Happy Halloween

This year AMC gives us the greatest treat we could possibly receive for Halloween...

The Walking Dead premieres at 10pm, and although it hasn't aired at the time of my writing this, it already gets the Tales from the Batcave seal of approval for guaranteed awesomeness.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN KIDDIES!

Trick R Treating!

The town we live in decided to have trick or treating tonight instead of tomorrow, which was fine with me as I have to get up way too early for work Monday morning. We had a blast, and I'll just let the pics speak for themselves.

Can't really tell from this picture, but the kids came away with a ton of treats.

And finally, after a long evening of running behind my two little monsters, it was time for a treat for daddy.

The Halloween DVD motherload!

Well, this last week of October certainly hasn't been a disappointment in the dvd department. I started the week off by grabbing Splice and the new Nightmare on Elm Street (which yes, I hated, but I have every other movie in the series so there really was no way I wasn't buying this one too) at Best Buy for $10 each on Monday.

Then on Tuesday a trip to Wal-Mart would tempt me with one of those combo packs with four movies in one package, which I normally wouldn't buy because I like my movies to be separate, with their own cases and all the artwork intact, but this one I simply had to have. I picked it up and put it down at least 20 times, but with a line-up like Creep, Drive Thru, Boy Eats Girl, and Tamara all for $5, it eventually won our war of wills. I'm weak I tell you, weak!

And finally, this weekend a local Video Warehouse apparently had all of it's managerial staff go insane and run a 3 day sale with all of their previously viewed dvd's 10 for $20. After two separate trips, here's what I ended up with:

• Grace
• Deadgirl
• 9
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose
• Paranormal Activty
• Altered
• Coraline
• The Incredible Hulk
• The Midnight Meat Train
• Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
• My Bloody Valentine
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
• Cabin Fever
• Cabin Fever 2
• Dead End
• Jack O'Lantern
• Shrooms
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars
• Santa's Slay
• Wolf Creek

Most of these I've already seen and liked, but either never planned to buy, or just never got around to it, but for $2 each, I couldn't pass them up. Clone Wars I picked up for the kids, Paranormal Craptivity I got simply to see if they actually put the name "Mitch Chickentoes" in the credits, and I never got around to buying the Ed Norton Hulk film which I thought while still not perfect, was 1,000 times better than that Ang Lee atrocity. I gotta support the comic book movies though.

Overall, I'm very please with what I got for my $55. It's always good to pad the collection with both quality and quantity, especially when it can be done so cheaply. Feel free to leave your comments of burning jealousy below, I'll get around to reading them after I've watched all of my new movies.

Night of the Demons 2010

Seems as though the new Night of the Demons is making the rounds amongst the horror blogging community right now, and I watched it recently so I may as well throw in my 2 cents. Even though the Batcave isn't strictly a horror blog, I know there are so many of you out there whose movie watching hinges solely upon my recommendations and/or condemnation (which is totally a word, I looked it up).

I have to be honest, I think I've seen the original Night of the Demons once, maybe twice in my life. My absolute favorite of the series has always been NotD2, I've seen it numerous times. So as to how closely this new one follows the general plotline of the original, I can't honestly say one way or the other, though judging from what I've read, it is similar in setup only. My one and only intention with this film was to have fun for about 90 minutes, and watch Shannon Elizabeth simulate fellation on a champagne bottle. In both of those regards, this film is a resounding success.

Night of the Demons isn't going to do much to challenge your meager intelligence. It's pretty much a Halloween flick, that should probably only be watched around that time of year for maximum enjoyment. The plot is pretty paint by numbers, Angela (Shannon Elizabeth) has rented a mansion where years ago a seance was held, and 6 people were murdered, to throw the mother of all Halloween parties. Not long into it, the cops show up and party goers flee the scene, save for, you guessed it, 6 people who stumble upon the bodies of the 6 people murdered there before, unleashing the demonic curse that turns them one by one into horny hellraisers. Once all 6 are turned, the demons can escape the mansion and wreak havoc on the rest of us.

First off, let me say that Angela's was my kind of party, with my kind of people. If it were an actual real event, I would've been the first in line to get in. I had a lot of fun with this movie, it's light on scares and heavy on creature make-up and gore, there are quite a few laughs, and nobody involved seemed to be trying to make it anymore than what it was, a Halloween flick for people who love Halloween. The cast is pretty forgettable performance-wise, but there are lots of recognizable faces. I've already mentioned Shannon Elizabeth, who is starting to show her age a bit in this one, but Diora Baird (TCM the Beginning, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days), Edward Furlong (T2, Brainscan, lots of things that sucked), and Monica Keena (Freddy vs Jason) also round out the cast of people that I had seen before in other things. Also look for super cool cameo appearances from scream queens Linnea Quigley and Tiffany Shepis.

I know I sound like a broken record in all these reviews, but again, this one it what it is. In the grand scheme of things, it's a pretty awful movie. It's light in tone, substance, and pretty much all other redeeming factors when it comes to cinema. But Night of the Demons certainly plays to a specific audience, and that audience will likely have a blast watching it in a room full of like-minded individuals. Alcohol may or may not need to be present in order to enhance the fun. As for you elitist horror snobs, people who can't just sit down, turn your brain off, and have fun with a movie, there's nothing for you to see here, move along.

Zombie Outlaws!

On October 26th, the Undead Nightmare will be unleashed upon the world of Red Dead Redemption, with an entirely new single-player storyline, as well as brand new multiplayer content.

Seemingly overnight, a zombie plague ravages the once bountiful frontier, decimating the landscape and reawakening the dead. In towns, settlements, and outposts throughout the world, the uninfected citizens are left to fight for survival against waves of the undead. John Marston must ride out into the vast and terrifying world and survive long enough to find a cure.

With four unique zombie classes - each with their own characteristics, plus new infected predatory animals roaming the countryside, and non-traditional weaponry like the Blunderbuss - which can be loaded with looted remains of fallen zombies, the Undead Nightmare Pack offers an entirely original gameplay experience for fans of Red Dead Redemption.

The all new single-player narrative features new challenges, quests, and ambient events, including Missing Persons, where the player must find a missing survivor lost amongst the throngs of undead. This new release also brings new content to Multiplayer, with Undead Overrun, a brand new multiplayer survival mode where waves of infected enemies attack and players must work together to stay alive against increasingly difficult odds.

Providing even further proof that absolutely anything is better with zombies. As you may expect, myself and Mr. Marston are going to have our hands full this week, what with all the zombie folk roamin' the open range. I've been diligently working on finishing up the regular campaign in an effort to prepare to jump into the Undead Nightmare campaign today. Of course I didn't finish it, as I'm still a notorious slacker, and of course I'm still going to play the zombie campaign today. Zombie cowboys, kinda makes you want to watch Ghost Town again, don't it?

 

SuperCam

I'm likely the biggest Auburn fan any of you know, whether you're aware of this or not, unless of course you know Chris, but I think only one of you do. In case you hadn't noticed, my beloved Tigers are having a pretty good season, and that's primarily because of one man, the most explosive player in all of college football, Cameron Newton. To say that Cam is a beast simply does not do justice to his performance every single time he sets foot on a football field.

I've been quiet this season up until now, partially because I've been nervous about every game (nobody expected us to be quite this good), and partially because I don't think anybody is stopping by here hoping to read about sports. But after last night's win over hated (by me anyway) rival LSU, I'm tired of all the doubters and I'm tired of all the haters, and I thought I'd use my one and only voice on the interwebs to cordially invite them all to shut the fuck up. Even if we don't win another game this season, we are the only undefeated team in the SEC, on Saturday we took our #1 ranked offense and ran ALL over LSU's #1 ranked defense, and we made it look easy.

I don't know what the rest of the season will hold, but I know the "Bammers" are nervous, and rightly so. We still have Ole Miss and Georgia to go before the Iron Bowl though. It's going to be a nerve-wracking sprint to the finish for me, and I'm sure the rest of the War Eagle faithful, but one thing is definitely certain, Cam has given us a reason to believe that anything is possible. 

War Cam Eagle

I know the coolest people in the world.

Oh, it's true. For an anti-social bastard who hates everything and everybody, I'm lucky enough to have some of the most wonderful people in my life. As such, I think it's time to do another "thank you" shout-out post, one of which is long overdue.

First, the one that I'm shamefully late on. This summer was one of the most stressful I've ever been through, and that's saying something, but in the middle of it all I managed to close on a home. The ink had barely dried on the paperwork when my girl Lissa (whom I refer to as Betty, for obvious reasons) brought me my very first house-warming gift, a hand-made zombie to live in my kitchen. This guy is easily one of the coolest decorations in my house. He looks a little "Dia De Los Muertos"-ish, and that's perfectly awesome in my book. Click Betty's link to check out her brand new blog, Lissa's Shop of Horrors which we creatively collaborated on in the name department *ahem*I'm a genius*cough*, just keep your hands to yourself, mkay?

Yesterday, my bestest friend in the world, Threels, came by with another house-warming gift, and there are few words that accurately describe it's awesomeness. Threels is a crafty one, and recently took a class on stained glass art. Me being the kind of person I am, I of course used this as a means to beg for cool things to hang up in my house. Case in point, my latest decoration, a stained glass skull. Once again, a nod to Dia De Los Muertos, and possibly Lucha Libre wrestling if you like. She also made me my first apartment-warming gift last year when I moved back to Roanoke, a Batman Begins style stained glass Bat symbol. I recommend giving her blog, Passing Fair, a look, and it won't even take much of your time as her annual posts, while always entertaining, won't require a huge commitment.

Huge thank you's for both of these ladies for the super cool gifts. For me, little things like this go a long way toward turning a house into a home, and I can't express my gratitude enough.

Random Screen Grab

Special THING edition!

1951

1982

GWAR makes me smile.

Xmas in October?!

My brother Gregg, who has absolutely no interest in comics, but an unhealthy interest in Star Wars, recently attended the New York Comic Con (he's left all of us small town folk here in Alabama behind to become a success in the big city). He went not only for the aforementioned Star Wars attractions (slave girl Leia's) but also to meet Robert Kirkman.

Here's a picture of the lucky bastard with Mr. Kirkman

Despite my telling him over the years about various comics that I thought he'd dig, and him completely ignoring me, with the tv show looming, he started reading Walking Dead. Needless to say once he got started reading the single greatest comic book of all time that doesn't have "Batman" or "Hellboy" anywhere in the title, he couldn't get enough. After 20 years of listening to me go on and on about how awesome comics are, my brother is finally going to a shop monthly to buy a book.

Now of course, myself being the loving older brother that I am, I immediately went into full-on hater mode, whining and bitching about him getting to meet Kirkman after being a comic fan for about a month when the last creator I got to meet was James O'Barr of Crow fame, and he was a DICK. Well friends, color me ashamed, as I opened my mailbox yesterday to find a manila envelope from the G-man with lots of NYCC goodies inside, including a VIP badge, Batman comic, and the following....

A copy of the Image Firsts edition of The Walking Dead #1 signed by the man himself, Robert Kirkman! So, so excited about this! It completely surprised me, and it's gone a long way towards restoring my faith in my fellow man. I don't think the G-train makes any stops by here, but I would like to extend him the biggest public THANK YOU that is humanly possible for this. It will be displayed proudly in the Batcave from this day forth.

Infinite Playlist - Mars Needs Women

Keeping with the Halloween theme, who better to make an entry into the Infinite Playlist than Rob Zombie?! This is my favorite track off of his latest Hellbilly Deluxe 2,  "Mars Needs Women". This is also a pretty cool little fan video that somebody threw together. Enjoy!

A Nightmare on Sesame Street

Nothing I can say is going to make this post any more awesome than it already is thanks to that picture, so I'm just going to shut the hell up, but only after I encourage you to visit T-shirt Bordello where beautiful shirts such as the one above can be purchased.

2010 Pumpk-o-Lanterns!

It's my most favorite of holiday traditions, the ceremonial carving of the Halloween pumpkins. Every year I do at least two, and let the kids pick one for themselves. You might even remember last year's broken carving tool fiasco, which led to my Jason Voorhees pumpkin being just a tad uneven. This year's turned out better all around I think. This was the first year I decided to do the whole Exacto knife and not carve all the way through thing, and as far as experiments go, I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Keep in mind that I'm nowhere near a professional, and have only been at this carving thing for a few years as previously I was lame and just carved the triangle eyes and jagged teeth thing.

First the kid's pride and joy. Being that Caitlin is two, and pretty easily talked into things as long as big brother shares his approval, they went with this "werewolf" design. I can't begin to tell you how proud I was when my son saw it and said, "I want this one daddy, it's a Howling pumpkin!". Not that I've ever let him see The Howling, but just knowing that he knows what it is makes my eyes well up. Imagine how special it's going to be the first time we sit down together and watch the movie...

Ahem, got something in my eye there...anyway, here are a couple of action shots of the kids chopping away.

I sketched it out for them, and did a little detail carving with the Exacto, but Jacob did most of the heavy carving by himself this year. Caitlin impatiently waiting for her turn....

Caitlin finally getting into the action, doing her best to steady the pumpkin for big brother...

And here's the finished product! It's somewhat "Thundercats-ish" but I dig that. I'm definitely proud of them, can't wait to see what they do next year.

Now for mine. I came up with the ideas for mine almost as soon as I fniished last year's. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and was pretty confident that I'd be able to do some pretty cool pumpkins that not everybody else in the world would do. Of course I'm likely kidding myself, but just go with it and let me have my moment, mkay?

So first thing I came up with was V from one of the greatest comics, and comic based movies, of all time. The mask V wears is so iconic, and such an awesome design, I thought it would look great on a pumpkin. Provided of course that I could do a decent job of sketching and carving it. 

This one turned out to be more difficult that I anticipated, and I went through a couple of different sketches before I decided on one that I would attempt to carve. 

Remember, Remember the 5th of November...and how damn hard this pumpkin was to carve.

The next thing I wanted to do I decided on immediately after watching Trick r' Treat for the first time. It immediately became my favorite Halloween movie ever, and I fell head over heels in love with Sam. I knew I had to do a Sam pumpkin 

On Sam I did cheat a little, I actually found a pattern online to work from. I still freehanded it, but at least I had a reference on this one. I'm very happy with how he turned out.

Her's a closer shot, turned slightly so you get a view of his arm, hand, and signature half-eaten lollipop.

And those are the Bones family pumpk-o-lanterns for this year! Hope ya like 'em, and for christ's sake if you don't, please don't say shit because I spent several hours working on them, and my fingers are STILL sore.

What's a MEME?

I never do these things, partially because nobody ever wants to play with me, and partially because I know none of you really care about my opinion/answers/whatever the hell the meme is asking for. But today I'm tired, and have decided to be lazy and not come up with my own idea for a post...soooo meme it is!

I've somehow managed to miss out on the fun over at No Smoking in the Skull Cave up until now, but thanks to my blog buddy Astro over at the Cheap Bin by way of my other blog buddy Jay over at the Sexy Armpit, I stopped by and it looks like my kind of place. Plus, we cave-dwellers really should stick together, yanno? So here's my long, boring, uninteresting answers to the questions posed!


1. What is the worst treat to get while trick-or-treating?

If this is candy-only I guess I'll say candy corn, as I'm on the opinion that it was spawned forth from somewhere deep in the bowels of hell, and I don't mean that in the cool way. If anything goes, I gotta say a nail file, somebody actually gave my son a nail file with their company's logo and phone number on it a couple of years ago.


2. What character from any horror film would you most like to play?

Guess who?

3. Would you rather be a zombie, alien, or psycho? (why)

If I got to choose which alien I could be, then I would say alien, because I've always secretly wished I was Predator. However, if I just get to pick one of the above categories and no specifics, I don't wanna end up like E.T. or something, so I'd probably play it safe and say psycho, because even the lamest of psychos can be pretty cool.

4. How many Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street movies combined do you have on DVD?

All of them, and several of them in either different editions or on different formats. Grand total though, is 34.

5. What is the scariest movie you have ever seen?

Ouch, tough one here. I don't know which exactly is the "scariest", though there are plenty of movies that have given me the creeps. Off the top of the dome, I'll go with Jaws, The Strangers, Darkness, Exorcist, The Descent, Dagon. 

6. Lamest costume you have worn on Halloween?

Growing up, we never really had a lot of money, and I remember being upset one Halloween because I didn't have a costume, and my mother put me in my little league uinform and I went as a baseball player. LAME.

7. Favorite Halloween treat?

Again, if we're talking strictly candy, I'll go with Reese's Cups because I don't eat them all year long like most sane, normal people do. I only eat them around Halloween, and then in Easter Egg form when that holiday rolls around. If we're talking "treats" in general, there's now way I can pick just one. I love the entire month of October, from the weather, to the fact that for at least one month a year when regular people stop being so uptight and admit that they love monsters and creepy shit just like all of us freaks do. They're just repressed every other month.

8. Friendly jack-o-lantern or scary one? 

I don't just carve a nose, eyes, and a mouth on mine. Over the years mine have been everything from Batman to Halo to Jason. They're hardly ever friendly though, so big surprise here, I'll go with scary.

9. Have you ever had nightmares about a scary movie character chasing you?

I'm sure I have had way more than I remember, but the one that's stuck with me throughout my entire life is one that I had when I was 9-ish. I was in a giant room, on an extremely narrow path about the width of a 2x4, suspended in the air above water, and this wasn't just water, it was shark infested water, and not just any sharks, but THE shark. Jaws. My family was on the other side of the room screaming for me to hurry across, and I was too terrified to move. *shudder*

10. Best thing about Halloween?

What's not to love about Halloween?! The weather is turning, the free candy, dressing up my kids (and myself) to go trick or treating, I get to buy the coolest stuff to decorate my house with, lots of cheap horror dvd's, lots of great stuff on tv, after-Halloween sales, and I could go on, and on.

11. Strangest Halloween custom that you've heard of?

Don't know how "strange' it is to everybody, but the one that REALLY pisses me off is celebrating Halloween, but calling it "Fall Festival" to make it sound less "evil". Living right smack dab in the bible belt SUCKS. We can't celebrate Halloween because it's from the Devil. Little kids dressing up like cowboys, throwing a bedsheet over their heads to be ghosts, and little girls dressing like princesses, to walk around and get free candy. Clearly the work of Satan. And then of course there's the church's version of the haunted house...the dreaded "Judgement Journey". Because it's perfectly fine to be scary and have a haunted house as long as we Jesus it up!

12. Person in your family who most likes Halloween (other than you)?

That's another tough one, but I'm gonna call it a tie between my son and my brother.

13. Are you superstitious? If so name at least one superstition of yours.

My answer to this one's not exactly Halloween related, but yes I am superstitious. My main superstition pertains to the greatest sport on Earth, hockey. During the playoffs I always grow a playoff beard if one of my teams make it in, just like the players. Last season my Flyers went all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, and by the time all was said and done, I had grown myself one EPIC playoff beard. Below is a picture I took right before game 7 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals, it was much, much worse before the end, trust me.

And there you go. I gotta admit that was kinda fun, I even envisioned that somebody would actually read all that crap as I wrote it. If you haven't done so yet, get your ass in gear and join in the Halloween meme excitement!

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Mister Bones' Top 5

What's better than Friday the 13th movies? Friday the 13th comics! Ok, so maybe that's not entirely true, as just as in movie tie-in gaming, movie tie-in comics are usually not all that great. True to form though, I buy anything Jason related that I can get my hands on, be it horrible NES games, or not so great comic books.

They're not ALL bad though, and I would even go so far as to say I actually enjoyed quite a bit of the most recent Friday comics from Wildstorm/DC. I'm looking at you, Abuser and the Abused. One thing though that's impossible to argue is that while the writing was hit or miss, there was some seriously nice art that came out of the run. And with that, it's top 5 time!

Top 5 Friday the 13th Comic Covers

5. Freddy vs Jason vs Ash: The Nightmare Warriors #1 by Arthur Suydam

4. Friday the 13th: Pamela's Tale #2 by Dustin Nguyen

3. Friday the 13th #1 by Ryan Sook

2. Friday the 13th: Abuser and the Abused by Brandon Badeaux

 1. Friday the 13th #1 variant cover by Tim Bradstreet

So there are my picks for the top 5. There are lots of other great covers though, and picking just 5 turned out to be pretty difficult. Being that I mentioned earlier in the week that I was a fan of Altitude director Kaare Andrews' art, and being that Kaare also did a couple of Friday the 13th covers, I thought just this once I'd throw in a little bonus pick. Below if Kaare's cover to How I Spent my Summer Vacation #1. Love it, and it almost made the top 5 cut, but fell just short due to Arthur Suydam's beautiful painted art for FvJvA.

Bonus! Friday the 13th: How I Spent my Summer Vacation #1 by Kaare Andrews