Tag Archives: Horror

The Addams Family: The Complete Series (DVD)

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There will always be a place for America’s ghoulish family The Addams and I assume in lieu of the proposed Tim Burton re-launch, the Hanna Barbera animated series from the early seventies is something of a necessary property to re-live the nostalgia for fans of the franchise and help them hunger for Burton’s new vision. Featuring the entire series in a four DVD set, “The Addams Family” is quite a departure from the normality of the creepy Addams Family this time venturing out beyond the series to offer up some Scooby Doo mystery solving.

One of the highlights of the series is the discovery that a young Jodie Foster (Yes, that Jodie Foster) voices Wednesday Addams. Beyond that this is a typical cash in from the Hanna Barbera legacy. Instead of leaving them in one place to cope with everyday life, instead the Addams take their show on the road driving around in a humongous Victorian Mansion/RV that brings aboard all of the Addams for the fun.

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Altitude (2010)

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A4e8gLBOne of the elements I truly loved about “Altitude” is that director Kaare Andrews manages to convey a sense of isolation in the open skies. He constantly zooms back upon open spaces and landing strips mountain ranges, all of which are dwarfed when the people inside the small aircraft find themselves in the middle of a mysterious nowhere land in the sky being terrorized by unexplained phenomenon threatening to throw them in to oblivion. Andrews who has a past in comic books really knows how to express a sense of the EC Comics atmosphere where every scene is painted like a graphic novel, especially when the group of friends venture in to the blue sky to be confronted with a black cloud that brings them in to an endless abyss of lightning, darkness, and zero answers for survival.

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Our Top Ten "Treehouse of Horror" Episodes!

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Treehouse_of_HorrorIn spite of what you may think of the current state of “The Simpsons,” the fact remains that the show is a dynasty and the annual “Treehouse of Horror” episodes however bland or mediocre they have become are a tradition and one that garners good ratings for FOX every year. “Treehouse of Horror” began as a little nod to Halloween with spoofs of The Twilight Zone and classic urban legends and soon rocketed in to something of an event for the entire crew of The Simpsons to satirize and poke fun at classic horror movies to great episodes of The Twilight Zone. Zombies, King Kong, Robots, Monkeys Paws, Aliens, Witches, Frankenstein, haunted houses, nothing was off the table, and this allowed the creators of the series to throw a party every year for us horror fans to show us what they can do when they rode off the rails of the storyline and allowed for some fun to be had and blood to be shed.

Though none of the new installments have actual tree houses, the origin of the yearly gimmick began with “Treehouse of Horror” where Homer, deciding to scare Bart and Lisa, begins listening in on separate horror stories told by Bart and Lisa in a treehouse, both of whom tell the scariest stories they can think of in an attempt to scare each other. What begins as mocking laughter soon transformed in to Homer going back to bed that night realizing he couldn’t quite go back to sleep thanks to the effectiveness of a good horror story, properly told by two little children with a lot of imagination. While none of them are at all really disturbed by one another, Homer has learned that a good horror story can do wonders for inducing insomnia. Horror is best when imagination is at play, and “Treehouse of Horror” took what was a one and done little nod to Halloween and turned it in to its very own gimmick going balls to the wall every year devising some of the best moments in the series barnone.

Here are ten of our favorite moments from “Treehouse of Horror,” episodes brilliant, hilarious, and just plain memorable.

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Our Top Ten “The Twilight Zone” Episodes of All Time

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Twilight Zone

As I’ve learned this year, there are still people out there who haven’t seen “The Twilight Zone” and are not aware of the often brilliant and shocking twists hiding within the mysteries that master storyteller Rod Serling composed in the fifties and sixties. As many know “The Twilight Zone” is one of the best and more influential anthology series of all time, a show that was at times scary, funny, and compelling while also serving a purpose to comment on issues like poverty, death, the war, the holocaust, crime, infidelity, greed, and the debate of heaven and hell along with theology and the flaws of the human soul.

At rare times it was merely a form of escapism, and not every episode was a bonafide masterpiece, but almost all of the time Serling’s seminal science fiction show was about something. It had a statement to make, it was important and that’s why it continues to be look at as the standard for modern pop culture influencing thousands of television shows, authors, and musicians across the world and is basically larger than life. It’s garnered two pretty underwhelming feature films, a respectable but mediocre eighties reboot, and a very bad, and quickly cancelled millennium reboot, all of which have paled in comparison to Serling’s original series. While we left out many good episodes of Serling’s science fiction horror series, these are the episodes we consider the best of the best and our absolute favorites.

Warning: If you’ve yet to fully indulge in the entire legacy of the series, be cautious there will be spoilers within this list as we offer up our ten favorite episodes of “The Twilight Zone” of all time.

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Halloweentown High (2004)

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While “Halloweentown High” really isn’t the most subtle of films with monsters and knights acting as symbolism for civil rights, it does excel in fully realizing the character of Marnie who is no longer a student and now just a matriarch of other students looking to make their way in to the human world. Kimberly J. Brown is as good and charming as ever in the role of heroine Marnie who takes it upon herself to play civil rights leader by insisting some of the monsters from Halloweentown should be allowed to go to human school for the sake of diversity and equality. The catch is by Halloween if she hasn’t made progress, her powers will be stripped away. This allows for a more open forum for new characters, all of whom have their own likable traits and quirks. One if a goblin, another is a werewolf, another a wood nymph, and so on. Marnie plays more of a protector this time watching over the new exchange students, and falling for a new guy named Cody.

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Supernatural: Beginning's End

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Supernatural-beginnings-endA few things about “Beginning’s End” that annoyed the crap out of me. Numero uno: They show the hounds of hell! Why? Why did they feel the need to show us the hounds of hell in their glory when the genius of the character was that we never saw what they looked like or their actual features? Does imagination mean nothing anymore? Numero dos: There’s nothing to be said here that hasn’t been said in the entire run of the series already. Sam is the one who is actually like John. Dean is just a guy trying to live up to his image of perfection and really is the outcast of the family. We knew that. “Beginning’s End” however is a solid mini-series to read.

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Psycho Shark (2009)

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x4ZEAfwAt only a little over an hour long, “Psycho Shark” (or as it’s being called in some circles “Jaws in Japan”) is probably one of the zaniest most deliriously bad movies I’ve ever come across mainly for its wacky directing style. Not much in this movie makes sense and director Hijiri John is such a fan of holding takes, that some shots are awkward. Any competent director will cringe at his knack for shooting people only below the waist and at one point holds a shot in the sand for over a minute after his actresses have left the frame. But take my advice, wait a while, be patient because I guarantee you by the second half… absolutely nothing will have happened. Don’t get me wrong, I love movies about frolicking Japanese girls, but if it’s a horror movie only a little bit over an hour, then you have to have some sense of forward progression in plot and this has none of it.

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