Jeffery Combs, John Hawkes, a dreadlocked Jack Black with a heavy inexplicable Jamaican accent, you’d be pretty stupid not to watch this at least once in your lifetime. “I Still Know” this times seems to embrace the inherent stupidity of the film’s premise and completely wraps itself around the film’s utter moronic plot elements and red herrings at every turn. Replacing the bland Sarah Michelle Gellar is the even blander hip hop star Brandy, who is protagonist Julie’s on again, off again best friend and roommate Karla. Julie is back (apparently that final scene in the first film was a dream or something) and now in college. She has a nasty habit of waking up screaming in class, thanks to her recurring nightmares of the evil sailor man so obviously not a lot of people in her school want to be around her.
Category Archives: Halloween Horror Month
Elvira's Haunted Hills (2001)
So not only is Elvira a descendent of a witch, but she’s also the descendent of a Romanian countess. Truth be told, I’d love to see Elvira descend in to my bed, but that’s another article for another day. The good news Cassandra Peterson still has her unkempt sense of humor and she still looks damn good cracking wise and getting herself in to trouble as the Mistress of the Dark. “Haunted Hills” is the further adventures of Elvira, as the film is set in 1851 where Elvira and her servant Zou Zou travel the countryside performing for various villages. A self-proclaimed celebrity, Elvira and her servant make a habit of skipping out of bills when given the order from rather aggressive innkeepers, and the two make their days on the run and hoping for jobs.
For The Love of the Scare: A Short Word from a Born and Raised Horror Fan Boy
When I was a kid, my mom would always sit us down to watch whatever cartoons or action movies were on, while she went off to cook or clean. Back then, we didn’t have cable, but we did have many VHS movies, and most of them were horror movies that my mom kept in a chest in her room, away from us.
My mom would make it a stern rule not to watch these movies. Which is weird considering they never cared when we saw violent action films, or gory science fiction films. And wouldn’t you know it? I never killed anyone in my life. Good parenting goes a long way, folks. As you can guess, she had a library of the classic horror films. You know the classics I’m talking about. But, she’d trained us to be horror fans, and to quench our thirst for the frightening, we’d watch stuff like “The Monster Squad,” and “Goonies.”
Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988)
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during the writing of “Mistress of the Dark.” Basically, the entire formula for comedy is comprised of a steady delivery of sex joke, double entendre, joke about Elvira’s breasts, sex joke, double entendre, joke about Elvira’s breasts, sex joke, double entendre, joke about Elvira’s breasts. Lather, rinse, and repeat. Hope for the best! Not to say it’s a bad formula, but after an hour, it becomes so predictable, you can see when a joke is about to fly at the audience, and it doesn’t really land all the time. But then again, Cassandra Peterson makes even the most clunky one-liner land, thanks to her almost unabashed goofiness, and her ability to use her chest as a sight gag more times than not.
For anyone who used to see this film when it originally premiered, using her chest as a form of laughs and awe from the men in the audience never gets old. When I was seven I’d see this movie every single time it was on television and it’s not because the movie is a comedy classic. Granted, “Mistress of the Dark” has a lot going for it. It never tries too hard and actually has fun with the premise. Cassandra Peterson uses this opportunity to bank on the popularity of her character while also giving her something to do. She provides the audience with her origin, a back story about her family, and she never hesitates to flirt with men around her in spite of the disgust of the puritanical town she ends up in.
There endless sex jokes and sight gags, so much so that the script would only be about four pages without them included. After quitting her famous cable show, Elvira sets out to start her own Vegas act, but she needs almost a hundred thousand dollars to fund it. She’s called back to her aunt’s home town Fallwell to inherit her possessions after she’s died, and after moving in to her dark mansion and adopting her dog, Elvira discovers she comes from a long line of witches. Meanwhile, her evil long lost uncle wants the sacred book of “recipes” Elvira’s aunt has left behind, while Elvira battles the town’s puritanical government, all of whom will do whatever it takes to run her out of town. Elvira runs amok garnering the love of the town’s teens, and even turns a small picnic in to an orgy after she botches a stew.
“Mistress of the Dark” is by no means a masterpiece, but compared to the likes of similar fare like “Repossessed,” it’s just infinitely more watchable and entertaining. Elvira sticks closely to the horror genre, providing a fish out of water comedy that was quite popular in films like “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” and the eventual “Addams Family” big screen debut. Elvira herself is a likable character filled with movie references and shameless homages, while also never afraid to flaunt her assets to everyone she meets, even smothering her own windshield when she cleans it at a gas station. It may not be the comedy that re-invented horror comedies, but Elvira’s feature film debut is an entertaining and raunchy foray with the always sexy and unique Cassandra Peterson keeping together a formula plot and hit or miss jokes and one-liners with her wit, personality, and pair of talents always heaving for the audience.
Zombie Cat: The Tale of a Decomposing Kitty [Paperback]
One of the aspects of author Isabel Atherton’s book about a zombie cat and its master in the middle of the zombie apocalypse is subtlety. It manages to be both an advantage and a downfall, especially since the ending feels somewhat abrupt. The trick is, I’m assuming, that the ending is the beginning. In either case, from Skyhorse Publishing, “Zombie Cat” is yet another in a slew of kids books showing how life in the zombie apocalypse is different and drastic. Particularly for Tiddles and her master.
Stephen King's The Shining (1997)
It’s common knowledge among movie buffs that Stanley Kubrick’s much lauded adaptation of “The Shining” is a film that author Stephen King did not like. At all. He openly expresses his disgust for it and his annoyance at director Kubrick’s insistence on taking the story in his own direction and away from the original novel. So in response to his long publicized criticism of what is arguably a horror classic, director Mick Garris obliged with a two part television mini-series that painted “The Shining” as we saw in the novel. Sadly, while it is very entertaining as a novelty horror film it lacks the oompf and visceral atmosphere of the Kubrick classic.
The Shining (1980)
That’s Hollywood for you. They love you. They love your book. They buy your book. They adapt it in to a big budget feature, and in the end only really bring bits and pieces of your story to the big screen for audiences to see. In this instance it’s “The Shining,” an acclaimed horror film adapted by director Stanley Kubrick that author Stephen King has always hated. But then King is only one in almost a hundred authors whom absolutely detested the big screen versions of their novels. Director Kubrick’s idea of planning a film that respected the source material of King’s novel but not completely following the story is a bit of Hollywood rogue filmmaking that ended up angering King but simultaneously created one of the most beloved horror movies of all time.