of this movie commenting on the awesome effects or the actors they've seen here and there: the movie just had to be a good, run of the mill movie, and that's what they did.

Third pointer: if you got away with one good movie, don't make any sequels. Up until now, everything okay. I'm glad there's a movie that proves my theory that the bigger the budget, the bigger the chance to mess up. Dead End is easily downloadable and also rentable, so check it out.

'Room 6'

When watching horror movies, you sometimes have to deal with sorts that are tricky to handle. You have straight-to-video flicks, the B-series, the slasher movies (some people enjoy them, I don't like 'em to much), the fake snuff films, the ones who don't really mean to be serious (nicknamed "zombie comedies", since the best part of them involves zombies in one way or another), the bullshit that was considered awesome decades ago and now frankly sucks... still, I watch all this (so you don't have to!) Why do I watch it all? Because mainstream also fails a lot, and sometimes, you hit a movie in the straight-to-video which, like Dead End, manages to be mighty decent. So you see, even amongst a pile of rubbish, you manage to find pearls from time to time. But the movie I bring to you today, sadly, is not a pearl. It's bunny droppings from 2006.

Room 6 is a complete flatline flick. One of the most boring things I've ever seen, and on horror I've seen plenty. Christine Taylor (you remember the blonde from Zoolander? Well I should've seen her resume before watching the movie. If I had known she was in fuckin' Friends, I could've guessed this was gonna suck bad) and Jerry O'Connell (let's see... Kangaroo Jack, Scream 2, Police Academy 5, Stand by Me... ah yes. His face is very familiar) star as two people involved in the same car crash. Their loved ones get taken into a hospital, but nobody wants to reveal to them where this hospital is. Because it is a Hellish pit where they are both going to be killed horribly. As if this wasn't enough, la Taylor (for flick purposes, Amy) is dead scared of hospitals ever since she was a little girl, due to a mysterious issue involving her father. And now, in order to get her boyfriend back, she needs to walk right into the worst of them all. The movie was directed by Michael Hurst, also responsible for such (master)pieces of shit as Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud and House of the Dead 2. He not only directed this, he also wrote the damned thing. Now, if you're still interested in watching this steamy pile of manure, I'll be doing SPOILERS up ahead. Go watch it, go vomit, and then come back to listen to me type similar complaints to yours.

First and foremost, why the fuck did I watch this in the first place? Well, read the intro... and also, keep in mind yours truly thinks hospitals are creepy as crow. Maybe I've played a level too many of Silent Hill, and maybe I've hated hospitals from the bottom of my gut ever since I've known of their existence. They're horrifying as is, without a horror plot. There has to be something to this, I thought. There has to be something you can like amongst it. Also, have you ever heard of free association? It's something you usually can't avoid doing. Room 6's title reminds me of Session 9 and I figure - maybe they're similar. This is the biggest mistake you can do when picking a movie... and after all these years, I made it. The title was enticing... although the cover was shit for the birds. The "demonic face" school of horror movie covers is older than me.

What upsets me the most is that hospitals have a good potential for horror, and it's always wrecked somehow. This time? Satanists and blond, big-boobed vampires. Two of the three horror movie things I hate the most. The third is last-minute thought of endings, and I'll get to that in a few paragraphs. This movie is of the kind I refer to as "flatlines". Nothing happens, and what happens, you saw coming. Seriously: midway through the movie, I was guessing every scene. All the nurses are hot? Lesbian vampires. It seems to be a constant since Bram Stoker's Dracula and one of the staples of every cheap, poorly thought-of horror movie. Woman afraid of hospitals because of an issue with her dad? Can you guess? She pulled the plug on him. Whoa, difficult! And wait, there's a twist: the guy who's trying to help her? He's in on it too! Damn, I didn't see that coming at all! Bullshit...

Effects are hideous. I've seen better stuff zapping through Buffy the Vampire Slayer last week! But that's not the problem, I mean, effects don't make a movie. It's how they treat them. People have a budget for a movie, right? They have a budget, they need to pay the actors, take care of sceneries, camera crew, directors, screenwriters, all that stuff. It's normal they can't afford medium quality effects. First rule of the horror movie: if you can't show it right, don't show a lot of it, audience will fill in the blanks. Some movies gain in showing their prime attraction. Movies like Jaws, or Alien: we came in to see it. We want good, close shots of it. But when you only have generic demons and monsters to show, it may be a good idea not to show it too close, because you'll be compromising the quality of the mystery. You ever see Angel? (and why on Earth do you?) That's how the effects on this kidney stone wannabe were! What am I looking at? A horror movie for little kids?

Alright. I even tried to see it from another perspective. For a straight-to-video, it's bad, but maybe... just maybe it was meant for a specific audience. Like the aforementioned Angel, that was meant for a specific audience... one I don't wanna meet, but specific all the same. Maybe this was actually aimed at little kids... or not. See, Tales from the Crypt was aimed at young audiences. And effects weren't half as bad as in this shit. 1989 to 2006... only proves my theory. Even in the little things that don't matter globally... we've got stupider on the past two decades.

And when you finally need to wrap up the ending... what the fuck? Twenty minutes from the ending, you have a paralyzed bloke and a blonde running from vampire nurses. Fifteen minutes from the ending, the same blonde and the not-so-paralyzed anymore guy are running for the hills. What the fuck? Wasn't he paralyzed? And she just walks inside the room and takes him away, no struggle, no obstacles? Want more? They walk out the hospital door, so what now? The hospital is still there, they're both out or so it seems... badabing, pre-death dream. You're granted a final scene of Amy dying in the car crash after saving her boyfriend from certain doom! I have seen this trick well done. This is not it: why does she die? About three minutes before she does, she's talking fine, she's saying she "passed the test" (I swear on my best pair of sneakers, the script is just... it's like everything else: stale, boring, predictable), she looks mildly affected but not fuckin' dying! Why is it every screenwriter who doesn't know how to wrap up a horror movie gives you the "dream" bullshit? They give ill name to those which actually do this sort of thing well!

If you wanna take a gander at it, by all means, download the piece of shit. But don't pay for it: not worth your dough. It belongs to that group of poorly though, poorly conceived, poorly scripted pieces of crow you have to find in all styles from time to time.

YouTube Wednesday with horror movies

This is a trailer for a horror flick I enjoyed watching a few years ago. It's Jacob's Ladder, a fine movie made in 1991 which is a pain in the ass to get outside the Internet, at least in national territory. It was a main inspiration for several levels in Silent Hill 3 and it's, as we say in the business, fucked up.



If you manage to get it, take a while to watch, especially if you like Silent Hill in general. The movie is a lot like it.

'Tales from the Crypt'

I wanna review something entertaining and slightly longer than a regular movie. I've been watching a lot of shit lately (oh, people, have I been watching a lot of shit... stay tuned to the blog, you'll see), and when I've watched a lot of shit on a row, I usually seek solace in oldies, noir films, Alfred Hitchcock, the works... and a series or two which are dear to me. MST3K is one... and Tales from the Crypt is another. That's what I came here to talk about today.

What's so great about Tales from the Crypt? What isn't? Cheesy, made-for-TV special effects, 20 minutes worth of entertainment, a mascot so disgustingly cute only HBO could have aired it originally and no censorship whatsoever. No FCC bullshit on this one: in one episode of the fourth season, you get full frontal nudity the sort you'll have a hard time getting on cinema. And disembowelments, eyes falling out of sockets, cut fingers, zombies rising, killers, werewolves, voodoo priests, mutants, witchdoctors... and even all the classical mistakes: cameraman on the back, mic overhead, the works. Unacceptable in a serious flick. Great for laughs on a horror comedy series meant for impressionable teenagers.

All the stories on the episodes of Tales from the Crypt come from the same place: five comic book sagas published by EC Comics: the series' namesake, Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, Crime SuspenStories and Shock SuspenStories. All aimed at the same impressionable teenagers. The comics ran all through the 50's (uuh, vintage) and the TV series went from '89 to '96, counting a whooping 93 episodes. It's nothing, if you take into account House M.D. counts 106 episodes as of now and it's not over yet, but during the first half of the nineties and being a series aimed at such a short audience, it managed pretty well.

What's amazing is that while most stories in Tales from the Crypt episodes are, well... made for impressionable teenagers... some of them are actually very nice. One of my favorites, for instance, is about a guy who makes a living by dying, since he has nine lives, stolen from a cat. On his last performance, he's gonna be buried alive, and only once inside the coffin and six feet under does he realize that he might have gotten his maths wrong. Another such is about a paranoid man who is convinced that his wife is cheating on him with his best friend. One night, after some heavy drinking, he decides to kill both - and afterwards discovers he might've made a mistake. And how about a modern, female-oriented version of McBeth? Or a crook who after thirty-something years actually starts listening to his conscience - and it won't shut up. Some of them are outstanding, if you look at the worst episodes of it and the audience to which they were planned.

Furthermore, try looking at a list of all the big names involved in acting out the episodes on this. Tim Curry was on an episode (one freaky as crow episode), Brad Dourif too, and Whoopi Goldberg and John Rhys-Davies, Meat Loaf, Iggy Pop (as himself, pretty much), Slash, Joe Pesci (I wanna say "as himself" too, but he's in the sort of part he does best), Adam "I'm-the-goddamn-Batman" West, Demi Moore, Christopher Reeve, Brad Pitt, Benicio Del Toro, holy shit! The series is packed with big names. So if you can stand the cheese, and manage not to build up huge expectations, I would advise everyone to take a look at some episodes. Some stories are really interesting, and it's nice softcore horror for those still starting on the genre or those who want a break from the heavier stuff.

Ten Weapons for Surviving Horrors

When you have a problem, especially a problem with horror, you want to be armed. There will be all sorts of ghouls and creatures crawling around wanting to kill you. Now I don't know about you, but I like to blow out the brains of any son of a crow who tries to kill me for whatever reason, and since there is no predefined way to do it, you can get awfully creative. This is a top ten of weapons I like to use when faced with horror -you can use it as a guideline to prepare your arsenal for Z-Day.

#10 - Yithian Energy Gun
As featured in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. The only problem is that in order to get it, you gotta find a way to transport yourself into the Yithian dimension / planet. If this doesn't pose a problem to you, it means you're ear-deep in Cthulhu-related problems and you'll probably be killing yourself at the end of this mess. Damn, if the polyps alone weren't enough to discourage you, I don't know what will! Other than that little problem, it's like having the shotgun version of a taser. It features two modes, shoot and charge, and it'll deep-fry fishmen with no need for grease or further seasoning. It gives off an electric discharge powerful enough to kill Hydra, which is one of the biggest mothers below sea level. And if you know how to combine that with fluids, you've got yourself a show stopper.

Monsters will also react negatively to taser-like weapons. If you recall your Silent Hill 3, you know the taser was a powerful, but slow weapon. The Yithian Energy Gun, however, eliminates the "slow" part. During Silent Hill: 0rigins, they added a simpler, less troublesome version of this called Tesla rifle. Also an electricity weapon, and not any heavier than a shotgun, it kills most enemies with two shots or less. It's not any less hard to get, although you can avoid messing with Cthulhu. And take my word for it, you don't want to be involved with Cthulhu or its minions in any way. To get the Tesla rifle, you need to get yourself abducted by aliens in a ghost town packed with monsters. When you're beamed back, they give you this nifty trinket as a souvenir.

Although it's probably the best thing to have in a crisis, the problems with getting it shoots it far off to number 10. If you're already messing with Cthulhu or have friends in outer space, it's probably worth a try.

#09 - Comfortable, yet Heavy Shoes
Alright, this might sound odd since we're talking weaponry, but allow me to explain. If you ever played a survival game, you know there's going to be a lot of running just as soon as things get hot and your path is teeming with zombies, monsters, freaks, aliens, ghosts, or even scarier: people. And although you can, technically, Solid Snake your way around them or just avoid a couple rooms, there will be times when running like the Northern wind will be your only option. When this happens, brother, believe me, you want to have a good pair of shoes on you. Games like Haunting Ground and a good deal Resident Evil instances depend on proper shoes. If you wanna get in shape, this is a great time, because you'll be burning sole for a while in these situations. Or namely, Silent Hill 2, in which you gotta go to greath lenghts (and I mean great: just the run from Brookside Hospital to the Historical Society is one Hell of a stretch) between levels.

If they're heavy shoes, (work boots, solid heels, you know...) you also have a powerful war asset. Enemy dropped? Crush its spine! Stomp its crotch! Make sure it's not coming back up! Door's blocked? Kick it in. And, again: it's coming towards you? Get the Hell outta dodge.

#08 - The Plastic Bag
If Manhunt taught you something it's that, under the right circumstances, anything can be a weapon. From the moment you can kill some poor schmo with a toilet tank lid, you can use pretty much everything. My favorite item? Plastic bags.

Regular plastic bags, the sort you get in the supermarket of your choice.

It is one of the best ways to get rid of people wanting to kill you. And takes next to no room in your bag. Your Mum probably warned you about this dozens of times, but fuck that. Instructions of use: open your plastic bag, sneak behind the sorry scum you wanna kill, place the bag over their head, pull, hold strongly and wait a few minutes. In the worst case, your foe will pass out and you can break its spine with a nicely placed kick (see #09).

Now, let me address something here. If you're gonna kill someone with a plastic bag, you wanna do it right. I know there's a sort of poetic justice in having someone choke on a big brand supermarket bag. Seeing them fade out with Wal-Mart stamped on their face, and pondering, while you hold the bag around their neck, on the way big brands have choked local traders out of their business and people out of their money. But for this particular purpose, get your bag from a retailer, small market, street market or local trader. Why? Because those are usually plain colored plastic bags, more resistant and less likely to stretch, break or rupture. You can tear away a supermarket bag easy peasy. But a local retailer bag is hard as crow. That's the one you want on getting rid of mercenaries trying to kill you. It sadly won't work for anything else but, it's worth to keep one or two handy.

#07 - The Katana
Very popular with everyone. But I'm not talking about that thing you bought in the corner chinese store and keep displayed in your room. I'm talking about a real katana, the sort that, much like those knives you don't want your girlfriend to buy under any circumstances, could cut through wooden logs like it was nothing.

Most of us would prefer to stay fairly clean when surviving... it's distressing, you're dusty, and dirty, and bloody... but forget about it with the katana. You'll be caked in foreign blood in no time. While visual effect is always nice (and bright red tends to bring out the artist in us all), it does tend to get a little bit uncomfortable once it's dry and smelling. The problem with a katana is, again, they're hard to find. Those you buy at the corner chinese store are intended for deco only I'm afraid. It is still easier to get a true katana than a Yithian Energy Gun, however, and the katana has proved useful not only for all manner of thing that bleeds, but also to make you look as cool as Winter in Finland. If you're a slasher by heart, you want one of these.

#06 - The Hunting Rifle
On the realm of heavy guns, this one takes the cake. Shotguns are very nice, but the shot spreads and it's not a very good idea to use it unless you've sawed off the barrels first. The common rifle is very good, but the hunting rifle packs a nicer punch. Come on, if this sort of thing can throw down a buffalo, zombies have no chance in Hell. It is also not very hard to get. Your regular fishing and hunting supply store oughta have some. Or you'll just have to contact that shady guy in your neighborhood whom the police have been looking for. Not the one with the nosebleed and bloodshot eyes, the less stoned one.

One you get the hang of the hunting rifle, headshots will become easy. Get yourself up on a tree branch or building roof, and you can blow nearly anything to smithereens. It is easier to maneuver and keep than a sniper gun, and much, much easier to find. You also want to have one of these when faced with either the monster boss or alien overlord. Those don't die easy, but the hunting rifle will do the trick.

#05 - The Bat
The quintessential blunt weapon. A good, solid baseball bat is a must-have in any home situated in a bad neighborhood and every given house in America. Sturdy, easy to swing, comes in the aluminum and wood varieties (I prefer the wood myself: the sound it makes when it hits something is nicer to the ear) and best of all: it is perfectly legal to own one nearly everywhere. It is also very easy to find, even in countries where, like here, baseball ain't big. Take a stroll down to a Toys 'R' Us and go to the sports section. Voilà. It even comes with a ball or two, which is nice, because if you're creative and have a lot of plastic explosive, you've got yourself a handgrenade.

The bat is useful for those people who like to stay fairly clean while surviving. Being a blunt weapon, it's bound not to make as much a slashing weapon. It is also reliable. Just take a while to watch Shaun of the Dead (and if you've never watched it, go do it. Now! It's a great zombie comedy!). Sportsware is always great for Z-Day: football helmets, hockey sticks, ski masks, golf clubs, these are all good. But the baseball bat is essential. Even on any given monster or alien, it's bound to work. If it has a head, it can be battered to death. For further instructions, Manhunt 2 also has great suggestions for using both baseball bats and police batons.

#04 - The Beretta
Small, easy to use, reliable, and bullets for it seem to be pretty much everywhere. Seriously. Make a quick run through Resident Evil or Silent Hill: both Racoon City and Silent Hill Town are in fuckin' Texas. There's ammo lying around everywhere.

According to data recovered from several years of survival horror by yours truly, zombies take something like three to five shots to die, monsters get four to six (unless they're a boss: in that case, see #06), really fucked-up monsters go five to ten (try killing a Missionary in Silent Hill 3 with a gun and you'll see what I mean), aliens can get up to twelve and you're still fucked if your problem is Cthulhu. A silencer is also a good idea, after all, the beretta's main problem is the noise it makes. If you see a hooded guy in hidden spots, he'll likely sell you all upgrades you need, as seen in Resident Evil 4. He also managed to be everywhere before you somehow, so I suppose he has a pretty nice bycicle.

The beretta is a problem to reload, so make sure you do before venturing outside, and get yourself to safety before you attempt to reload it. In large crowds of fiends, you want to be at safe distance before shooting. In the best interest of not wasting precious ammo, you also may want to get one before the shit hits the fan, and practice with some bottles before doing any actual massacre. Go for headshots. Almost everything dies if shot in the head.

#03 - The Butcher Cleave
No no no, I'm not talking about the one you unlock in Silent Hill: 0rigins by making the second ending. I'm talking about a common butcher's cleave. Why? Why the fuck not, that's what you should be asking!

Forget all they taught you about slasher weapons. Forget scalpels, kitchen knives, hunting knives, pocket blades and the like. You want a butcher cleave. Fairly decent reach, easy to handle, light, and does damage like you wouldn't believe. Remember these things are used to chop away whole animals. Some of them, if sharpened enough (keep a leather belt handy) can cut through bone in one or two. If you have a problem with, particularly, monsters, you want one of these in your arsenal. No matter how big it is, the cleave can do good damage.

If, again, you're a slasher by heart and can't afford to get a katana, nearly every kitchen has a cleave. And if not, it won't be hard to find a butcher shop that does, even if you have to go through some window-breaking and lockpicking. Plenty of stores will have them too, and if you can get dual cleaves, you're a full plate and a smiley button on your jacket away from being a lean, mean killing machine.

#02 - The Lead Pipe / The Crowbar
When the going gets tough, the tough pick up a 2 or 3 foot long metal object and go to town. It's everything that was great about the baseball bat, only less likely to break and with better reach. Mandatory in all Silent Hill games (it wouldn't really be Silent Hill without it) and common to a lot of improvised weaponry games. Even Clue has a lead pipe. If these aren't proof enough you want one, Fallout 3 should be. Even in the realms devastated by post-apocalyptic shit, they use lead pipes. Just admit it: this common household construction material is the shit.

Getting one? Easy peasy. Go to any given construction site. If you have a basement or cellar, there's probably a few spare (or not) there. As a last resort, find a way to hack at your bathroom wall, you'll find a few. After all, who gives a flying crow if there's a hole over your toilet and you can't flush, this is an emergency! There are horrible things in your backyard!

The crowbar might be slightly more useful than the pipe, actually. After all, not only can you lay the smack down on whatever foes you find along the way, you can also force open doors, chests of goodies and other resourceful, yet locked, places. If your problem is Cthulhu (and yet again, if it is, you're fucked), fishmen seem to die quickly with a few slams of a crowbar as well. Hey, an FPS as cool as Half-Life can't be wrong...

#01 - Camera
You gotta take a cam along. It's mandatory. Whatever's happening, you must have a camera with you. I don't care if it's Z-Day, aliens invading, monsters, Cthulhu (you poor bastard...), the recession, whatever the fuck it is you're fighting -you must have a camera. Let me go through it again: you must have a camera. Why? Here's why.

First and foremost, a camera will be your only protection against a particular brand of foe: ghosts. If you can find a Camera Obscura (there are three in the world so... good luck with that), even better. If not, your regular everyday camera will also be put to good use when sending problems away, even if just for a while. Digital or old school, make sure it has a flash. It will be useful to temporarily blind a good deal of enemies. And, as proved by Silent Hill 3, it can be of even greater use when fetching codes written in blood on a wall you can't see or reach. And should your trusty flashlight fail you, you won't die stupidly by falling down some stairs, as long as you have flash.

There is a final reason why you want a camera with you when surviving time comes. Whatever's attacking you, if you don't photograph it, nobody will ever believe your tales.

'1408'

If one thing there is as old as the belief in ghosts, haunted houses must be it. People seem to believe, and it is further reinforced by paranormal investigators, most ghosts and apparitions are restrained to a space they inhabited in life, or where they died. As such, haunted spaces arise easily, particularly in places charged with heavy emotional energy: sanatoriums, hospitals, Victorian mansions. With the sort of life people lead nowadays, the haunted spaces change to adapt: houses become apartments, studios, lofts and rooms. Today, I wanna talk to you about 1408, which is, in Samuel L. Jackson's own line, not haunted but "an evil fuckin' room". By Sweden director Mikael Håfström, with screenplay based off a short story by Stephen King, 1408 dropped on our laps in the merry year of 2007. Samuel L. Jackson needs no introduction whatsoever, and you can probably recall John Cusack from Being John Malkovitch (1999) or Con Air (1997). It all begins with Mike Enslin, thriller author and fake haunting debunker. Having traveled all across USA territory uncovering hauntings, he is given a scoop about room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel, NY, and being the firm skeptic he is, he decides this is another one he will debunk for his new book. However, fifty-six people have already died inside the bedroom, none of them able to last more than an hour inside without losing their mind or dying - by suicide, murder, or even more bizarre, natural causes. And as soon as he enters the room, just like so many before him, Mike's own issues start coming back to him: his daughter, prematurely dead, the wife he left without an explanation, and the father he holds an unsolved argument with. I think I spoiled it enough as plot goes, so I should warn you now that even more SPOILERS will be flying your way from here on. If you're the sort that dislikes having the movie wrecked for you, stop reading now.

I walked into watching 1408 with some expectations, of course, I've had my share of haunted house flicks. I must say this completely blew everything I was expecting, and proved to be closer to The Shining than to Poltergeist (and no, the reference didn't escape me with Cusack's line about rivers of blood. Scripwriters gave Stephen King a long, firm nod there). Enslin actually solves the mystery of room 1408 right at the movie's beginning: ten minutes after walking inside the room, a trip through Hell begins which takes 60 minutes to be completed. Enslin is taken through several layers of it, which pretty much follow Dante's model of Hell. When the journey is finished, everything starts anew, so he is pretty much stuck in the same time period: he cannot leave the room in any way, he cannot call for aid and his only way out of it is the same many before him have chosen: to "check out" by committing suicide.

If they didn't tell me this was based off a Stephen King story, I might have gotten there. The plot and characters are very like something he'd do. The main character is a writer. Sure sign of Stephen King's presence right there, you can find this in other movies based off his work easily: IT (1990), The Dark Half (1993), The Shining (1980), Salem's Lot (1979), Stand by Me (1986), Misery (1990), and several others. Enslin leads a fairly normal life until the day something odd happens in his presence or he walks into a freakish situation: this is King's trademark style. Flashbacks are also one of Stephen King's most used tools, both for novels and movies, and it's used quite often in 1408 as well. Finally, King is no strange to character death. In fact, the endings of his books and several of his films are usually marked by the death of a character. There is something that is much unlike Stephen King-based films, however: the quality of the flick. I am used to watching Stephen King-based flicks which are made for TV, or as a mini-series... or overall made over ten years ago, which nowadays is the same as made for TV quality. Having seen, let's say, Rose Red (2002) which was made as a miniseries, I was very positively surprised with 1408.

You'll find many signs of haunting which are classical, and if you're the kind that always wants something new, you're in for a slight disappointment. The tap that spurs water all of a sudden, spectral voices, radio and TV coming on without human intervention, bleeding walls, little kid ghost, paintings that change, Enslin thinking he's out but he's not, electronic devices going to Hell, all of these are classical. I still like how the main character deals with the shit happening to him, however: Cusack is very good on this. While being frightened looks very legit, what comes across better is frustration. As sound goes, another pleasant surprise. I particularly like the slightly disturbing, slightly unnerving tunes we get from time to time. They don't become loud enough to deter you from what's happening, they don't spoil what's happening next (the "scary music = spooky shit a-comin'" syndrome). Usually, the tunes are used for marking and enhancing events instead of predicting them. You also have a theme song of sorts, We've Only Just Begun by The Carpenters. I already thought that band was creepy, now I'm sure! (I'm dead serious, have you taken a good look at Karen Carpenter's pictures? Shit...)

I have found, during my lurking around forums about the movie, there seems to be a second ending, in which Mike is supposedly alive and his wife hears the recording of their daughter's voice. I can't seem to find this anywhere, as I've seen the other ending: Mike's dead and the room is torched down. I also found out a lot of people seem to be calling this a horrible flick because it didn't scare them. On that part I must sadly agree: the movie disturbs slightly, it's odd, but not necessarily scary. It's pretty good, there were a couple scenes that actually made me a bit spooked, but not scared. A third issue very present in forums seems to be that the tale is better... well, having seen so many adaptations, folks, I can tell you it's hard to find an occasion in which the written word isn't better than the movie.

Finally... what the Hell was wrong with 1408. This seems to be the most criticized thing in the movie. Theories about drugged drinks and dreams were shot everywhere across the Internet, but Samuel L. Jackson's explanation seems to be the closer to the truth: it's an evil room. I dislike it too when things go about unexplained, but not like 1408. I dislike it when things happen out of nowhere, for instance, like the last thirty minutes of anything by Takashi Miike. I dislike it when things start off being logical and then go to smithereens at the end because screenwriters got stuck. I dislike it when the solution for a big mystery comes out of nowhere, or it's too obvious and the main cast didn't see it, this is the "lacks of explanation" I dislike. You could say it's lack of consistency I dislike. But you don't see it here: the manager doesn't know what's wrong with the room, only something is. Mike can't figure out what's wrong with the room either. Nobody can figure out what's wrong! Consistent from beginning to end! And let me tell you, kudos to Stephen King as unexplained shit is concerned. Try reading some of his tales: it's mostly unexplained.

It's a very decent movie, overall, one you can enjoy easily over a pack of chips (it's something like 90 minutes long). Don't hope to be too scared, though, it's entertaining and interesting, but not overly scary. But it's well-made and you'll probably like it. Give it a shot: it's even in YouTube in several parts.

'Silent Hill'

Every time a movie based off a game is announced, I have a strange, morbid curiosity to watch. Something that nears the sick, I would say. It's the same curiosity that is in us all, when we see a car crash by the side of the road and are compelled to slow down and absorb in all details of the scene, no matter how horrifying they are. This is me, when a movie based off a game - especially, a game I like - is announced.

I had seen a lot of game-inspired and game-based bullshit in the last few years before 2006. Resident Evil burst its ugly face through the big screen in 2002. As a big fan of Code Veronica, I sorta hoped the movie could be saved by borrowing from it, but... as it turns out, it tried to follow the original games, only without most of the things we liked about them, including Jill Valentine on a lead role. In 2003, it was House of the Dead, whose director oughta be hung upside-down and beaten blue with plastic mallets by creepy clowns. Another instance of Resident Evil came out the following year, and just before the one we care about for this review, in 2005, we had Doom and the most horrible of the lot: Alone in the Dark. Don't believe me? The producer and director is Uwe Boll, who is known for horribly mauling motion pictures. Including BloodRayne (2005), Postal (2007) and the aforementioned House of the Dead.

And so, crow help us, we reach 2006 and Silent Hill's own moment of damnation and disgrace on being adapted to the big screen. Or rather, 2007: we in Portugal waited exactly one fuckin' year for the movie's release on national territory. The first thing I recall doing is checking for whose names were involved. Because if Uwe Boll had been within ten miles of it, I would be going postal myself. Writer Roger Avary had previously worked in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, though, and director Christophe Gans took care of one strange movie I actually liked watching, Le Pacte des Loups. I thinks to myself that this may not be as bad as it first looked. Not wanting to wait a year to watch it, I actually took to the Internet, and a good friend of mine managed to find me a copy before it hit theaters.

(Let me sneak in this: the picture I posted isn't the real poster for Silent Hill, this is. I hate it. It was most voted on an Internet poll and that's how it came to be the official poster. Of all the good stuff they could've added to a movie poster about this, they picked that piece of crow. Go figure.)

The plotline of the movie follows the original Silent Hill game. Rose da Silva (which would be the female equivalent to the game's Harry Mason) is a woman whose adoptive daughter Sharon (in the game, Cheryl) is having nightmares and begs to be taken to the abandoned resort town of Silent Hill. Desperate for help, Rose promptly drives her daughter to town, only to have her vanish after a car crash on the outskirts of the town. When Rose wakes up, though, the town is packed with monsters and creatures. In order to find her daughter, Rose must now solve the untold story of the town. And as of this paragraph, those who are still waiting to give it a look should be warned of incoming SPOILERS to it.

First and foremost, my favorite part of the film happens within the first 20 minutes. Let me show you exactly why. Check out this helpful piece I found in YouTube.



... see what I mean? The intro scene is reproduced almost to perfection, like the first-person shooter scene in Doom. From here on, however, we're gonna have a few problems with keeping up with the game. Gans started well, but he didn't keep it up. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for a complete live-action version of the game. But frankly, there are a few pointers on the plotline that were changed, possibly to provide a better understanding of the whole story of the town (which would only become clear towards the third game of the franchise) and also to cater to more sensible audiences but... I don't think they are such good changes, and most of them have only made the story more complicated than it needed to be for the non-gamers.

For starters, the whole idea of a cult to a local God disappeared. Whatever is wrong in the town of Silent Hill happened because a local cult was trying to give their God a physical form. The leader of the cult, Dahlia Gillespie, offered her own daughter Alessa to be a host who would birth the God. The preparations for the birthing involved scorching the girl alive so that she would know pain and suffering. The more pain she met, the more powerful the God's physical form would be. In the movie, Dahlia Gillespie is not the leader of the cult: her sister, Christabella, is. I don't know why this was done; possibly the fact they thought it too shocking for a mother to burn her own daughter alive, or an attempt to make a reference to the name Christabella, which only appears on the comic book Silent Hill: Dying Inside. Whatever it was, it shifted the focus from the parallel made in the game: Dahlia the parent who mistreats her child, and Harry (or Rose) the parent who goes to great lenghts to save his child. It also defeated the purpose of the cult itself: in the movie, they don't care for a local God. They burn Alessa because they think she's a witch. So I'll risk saying it's a plain Dark Ages version of the Catholic church.

Like in the game, it is hinted that Alessa has a special feat of her own. ESP maybe, like it was hinted in Silent Hill: 0rigins. That power, heightened by the dormant God inside her, created the alternative town. When her power was completely unleashed, the dark version was created. In the movie, however, the God comes to Alessa after she's been burned, for no apparent reason. Now it may just be me, but I think this is overcomplicating the plot, and leaving no explanation as to why the local God came for Alessa.

Another issue that was in great discussion in forums about the movie was the presence of Pyramid Head, by far the most treasured monster of the franchise. In the second game, Pyramid Head came to punish James Sunderland for the murder of his wife, which he had repressed until he came to town. The monsters only exists in relation to Sunderland, and once Sunderland accepts what he's done, Pyramid Head ceases to have a point and disappears. If there's no James Sunderland in the movie and, as we've seen, this follows the story of the first game, why did they put him in there?

Well, because he is by far the most treasured monsters of the franchise. Fans expected to see a cameo of him somewhere, like they expected to see monsters they'd recognize from the game: Lying Figure / Straightjacket makes a cameo, the Nurses are classical and common to all games but the fourth, the bugs were also popular for the first two games, Grey Children... they did manage to make his presence logical, though. He is punishing the people locked inside alternative Silent Hill, and trying to make them accept they have scorched an innocent child. For as long as they deny it, he will chase after them. So his presence isn't all that farfetched. And I don't think, as was discussed in several forums, his presence is tied in with the bugs. In the movie, we see Pyramid Head first emerging from a swarm of insects, dragging a recently dead figure whose symbolism is lost (all of Pyramid Head's deaths are symbolic for Sunderland in the game). But that doesn't mean he control them, or that he only shows up when they do...

Either if you have played the games or not, you will love two things about this movie: soundrack and sound in general (except for Johnny Cash' Ring of Fire, everything was taken directly from the games, including the mechanical sounds you hear in dark Silent Hill, a trademark of the franchise) and special effects. This is why I was happy Gans was directing the movie: he doesn't rely too much on CGI. Of course the bugs are made via computer, the final scene of the movie featuring Alessa / God is mostly CGI, as is the scenery of dark Silent Hill, there weren't a lot of ways around that. However, the rest of the monsters are actors in costume. Pyramid Head, Janitor and Straightjacket included. I particularly liked the nurse scene: Rose comes across a corridor that is blocked out by some twenty nurses. As is demonstrated, monsters in Silent Hill react to the light, so Rose does what many of us have tried to do during the games: try to Solid Snake her way past the nurses. I like the fact Gans didn't cheap out on the scene by placing four or five real nurses, and multiplying them via computer. All nurses were real actresses, and did a wonderful job at playing monster nurse, I might add.

Finally, I also would like to address the cryptic ending of the movie, in which Rose and Sharon return home, but are nowhere to be found by Rose's husband... who happens to be sitting right next to them on the couch. Technically, the God took a hold of Sharon after the massacre, so Rose and Sharon got locked inside alternative Silent Hill forever. I find the explanation provided by getting the Bad ending in the first game much more reliable, seeing as they managed to leave the town. In this ending, the whole game was a pre-death hallucination: Harry Mason died in the crash at the beginning of the game, much like what happens in the movie Jacob's Ladder (1991). Rose and Sharon also died in the crash. Only their spirits have returned home, and of course, Rose's husband can't find them.

Overall, Gans made a good job on the conversion, even with all the plot changes, it's a movie gamers can be proud of and one of the best adaptations out there. And if you don't know the franchise, you are likely to enjoy the movie even more than someone who does. It's worth a view either way, so if you're not willing to rent or download, do a search for it on YouTube, in high definition, sit back with a bag of chips and enjoy yourself.

For Generations to Come

Do you have any idea how many installments of Halloween there are? Nine. Eight movies and one remake of the original, by Rob Zombie, that reared its ugly mug last year. And there are even more of Friday the 13th: thirteen if you count Freddy vs Jason, but let me pick up Halloween since, sadly, I know it a little better.

The first one came out in 1978, and given the year and director, it was a pretty decent flick. John Carpenter is a director whose movies can fall on two categories: pretty good, or very lousy. As for the 70's, don't get me wrong. A lot of awesome movies came out in the 70's: The Exorcist was released in '73, Jaws in '75, Carrie in '76, Eraserhead in '77, the original Dawn of the Dead in '78, Alien in '79, just to mention a few. The slasher style was born in this decade, crowned by Texas Chainsaw Massacre in '74, but also were the psychological and goth styles was we know them. The 70's spawned many horror films which would become classics, and I'm really not saying Halloween isn't a classic in itself.

The problem lies in the fact that after Halloween showed up, Hollywood decided to milk it for all it had, even at the cost of kicking logical thought in the shins. In the first two sequels, I mean, because after that, they also anally raped it, broke its fingers, hung it from the neck, played piñata with it and filmed the whole thing to post online on a snuff film forum. They destroyed an otherwise decent flick by releasing sequels ad nauseam. There was nobody through the 70's and 80's who didn't watch Halloween, and even across the 90's and onto our time, the original flick is still available for rental at many spots. Why? Well it's hardly the only one that doesn't suck, and even if many think it does, they'll watch it for its crappy film fame. You've done this too, I'm sure. Everyone says a given movie is crap, and you're gonna watch just to make sure... but I digress.

The saga revolves around Michael Myers (except for the third film, which seems completely unrelated to the franchise and is about man-killing robots running rampant on Halloween night), a man who has been locked up in a sanatorium since he was six years old, when he murdered his older sister on Halloween night. After he was locked up, he left behind a younger sister, and a few years later, on Halloween night, Myers decides to finish what he began: he breaks out of the sanatorium and goes after her.

While it's a plotline as good as any, this is doomed to repeat itself over, and over, and over again. Myers breaks from the asylum, hospital or sanatorium, Myers stalks and terrorizes members of his family, Myers gets shot, burned, ran over or tossed from a second story window, Myers enters a coma or trance and is sent back to the asylum, or simply vanishes at the end of the movie. Just so he can escape from the asylum again or mysteriously come back on the next sequel. When it became obvious Laurie Strode, the girl Myers wants dead, can't take anymore of him, they pop in Jamie, a niece for him to chase and try to kill. This happens in Halloween 4, by the way, which was called The Return of Michael Myers. What the heck did he do in the previous two movies, then, if he's returning now? (keep in mind I'm not considering H3).

On Halloween 5, Myers comes back yet again for The Revenge of Michael Myers, and keeps haunting Jamie. By now, I'm pretty sure, and so is everyone, Myers isn't human. No human being, with the possible exceptions of McGyver and Wolverine, can survive what this guy's been through. Laurie shot him, his doctor shot him, the police shot him, Hell, I would shoot him myself if I had the chance! Bring in the S.W.A.T. to shoot this guy, he just keeps coming back! Well, this was supposedly explained by the next movie, Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers. If up until now, the saga isn't taking it up the butt, it begins as of this film: a group of druids (!) are protecting Michael Myers. They kidnap Jamie, she is raped and gives birth to Myers' child (!) and escapes. The Strodes are once again haunted by Myers from this on. Frankly, I don't think it's fear anymore, it's plain frustration. As proof, on the seventh movie, Laurie fakes her own death, changes names and runs away, and this son of a crow STILL managed to find her! And on the next one, a bunch of jackasses open a contest for 6 teenagers to spend a night in the Myers home. According to all opinions, the guy was finally killed for real in the previous movie. This brought him back, seemingly. Ever heard that expression about not fixing what's not broken....?

Well, finally we come to the remake. I guess since the Strodes weren't getting bugged anymore, the druids disbanded and the evil robots were too farfetched to bring back, they decided it was time to give Myers a rest. Last year, Rob Zombie dug him up. Rob (Mr. Zombie?) has apparently left the world of music to write and direct ugly effin movies. The House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devil's Rejects (2005) were a weird version of The Hills Have Eyes meets Hostel, with a little satanism on the side for good measure. The first was kinda funny, I had my chuckles during it. The second wasn't so funny, and in fact, I recall wondering when would it end. He is now dedicating to bringing Myers back... again. The line about fixing what's not broken mentioned earlier in this post applies.

So Halloween literally haunted a whole generation of horror movie fans. By far, it's not the saga with the most movies. Star Trek features ten flicks, James Bond features over 20 movies, and Godzilla 27 and one remake, making it the one, to the best of my knowledge, with most sequels. The oldest one, Gojira, came out in 1954, making it over 50 years old now...

But you know what's really scary?

Halloween, as previously stated, came out in '78, and if you don't count the remake, it haunted us up to 2002. That's 24 years, more or less a whole generation. Now try to guess this. Which horror movie came out in 2004, and has been releasing sequels at the rate of one per year, having released its fourth this very year? Doesn't ring a bell? Okay: the star of the first flick only had five minutes worth of screen time, eventhough it had been present the whole movie: Tobin Bell. Still can't guess? Last hint: I SAW the first, I SAW the two first sequels and I never SAW it again. Got it?

Saw (2004) has done in four years what it took Halloween eleven to accomplish: one original movie plus four sequels. Much like with Halloween, Saw's first sequel was only half decent, and from the third on it's hardly worth it. Again, much like Halloween, the third movie hardly followed the pattern of the first two, and the fourth tried to pick it all up again. Are you noticing a pattern here? All generations have had their movie. In fact, anyone from any given generation can tell you of at least one flick, with several sequels or maybe just one or two, that was a hit. I would also like to remind you that a "generation" is widely understood as a 20 year gap... do you see where I'm going with this? Is it possible that after twenty-four years of movies, Halloween has found a franchise to which it can pass the crown of becoming THE generation's bad horror flick?!

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The Very Model of a Horror Fan in General

You may know this if you ever heard of Pirates of Penzance, and it's by far my favorite song there. This is my version of The Very Model of a Modern Major-General and here's how it goes:

I am the very model of the horror fan in general,
I've information terrifying, creepy and horrifical,
I've know the direct frights and others merely metaphorical,
from killer nuts to demon beasts, in order cathegorical.
I am very well acquainted too with matters psychological,
I understand the criminals both simple and illogical,
About old haunted manors I am teeming with a lot o' news -
with many cheerful facts about what's unexplained and what's a ruse!

I'm very good at finding the weak spots in nearly every foe,
I plan my paths with maps and when I find them blocked I curse: "Oh crow!"
In short in matters terrifying, creepy and horrifical,
I am the very model of the horror fan in general.

I know many satanic cults, the Order and tribes cannibal,
I answer the hardest riddles, I've a pretty taste for the spectral.
I quote classical lines from first Silent Hill and first RE,
And for pride, to the departed, I don't ever even bother to plea.
I can tell a Japanese curse from the Korean and Taiwanese,
I know what bullets to spare and which items I can use at ease,
I carry cloves of garlic, two-by-fours and at least one acid round...
and I can whistle the theme from that bloody awful Haunting Ground!

I never found an obstacle I couldn't move, or break, or cross,
and keep in mind somewhere in here there has to be a monster boss,
In short in matters terrifying, creepy and horrifical,
I am the very model of the horror fan in general.

In fact when I know what is meant by "poltergeist" and "ectoplasm"...
When I can tell at sight auspicious fog from the harmless miasm...
When asked for names of deadly aliens, I can name you several...
And when I know precisely what is meant by "Roman Catholic Ritual"...
When I have learned the power of a camera or a led pipe...
When I know even if I kill it, it will soon come back alive...
In short, when I know phones are dead and your car just doesn't wanna start...
You'll say a better horror fan has never showed up on these parts!

For my zombie knowledge, though I haven't ever seen the elder flicks,
it's based on a series of World-Wide-Web daily boredom-driven clicks,
but still in matter terrifying, creepy and horrifical,
I am the very model of a horror fan in general!