Halloween Film #7: Dawn of the Dead

Saving the best for last!
And ending with zombies makes it even better.
This is not only my favorite zombie film,
It's my favorite film of all time.
Ever.

Someday maybe I will talk more about the impact this film had on me the first time I saw it.
But tonight I am just going to sit and enjoy it.
I hope you watched a film tonight that you loved.

Happy Halloween,
Mother Firefly

Halloween Movie #6: Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman

The day isn't going to be complete without
SOME kind of film from my Universal Monsters Box.


So I picked my favorite,
Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman.

Halloween Movie #5: Black Sabbath

This is a great Italian film directed by Mario Bava. I've always thought it was wonderfully creepy and threw it on my pile of possible films today.
It's also a horror anthology in three parts.
I made it through part one before I changed movies- because I can't read subtitles and look for demographic information on Milwaukee County.
Dangit.

Halloween Movie #4: The Tingler

I had to take a short break to get dinner and some laundry started. Now I'm back for one more before Papa Cash and I have dinner....and then we'll see how many films I roll through before bed.

This is another one I try to watch every October. I'm a fan of just about every film Vincent Price did, but for some reason I like to watch House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler around Halloween time. They're also two films that Price did for William Castle.

In this one, Price plays a scientist who is studying fear and its effects on the body. He is sure that there is something he can isolate that causes physiological effects of fear and sometimes death. He's also in an unhappy marriage (again!) He's married to a mean lady whose younger sister just happens to be dating the other scientist Price is working with.




This film is also noted for being filmed in Percepto Vision,
which was a gimmick courtesty of William Castle. In the film, if the Tingler attacks, the only defense against it is to scream really loud. In the theater, a handful of seats would be wired with buzzers that would go off at appropriate times in the movie- making the person sitting there scream and inspiring others to scream as well.

Not much else to say about this film- there's a side story involving a mute woman who can't scream to release her fear, and they do eventually find the creature that feeds on fear, 'The Tingler'. I find it a fun one to watch every year and I love watching the glee with which Price investigates 'The Tingler'.

the film is also notable for being the only time that I'm aware of that Vincent Price trips out on LSD- which, according to the special features, was NOT illegal yet. Neato!

Till a little later tonight-
Mother Firefly

Halloween Movie #3: Bubba Ho Tep

Bubba Ho Tep.
Bruce Campbell stars as Elvis. Seems that back in the 70's, Elvis got tired of being well, Elvis. He made a deal with an Elvis impersonator to switch so he could get a break. Unfortunately, during the time of the switch- the Elvis impersonator died. Since the real Elvis lost his copy of the contract they signed in a barbeque mishap, real Elvis had to continue to live his life as the Elvis impersonator.

Still with me? Yes, I swear this is a movie fit for Halloween.

Then one night while performing as an impersonator of himself, he falls off the stage and breaks his hip. We find Elvis in the present day stuck in a nasty nursing home telling everyone he's Elvis and the staff thinking he's just a crazy old man.

Oh, and down the hall lives Ossie Davis, who says he's JFK as well. He was altered to look African American and hidden away after the attempt on his life.

One night Elvis awakens to find a big old NASTY looking bug in his room...which he has to fight....oh and people are dying off at the nursing home...and both incidences are due to an ancient mummy who has taken up residence in a nearby swamp.

So Elvis and JFK combine forces to fight the mummy and save their fellow residents.

If that doesn't make you want to see this movie, nothing will.

Halloween Movie #2: Night of the Ghouls

Ed Wood is probably best known for Plan 9 From Outer Space, but Night of the Ghouls is probably my personal favorite.

It's about a scam artist , Dr. Acula, who pretends to be able to contact the dead. I love the fake seances, Tor Johnson, and 'ghost' lady who hangs out in the yard.

One great scene involves a widow who wants to contact her husband. For some reason, Ed chose to have the man's corpse lying in a casket, then sitting up and speaking to his wife from 'beyond the grave', even though he has been dead 'several years'. Favorite part within this scene is when the dead man in the casket (obviously a young man with a lot of bad aging makeup) closes his eyes and says 'I grow weary now'.....classic.

Another fun part is the cop who wanders around the property looking to bust the scam artist. He has a continuous inner dialogue that is pretty amusing but led me to wonder, can't this guy have a partner or something?

Let's Scare Jessica To Death

Jessica is newly released from the mental hospital. She and her hubby (and a family friend of the male variety) are int he process of moving to a new home. Family transportation includes a hearse, and Jessica's favorite hobby is doing rubbings on gravestones.

So Jessica and her crew move into their new house, and everyone is happy and upbeat because Jessica's all better, and surely EVERYTHING IS GONNA BE OKAY NOW. Right? Sure it is. Because right away they find their new home comes with a mysterious woman who's been staying there. And since this is the 70's, they invite her to stay the night.



Then the whispery whispering starts. And it pretty much goes on throughout the whole show. It pretty much lets us know right away that Jessica is not maybe completely better since she keeps hearing her name whispered (among other endearments, some of which are not so endearing) everywhere she goes.

It doesn't take a college degree to figure out at this point that recent release from mental hospital + whispering + mysterious stranger + old creepy house in an small creepy town = something not good is gonna happen.

But why I like 'Jessica' so much is because it's just a total creepfest. It's a good, old fashioned scary (ghosts? vampires? maybe both) story that is just great fun and still manages to creep me out if I watch it alone late at night. I first saw this one day when I stayed home from school and it was the morning movie on the local tv station.

Scared the SHEEE-IT out of me. It's never been real easy to find. For years I only had a crappy copy of a VHS copy. The sound was horrible, and in order to hear all the 'whispery whispering', I had to crank the sound so loudly the tape gave off an awful hiss. Not fun. A couple of years ago it finally arrived on DVD and I ordered it right away- not my usual mode of 'watch and wait' for the lowest price but I didn't want to risk the chance of it going out of print.

If you are the type of person who likes the occasional scary film but yet needs character development and doesn't want gore, 'jessica' belongs on your must-see list.

One other thing I really enjoy about this movie is the lady who plays Jessica, Zohra Lampert. I think she does a great job of coming off natural and also a little fragile. She also seems very real, like she could have been any of my friend's moms from my childhood in the 70s. And that just makes it even more terrifying- if it can happen to Jessica- well, then, none of us are safe.