Halloween Horror Countdown: Antichrist

With every horror fan, there is that quest of finding the best horror film ever. And not the best in the pantheon of horror, but that certain film that speaks to them on a certain level. For me that horror film is Antichrist. It is on another level of horror that not many horror film can attain and a level that not many horrors fans get the pleasure of even seeing.

Antichrist stars Williem Dafoe and Charlette Gainsbourg as He and She. The film starts off with a gorgeous prologue that moves in decadent dazzling dreamlike speed as She and He have sex.Their faces become a strange and exciting mix between pain and pleasure. While they are having sex there are shots cutting in between of their child in his crib. The knock things off of tables; the child escapes from his crib. They are in ecstasy; the the window from the second floor opens. They are in their own world; their child falls out of the window and exits the world.



After this prologue ends, the film begins, with the first of three stages: Grief. She and Him escape from their lives after the death of their child. The go to a cabin in the woods called Eden.  Here they begin the stage of grief. She blames herself and He tries to use his psychobabble to help her heal. There are many scenes in this section of the film where nature is taking over their lives as if it is an antibody trying to fix a wrong they committed. The same act that created their son becomes the same act that took his life. She blames herself and He lets her. She becomes destructive, and mentally destroys herself. AT the very end of this chapter the a deer locks eye contact with him. As the deer walks away, a dead baby fawn is halfway hanging out of its mother's womb.



The second and next chapter is: Pain. Nature becomes a much stronger force for them. Their cabin being pelted with acorns, engorged ticks attack His hand as he sleeps, and at the end of this sinister chapter a, He finds a fox disemboweling itself and it utters two words to him: Chaos Reigns.

The last and final chapter is: Despair. This couple were at psychological tipping points and now with the death of their child they have been completely flipped and She believes they need to be punished for their child's death. She has sex with him and then mutilates him. She knocks him unconscious and in his unconscious state she makes a hole in his leg. In this hole she put a metal rod attached to a grindstone that can only be taken off with a large wrench, which she hides. He wakes up to discover his cannot stand up with the large grindstone embedded in his leg. He escapes and she looks for him. He finds a fox hole, where a crow has been buried alive. She hears the crow, and he tries to kill the crow with a rock, but it won't die. She tries to get him out of the fox hole but cannot reach him.



There is another chapter that does not deal with the three stages of their mourning. In this chapter She mutilates herself in a scene that will make you not look at scissors the same way.

The main reason this film is on a different level from other horror films is the fact that it is truly horrifying. It does not try to use cheap scares to appease the audience nor does it try to kill off as many people for the sake of death. This film deals with the aftermath of death; mourning. It presents itself in away that is shocking yet understandable of why they are hurting each other this way. There is nothing that really scares them anymore because the one scary thing to them, losing their child, already happened and they blame themselves for it.

Antichrist does have religious allusions, but the word here is being used in a different manner. An Antichrist would mean there would have to be a Christ like figure, which there is not.  This is psychological horror at its best and it will also appease the torture porn junkies out there, but this film is not for everyone. If you want a horror film that deviates from the status quo, this is the perfect film for you. I give Antichrist 5 falling children out of 5.

Halloween Horror Countdown: Eraserhead

Eraserhead Review
By Erik Luchsinger

                                                                        en.wikipedia.org


Movies mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. To some they are entertainment, to others they are a hobby, and to still others, movies are art. David Lynch's Eraserhead takes a genuinely weird-as-fuck approach to everyone's favorite moving visual medium (pornography excluded, of course) to create a monster of a film that is barely recognizable as a "movie" in the context of movies today.

Eraserhead is about a man living in an industrial wasteland of a town on what seems to be some kind of abandoned moon, floating in space. He and his lover/epileptic lady friend have something of a shotgun wedding at the hands of aforementioned lady friend's parents and end up with a deformed "baby" that they try halfheartedly to raise. After long bouts of creepy music, intense hallucinations and dream sequences the movie goes out with a disgusting bang as the baby grows and becomes even more deformed. Cue some odd visuals involving a pencil factory and (thankfully) the movie is over.

                                                                           'Nuff Said
                                                                         www.reddit.com

From my overview of the plot it may sound like I dislike this movie, but that's not quite right. It's not easy to describe my feelings towards Eraserhead because it's not a normal movie. Regular critiques like "the acting was good" and "I enjoyed the story" don't mean anything in the context of Eraserhead. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "good" movie. It isn't enjoyable to watch unless you enjoy feeling uncomfortable, awkward, and like you're covered in some kind of industrial-grade machine grease and badly need to take a shower. There is very little dialogue and most of it doesn't really mean anything because there's no story. You don't feel attached to any of the characters. For these reasons, the movie can even be boring at times if you're not in the right mood for a proper mindfuck.

All that being said, Eraserhead accomplishes something few horror movies do, which is to make the viewer genuinely feel things. Watching this movie will scare you, it will make you feel dirty, nervous, anxious, nauseous, and probably a little like you're losing your mind. The music and soundscape is straight out of a nightmare, as is the nonsensical and disorienting way that the plot progresses. The visual texture is gritty. The awkward nature of the characters adds to the whole inhuman feeling of Eraserhead. You will walk away from this movie feeling like you just awoke from a terrible dream, the kind that makes you question who you are and what you're doing with your life.

Before I wrap this up, I want to address one of the ever-present questions regarding weird cult movies: should I watch it stoned/drunk/on acid/after licking too many toads? The answer in this case is HELL FUCKING NO. This isn't The Big Lebowski we're talking about here, this is some weird fucking shit. Eraserhead isn't funny or even remotely amusing. Getting high and watching it will more likely than not result in you standing in front of your bathroom mirror trying to pull all your hair out. Why? Because you will have actually gone insane. Just watch it sober and try to think happy thoughts. It wont totally mitigate the terror that Eraserhead will unleash upon you, but it might help a little. This warning goes doubly for psychedelics.

                                              Shrooms and David Lynch Movies: not a good combo
                                                                        en.wikipedia.org

Eraserhead is a trip of a movie. It's not like any other movie I've ever seen. No amount of jump scares and CGI will terrify you in the way that Eraserhead will. Sure, it's not a Halloween classic, at least in most circles, but it is genuinely scary. If you're looking to get spooked out this Halloween, I'd highly suggest adding Eraserhead to your gauntlet of terror. This is a 5/5 if you're in the market for a horror experience, but a 1.5/5 if you're looking for a movie that makes any kind of sense.

Whiplash REVIEW

With every niche genre of film, there is a film within that genre that destroys all notions and cliches within that genre. Whiplash is one of those film. Within every mentor/student film, there is the same basic storyline. Mentor sees something in student, student pushes himself because of mentor, something happen that brings student down, and mentor and student go against all odds and the students proves to himself, mentor, and everyone else that he is worth something. Whiplash doesn't do any of these things. It doesn't even try to do these things.

Whiplash tells the story of Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller), a jazz drummer at a Juilliard-esque type music school. While practicing one day, Terence Fletcher (JK Simmons), one of the schools toughest teachers, listens to him and then leaves out of boredom. Andrew realizes that it was such a loss for Fletcher to lose interest in him, but he proves himself worthy later on to be in Fletcher's Studio Jazz Band.

Once there, Fletcher degrades, curses, and diminishes players who are not worthy to be in his band. He seems to imprint on Andrew pushing him and throwing chairs when he fails. When another player makes a mistake and Andrew has to take his place during a competition, Andrew starts to attain a certain confidence that shows in his regular life. With that confidence he asks a girl out that he frequently sees at a movie theatre. They start a budding relationship that makes Andrew not a solitary person like he always is.


When Fletcher gets another alternate that starts to go up against Andrew, he starts to lose his cool and lashes out at Fletcher, When a song that they are supposed to play at the next competition is supposed to be played at 300BPM, Fletcher makes all the drummers play until 2 in the morning when their hands and drums are covered in blood until Andrew is the one that prevails.

When the day of the competition comes and he is late, Andrew loses his part and lashes out at Fletcher. He gets expelled for attacking Fletcher.  When Andrew's father finds out, he talks to a lawyer because a student recently committed suicide who was also under Fletcher's wing. Fletcher then loses his job and Andrew becomes aimless after being expelled from school.

Andrew walks around town one night near a jazz bar, and sees Fletcher playing. The two talk and everything seems amicable. Fletcher tells Andrew that he was fired from school, but doesn't know who did. Fletcher asks Andrew to be the drummer in his new jazz ensemble that is playing at a jazz festival.

I won't ruin the ending or the climax of this film, but it is explosive and there are multiple reversals that when the ending does happen you just want more of it. Teller and Simmons both give performances that are career defining for both. Miles Teller has been a scene stealer with every film he has done in his short film career, but for J.K. Simmons this is a role that people will remember him for.

What makes this film different is the fact that this teacher student dynamic does not follow the same formula. It is seeped with destructive egos and an ebb and flow of a power struggle to be the best and create the best. Each jazz session feels like a war, and there is a reason this film has been nicknamed "Full Metal Julliard". Simmons's character is also such a delightful monster. He keeps changing from tyrannical teacher to showing signs of humanity that makes people relate and understand what he does, and how he wants to create the next great jazz musician. This film is a maelstrom of music. Where jazz songs feel like a battlefield of notes. The scripts writes itself into a corner, that when it finds a way out it creates such a  firestorm of a jazz sequence that is cinema at its best. I give Whiplash 5 bloody drum sticks out of 5.

Halloween Horror Countdown: Night of the Living Dead

If you tease your sister in a
horror movie, you will probably die.

George A. Romero's 1968 independent film Night of the Living Dead is the zombie flick that started it all. When Barbara and Johnny visit their father's grave, Barbara is visibly uncomfortable in the cemetery. Johnny does what brothers do: he teases her with the famous line, "They're coming to get you, Barbara!" Barbara is then attacked by a man she could have easily escaped from by walking briskly. Johnny tries to save her but he falls down and Barbara runs to the car. She quickly crashes into a tree (because stereotypes) and seeks refuge in a farm house where she finds a dead woman and a non-threatening black man. The two then discover others trying to survive, including a married couple and their "sick" daughter. They band together to protect themselves and work to board up the house. An emergency broadcast informs the group that there is speculation that radioactive contamination from a space probe returning from Venus might be the cause.

The film has been attributed to creating much of the lore that surrounds zombies, including the concept that the zombie's brain must be destroyed in order for it to truly die. This comes from the line, "Kill the brain and you kill the ghoul." In 1999, Night of the Living Dead was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as a film deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant." Due to an error by the film's distributor, Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain. It is also streaming on Netflix, so you basically have no excuse for not watching it.

MARVEL Reveals Movie Lineup, ManChild loses his shit.

Marvel just released it's full cinematic schedule all the way through 2019 and it looks beyond amazing. One thing that is not in there is a stand alone Hulk film which still may happen, but not necessarily. Though the Hulk will be featured in all 3 Avengers films. There is also not a stand alone Black Widow movie (Not Iggy Azalea) set.

Captain America: Civil War
May 6th, 2016

The film will be about "a global superhuman registration with a specific inciting incident." I'm guessing something very bad will have happened in Avengers: Age of Ultron that will cause this. In the comics, Captain America and Iron Man choose separate sides on the issue causing and all out war with all super heroes.


Doctor Strange
Nov 4th, 2016

 Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) is negotiating for the role, but is not fully set yet.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2
May 5th, 2017

Thor: Ragnarok
July 28th, 2017

(Picks up immediately after Ultron)

Black Panther
Nov 3rd, 2017

Chadwick Boseman (42, Get on Up) will play the title role. He is a big player in Civil War and we should be introduced to him in Age of Ultron.

Avengers: Infinity War Part I
May 4th, 2018

We'll finally see the Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet story!

Captain Marvel
July 6th, 2018

Carol Danvers is the title character, but no casting has been made yet.

Inhumans
Nov 2nd, 2018

Avengers: Infinity War Part II
May 3rd, 2019

Halloween Horror Countdown: Martyrs

There are some horror films that are pure psychological mind fucks, over the top scares, and so much gore you feel like your eyes just puked. Martyrs is one of those films that embodies all three of these elements. The film begins with Lucie, escaping from an abandoned building and no one knows how long she has been there. before she escapes, she sees another girl strapped down on a chair, instead of helping her, she runs away making sure her own freedom is intact.

15 years later, Lucie and Anna, a girl who Lucie befriended at the orphanage she grew up in, find a house where a family lives. The parents of this family are the ones who helped capture her and torture her all those years ago. Lucie comes blasting in the house with a shotgun killing the family as soon as she can. She has to do this because after leaving that facility that held her for years, she has been having ghoulish visions of an emaciated girl attacking her until she can get her revenge.



Once the family is dead however, the monstrous girl that Lucie sees, still attacks her. Lucie calls Anna for help, but all Anna see is Lucie mutilating herself, which Lucie has been doing all these year, There never was a monster.

This is where the film takes a turn for the worse (or best depending on how you look at it). Lucie kills herself once she realizes the monster won't stop attacking her. Anna buries her body in the family's yard and spends the rest of the night in the house.

Later, sh finds a torture room in the basement where a woman is being held. She is wearing a strange metal device on the bottom of her torso, and on her head not allowing her to see. Anna helps clean her up and revive her, but when the woman can move on her own, she kills herself.



Anna then hears noises from outside and there are many people coming into the house. The family that lived there belonged to an organization that tortures people. When they find Anna alone surrounded by bodies, they believed she did this and becomes one of their victims.

The first half of Martyrs is an astounding horror romp of revenge and psychological psychosis. The second half takes a slowly more methodical turn, but it has one of the greatest horror endings in this genre or any genre. This is one of those films where once you've seen it, you can't really say much without giving away the ending. Its torture porn at it's best, but with a wallop of an ending to rival any of the great classic horror films, Martyrs has become one of the go to films for Gorror nerds everywhere. I give Martyrs 4 Shot-Gunned Family Members out of 5.

Halloween Horror Countdown: Paranormal Activity

(I don't think the ghost is here to tell you the good news)

A young couple begin to experience supernatural occurrences in their home and document their experiences. Naturally shit escalates and the couple begins to wonder not if their home is haunted, but how evil is it.

The indie that kicked off an entire franchise that we're now kinda of tired of, (Just like Saw) Paranormal Activity  reignited the found footage horror film genre. How it's different from today's saturated subpar genre is that it doesn't have any shaky cam. Instead a majority of the film is shot on a stationary camera that is positioned in the couple's bedroom looking down the hallway. Believe me, that alone builds a lot of suspense when you can hear footsteps on the stairs but still can't see anything there. There's also not a lot of fake out cat scares in the movie but actual horror. Bed sheets moving, creepy ass sounds, people being dragged by invisible forces, all that fun stuff that has the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

(When you wake up at night and here a noise in the house)

So if your looking for a good real feeling scare from ghosts and not sleeping soundly by yourself for a few nights, check out Paranormal Activity. 5/5

The Devil's Fucking Carnival

Devil's Carnival Review
By Erik Luchsinger

                                                                                                                     en.wikipedia.org

Netflix. Oh, lord, Netflix. It has so many options, which is (like elephantiasis of the balls) a blessing and a curse. Sure, it allows you to watch 30 Rock until your eyes bleed and your liver fails, but it also occasionally bequeaths upon you a movie that is so horrendous, so confusing, so utterly and dumbfoundingly stupid that you will both love it an be thoroughly embarrassed to watch it. The movie I speak of is The Devil's Carnival.

The Devil's Carnival is the "trhilling" story of three... sinners who die and go to Hell. Hell, in this case, is a carnival inhabited by such terrifying creatures as The Hobo Clown, a midget whose sole purpose in life is kicking people in their shins, and a fake Fonzi wearing a plastic, hair shaped hat.

                                             It's exactly the version of Hell they teach you about in Sunday School.
                                                                                                                     www.banana1015.com

The plot revolves around the "sinners," one of whom is Sean Patrick Flannery, an actor you may recognize from the actually watchable movie The Boondock Saints. He commits suicide for ambiguous reasons, presumably because he realized how far his career has fallen in recent years. Another of the sinners is a lady in a ridiculous roaring twenties dress who stole some... stuff, or something, and gets shot by the cops. As we all know, theft and suicide are looked down upon by God (who is a fat dude who paints dolls, apparently), which is why Sean Patrick Failure and the other chick end up in Hell. The third sinner, though, is clearly in an abusive relationship and gets shot by her boyfriend. She ends up in Hell for this, which is utterly confusing.

Now there are a lot of hilariously bad things about The Devil's Carnival, but the best/worst of them is the fact that it's a musical. Yeah, you heard me right: it's a fucking musical. What's more is that nobody can sing well and all the "songs" were apparently written by aliens who have no concept of what music is. You see, during the "musical numbers" there are a number of horns and pianos making noise, as well as actors using their vocal chords to make sounds, but none of it combines to make what is popularly known as "music."

I wont ruin all the half-baked carnival antics by spelling them out for you. There are a lot of confusing themes at play, though. Considering the movie is about Hell there is a considerable amount of punishing people for their sins (even though being in an abusive relationship isn't a sin, but just ignore that part), including one scene that borders on softcore torture porn. The Devil is also apparently a fan of Aesop's Fables as he spends a lot of time reading them to his midget friends and trying desperately to make them relevant to the things happening in the movie.

                                                                                     SPOILER: he fails
                                                                                                           www.bloody-disgusting.com
No matter what your Halloween movie lineup is I guarantee there is some room for comedy, even if that comedy is unintentional. The Devil's Carnival is deliciously terrible, so much so that you might want to ease yourself into the mood with a beer or two. And probably an entire fifth of whiskey. Netflix is full of hidden "gems," and The Devil's Carnival is among the "best." 4/5, using the "so bad it's good but still also really bad" scale.

Halloween Horror Countdown: Insidious

Director James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring) has mastered the jump scare in Insidious and he did it without a loud brass horn or a woman's screams. The film is about a young boy named Dalton Lambert who is capable of "astral projection," or out-of-body experiences. He leaves his body one night and can't get back to it, leaving it open for evil spirits to get in. The evil spirits can be seen all over the Lambert house throughout the film and may even go unnoticed the first time it is viewed. It features Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert, Dalton's dad, and Rose Byrne as Renai Lambert, Dalton's mom.

It also features some mega creepy music:

Haloween Horror Countdown: Cabin in the Woods

                                                                           www.imdb.com

You all know the story: a bunch of party-minded, binge drinking college sexual deviants get together for a awesome weekend at a creepy cabin in the middle of nowhere. They all expect to wake up at the end with a killer hangover, but instead they wake up murdered. It's a classic American horror plot and it's been done to death. Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard turn this trope on it's head in 2012's The Cabin in the Woods, and to great effect.

The Cabin in the Woods starts off with some witty banter between two scientist-types. They're driving around a huge facility in a golf cart, talking about childproofing cabinets and other inane bullshit. It's not the beginning you'd expect from a horror movie and it almost gives you the sense that you've made a mistake and picked the wrong movie. Fear not, though, as the facility becomes a major setting for the movie and part of one of the greatest horror movie endings ever.

We are then introduced to the crew of college students who are on their way to the cabin. They seem to be generic characters but they are actually another deviation from the typical formula. The "jock" character (Chris Hemsworth), while muscled and studly, is a sociology major on full academic scholarship and starts the movie by suggesting textbooks to one of his sexy friends. Marty, the archetypal "stoner," is not only astute and intelligent but also really, legitimately funny. The girls are sexy but not comically bimbotastic, and the geek is a black guy who (SPOILERS!) doesn't die first.

Speaking of Marty (Fran Kranz), lets just get this straight: he's the best character in the movie. His comic relief is fan-fucking-tastic. He says what the audience is always thinking during horror movies. Lines like "I'm drawing a line in the fucking sand, here: do not read the Latin!" are exactly the kind of humor that makes The Cabin in the Woods laugh out loud funny, and Marty delivers them in nearly every scene. Add his astute observations to some well crafted weed jokes and you've got a character that is easy to root for as well as hilarious.

                                 Travel-cup bong: useful for stealth smoking and disarming evil redneck zombies!
                                                                              www.filmjabber.com

THIS IS WHERE SPOILERS START! The movie is two years old already, but it's got a great ending so if you haven't seen it, don't read on! Just know that it is excellent and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to see a cool horror flick and watch it for yourself!

The first half of the movie is roughly what you'd expect: the college kids get packed and set off to the woods in their RV, smoking lots of weed and encountering a creepy backwoods gas station attendant along the way. They party in the cabin and discover some creepy shit inside it such as a one way mirror between the rooms, some weird animal heads mounted on the walls, and a cellar full of ominous old knick-knacks. This is interspersed with scenes in the command center facility where the movie begins, and it is slowly revealed that the cabin is more than it seems. The people in the facility are engineering the trip to the cabin as a sort of ritual sacrifice to appease the "ancient ones," who we can only assume are Cthulhu's angry cousins.

The first half, while entertaining, can lag at times. The scenes with the kids are generic, as they sit around drinking liquor and playing truth or dare. Even though it serves the film's purpose, scenes where drunken college kids are fucking in the forest only to get murdered by zombie rednecks with bear traps can remind you of all the terrible horror flicks that this movie isn't, which isn't something I want to be reminded of. It's a minor complaint, though.

The second half of the movie is where shit really starts to pick up, though. After it seems like everyone has died, the scientists in the command center celebrate a job well done by drinking tequila while a screen shows Dana getting beaten up by a zombie, with REO Speedwagon blasting in the background. Yet again, things aren't as they seem, though. In perhaps the most ominous, suspenseful scene in the movie, a red phone begins to ring during the party. Everyone gets quiet, and the head honcho tells them to turn off the music. Apparently, Marty didn't actually die when he got dragged into the forest by a zombie with a bear trap, which is bad news for our now drunken scientist friends.

Meanwhile, Marty saves Dana from her zombie oppressor and shows her the elevator he discovered, which they take down into what amounts to a locker room full of nightmare creatures. Many of the things on the whiteboard from earlier in the movie are present, although I was disappointing we don't get to see what Angry Molesting Tree looks like (yes, that is one of the monster options on the whiteboard!). Soon after they get out of the elevator, they find themselves in the command center proper.

                                 So what, the KKK gets a spot but we don't get to see Angry Molesting Tree?

www.io9.com

At this point, we are treated to an immensely awesome scene. Security guards, armed and armored to the teeth, rush into the elevator room to finish off Marty and Dana, but they have a plan: they hide in the control room and release all the monsters into the facility. A bloodbath of massive proportions ensues as wave after wave of zombies, demon bats, creepy ballerinas and other nightmare creatures collide with wave after wave of tender security guards. The rest of the movie is more or less an extension of this as we watch giant snakes, clowns, and (yes!) a unicorn wreak havoc in the facility. Sprinkle in a little grim humor, exposition and Sigourney Weaver and you've got a very satisfying wrap up to an overall great movie.

                                                       Yes, even this is a heartless killing machine

Cute unicorn drawing by Selina Zawacki (SZMoon.net)

If you can't tell, I have a very high opinion of The Cabin in the Woods. It is a very fresh take on perhaps the most tired of American horror movie tropes and it does it in a funny and engaging way. While it may seem a tad boring at times, it more than makes up for it in the end, which is just fucking awesome. The worst thing you could say about The Cabin in the Woods is that it isn't really scary at any point, which is something of a negative for a horror movie. Despite it's lack of scares I still think it does enough to be considered "horror," even if it's purpose is more to rip on the genre and make jokes about it than to scare the audience. I'd highly recommend this movie to anyone, especially fans of horror movies, as they will likely get the most enjoyment out of the different angle it takes on the genre. 4.5/5!