Ghost Galleon (1974)

This one went under a whole slew of titles including Ghost Ship Of The Blind Dead, Ghost Galleon, Horror Of The Zombies and many more but to keep things simple I like to call it Blind Dead 3 which it also went under.

Personally I am a fan of The Blind Dead movies but this one is by far the worst of the bunch. This time around the skeletal, Templar-Zombies are aboard an old ghost-ship which is apparently "in a different dimension". Some bikini models are lured out of the fog and into the old-time galleon where the zombified Templars will feast on their flesh. Trust me, it sounds a lot better then it really is.

The main problem with this installment in the series is that there is way to much talky talk and not enough violence and gore. The whole thing tends to get a bit tiring with endless scenes of creeping around the old ship and constant chit chat.

 Jesus Franco veteran Jack Taylor shows up in this one as the mastermind behind a publicity stunt that is supposed to bring the models wealth and fame but he seems to come off more like a crime-lord. The truth is that his character doesn't bring much to this film either. It all comes off pretty weird and confused and in the end it makes for a pretty forgettable experience. The only things worth noting in the film is a couple of bikini clad bimbos and of course the awesome looking zombies themselves. There is a bit of gore in a decapitation scene where we watch the Templar's munch on the flesh of a pretty blond girl but other then that even the zombies seem pretty confused. Wait... If these guys are hungry for human flesh why did they just throw that girls body overboard? Maybe they have some pals down there on the ocean floor like in Lucio Fulci's Zombi.

Ghost Galleon is only worth owning for those who want to complete their Blind Dead collection. It is offered on many public domain DVD packs for about a dollar and that is probably all it is worth.

The Ghost Walks (1934)

Boring title for a boring movie. This 1930's sleeper is kinda like a really crappy version of The Old Dark House. A group of annoying men are trapped in a rain storm and take refuge in the nearest house. Naturally the house is a giant mansion occupied by more obnoxious characters.

It turns out that the visitors will become a personal project for the mansions occupants. They have written a horror play and without the newcomers knowledge they act out the script. Ghosts pop up and people run about in what comes off like a bad Abbot and Costello impersonation. We end up with a classic example of the-boy-who-cried-wolf when a real murderer pops up and starts killing the house guests. The guests think its all just another prank until the films climax when we see the killers face for the first time. The biggest problem with this public domain oldie is that the audio is so muffled that we can barley hear the dialogue. Throw in some really blurry and washed out black & white images and the whole thing becomes a drag. Perhaps if there were a slightly better print this thing might be more watchable but I highly doubt it.

Pet Sematary (1989)

I first saw Pet Sematary as a young kid. I started watching it with my father but it was past my bed time and was forced to go to sleep. The next day I was eager to see the end of the film but my father didn't want to watch it again. He gave me the tape and told me to take it to the basement and finish it by myself. I was never so scared in my life. I ran upstairs terrified and couldn't finish the movie on my own. Pet Sematary has been a favorite of mine ever since.

 The thing that amazes me so much about Pet Sematary is that it seems to have so much going against it but it still managed to be a great horror movie. Not to sound like a sexist pig but female directors usually do not offer up a great product when it comes to horror films but this one is jam packed with creepy images and is a very morbid vision from start to finish. Also we all know that it is rare when a Stephen King adaption is worth a shit. Yet again Pet Sematary goes against the odds and perhaps most importantly this thing comes from the bowels of 1989 which is a horrible time for horror movies in Hollywood. With all these odds stacked against it, I think it is safe to say that Pet Sematary is a phenomenon of its own.

There is a certain level of cheese in this one. You have the character of Pascow who walks around with a shattered skull and is trying to help the family from falling victim to the evil ways of an ancient Indian burial ground and some of the acting is way over the top but even the cheesy moments are not done horribly. The dark, morbid, depressing flow easily washes away most of the embarrassing moments. Fred (Herman Munster) Gwynne shows up in this one as a beer drinking old timer who knows the secrets of The Pet Sematary. He offers up so many great lines in this movie. His screen presence is larger then life and its pretty hard not to love his character. The film also offers up a disturbing scene where a little boy gets hit by a truck, a suicide by hanging, some scalpel-violence, zombie-fu and the incredibly creepy character of Zelda. This character is the reason that at eight years old I ran upstairs and couldn't finish the movie on my own. She still creeps me out to this day. Of course the film also comes complete with a Romones soundtrack and thats cool on its own. We also have what is possibly the worst line in cinematic history "Today is thanksgiving day for cats. But only if they came back from the dead" What does that even mean?

  If I ever get stuck with a kid of my own I am going to be sure to have the little shit watch this one in the basement alone and continue family tradition. Keeping the spirit of Pet Sematary alive.

I recently saw this in the theater on a double bill with the great cult film Night Warning. The audience seemed to love the movies as much as I did and it got its well deserved applause. Pet Sematary is a timeless classic and it gets better with every viewing.

Evil Dead Trap (1988)

The first time I saw this movie I was up for well over a day. My over tired and over partied brain wasn't quite ready for what I was about to see. Already being a jaded horror fanatic I didn't think there was too much I haven't seen. Well I guess it was a perfect blend of tiredness and delusion because this movie scared the hell out of me. While I'm not to sure Evil Dead Trap would have the same affect on a well rested and normally functioning person, I wouldn't change my first experience for anything.

Looking at this movie now as a sober and responsible adult with a normal sleeping schedule the film still managed to be creepy and gross but maybe less scary.

Evil Dead Trap is about a late night television host who reaches out to her insomniac viewers and tells them to send in their personal home videos which she will air. Amongst the piles of boring shit she receives a VHS tape that showcases a young woman having her eye punctured by a psychopath with a kitchen knife. Blood and fluid pour from the screaming woman's eye before she is killed in graphic detail. The mailed in snuff film also comes complete with the location of the murder so the curious TV host gathers some friends and heads out to the abandoned building where the killing supposedly took place.

Once inside the creepy old building the characters are killed one by one in stalk and slash fashion. The entire movie is soaked in crimson and each death scene is totally different from the last. The masked killers identity doesn't become known to the very end but there seems to be something super natural about this place. Many of these murders seem impossible for one man to do on his own and it all serves to keep the viewer scratching their head in confusion.

The title of this movie is bound to annoy Sam Raimi fanatics but at least the name isn't completely random. This one plays like a cross between Evil Dead and Suspiria. We get the Evil Dead cinematography crossed with the influence of Dario Argento's stylish lighting. Even the musical score seems like something that would come form an Argento flick. When its all said and done it probably has more in common with Argento then Raimi considering it is almost a Japanese version of a Giallo.

The only problem I have with this movie at all is some of the supernatural elements. It ends up going into a bizarre world where nothing makes much sense. When it is all eventually explained it is to silly and strange to be taken seriously at all.

Still Evil Dead Trap is gory and sick enough to please the average gore-hound. Some of the more memorable scenes include eyeball stabbing, a body swinging from a meat-hook, a woman has multiple poles shoved thru her bloody body, heads are split open by sharp booby traps, a woman is raped and then strangled with a wire and a man is set on fire and crumbles to ash.
This one works for fans of slasher movies, Italian Giallo's, monster movies and supernatural ghost flicks.

The House That Screamed (2000)

This was a big mistake on my part. The House That Screamed not to be mistaken for the 1969 movie with the same title is a typical shit-fest from the awful 2000's. While the 1969 House That Screamed is also a terrible waste of time, this one takes the cake with bad acting, bad camera work and nonsensical story with random ghostly happenings and bad special effects.

 This one opens up with some gratuitous nudity in the form of a shower scene. This goes beyond gratuitous nudity because the scene seems to have just been thrown in after the fact. This naked bimbo isn't even seen again in the movie. While I do thank the filmmakers for the bare breasted action the rest of the movie is a turd.

A horror writer rents a haunted house for inspiration on his new book. He personally doesn't believe in ghosts but figures it will help the sales of his new novel. While staying in the house he is haunted by vicious ghosts who wish to do him harm. Things happen without explanation and none of it makes much sense. Eventually he "enters the belly of the beast to understand the secrets of the house that screams". He learns that the house holds a vicious cycle and in order to free the spirits of the house he must take his own life. Stupid eh?

Perhaps the most offensive moment in this one is when our horror author is fooled into having sex with a ghost. The female ghost is supposed to add some kind of sex appeal to the movie but she is a over weight, red headed chud with horrible acting skills. When the writer finally gets her in the sack she rides him with her clothes on which is lucky for us. Next her face rots away in what is oddly reminiscent to Evil Dead makeup. I'm not so sure why our writer is so upset. Did he see who he went to bed with? Its not as if he were drunk at a bar and thought he was going home with Barbie only to realize he was waking up with King Kong. This dude was sober and willingly hit the sheets with this beast.

Some of the other atrocities this one has to offer is a suicide scene in which a girl puts a gun in her mouth and blows her brains out all over the kitchen window. Sounds good, I know but you have to see this shit. The gunshot sounds like a fart and the brains hitting the window looks like play dough with a sound effect lifted from The Blob. Next there is a demonic doll which wrestles our character in the kitchen. We also have a little girl running around with an axe and a ghost who died in the civil war. The civil war? What the fuck does that have to do with this house?

Stay away from this movie unless you really like torturing yourself with nonsense.

  

Don't Look Now (1973)

This British, Italian co-production is mainly shot on the canals of Venice. An ideal setting for a thriller mystery. At times the canals appear to be very peaceful and others they are dark and creepy. In Some scenes they are spacious and others they are claustrophobic. In Don't Look Now the locations act as a character themselves and this just might be the films strongest point.

This one follows a married couple (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) who tragically lost their daughter. The little girl drown in a murky lake while playing in the yard. The unexplained death left the married couple emotionally distraught and now they fight to pick up the pieces of their lives. Donald Sutherland plays John Baxter who's profession is in the restoration of art in ancient churches. Business has taken Mr, and Mrs. Baxter to Venice where they meet two elderly sisters, one of which is a blind psychic. Eventually the creepy, old, blind, hag convinces Mrs. Baxter that her dead daughter is trying to communicate with her and her husband. She also claims the dead girl delivers a warning, that "as long as they stay in Venice her husbands life is at risk".

 Being a man of logic (no he is not religious) John Baxter doesn't buy into the bullshit that the old bags are laying on his wife. This all starts to change when he almost meets his fate in a church. John starts to have premonitions which do not become clear until the films final moments. Throw a deranged serial killer into the mix who in running around Venice, killing off young women and leaving the corpses in the canal and the viewer is never quite sure which way the film is going to turn. Is it in fact a supernatural movie with a ghostly little girl? Is it all in the minds of the distraught parents? Or does the killer have a bigger a part in all of this? I wont be a total bastard and give the twist ending away but I will point out the films high points.

This one offers up a steamy love scene between Sutherland and Christie which is almost to romantic for my taste but its also kinda weird and artsy which makes it interesting to look at. Julie Christie bares it all for the camera in this one and so does Sutherland. Now I know Donald Sutherland has never been shy and has quite a few nude scenes in his filmography but I can't help but wonder if the guy is a bit of an exhibitionist. Perhaps he requests to do nude scenes like Harvey Keitel. Just a thought... Anyway being the childish moron that I am I can't help but chuckle at the bare-ass Donald Sutherland scenes. We also have a creepy dwarf thrown into the mix and of course the blind psychic who wears those creepy, foggy contact lenses which always remind me of The Beyond. There is also a really cool scene where the killer is revealed and a kitchen knife is pushed through a unsuspecting victims neck. This scene is quite gory and unexpected from a film which is done more on the classy side.

While I personally prefer my horror to be a bit more on the raunchy side I suppose Don't Look Now was done pretty well for what it is. This one is more of a psychological thriller but does have some great moments. Not the best thriller I have ever seen but certainly not the worst.

Dont Go To Sleep (1982)

I know its hard to believe but in the 70's and 80's every once and a while there would be a made for television horror flick that is actually kind of cool. The two that usually come to mind for me is Bad Ronald and The Crawlspace, not to be mistaken for the movie with Klaus Kinski of the same title.

This one most certainly scared quite a few families in the early 80's. The thing that is so surprising about Don't Go To Sleep is how well done it all is. The story is good and creepy, the camera work never seems cheesy like in so many other made for TV movies and probably most importantly the acting is really good. This especially goes for Robin Ignico who was only 12 years old when she stared in this movie as Mary a psychotic little girl who hangs out with ghosts and kills just about everyone in her family one by one. Its hard to give this a sub genre classification because it has so many different elements to it. It's kind of a hanuntings and ghosts movie but its also a killer child movie but then at the same time it deals with a lot of drama. In fact Don't Go To Sleep is very sad at times. We watch an extremely dysfunctional family deal with problem after problem. Of course everything gets worse when they start to be killed one by one but none the less the movie is a roller coaster of emotions. If I had to describe Don't Go To Sleep with one word I would probably just call it DEPRESSING. However it still manages to deliver the creepy stuff.

 So if you're into depressing movies or psychotic murdering children you could do worse then this. I'm personally really bored with the modern approach of creepy little girl ghost movies so this one was a breath of fresh air. It kind of plays like a less sleazy version of Cathy's Curse with some elements of Carrie thrown in. It also comes complete with a twist ending which I won't be giving away. However some of the highlights include crash and burn cars with children in it. A child falling to his death, a nice comfy bath scene with a zappy radio, a murderous lizard named Ed and one of the weirdest choices of weapons to ever hit the television screen. A pizza cutter? If I had some little brats of my own I would surely sit down and enjoy this one with the family.

Unknown (2007)

 

 Im not quite sure why I picked this one off the shelf in the video store. What I am sure of is that I regret it with all my heart. This Sweedish, independent, shit-fest is your typical shot on video waste of time. The usless director seems perfectly content with shooting the least possible interestng actions. Countless scenes of bad actors walking through the woods, opening doors, sitting, breathing etc. seems to eat up the majority of the running time which turns a 75 min. movie into a long, boring, slugish nightmare and I do not use the word nightmare in a good way. Aside from the seemingly endless footage of people wandering around in circles there is also another major horror movie No-No! The Unknown sports a cast of three. Anyone who has seen enough low budget horror films knows right off the bat that if there is only three characters, the film has no chance of redeeming its self with any sort of a bodycount. Still I put on my cinema combat boots and stuck this one out till the end which of course was a big mistake.

The Unknown tells of three boring bastards who stumble upon a car wreck in the middle of nowhere. Instead of minding their own buisness they get out to investigate, only to find that the car is empty. Naturally these ass-hats decide to take to the woods on foot, in search of whoever was behind the wheel. The get lost or something and shack up in, well... a shack and then the movie turns into a sort of demonic possession type movie. So this opens up the door for the film makers (if we can call them that) to have all sorts of ghostly and supernatural things to happen without explaination or reason. This is yet again one of the things that I absoloutly can not stand. However there is one half way creepy scene in an atic, where a ghosty figure kind of hobbles torwards out main character while bound up in chains and gore. We are also treated to a suicide scene complete with shitty CGI brain matter and a chubby axe weilding psycho who dismembers his friends girlfriend but lets not fool ouselves here, this movie was made by a bunch of hacks. The main character wears his hair in a ponytail and rocks a Nirvana T shirt which is of course about as cool as a CGI suicide scene. Fuck!

Anyone who grabs there artistic influence from anything in the 90's, Be it music or cinema, should probably just quit all together. Don't make the same mistake I did kids. Just leave this one on the shelf at the video store.

The Fog (1980)

I have no idea how many times I have seen this classic. I first caught it on television as a kid. Then on VHS, then on DVD. Its one of those movies that everyone owns, so if you go to a friends house who has a slim movie collection you might be stuck putting this one on again. I was even lucky enough to see it on the big screen some time back. All these years later The Fog still works. Its a classic! Its The Fog!

Remember when John Carpenter was still cool? Halloween, Assault On Precinct 13. Even Carpenter's 1978 made for television movie Someones Watching Me was good for a scare. Well The Fog wasn't exactly the last good film in the directors career but it is closing in on the end. After The Fog John Carpenter would go on to do Escape From New York, The Thing and then Christine in 1983. From 83 on his films would get worse and worse but this just seems to be the trend for great American horror directors from the 70's. Wes Craven, George A. Romero and many others would all go the same way.

The Fog on the other hand continues to impress me to this day. It is genuinely creepy and holds a very good story. Yet it is not overly graphic. Almost all of the violence takes place in a thick fog which leaves a lot to the imagination. Usually this is a disappointment but it works perfectly in this one.

The Fog is a ghost story. It tells of a group of men who were betrayed, robbed and slaughtered by the new settlers of Antonio Bay. 100 years later the victims come back to Antonio Bay. They roll in with a thick fog and take revenge on the town. Like most super natural movies from this time many of the things that happen are confusing and don't make a whole lot of sense. Things catch fire for no explained reason. Clocks stop and electronic devices go ape shit. For me this is the only down side to the movie. I was never able to just say okay its a ghost movie, it doesn't have to make sense. I always want an answer. This is just a small flaw in a great movie. It doesn't hurt the film much.

The Fog comes complete with a great cast. We have Adrienne Barbeau who I remember best as Billy from Creepshow. "Just call me Billy. Everybody does." Barbeau plays the host of a radio station which is stationed from an old light house where she can warn the people of Antonio Bay which way The Fog is rolling. Hal Holbrook (Rituals, Creepshow) plays a priest who must answer to the vengeful walking dead for the sins of his ancestors. Janet Leigh (Psycho, Touch Of Evil) shows up along side her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween) and the cult icon Tom Atkins (Night Of The Creeps, Halloween III : Season Of The Witch) shows up as the drunken lover-boy of Jamie Lee. You also might recognize some other John Carpenter familiars such as Nancy Kyes who's character goes by the name of cough... cough... Sandy Loomis.

A strong plot, memorable characters and zombie-ghost-pirates make The Fog the classic that it is. We have sharp objects shoved through eyeballs, swords through torsos a dead priest and plenty more. Due to the lack of visual graphic violence and nudity I always recommend The Fog as a great horror movie for parents to show to their pre-teen children who are interested in horror movies. Why this movie got a {R} rating, I am not really sure. I feel that it should have been {PG-13}. I have not seen the 2005 remake and I don't want to. The Fog is a childhood favorite and we all know that the remakes of the 2000's are awful.

"I don't know what happened to Antonio Bay tonight. Something came out of the fog and tried to destroy us. In one moment, it vanished. But if this has been anything but a nightmare, and if we don't wake up to find ourselves safe in our beds, it could come again. To the ships at sea who can hear my voice, look across the water, into the darkness. Look for the fog."

Spooks Run Wild (1941)

When I think of The Bowery Boys this is the most memorable of all the movies. Perhaps its the fact that they meet Bela Lugosi. Perhaps its the title. Whatever it is, Spooks Run Wild is the first one that comes to mind.

In this 65 minute movie The East Side Kids are taken from the big city and sent to a summer camp. They sneak off in the middle of the night to meet a blond bimbo soda-jerk for a date. Apparently in the 40's teenage boys joined giant mobs for a date with a girl. The Bowery Boys end up getting lost and cutting through a cemetery where one of them is filled with buck-shot by a shotgun wielding madmen. They take off running and find themselves at an old spooky mansion which in inhabited by none other the Mr. Dracula himself, Bela Lugosi. It is your typical 40's cat and mouse run through the old mansion with Lugosi hot on the tail of the teenage boys. In one of my favorite moments The Bowery Boys decide to stop running and do what they do best... "Clobber him". I found it quit entertaining to see a bunch of juvenile delinquents jump Bela Lugosi.

From here we get the oh so familiar gags and goofs that pretty much took place in all of these old horror/comedies. Ghosts float about, spiders drop from the celling, skeletons roam around, zombies walk and Bela Lugosi pretty much acts the way Bela Lugosi always acts. We get some 1940's racism thrown about which can be kind of funny depending on how sensitive you are and it all comes complete with a sort of twist ending.  Spooks Run Wild is very short. It runs just over a hour at 65 minutes and it goes by pretty quickly. It never tends to get to slow or bore. Its cheesy, its not politically correct and it serves as entertaining nostalgia.

I would say the best audience for this flick would be anyone who digs the Abbot And Costello horror outings and lovers of the weird and bizarre wouldn't mind adding this crazy title to their collection of the strange.

The Nesting (1981)

Armand Weston is amongst my favorite porno directors. Responsible for trashy delights such as Defiance Of Good, The Taking Of Christina and Blue Voodoo. Armand Weston delivers his pornographic smut in films that tend to play more like horror movies and we all know that horror-porn is always the best porn.

In the very early 80's Armand Weston skipped the XXX stuff and just went for a legit horror film. Here it is. This is The Nesting. As far as I know The Nesting is the only title in Armand Weston's filmography that is not pornographic. Still he paints a sleazy picture. It all takes place in a haunted whore-house and even though this is a ghost movie it tends to play more like a slasher film. So basically Weston proves yet again that he is capable of throwing a wrench in the gears and mix things up. His porno films play like horror movies and his ghost films play like trashy slashers.

The Nesting starts off very strong with a heart-pounding opening sequence which introduces us to Lauren who is suffering from agoraphobia. Lauren is on the verge of a complete breakdown as she suffers from the ultimate anxiety. She stumbles through the street and a total collapse seems just around the corner. The camera angles make the outside world look very menacing and the cinematography is very affective. The camera work in this opening scene reminded me more of something like Polanski's Repulsion rather then that of a 70's porno director but those familiar with Armand Weston's work, especially Defiance Of Good should not be to surprised.

After Lauren's breakdown she decides to take a little vacation. She leaves city life behind for an old rundown mansion in the suburbs and when I say rundown I mean it has been abandon for many years and John Carradine is the landlord. Don't get me wrong if I could have John Carradine as a landlord I would probably jump on it as well but someone like Lauren who is obviously not doing so well should have taken Mr. Carradine as a bad omen. This can only turn out bad. Naturally the house is haunted and very strange accidents seem to be happening. This part of the film is a little slow and tends to bore a bit but it eventually will pick up for some grizzly murders. The most memorable scene shows a man having a sickle smashed into his achy-breaky skull. We are also treated to a brothel massacre when we witness a whole house of whores being gun downed one by one in a scene that reminded me of Rolling Thunder.

The Nesting can get slow at times but manages to hold your attention through violence and scenes of bad taste. It comes complete with a twist ending which is nice and it has a bit of T&A to get you through the rough spots. Oh and watch for the crazy stunt where a man throws himself down the stairs. Ouch! One of the better ghosty flicks from this time.

The Ghost Of Marquis De Sade (2002)

The Ghost Of Marquis De Sade is yet another retarded mongoloid child from director Yakov Levi (Shameless, Tasteless).

This short film is set in a girls sleepover party. The three dumb bimbos decide to hold a seance and raise the worlds greatest lover from the dead. They choose on Marquis De Sade, not realizing who he is. "He's French, he has to be a great lover. The French invented the kiss". Well these ding-bats get exactly what they deserve when De Sade pays them a visit. An all night sex-o-rama with torture and S&M.

This short film is the kind of thing you would expect your 13 year old brother to make with his perverted friends on a home video camera. In other words it is pretty damn bad and it plays like something that would come from a perverse adolescents mind but then again that seems to be Yakov Levi's thing. To make things worse the director doesn't even have the decency to show naked female flesh. Instead he has dumb broads walk around in their underwear and kiss each other a lot.

The few highlights the flick does have to offer is a broom stick that is rammed up a sleeping beauties no-no spot and comes out of her mouth. There is also a bit of torture with a hot iron but there really isn't anything to recommend here unless you have the mental capacity of a middle school student who spends more time trying to peek into the girls locker room rather then learning. Then this mind numbing nonsense might be for you.

This can be found on Shameless Tasteless : Trash Cinema From The Soviet Union Underground dvd.

The Old Dark House (1932)

Another masterpiece from James Whale. This one blends horror and comedy perfectly. Its almost impossible to decipher which genre the film leans more towards.

This film would be released one year after Whale's classic Frankenstein and would once again star Boris Karloff as a monster. However this time around he wasn't compiled from parts of different corpses. Instead he is a drunken mongoloid. When he gets to drinkin violence is bound to break out. Considering his brute strength this is pretty scary. However Boris Karloff isn't the only danger in the house.

When five people are caught in a horrible storm which comes complete with flooding and a mountain top avalanche, they are forced to seek shelter in The Old Dark House. They are not exactly welcomed but they are greeted in to warm up by the fire and get something to eat. While mongoloid Boris Karloff "Tips the bottle" in the kitchen a deaf woman throws mean comments around at our guests "your pretty clothes will rot and so will your pretty flesh" and her brother who most would remember as Dr. Pretorious in Bride Of Frankenstein doesn't hide his feelings of fear and contempt for the old dark house. He is also an atheist who mocks god during dinner. You gotta love how James Whale manages to throw in his anti religious views into 1930's cinema.

The stranded guests start to believe that the house is cursed when they find an old decaying man who is locked in a room towards the top of the house. The old man warns them of the dangers within the house and tells them to beware of Saul, a madman who lives in the house. Well Saul does in fact exist and he chases the guests around with knives and sets fire to the house.

Some how this morbid tale is filled with jokes and comedic characters. The comedy is never over the top and it is done just right. Its sure to get a chuckle out of you.

In the following year James Whale would continue his routine of horror with a sense of humor with The Invisible Man but unlike his Universal monster flicks The Old Dark House is still somewhat of an unseen movie. I think it is one of those movies that film makers love and even more love to pay homage to but unfortunately as far as the general public goes this movie doesn't get the notoriety that it deserves.

The Shining (1980)

When it comes to mainstream horror movies, they really don't get much better then this axe swinging classic.

The cast is perfect. Jack Nicholson acts his heart out as the axe wielding psychopathic family man. Shelly Duvall is perfect as the annoying wife and even the child actor is great. Scatman Crothers shows up as the psychic with the heart of gold. Scatman can brighten up any movie, even one as grim and scary as The Shining.

Of course the acting performance was brought to its height from master director Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick makes The Shining the memorable classic that it is with beautiful angles and sexy camera work. Every shot is framed to perfection and if you broke The Shining down into still photos I'm sure that every single frame would make for a nice picture in your home.

The Shining has been analyzed and many times even over analyzed bore boring self rightous sophisto-cats. I am not about to go down that bumpy road but what I will say is that this film remains one of the creepiest ever made and it doesn't matter how many times you go back and look at it. It still manages to scare the socks off ya. From the heart pounding chase scenes to the eerie images that pour onto the screen like the corridors of blood (not to be mistaken for the Boris Karloff flick) or infamous furry blow job scene. I remember when I was a kid seeing this movie for the first time I jumped right from my seat at that moment.

It still amazes me to this day that Stephen King despises this film because it is clearly the best adaption from any of his novels that has ever hit the screen. Sure I understand that it isn't true to the writers book but who cares... Its still a cinematic masterpiece. Then in 1997 some asshole had the audacity to remake the film which played much more like the book reads. Naturally it is an awful fucking disgrace but of course Mr. King liked it. I don't know if I can listen to mans opinion on movies when they claim the best horror movie ever made to be Toolbox Murders. (Which was also remade and completely destroyed.

We even get a bit of tit and bush in a steamy bath tub scene. Well lets just say it starts off steamy because things definitely cool down quick with the next image to follow. We are treated to a naked senior citizen woman covered in mold and decaying on the screen. Its a pretty nasty sight. Yuck!

For those who grew up under a rock and have not scene The Shining my first suggestion would be to have your head fixed. Jack Nicholson plays Jack Torrance a writer who took on the obligation of looking over The Over Look Hotel for the winter. The hotel has a very violent past with a former caretaker who chopped his family to bits with an axe and then blew his own brains out with a gun.

Since the hotel is fucking enormous we follow Jack Torrance in and out of bizarre rooms where some not so nice things have happened. We also follow him into his decent of madness and mad he is. In fact he is crazier than bat-shit and its not long before Mr. Torrance is chasing his own wife and kid around the Over Look with an axe of his own. 

The Shining manages to hold some what of a touch of comedy to it as well. It is not overbearing. Just the right touch to relieve tension from the insanity that we surround ourselves with for 146 minutes.

The Shining is one of the best. So don't chop your kids up with an axe tonight. Instead take em to see this immortal classic.