Horror Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I usually don't like kids in the movies all that much. Maybe I'm missing that maternal gene, or maybe I'm just not that into the little rugrats. But suffice to say that I sometimes have a pretty dark view of children, and that's why I love The Bad Seed -- and I especially love little Rhoda Penmark. The Bad Seed was based on William March's novel about a murderous little girl who terrorizes her family and friends, and by the time it's all said and done, she comes up with relatively respectable body count. The 1956 film was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starred Patty McCormack as the pigtailed terror, and in spite of a tacked-on ending to satisfy the Hays code at the time, the film is still considered on of the penultimate 'creepy kid' flicks.

But what set Rhoda apart is that usually when you have murderous kids, the moral caveat is usually that they are outside the 'normal run of things', leaving our heroes to dispatch the bad guy without any hand-wringing about harming children. So most films give you kids like Damian (the Antichrist himself) or those creepy little buggers from Village of The Damned who come from another planet -- but with Rhoda, there is no one to blame but her. Although in both the film and the original book, there is an argument that she is just the victim of her family tree, but that's not exactly the same as the supernatural kids in those other horror films. There is no excuse for why Rhoda is the way she is, and she reminds you that evil can come in all kinds of packages -- and that's why to this day, the sight of her skipping away with her braids swinging remains as one of my most beloved movie villain moments.

After the jump; some of Rhoda's creepier moments and a tribute to her lasting inspiration to the macabre everywhere...

How can I have a soft spot in my heart for a mute murderer who kills humans like cattle, wears their faces, and eats them for dinner? Why don't I feel the same way about, say, Michael Myers or even Freddy?

Leatherface – the original Leatherface, not the more farcical one in TCM 2 where he pseudo-humps Stretch with his chainsaw in beat-you-over-the-head-phallic-symbol way, although I do love that one too – is sympathetic in a way the others aren't. The terror of Michael Myers is his blankness; his generic Halloween mask emphasizes how little is going on behind there besides just the desire to kill. And Freddy – well, the dude was a child molester. Enough said.

But Leatherface, while he does bludgeon the free-wheelin' teens who find their way into his house of horrors, is sort of kerfuffled by the whole thing. In one scene, he mutters to himself, shaking his head by the audacity of the kids who are interrupting his normal day-to-day life. His home life is pretty messed up; his brothers pick on him, his grandmother is a dried-up corpse in the attic, and his grandfather is barely able to feed himself. And as far as the killing, he doesn't seem to see the people as much more than two-legged cows; he bludgeons them, hangs them on hooks, and stuffs them in freezers. He's just doing his job, as far as he's concerned.

Now that it's October, my mind has turned to all things Halloween-y, and I've been digging back through the vaults to find all the spooky movies that I've loved over the years, which brings me to The Monster Club. Despite having pretty permissive parental units when it came to my movie viewing habits (boobs and swearing, A-OK) horror movies were a different matter altogether. Whether that was to protect my sensitive little developing mind or just so they didn't have to be awakened by claims of monsters under the bed, I'll never know. But as a little one, The Monster Club was the perfect Halloween viewing: a little funny, a little scary, but overall pretty kid friendly -- at least to this kid anyway.

The film was a tribute to the work of British horror author R. Chetwynd-Hayes and starred Vincent Price (as a chatty vampire) and John Carradine (as Hayes). The film was comprised of three tales of a vampire family, a movie director who stumbles across a ghoul while scouting locations, and something called a 'shadmock' -- trust me, it's complicated. Sure, the stories were great and all, but my favorite thing about this whole film were the musical numbers that acted as framing devices for each story, and today for Scenes We Love, I have to go with The Stripper, performed by Night -- like I said, my parents were pretty easygoing when it came to 'sexy time'. What I love about this scene is that what could have just been an excuse to throw some nudity into the film goes for something that every horror fan could enjoy -- and I know I'm not the only one (although if you have a weak stomach, you might not want to click on that link) who thought this scene was a great visual gag.

After the jump; a stripper who truly takes it all off, and New Wave bloodsuckers...

"Listen to this!" A friend pressed the ringer on his BlackBerry, and it played the theme to The Omen, "Ave Satani" by Jerry Goldsmith, which he'd assigned to a particularly heinous client of his. Another friend had, for a time, assigned a relative the unforgettable score from Halloween as composed by writer/director John Carpenter himself. And I'm sure somewhere there is someone with the theme from The Exorcist, which was written by Mike Oldfield.

Ringtones aside, there's no denying that a deft soundtrack or score can ratchet up the tension in any movie, especially one that uses droning noises and other disturbing, almost subliminal effects that can slip past the viewer and straight into our brain. Some of my favorite spooky soundtracks sure to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end include the above, naturally, but there are a few that need some love as well.

Read the rest at Horror Squad!

The battle of the undead on the big screen has been under way for some time now, and after months of hearing that vampires are taking over pop culture, it seems like we shouldn't quite put our friends the zombies (no, not those ones) down for the count. Over at Newsweek, Sarah Ball put together a few reasons as to why zombies will never beat vampires in a pop-culture zeitgeist-off thanks to our long-standing love-affair with the pale tortured types. But just this weekend, audiences proved that when it comes to the walking dead, the zombies still have what it takes to bring in the crowds.

Everybody has their personal preferences (and man I love those bloodsuckers), so even though I've watched more vampire content than I care to remember (I even sat through the pilot of The Vampire Diaries), and I'll always be a dedicated 'fan of the fang', I think that sometimes those drooling bumbling walking corpses might be better suited (at least these days) to the world of horror. Here's why:

After the jump: my top 3 reasons Zombies (might) make better horror movies.

If you're a fan of the classic Universal Studios movie monsters, including Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Mummy, and more, then you've probably found yourself haunted by a severe lack of ginormous books that focus on your obsession. With Halloween just around the corner, Michael Mallory's Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror arrives just in time.

It's chock full of over 300 black and white and 25 color behind-the-scenes photos, original movie posters, publicity shots, and articles from people like James Whale (director of Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and many more), makeup marvel Jack P. Piece, FX man John Fulton, and more. It's officially endorsed by the studio, so I'm not sure if this will be the Bela Lugosi tell-all expose that you're looking for. The whole package is 252 pages long, and at 9" by 12 ", it can double as a blunt object if you need to brain anyone.

Check out a very cool exclusive pic from the book over at Horror Squad.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but Hollywood tends to break things. If a formula worked once, it will invariably be remade, repackaged, and resold over and over again until the equation is no longer profitable. But occasionally the Hollywood hive mindset is not content with merely breaking something. Every now and then it has to rape and pillage, and thus we shall soon have Night of the Living Dead: Origins. Wallow in these few key bits from The Hollywood Reporter's news on the matter:

"Zombie movie "Night of the Living Dead" is coming back, this time in a 3D CGI format and without the involvement of George Romero." ... "On the story front, De Soto, who wrote the script with David R. Schwartz, wants to update the tale partially by bringing out the characters' backstories and make what he called "an American-style anime."" ... "The aim of the process is to make tennis balls on a stick representing real people or monsters a thing of the past by allowing actors interact with CG elements as if they are tangible." ... "De Soto was a fan of the original "Living Dead" and once the trio realized the rights were in the public domain, zeroed in on that project."

Read the rest of this story at HorrorSquad.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I had the audacity to put together a "Top 100 Horror Movies" list, mainly because I get numerous emails, tweets, and random requests for "a few good horror movies to rent." It's awesome that people turn to me for an opinion, and so I put a lot of time and thought (about two good hours) into this list right here at Horror Squad. It's been so popular that three separate people on the Twitter have called me a moron this week.

But then I realized that I was ignoring my other baby ... the one called Sci-Fi Squad. (And I further realized that I haven't been called a moron enough this week.) And since sci-fi runs a close second to horror in my favorite genre department, well, let's just say I've seen a whole freaking lot of science fiction films. Less than some, more than most, but a whole stinking lot. This list took a bit longer than the horror one, mainly because I didn't want to omit anything that was worthy, but also because I insist on including personal favorites like Species. Yes, the hot naked horny alien movie. I dig it. And here are the remaining 99 ... over at Sci-Fi Squad.

I eagerly await your incredulous gasps and challenges upon my sanity. One last time: Here's The Top 100 Horror Films of All Time, and The Top 100 Sci-Fi Films of All Time ... according to me, of course. Both crafted with love. And caffeine.

Peter Sarsgaard made his big-screen debut in 1995's Dead Man Walking as the murder victim Walter Delacroix, but his breakthrough performance was in 1999's Boys Don't Cry as John Lotter, one of the killers of transgendered man Brandon Teena. Since then, he's become famous for his nuanced performances in a wide variety of films like Shattered Glass, Kinsey, Jarhead, and the upcoming An Education.

If you have missed the ubiquitous and creepy posters for his new movie with Vera Farmiga, Orphan, let me give you a quick synopsis. After Kate Coleman (Farmiga) has a stillborn baby, she and her husband John (Sarsgaard) decide to adopt Esther, a deadly serious Russian orphan who wears ribbons around her neck and wrists and old-fashioned ruffly dresses played by Isabelle Fuhrman. But things keep going wrong when Esther's around... hence the tagline in those ubiquitous and creepy posters with the tagline "There's something wrong with Esther."

After a long weekend of interviews and roundtables, Peter Sarsgaard was kind enough to talk to me over the phone about his favorite horror movies, the Orphan protests, and much more -- right here at HorrorSquad!

It's entirely possible I am the only one disappointed by the following news, but bear with me. The latest word on Rob Zombie's dirty lucha libre cartoon, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, is that it's headed directly to DVD and Blu-ray. That's the bad news. The good news is that after three years, it will finally see the light of day (or the darkness of night). Zombie's first foray into animated filmmaking has plenty of clever characters doing the voice acting, like Rosario Dawson, Paul Giamatti, Danny Trejo (!), Clint Howard, and Zombie regulars Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, and Sheri Moon Zombie.

Zombie told IGN in an interview this past spring, "It came out awesome... That started off as this little tiny half-a-million dollar direct-to-video movie that expanded into this $10 million animated extravaganza." Except, well, it's a $10 million animated extravaganza that is going direct to DVD.

I have high hopes that it will make an appearance as a midnight movie in my local theater (and yours!) and perhaps get some attention at one of the many horror festivals like Fantastic Fest. Even though I'd like to see in on the big screen, it does look like the type of movie that would make more money on DVD than in theaters, especially with its target audience, which I can only guess is made up of fans of over-the-top cartoons, horror, heavy metal, and Mexican wrestling... or stoners. Not that they're mutually exclusive, of course.

(Courtesy of FEARNet)