Just broke out my horror movie action figures and watched Trick ‘r Treat. The Halloween season has officially begun. I think I’ll keep running record of my Halloween viewing right here this year.
0 (warm-up and inspiration) – American Horror Story, Season 1 and Sleepy Hollow (pilot episode)
1 – Trick ‘r Treat
2 – The Addams Family
3 – Addams Family Values
4 – World War Z
5 – Pumpkinhead
6 – Nothing But Trouble. Chevy Chase and Demi Moore are fucking TERRIBLE in this movie, but Dan Aykroyd and John Candy are so great they more than make up for it. “Oh, I will letcha be on your way. And, oh, when you go THE CAT’S EYES’LL SPIN!! NOW LISTEN!… A hey, hey, ho, ha, ho! Hula hula hula! The boola boola boola! Look who’s got the front seats to the Mexican hat dance now! Just like a bunch of spiders in a birthday cake!”
7 – The Fog (1979). The 2005 version was shit. Don’t watch it.
8 – The X-Files, “The Host”
9 – The X-Files, “Bad Blood”
10 – The X-Files, “Post-Modern Prometheus”
11 – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
12 – Dracula 2000. Nathan Fillion is in Dracula 2000?!? Holy shit!
13 – Good Eats, “In The Bulb Of The Night.” Alton teaches Count Dracula to buy, prepare, cook, eat, and love garlic.
14 – Child’s Play 2
15 – Fright Night. The original. Fuck that remake.
16 – Creepshow 2
17 – Maximum Overdrive
18 – The Frighteners: Director’s Cut
19 – Ghostbusters II
20 – The Real Ghostbusters, “Citizen Ghost”
21 – The Shining. “Perhaps they need a good talking to, if you don’t mind my saying so. Perhaps a bit more. My girls, sir, didn’t care for The Overlook at first. One of them actually stole a pack of matches and tried to burn it down. But I… corrected them, sir. And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty, I corrected her.”
Shining Fact: Fake doors were built for Jack Nicholson to chop through in the famous “Here’s Johnny!” scene. The thought was that an actor would have trouble getting through the door. What no one knew was that Jack Nicholson has training as a reserve firefighter, which included training specifically for getting through doors and walls with an axe. No one told Jack the doors were fake, so when the cameras rolled, he would reduce the doors to splinters with one swing. Not only did they have to replace the doors with real ones, but Jack had to back off of his swing for the retakes because he was going through them too fast to get the needed footage.
22 – C.H.U.D. John Goodman is in C.H.U.D.?!? Holy shit!
23 – Halloween III: Season Of The Witch. This movie is surprisingly awful, yet strangely entertaining.
24 – Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye. Alan Sylvestri did this music? Was he fucking drunk?
25 – Phantasm. Jesus, this movie is fucking weird…
26 – Masters Of Horror, “Incident On And Off A Mountain Road”
27 – Masters Of Horror, “Chocolate”
28 – From Hell. One of the rare few movies I’ve ever seen that is in every way superior to the book on which it was based.
29 – Prophecy. Not The Prophecy from 1995. It’s just Prophecy from 1979. When I bought it, I thought it was the one with Walken. Turns out it’s a monster-in-the-woods horror flick. I’m watching it for the first time. It was a decently written, well acted story with legit social and environmental themes. Right up until the monster showed up. At that point it switched without warning to slapstick monster movie gags that completely detailed the film. The very first monster attack scene was hilariously overdone. The kid in the sleeping bag bit would have been laugh out loud funny in a different movie, but dropped into what was up to that point a very serious drama with no hint of camp or comedy, it ruined the movie. Sorry, even if you like horror flicks, I just can’t recommend this one. And I still haven’t seen any of the The Prophecy movies.
30 – Sleepy Hollow, episode 2
31 – Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
32 – Candyman. This movie is like eating Swedish Fish; I always forget how good it is until I try it again. It’s always a pleasant surprise.
33 – Totem. That was quite possibly one of the ten worst films I have ever watched. Ok, twenty.
34 – Jigsaw
35 – The Skeleton Key
35 – True Blood, Season 1
36 – The Dark
37 – Sleepy Hollow, episode 3
38 – The Cabin In The Woods
39 – The Real Ghostbusters, “No One Comes To Lupusville”
40 – The Real Ghostbusters, “The Man Who Never Reached Home”
41 – The Real Ghostbusters, “The Collect Call Of Cathulhu.” Yeah, they spelled it weirdly. Not sure why. “Cthulhu? I’ve heard of him. He’s bad, right?” “He makes Gozer look like Little Mary Sunshine.” Damn, I forgot how much I love this episode. The Ghostbusters just got attacked by a shoggoth. I cannot stop smiling.
42 – The Real Ghostbusters, “The Headless Motorcyclist”
43 – True Blood, Season 2
44 – Blade. Also Trick ‘r Treat. I’m not counting it because I’ve already watched it, but its just so good I had to watch it again. This won’t be the last time.
45 – Creepshow
46 – It Waits
47 – The Real Ghostbusters, “Big Trouble With Little Slimer”
48 – Curse Of Chucky
49 – Sleepy Hollow, episode 4
50 – John Carpenter’s The Thing
51 – Sleepy Hollow, episode 5
52 – The X-Files, “Ice”
53 – The Real Ghostbusters, “When Halloween Was Forever”
54 – The Real Ghostbusters, “Mr. Sandman, Dream Me A Dream”
55 – The Neighbors, “Halloweenukah”
56 – Mama
57 – Beetlejuice
58 – Critters
59 – Star Trek, “Catspaw”. Yes, back in the ’60s Star Trek did a Halloween episode. They even got Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, to write it. It’s terrible. An evil witch and wizard make a necklace in the image of the Enterprise and make the ship overheat by holding the necklace over a candle. Kirk, Spock and McCoy are attacked by a giant black cat in a dungeon. And Chekov appears to be wearing a wig from a Monkees costume. And these aren’t even the worst parts of the show. It’s just so thoroughly bad. Here’s how bad: in the nearly 50 year history of Star Trek they’ve never done a holiday episode since. Although a drinking game comes to mind: take a shot when anyone says ‘trick-or-treat’ or ‘Halloween’ during “Catspaw.” That should get you buzzed enough early on to make it through the rest of the episode with as little pain as possible.
60 – Freddy vs. Jason
61 – Ice Cream Man. David Warner is in Ice Cream Man?!? Holy shit!!
62 – Child’s Play 3
63 – Bride Of Chucky. Katherine Heigle and John Ritter are in Bride Of Chucky?!? Holy shit!! How do I not remember this??
64 – Seed Of Chucky. John Waters is in Seed Of Chucky?!? Holy shit!!
65 – The Real Ghostbusters, “Halloween II 1/2”
66 – The Real Ghostbusters, “The Bogeyman Is Back”
67 – The Real Ghostbusters Halloween Special, “The Halloween Door”
68 – Terrorvision
69 – Ghostbusters. Ah, I’ve been waiting all month…
70 – The Price Is Right Halloween Special, 2013
71 – The Evil Dead. Has anybody seen the remake? Is it any good?
72 – The Real Ghostbusters, “Russian About.” A kinda sequel to “The Collect Call Of Cathulhu.” The guys try to stop the rise of The Old Ones.
73 – It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
74 – King Of The Hill, “Hilloween”
75 – Dark Shadows. Fuck it; the decorations are still up, so it goes on the list.
