Treehouse of Horror XXII

Yet another of my absolute favorite Halloween traditions, the annual Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons airs tonight at 8pm est on Fox. Looks like we'll get parodies of Avatar, and a "hidely-ho neighborino" Ned Flanders version of Dexter, among other things. Can't wait!

Shark Pool

Friday Night Drive-In

Tis' the season, so tonight the Drive-In is showing John Carpenter's classic! If you're reading this blog, you've probably seen this movie a million times, and before the end of the weekend, will probably be changing that number to a million and one. I know I'm gonna be watching it at some point before Monday night. So sit back, relax, and watch one of the greatest horror films of all time.

"I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life and death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six year old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes....the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply...evil."

Girl Problems

If you having girl problems, I feel bad for you son. 

Mr. Monster got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one.

Why Won't You Die...Trent?

Ah, frat boys. They've always been a staple of horror films, particularly the slasher genre. While they're almost always a nuisance, they also tend to add a bit of comic relief as they're portrayed as bumbling, brain dead idiots who almost always meet a particularly humorous and untimely demise. Let's be honest here, the people who are writing/directing/producing these movies, not to mention the usual target audience, probably have had to deal with some degree of ridicule or even bullying from the alpha males in their respective high schools growing up. To be able to mock and ultimately kill off characters like these has got to be therapeutic to some degree.

Enter Trent, the uber-douchebag from Friday the 13th 2009. Not content to simply conform to the jock meathead mold of picking on the meak, he even goes so far as to act like a complete tool to the friends he's apparently invited to his parent's lake house simply to show it off. This guy seriously had the douchebag-o-meter way into the red. He didn't really start to push my buttons until he committed two sins though. First, he was a complete and total dick to Sam Winchester, who was only in town because his younger sister was missing and he was handing out fliers in the hopes that somebody had seen her. You do NOT disrespect a Winchester, son. Secondly, he banged the chick with the nicest boobs on planet Earth, even though he had what I assumed was his perfectly hot girlfriend already there at the cabin with him. Not only did he bang her, but then he let her get killed by Jason. Not cool, bro. Sorry but you gotta go.

And just as with most teenagers in a Friday the 13th film, go he does. Not as painfully as I'd hoped, but it's always fun to watch Jason run his machete through his chest before sticking his body on the back of the tow truck as it speeds away. As much as I enjoy that though, I'd be lying if I said I didn't get more enjoyment out of hearing Trent scream like a little bitch when the Sheriff's body crashes through the windshield of the patrol car he's sitting in. Trent, just die already bro.

Infinite Playlist - Abigail

A fitting video and song to add to my Infinite Playlist for Halloween week than Abigail from Motionless in White. It's a pretty fucked up video, although if you've ever seen the video for Orhwurm from Cephalic Carnage, your opinion will undoubtedly be skewed on that particular subject. Still this one has some pretty disturbing imagery. Good song though. Enjoy!

Random Screen Grab

Bonus Screen Grab! 

When you're at the Waxworks and there's a guy with an ax, do the Creep AHH! Do the Creep AHH!!!

2011 Jack-o-Lanterns

Today me and the kiddos did my favorite of all Halloween traditions, the carving of our pumpkins. We each had one, and I let them pick out stencils for theirs and as per usual I free handed mine. The idea all along for me was to do a Michael Myers one for this year. Being that he's sorta the unofficial face of Halloween, no disrespect to Sam intended, I have only ever done one Myers before. I did it as sort of a nod to the cover of Halloween 5, minus the Danielle Harris in clown suit because let's be perfectly honest here, I nowhere near talented enough to pull that off.

I think it turned out ok, it looks better in person, but you can sorta get the idea from the picture....

The kids both got to pick a pattern from one of my books again this year. My 7 year old chose a skeleton because and I quote "It's like you dad, Mister Bones". You know I'm not arguing with that, so skeleton it is. He's a little friendlier than I like, but still. I drew the pattern on for him and pretty much gave the kid a saw and told him to go at it. Again, this actually looks better in person but here's the end result...

And finally, the light of my life, my 3 year old daughter. We all picked our pumpkins from a pumpkin patch last weekend, and of course my son picked the biggest one he could find, and miss Caitlin picked the smallest one with the maximum amount of mold and imperfections she could find. She insisted that I could clean it up. So needless to say it made for interesting carving. She picked several really large, and challenging designs before I finally talked her into one that would both fit on her small pumpkin, and be a little easier for her to do with minimal assistance. I say that not because I didn't want to help her, but because she's a 3 year old little girl and informs me on a daily basis that she doesn't need my help with anything. So anyway, here's what we ended up with...

It's cute, no? I ended up having to help more than she liked, but she did do quite a bit of it without me. So that's our jack-o-lanterns this year. Not my strongest work, but I think Mikey turned out ok. I still think last year's are my favorite yet. Hope everybody is getting as excited about Halloween as we are at the Bones household! When you finish your jack-o-lanterns, drop me a link in the comments, I'd love to see em.

Bricks of War

Friday Night Drive-In

Not to be confused with the bullshit family friendly Michael Keaton "Jack Frost", this one features a maniacal snowman on a bloody rampage! It's been a while since I've seen this one, but I've always liked it. It fits nicely into that "so bad it's good" category and is actually pretty damn hilarious. A serial killer on his way to be executed is mutated when the prison bus he's being transported in collides with a truck carrying "genetic research" chemicals. Jack returns as an evil snowman, looking to exact revenge on the sheriff who caught him and brought his killing spree to an end.

It sounds awful and it is, but in a fun way. There are some pretty amusing holiday themed kills, some horrible camera work, and the effects are hilariously bad. It all adds to Jack Frost's charm though, and I find it impossible not to like it. Grab your popcorn and enjoy!

"The world's most pissed off snow cone!"

Some Random Paper Wasting

Didn't have time to write anything else for today, so I'm just gonna post some random stuff in the "Wasting Paper" department. First up, a couple of my son's latest...

With the release of Gears of War 3 a couple weeks ago, everybody in my house has Gears fever again, and my 7 year old is  no exception. Here we have what appears to be a couple of "Lowcust" getting the pain brought to them by Marcus and the Cole Train (sporting his Gene Simmons Kiss platform cleats no less).

Next up, his latest caricature of his dear old dad. I must say he's getting better at drawing me. This time out, I have all my appendages! I'm also apparently now bald, wear skinny jeans and fingerless gloves, and bear a striking resemblance to the Rage Guy.

Remember the post I did with the cd drawings? Well I've done a couple more cd's lately, here they are...

Another Freddy

Michael Myers

Kang and Kodos

And finally one from a really for real artist, and friend of mine. A couple weeks ago I put out the word to any and all of my friends who had any artistic ability whatsoever that I was aware of to help me decorate my mostly barren walls with art. I know a handful of people who draw, paint, etc. and I figured, it's my house, and I'm not really interested in pictures of fruit or farm houses, and there's only so many pictures of my kids I can hang up, so why not hang up art that I actually dig? Last week I got my first picture, from a guy I met while working at the comic store. He always turned in his orders from Previews with some sort of original art, and I always thought they were great, so he was the first guy I asked to do me a sketch. I basically told him I was a 9 year old trapped in a 33 year old body, and I liked Batman and monsters. I left the rest up to him, and here's what he did for me...

Is this amazing, or what? I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when he sent me a picture of it. I think it pretty much goes without saying that I absolutely love it. If there's anybody reading out there who likes to draw, paint, whatever, and would like to contribute to operation decorate the Batcave, drop me a line. I can only offer my most sincerest of thank you's as payment, but some would say that's worth more than money anyway...

Can't Blog Now

I'm busy.

Frank West

He's covered wars, you know.

Infinite Playlist - Who Do You Voodoo Bitch?

The title track from the best video game ever, Dead Island, courtesy of in-game character Sam B. It's cheesy, but at the same time infectious. Can't get it out of my head right now, enjoy!

I Never Win Anything!

Ha! I literally never win anything, in fact I have the worst luck of anybody I know. Imagine my surprise when I went to one of my daily blog stops, Hayes Hudson's House of Horrors and saw that I was one of the winners of his latest dvd giveaway contests! I won a brand spanking new copy of Shellter, which looks like a pretty cool little flick. Not content with just shipping the dvd, Hayes even threw in a congratulations letter, some business cards, post cards, and a freaking House of Horrors magnet! Check out the pics below for a look at all the goodies. As you can see I'm putting my magnet to good use already, holding my "Happy Birthday to Me" and "Chopping Mall" stickers in place on the front of my fridge.

Thanks so much to Hayes Hudson's House of Horrors for the dvd and goodies. Much appreciated! The House of Horrors belongs in everybody's blog roll, if you've never visited, I highly recommend you click the link above and take a look around.

Chillerama

So my brother is home from New York for a visit, and our original plan was to head to Sloss Furnace in Birmingham for their haunted tour. It's supposed to be one of the most haunted places in the country, and even though it's only 3 hours away, we've never been. Plans had to be changed though, as last night was the one and only time that Chillerama was playing in Atlanta, and believe me Chillerama trumps Sloss Furnace every single time. So we got a group together and headed to the Midtown Arts Center for a midnight screening. I had never been to this theater before, and despite not being overly impressed with the staff, who immediately identified us as "Chillerama people" when we walked in, it was a decent enough place. I have to give it props for the Chillerama screening, and when I bought my tickets the guy behind the window asked if I would be back the next night for Human Centipede 2 (which sadly I will not be).

The movie itself is every bit as good as the trailer. If you've seen it and liked what you saw, the movie will absolutely not disappoint. My face is literally still hurting this morning from laughing so hard through the entire thing last night. I'm not going to do a review or whatever you want to call my normal movie posts, as I really don't want to spoil anything for anybody else. Just trust me, if you don't laugh at Chillerama, then your sense of humor is broken. There were times when I was laughing so hard I was crying.

I will say that of all three short films, my favorite was Adam Green's Diary of Anne Frankenstein. My overall "blah" feelings toward Adam Green's movies is well documented here in the Batcave, as to date I've only really loved Frozen, and certainly don't worship the Hatchet movies. I couldn't help but love his entry in Chillerama though. Joel David Moore is absolutely hilarious as Hitler, pay close attention to his "German" when he speaks. He was definitely the stand-out of Chillerama for me, to say he stole the movie would be an understatement. But then he tends to do that in almost everything he's in, in my opinion.

The other shorts are both great though, with "Wadzilla" being my second favorite, and Tim Sullivan's "I Was a Teenage Werebear" sadly being the weakest of the bunch. That's not to say it was bad though, being the worst thing in Chillerama is still better than most things. I dig Tim Sullivan's movies, especially the first 2001 Maniacs, but for some reason Teenage Werebear felt like it was trying a little too hard for me. Not bad, just not as outright funny as Wadzilla and Diary. The drive-in feature that tied everything together, "Zom-B-Movie" from director Joe Lynch was also great. There are cameo's aplenty, along with a fantastic cast of regulars, including Richard Riehle, Ray Wise, Eric Roberts, Kane Hodder, Lin Shaye, and more. I even think I saw Eli Roth, but if it was in fact him, he wasn't credited.

It's impossible not to recommend Chillerama, but at the same time it definitely won't be for everybody. I feel safe in saying that if you're reading this blog, then you'll more than likely dig it. It basically feels like four guys who are buds and love the old drive-in theater splatter flicks of yester-year got together and decided to pool their collective talents to write a love letter to those old movies they probably grew up watching. If you can't make it to one of the limited theatrical showings, worry not, it's already out on VOD, and your chance to own it for yourself isn't that far off. The dvd and bluray are set to release just after Thanksgiving, on November 29th. I know I will definitely be adding it to my Halloween rotation beginning next year, and I highly recommend checking it out for yourself. If nothing else, you'll have plenty of  new quotes to interject into your daily conversation.

Friday Night Drive-In

Bet you saw this one coming, eh? That's right kids, before heading out to see what hopefully ends up being another successful entry in the "it wasn't necessary, but was still a pretty damn good movie" remake category, why not revisit the original classic? John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece will forever hold a special place in my black, shriveled heart, as I'm sure it does for most of us. Enjoy The Thing!

Unfortunately this is another one that's only available broken into several different clips, below is the first. If for some reason you've never actually seen this gem, by all means make sure and head over to youtube for the rest. You'll thank me later.

"First goddamn week of winter."

Making Friends

The Order of the Hand

Because you can never have enough Evil Dead inspired tees! The Order of the Hand showed up at Nowhere Bad this week, and I of course have to have it. Hail to the King, baby!

Found Footage Double Feature: Grave Encounters / Evil Things

Waited for the kids to go to bed one night this past weekend, and had myself a found footage double feature, consisting of Grave Encounters followed by Evil Things. I'd heard good things about both of them, so I was excited about watching them back to back. One turned out to be great, the other not so much. Which was which? Read on, but be warned there will be minor spoilers littered throughout.

First up was Grave Encounters. This one tells the story of the film crew of a television show called, you guessed it, Grave Encounters. The show is basically akin to the show Ghost Hunters on SyFy if you're familiar. The group disappears filming an investigation inside an abandoned mental hospital where paranormal activity is said to occur. Only their footage is found.

Grave Encounters turned out to be a real treat. Being that I'm a big Ghost Hunters fan, I immediately started digging this film. I had it recommended to me by a friend whose opinion I tend to trust when it comes to movies, but even then I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. The creepy atmosphere is in full effect here, the actors may be basically imitating the gang from Ghost Hunters but they do a good job in doing so, and when the scary stuff goes into full swing the effects are great and it delivers the goods. As if the abandoned mental hospital locale weren't bad enough, as mental patients are pretty damn creepy, when said mental patients are actually pissed off spirits, well let's just say Grave Encounters did a pretty good job of freaking me the fuck out.

Don't want to really spoil this one too much as it was a genuinely good movie. Whereas the Paranormal Activity's of the world do the "less is more" thing when it comes to the scares, Grave Encounters not only does that, but eventually gives you a look at what's happening while still managing to be scary, which is something that's not always easy to do, especially when working with the budget of an indie horror flick. This is what Paranormal Activity wishes it was. A great flick to watch all by yourself with the lights off.

After that I was all set to call my movie night a success before even watching Evil Things. Sadly, this one was a letdown. I ended up interested in it after reading good things on a certain blog which shall remain nameless as to protect the opinion of the author. But, to say I disagree would be a gross understatement.

Five of the most annoying, and even worse, BORING New York college students on the planet head into the country for a weekend stay in one of their parents' vacation homes. One of the group has just bought himself a shiny new camera and decides to film the entire trip. Along the way, they notice a van that keeps showing up at every stop they make and seems to be following them every step of the way. They arrive at the house thinking they were safe, but the danger was just beginning as the van once again pulls up outside.

Ok so I do have to give Evil Things points for doing something different in the found footage genre, but that's the only points it gets. Most of these movies tend to center around the paranormal, Evil Things takes the home invasion approach. Almost everything else is either predictable, or so poorly done that it does little more than irritate. As stated, the "actors" are all horribly annoying, so much so that when they begin to get taken one by one, I was cheering. There's plenty of other things that bothered me, but the one that really got me was the ridiculous twist. Turns out the guy driving the van? The one terrorizing these kids? He's ALSO filming the whole thing from behind the wheel of the van. The "found footage" we are watching is from a tape that's supposedly marked as evidence in a police investigation, and for some reason the killer has taken the time to edit in some of his footage to go along with the kids' footage. Thank God he did though, it sure made the whole thing more "movie-like". Big disappointment, which came close to ruining my double feature. Pass on this one.

Random Screen Grab

David Hess

1942-2011

Sad news yesterday that I'm sure you've seen on just about every horror blog in the world by now, actor David Hess passed away at the age of 69. He's best known (to me anyway) for his roles as Krug from Wes Craven's Last House on the Left and Ferret from Swamp Thing. He was a talented actor, whose movies made you love to hate him. In fact I just bought a copy of Last House on the Left yesterday morning, before I learned of his passing, with the intentions of doing a "Why Won't You Die?" post about Krug in the near future. Of course that would be in bad taste now and I won't be going through with it. Rest in peace, David Hess.

Dead Island

For the last couple of weeks I've spent almost every free minute I've had on the Island of Banoi, fighting for my life against the zombie horde. Dead Island was finally released, after many, many months of waiting, and I've been absolutely devouring it, pun intended. This game is so very good, it's one of those that I'll immediately begin a second playthrough as soon as I finish my initial run, which I'm currently sitting at level 35 with a 92% completion percentage on.

Dead Island doesn't break the mold when it comes to story telling. There's absolutely nothing here that you haven't seen in every other form of zombie fiction. The story goes, you're one of a group of four people who for some reason are immune to the zombie virus that has taken over the island. You complete quests given by various survivors you come across while attempting to find a way off the island. Of course there's more to it than that, and as you explore the island, you'll learn about the origin of the virus, attempt to help discover a cure, and I can only assume eventually discover exactly why it is that you and your group are immune.

The gameplay is a mixed bag of other fantastic games. You've got the co-op aspects of Left 4 Dead as Dead Island supports four player online co-op, the custom weapon creation from Dead Rising 2, and rpg elements on par with anything you'll see in games like Fallout. The story and main quest might be quite as fleshed out as a Fallout game, but the weapon deterioration, leveling up, inventory system, etc. are all reminiscent of Bethesda's rpg behemoth. While it may sound like Dead Island borrows a bit too heavily from other existing games, but developer Techland managed to blend everything together seamlessly and keep the action flowing so things never feel boring or broken up into separate parts. Despite not being a "triple-A" title this game boasts some impressive production values, and despite a little pop-in and texture loading issues, it looks gorgeous and flows along seamlessly.

For those of you who aren't big gamers, I suppose the easiest way to describe Dead Island is to call it an "interactive George Romero movie", at least that's how it feels to me. You know that feeling when even though you've seen a million zombie flicks, you just know you're in for something good when you sit down to watch a new Romero for the first time? That's what playing Dead Island is like. For a new IP in today's market, it's made significant strides toward making a name for itself. I can only assume Dead Island 2 will begin development soon, if it hasn't already done so, and even though I won't be finished with the first one for a while yet, I'm already wondering what will be added to the sequel. As always, anybody looking for a co-op partner can feel free to send an Xbox Live friend request to "Lil Bones". I'm a zombie killing machine, trust me you'll be glad I'm on your team.

Friday Night Drive-In

This is one of those movies that the box used to scare the hell out of me as a kid when I saw it in the video store. I was never brave enough to even consider watching it. Of course eventually I did, and it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had feared it would be. Sadly this ends up being the case with a lot of the movie boxes I was afraid of back then. It's still a pretty cool flick though, teenagers trapped inside a mall being hunted by security robots! It's so 80's you can't help but love it. Or at least I can't.

"Let's send these fuckers a Rambo-gram!"