When you get right down to it, there are a ton of potential choices for Halloween movie viewing marathons. For the sake of brevity, I am choosing just five selections which will still take you a good day to get through so plan ahead to take the day off from your work or school grind!
- Wolfen (1981) – a cop is assigned to investigate a series of animal attacks. Is there a pack of werewolves on the loose in modern day New York? Some creepy situations and a suspenseful story should keep you entertained throughout. Albert Finney and Gregory Hines are the stars of this one.
- Attack Of The Mushroom People (1963) – OK. This one is really freaky. A group of young folk out on a boat trip have an accident and are stranded on a mysterious island. They take refuge in another landlocked but larger ship. The ship’s journal is examined and a warning is discovered: don’t eat the island’s ample mushroom supply. In order to survive, they’ve got to eat and it’s just easier to grab some of the island’s main staple. That, as you will find out, is a big mistake. Dripping with atmosphere and garish color, this is a must see shocker.
- The Thing (1951) – Science fiction film cornerstone that still maintains its freshness to this day. An alien spaceship is discovered buried in the ice by an American military team stationed in a remote arctic outpost. Although the ship is destroyed, the craft’s only surviving occupant is accidentally reawakened and is in a thoroughly pissed off frame of mind. A last stand ensues as humans battle a formidable alien foe to the death. Essential viewing!
- The Lost Continent (1968) – More whacked out material as a group aboard a doomed ocean freighter become stranded in the Sargasso Sea, a place of strange clogging and rampant seaweed and some cool matte painting shots of a ship graveyard. Yes. There have been others who have also unfortunately succumbed to the deadly area. Attempting to find a way out of the morass, the ship’s inhabitants have a run in with a population of lost in time Spanish conquistadors who rule the region by force. Also thrown into the mix are some oversized creepy crawlies who see anything on two legs as there next meal. This is all great fun.
- Lifeforce (1985) – A huge alien ship is investigated by a team of astronauts from Earth and three seemingly human survivors from the other worldly ship are brought onboard the astronaut’s space shuttle. One by one the human crew succumb to some bizarre malady with only a sole survivor who incinerates the shuttle and takes an escape pod back to Earth. A rescue mission recovers the three aliens from the wrecked shuttle to the detriment of the human population as they come out of a dormant state and seek out our life sustaining energy or lifeforce. A plague ensues on Earth as these energy vampires plunder our planet. Epic destruction and carnage result. Pretty entertaining!
So there are another five fine films that I would personally take a day/night to sit through consecutively for a perfect Halloween viewing experience!
Iconic horror film director Tobe Hopper sadly passed away this year. Looking at his work, you see a good handful of classic horror films! Hopper’s masterpiece, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, personified the Hell of being victimized and threatened by a twisted family of cannibalistic freaks somewhere in Texas. There was the thoroughly enjoyable horror TV two-parter, “Salem’s Lot”, an atmospheric, nightmarish look at a town and its populace destroyed by a vampire plague. “Poltergeist” presented the mounting menace of a ghostly presence invading a suburban home and the dislocation and fear that ensues for the family inhabiting the now haunted house. I thought “Lifeforce” was a very entertaining pulp science fiction feature chronicling the awakening of a dormant alien species of vampire on our planet. The outcome? You guessed it. Mass destruction, death, zombie hordes and London in flames.
An entertaining storyteller who let the punches fly, Tobe Hopper produced a very engaging body of work that you must seek out.
I came across an interesting article today. You may have heard this story before. There has been conjecture circulating through the years that “Poltergeist” (1982), a tale of a suburban household plagued by ghosts was NOT directed by Tobe Hooper but was in fact helmed by an on-set Steven Spielberg who otherwise was listed as the film’s producer. It was noted that certainly the end result’s film style reflected a Spielbergian touch. Well, here are some long after the fact confessions from some of the crew that Spielberg WAS the man in charge of direction. I don’t really know what the arrangement was that was worked out between the two men but apparently it suited both at the time.
This bit of trivia aside, let us always remember the huge debt we owe Tobe Hooper for his horror masterpiece, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974). I regard it as one of the seminal works of the horror film genre. A truly harrowing, frightening and nightmarish piece of work that will haunt you. I think unrelenting is a very appropriate term for the film. That somebody had the balls to develop and produce a film with such a vile premise is an achievement all its own.
The link for the story is below. There is also a fun slideshow attached at the end of the article celebrating some of the great movie (franchise) villains/monsters.
READ SOME OF THE STORY HERE!
Lifeforce has always been an enjoyable viewing experience for me. Directed by Tobe Hooper of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame, this flick straddles the line between falling into either the science fiction or horror movie camps. It ends up having elements of both in its delivery. An international space crew observing Halley’s Comet become aware of an unidentified object hidden within the comet’s tail. The crew decides to investigate the object up close and then things start to get really interesting. I think the first thirty minutes of this movie are brilliantly paced. I love that portion of the movie but the subsequent pursuing of the wayward alien is less interesting to me. Judge for yourself. Nice supporting work from Frank Finlay and Steve Railsback is appropriately twitchy as the last surviving astronaut from the international space crew. A pre-Picard Patrick Stewart is also onboard for this Cosmic Horror tale. Oh. Did I mention that this movie seriously courts the notion of the end of the world?
A varied collection of unusual movie and music video clips.
