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.

For someone who is into scary stuff, I have a few fears.  Most of them, of course, completely irrational.  Clowns, dolls, creepy kids (why am I a school teacher again???).  Something that really scares the living *beeps* out of me is space.  Yes, as in the starry, other-worldly unknown that our lovely planet floats in.  It’s not even aliens or anything that instills this sense of fear in me; it is merely the thought of going up there.  I am so terrified of the day where man is able to travel to space for recreation – this is something I will not allow anyone to convince me to do.  Yep, I know.  I’m weird.

So, given my irrational and overwhelming fear of space, I find space movies quite creepy.  Perhaps this is why I am not a great fan of sci-fi.  I know it is called ‘fiction’ for a reason, but I don’t know… I’ll take a serial killer down on Earth anytime for mental madness up high beyond our atmosphere.  It is because of this that I actually am wondering why I bought 1997’s ‘Event Horizon’ from Big W for a measly $6.  I had heard it was pretty good, and if you know me well, you know I have this crazy ambition to own every horror-esque movie ever made.  We all know I can be overly ambitious…

Last night I felt in the mood for an action flick.  Unfortunately, with heavy eyelids at 9.30pm, most of the ones we own surpass the 120 minute mark.  I pulled out ‘Event Horizon’, knowing fair well that Dave was feeling tired and lazy and wouldn’t argue if I put the disc in the player before he knew what we were about to watch.  I have to say though, I should’ve done my homework because what we were about to watch was not the action movie I was hoping for; turns out, it was a twisted, psychological movie based in space.

The movie basically runs as a haunted house movie, set inside a dark and somewhat gothic spacecraft.  To give you a bit of background information, it is the year 2040 and the Event Horizon is a starship that was designed to travel faster than the speed of light through the universe by creating folds in space.  It sounds more complex than it actually is – IMDB for a more scientific explanation of this.  The ship has disappeared without a trace for seven years, beyond Neptune – until it has suddenly reappeared in 2047.    Sam Neill stars as Dr. William Weir, the designer of the monstrosity that is the Event Horizon starship.  He has recently suffered a loss as his wife committed suicide and throughout the film he is haunted by this event.  Weir is called to assist a rescue team led by Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) to investigate the ship and hopefully rescue the crew that has been missing along with the ship for the past seven years.  They arrive at the Event Horizon where Weir explains that the ship had been on its initial test flight when it vanished.  He plays Captain Miller’s crew the only signal received since the ship’s reappearance – naturally, the crew is speaking in Latin.  D.J. (played by Jason Isaacs) translates this to ‘save me’.  As the crew further investigates the ship, there is no trace of human life found, except for a frozen, floating corpse with no eyes.  One of the crew discovers the core of the ship, the gravity drive, which is what creates the temporary black hole for the ship to travel through.  The drive is activated and from here on the strange occurences begin. 

As usual, I won’t give too much else away, because there is nothing worse than a promising movie being spoiled.  The movie is incredibly interesting because it ends up using elements of the supernatural instead of stereotypical aliens to describe the horror that the crew’s ship encounters.  By about the halfway mark you really get sucked into this movie; if possible, watch it with the lights off to get the full impact of the film.  You’ll need this when they actually translate the blurred video of the missing crew losing their minds – it’s pretty hardcore.  Paul W.S. Anderson, fresh from the success of ‘Mortal Kombat’, turned down X-Men to create his take on this atmospheric horror film.  Apparently he cut thirty minutes of gory footage to allow for the film’s R-rating in America (equivalent of our MA15+).  The sicko in me really would have liked to have seen the other footage – I’ll have to see what the DVD’s special features offer me.

Give this film a go – for the price of a rental, you could buy it and keep it.  It was a surprisingly addictive and enjoyable ride that made my mind a little crazy.  Given its’ time, the effects were pretty good too (take that, special effects people who rely on 3D!!!).  Some of the supporting crew are mediocre, but I love Jason Isaacs (for more reasons than one) and pre-Morpheus Fishburne proves that he can be vulnerable at times.  Sam Neill is… well, Sam Neill.  Dave mentioned that he is only known for chasing dinosaurs, but I don’t know… this film may have changed his opinion.  And as for the overall feel of the movie, Anderson is reported to have taken influence from 'The Shining' and 'Hellraiser', two movies I have indeed seen and completely can understand what elements of these he has used.

Enjoy the movie and let me know what you think!