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.

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.

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

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!

Halloween Horror Countdown: Pontypool

With Halloween rearing it's ugly, misshapen head that means horror films are popular again. And if you are looking for cerebral and gore, I have just the thing for you.

Pontypool is about a Canadian shock jock that his career has dwindled to him doing radio shows in the basement of a church. His day starts off like any snowy morning in Pontypool, with reports of schools and street being closed due to snow. As the day goes on, weird calls keep coming in about people committing random acts of violence, repeating the same words over and over again, and military vehicles showing up. Everything takes place within the radio studio, and more callers keep calling about the weird happenings going on in the town. Soon, a girl working for the station starts to show zombie-riffic behavior. The crew hides themselves in the radio room as she terrorizes people coming in until she just kills herself. More accounts of people like her keep coming over the lines.

Pontypool is a zombie film that still has all the gore, but does something completely different from others zombie flicks. With most zombies infecting people with bites or a disease, this zombie virus infects people with the English language. Every word is a potential landmine to become zombified. The people trapped even resort to speaking French to survive.

This film is not short on gore, nor is it short on social commentary. This film is War of the Worlds meets Night of the Living Dead, but thrusted to a new level of fear with how the "zombie virus" can travel. If you are tired of all of the same zombies movies that have become too formulaic, this is the perfect film for you. I give this film 4 and half blood-vomiting girls out of 5.

(Bringing new meaning to the phrase "White Girl Wasted")

Halloween Horror Countdown: Scream

So meta: Jamie Kennedy urges
Jamie Lee Curtis to turn around
while watching Halloween

Master of Horror Wes Craven (The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street) sparked a resurgence of slasher flicks in the 90s with the release of Scream in 1996. It is a horror film about horror films. The entire Scream series is suspenseful, self-referential, and meta, but as with many film sagas, the first is definitely the best.  When a ghost-faced murderer begins terrorizing teenagers in the small town of
Woodsboro, a group of friends consider "the rules" of horror films as they try to survive. It's an incredibly fun movie to watch with the perfect blend of suspense and wit.