Ahh, werewolves.  Call me a supernatural nutter, but they come only second to vamps.  I can still remember the intensity of waiting for Oz to turn on ‘Buffy’, back in my early teens.  I can also remember the first time I watched ‘Ginger Snaps’ – an absolute gem, if you haven’t seen it.  Werewolves definitely at their best in that one.  Of course there have been a few stinkers over the years; it comes with the genre.  Cursed, Underworld, The Wolfman, and we’ll pretend we never saw Jacob change into a Husky in Twilight.  Just sayin’…

Forgive my ranting, I’ll go back to where I was heading.  So for years Dad has been raving about ‘An American Werewolf in London’, made in 1981 by John Landis.  Actually, it pleases me a lot to know he wrote and directed this movie – you can definitely see the love a director has for a movie when they not only build the story but then get the chance to put it into motion.  There have been numerous articles I have read that mention this film and so, alas, it was time for me to check it out.  I know I deserve a good slapping for not discovering it earlier, but potato-patata.

The story is centered around two American backpackers (college students, who’dve thunk it?) who end up at some backwoods dodgy pub somewhere in England.  Apart from pissing off the locals, they are warned as they are leaving to stay on the road and not go near the moors.  But as the fog begins to surround them as they walk, they venture off the road and end up, whaddya know, on the moors.  Random growling ensues and the two guys run away from the unknown creature making the noises.  David falls over, Jack helps him up and subsequently ends up being attacked when trying to help his mate.  David discovers Jack is well and truly dead – a bloody, torn-to-shreds remnant of his former friend.  At that moment, he is bitten and scratched by the wolf, who is shot by the crazy pub locals; just in time, right?

The remainder of the movie is based on David’s downward spiral into becoming a werewolf.  He constantly hallucinates (?) Jack’s rotting corpse talking to him.  Their dialogue is quite humorous – gotta love it when David calls Jack a ‘walking meatloaf’.  There’s a whole lot of strange, quasi-funny creepiness throughout the entire movie.  Semi-werewolf Nazis, the two girls who laugh when the dog is barking at David, not to mention the soundtrack.  I actually think the music is what makes the film so successful.  ‘Blue Moon’ plays right at the end of the movie when David is transforming into a werewolf for the first time; it almost seems peaceful, serene.  And as somebody once said to me, Credence will never be the same.

Give this movie a really good look; it was awesome.  For the price of a rental you can pick it up at JB Hi-fi, and it is well worth adding to your collection.  Watch it with your tongue in your cheek and your middle finger raised firmly at your Twilight DVD (come on, we all own at least one of them).  Enjoy!!

P.S.// And for Pete’s sake, don’t even think about watching ‘An American Werewolf in Paris’… just saying…

For a nation that doesn’t celebrate Halloween, we sure can get into the spirit on October 31^st.  The shops are full of spooky paraphernalia (I will happily admit I picked up a cute Frankenstein that sings ‘The Monster Mash’ this year) and, bless Americans, there is a plethora of new horror movies out to honour that hallowed (and majorly envied by me) time of year. 

I love any movie, any television episode related to Halloween.  Of course there’s ‘Halloween’, that’s a given.  One of my favourite Buffy episodes is based on Halloween.   These films and shows have never made me more eager to carve a pumpkin.  So it was only fitting that I have a look at Halloween-themed 2007 offering, ‘Trick ‘r Treat’.

Don’t be mistaken – I haven’t only just watched this film.  I have watched it a few times now and bought it on blu-ray only a couple of months ago.  Every time I watch it I find something new and love it even more than before.  It is everything I love in a movie – colourful yet dark, funny yet sick, gory yet awesome.  Perfect formula.

For those of you not familiar with the premise, the movie is actually a collection of four smaller stories which find a crazy way to weave into one another by the conclusion.  There is the stereotypical hot college chicks, one of which (Anna Paquin – love True Blood!) is a virgin and is looking to…. er…. not be a virgin.  There’s the high-school principal Steven (Dylan Baker) who is a serial killer by night.  There’s the school kids whose attempt at a prank goes horribly wrong.  And of course, let’s not forget to mention Mr. Kreeg, a cranky old man who hates Halloween and ends up receiving a treat of his own.

I can’t go into the stories too much (hehe, I’m sure you readers know me too well by now…) because there is so much going on and no loose ends are left untied.  I have a hard time deciding what is my favourite story – the principal subplot is classic, as is the gluttonous Charlie who watches on as Steven gets rid of his dirty work.  You might remember Brett Kelly, who plays Charlie, from ‘Bad Santa’… and yep, he is just as annoying yet funny in this flick too.  I love the college virgin story too… not for the girls (they annoy me too much) but the conclusion of that story is completely down my alley.  The prank kids with the urban legend story is quite interesting, it has some intriguing elements and gives you some of the true chills throughout the film.  The Kreeg storyline is just plain awesome.  Enough said.

Again, like I mentioned earlier, I absolutely adore how all the stories link at the end.  Everything just makes so much sense… and at the same time, makes it so much more cooler than it already was.  ‘Trick ‘r Treat’ gives me enough time to get my nerd on, enjoying every minute, every second of the flick and wanting to watch it again and again straight after a viewing.  I think every time I have watched it I have picked up on something different.  I wouldn’t say it is for the faint-hearted, but it is definitely the perfect equation of horror and humour for a horror junkie such as myself.  See it for yourself, but I know that you won’t regret it.  Even better, just buy it.  You’ll love me long time for my advice.

Wow, my blog has so far been inundated with remakes galore.  I just can’t help myself though; I have this false sense of hope that I’m going to be impressed with a story I love adapted into modern times.  That’s why I just had to see ‘The Thing’, which is a 2011 prequel (supposedly) to the original 1982 movie.  We had to toss a coin between that and ‘Red State’ though, another must see.  But we saw ‘The Thing’.  And?  One thing to sum it up:  I’m damn glad I saw the movie on Cheap Tuesday.

Ignore the supposed synopsis of the film – The Thing is literally a scene-for-scene remake of the original, minus Kurt Russell (boo!) and with a chicky babe in the main role.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead isn’t a bad actress, but she isn’t given a whole lot to run with in this film.

So, to set the scene, it’s Antarctica 1982 (a wee bit before Kurt Russell arrived).  Winstead’s character Kate Lloyd, a graduate paleontology student, has been enlisted by the world’s dodgiest scientist Dr. Sander Halvorson, to investigate a top-secret life form frozen in Antarctic ice.  The two, along with a team of fairly unmemorable characters, dig the creature out of the ice to study it, whilst frozen.  Of course the mayhem begins when it breaks out of the ice one night.  Turns out, the creature can absorb other life forms and clone itself to replicate anything and anyone. 

From here on the film takes the original’s lead of paranoia, where the team spend the remainder of the film considering the trust the have of each other and trying to work out who is still human and who is an alien clone.  It does everything wrong what John Carpenter did so right in the original.  My biggest bug bear was how the ‘Thing’ was quite happy to reveal itself to groups of people at a time; this is something that didn’t occur in the original as it was considered to be vulnerable in these circumstances.   However, my bug bear was soon overshadowed by a giant spaceship.  I won’t say any more…

See the film if you want.  It’s even annoying to write about; I promise my next entry won’t be a disappointing rant about a remake of a film that never needed one.  Say what you will, I refuse to call it a prequel because it simply isn’t that.  Definitely one to wait for DVD though.  Even spunky Eric Christian Olsen couldn’t save it for me.  Kinda wish I had’ve gone to ‘Red State’ now… stay tuned for that one.