Hootenanny Halloween Countdown: Rosemary's Baby

There's an old saying that can be applied to many things:
If you look around you and you can't figure out who the crazy one is, it's you.

That's a frightening prospect.

But what terrifies me more is the idea that maybe you're NOT the crazy one, after all.  Because what that means is that you are, indeed, surrounded by crazy people.

This is exactly the dilemma faced by young Rosemary Woodhouse in the classic Polanski thriller Rosemary's Baby.  Young, sweet, innocent, Rosemary moves with her new husband- Guy- into a beautiful old building in Manhattan.  They soon become bosom buddies with the old couple who lives next door...

and strange events follow.

Nightmares of being impregnated by demons, strange sounds, death and discoveries of former tenants who may have learned a little too much about Minnie and Roman Castevet from down the hall begin to plague Rosie and turn what should be the joyous news of her first pregnancy into a paranoid torment.  As Rosemary's baby grows, so does her suspicion and she begins to believe Minnie, Roman and their cadre of strange elderly friends have plans for her unborn baby.

And what's worse... everyone seems to be in on it.  Her husband, her doctor, anyone and everyone!  Except her friend Hutch of course... oh wait, yeah he's dead.

What to do? What to do?

Well, you'll just have to watch.  Polanski creates a world that is oppressive and claustrophobic in a surreal, occult-ish sort of way.  The beautiful apartment they inhabit becomes increasingly dark and gruesome as Rosemary's suspicion increases.  But the suspense is drawn mostly from not knowing what the hell is actually going on!  We are naturally inclined to side with our sweet protagonist Rosemary, and yet we don't know what to believe.  After all, when you look around the room...

This is a moody, suspenseful classic and is perfect to get you in the mood for the Halloween season.  And that final scene is quite possibly the most quietly terrifying scene in history.

"He has his father's eyes."

Watch... if you dare!

Hootenanny Halloween Countdown: SCREAM

"What's your name?"
"Why do you want to know my name?"
"Because I wanna know who I'm looking at."

And with that, a 13 year old Nate Frizzell wet his pants in a crowded theater.

If you were born in the 80s, chances are the original Scream scared the bejesus out of you in the theaters.

Still one of the finest opening scenes in any movie ever, the original Scream did for answering phones what Psycho did for taking showers.  Before the series became all about "meta humor" and self-referential quips with predictable slasher-film conventions, the original Scream had one goal:

to scare you.

Watching Drew Barrymore, home alone out in the middle of nowhere, as she is terrorized by some psycho on a telephone was a great way to start off.

SPOILER ALERT (though if you haven't seen the original Scream 16 years later, I have no pity for you):

I mean, who would have thought they would kill off Drew Barrymore???  I certainly didn't... which was why it was genius!  The entire opening sequence had me thinking to myself "It's going to be alright, it's going to be alright, it's going to be..." SLASH.  Nope.

The movie continues on without its biggest star to become a who-dunit meets slasher classic.  Bunch of hip teens not taking a series of grisly murders seriously enough and paying the price, while the sensitive heroine with a past lives the nightmare of being the obviously next target while no one around her either cares or believes her for some inexplicable reason until the very end when it's pretty much already too late.

Scream could have continued on in a very cliche way, except it didn't.  The ending and revelation of who the Bad Guy(s) was/were took everyone by surprise.  Stu and Billy Loomis?  The goofy friend and the boyfriend?  And why?  Because one of them was mad that the lead's mom caused his parents divorce?  Meh.  Yet it was the inspiration for the motive that set Scream's ending apart.  That, of course, being that the boys intended on blaming horror films and action films and thrillers for their mental state.  Too much intake from violent influences. It was laughable in one sense, but then when you really got right down to it: was it?

Take, for example, the recent tragedy involving the theater shootings in Colorado: the shooter was dressed like "The Joker."  Apparently, writer Kevin Williamson had a glimpse into the future and saw that some people can be perhaps a bit too heavily influenced by the movies.

Aside from being a cool scary movie, Scream re-defined a genre.  Its influence can still be seen today in pretty much any horror movie that comes out, especially in any type of slasher film.

So if you're looking for a film to make you feel a little less safe the next time your phone rings while you're home alone, seek no further than Wes Craven's original Scream.

What's your favorite scary movie?
~The Hootenanny

Hootenanny Halloween Countdown: Joy Ride

"You know, Black Sheep, you really ought to get that fixed."
"Get what fixed?"
"Your taillight."

We've all done dumb shit.  Let's be honest.  And many of us have gotten away with it.  Some of us haven't.  But no matter whether you got away scott-free or had to sit in a corner, chances are you never had to deal with a creepy trucker named Rusty Nail voiced by the guy who played Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.

Now, I know what many of you are thinking... Paul Walker?  Leelee Sobieski?  Why on Earth...?!  But, Steve Zahn certainly makes up for both of his co-stars' lack of charisma with a multi-layered performance that skirts the edge of over-the-top without going over.

Aaaaand, Joy Ride is co-written and produced by JJ Abrams (pre-LOST and even pre-Alias) as well as directed by John Dahl (veteran director of Rounders and multiple episodes of True Blood, Dexter, Justified, Californication).  This movie has some heat behind it.

To me, this is further proof that good suspense and horror films are the ones in which the director is allowed to shine.  If you've ever taken a road trip that lasted a few days, you'd know that there are stretches of time during which you feel like you've left civilization.  And if you're anything like me, your imagination begins to run wild with thoughts like

What if I get lost out here?
What if I get stranded?
What if I encounter some crazy person/ crazy family?

Well, Joy Ride is a combination of those things.  The 3 leads find themselves the target of a crazy-ass trucker who was the butt of an innocent CB radio prank (God I used to love those things back in the day).  There are some genuinely tense moments here... as Rusty Nail seems to be somehow omnipotent- which is believable not because of anything extraordinary or supernatural, but because if you've ever been on a highway you know that trucks rule the road.  Piss a trucker off who spends the majority of his life staring at the road ahead with no one to talk to and there's hell to pay...

The pacing of the film, the lighting, Ted Levine's creepy voice... all these things add up and steamroll towards a really tense cliffhanger ending- with some humor thrown in along the way courtesy of Zahn.

You can't get away.
You can't drive fast enough.
No off-ramp is safe.

Joy Ride.

Dreadfully Yours,
~The Hootenanny

Hootenanny Halloween Countdown: The Lost Boys

I readily admit it: Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys is not really a Halloween movie.  Sure it deals with vampires... but to me it feels like more like a summer movie version of a Halloween flick.

That being said, there is some really fun stuff in this movie.  And by fun, I mean scary.  Take the opening for example: from our very first glimpse at Kiefer Sutherland we realize the dude's not right.  Granted, that's the impression we always got when we saw him in the 80s and 90s... and, well, ever since but he is particularly vicious-looking here.  He intentionally picks a fight with another nasty looking guy on the town's boardwalk and is stopped by a portly security guard who seems to have Sutherland's number.  

Wrong.

At that point we are introduced to post-Lucas Corey Haim, a debuting Jason Patric and a post-first Oscar Dianne Wiest: a single-parent family in search of a better life so they turn to sunny beachside community Santa Carla where they bunk with Wiest's eccentric father (Barnard Hughes).  

Beach during the day and party on the boardwalk at night... Jason Patric may have found his paradise.  Hell, his first rock concert on the beach includes a ridiculously buff guy with a slicked-back ponytail playing the saxophone!  It's every 80s-era rebel's dream, right?

Wrong again.

Soon Patric and Haim discover that all is not as it seems in the city of Santa Carla.  For Kiefer Sutherland and his band of merry blood-suckers (which includes "Bill S. Preston, Esquire" of Bill and Ted fame) draw a bead on Patric and are determined to initiate him.

The scariest stuff to me is the dilemma these young brothers are faced with: they've been forced to move to a town where there are some really bad things going down and none of the adults in town believe them (despite the insane amount of missing people in their small town).  What do you do?  Well, you have to take it upon yourself to fight back of course!  And who you gonna call?

The Frogg Brothers (Corey Feldman and some other dude).

In true 80s fashion, the final battle is epic... and full of booby traps.  A highly entertaining ending to a fun vampire romp.  

One of the final lines in TLB comes from grandpa- a man who just didn't seem to have all his marbles in place.  After he lends an unexpected hand, he momentarily leaves us wondering who the hell he really is... until he blankly says this:

"One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach... all the damn vampires."

It makes you want to simultaneously laugh and beat your head against the wall.  But it's all good fun... so put yourself in a blood sucking mood and enjoy some vampires- 80s style.

xxxx,

~The Hootenanny

Hootenanny Halloween Countdown: Dawn Of The Dead

Ok, so neither incarnation of "Dawn of the Dead" is very scary.  Let's be honest.

However, when you talk about this post-apocalyptic zombie thriller there's one word that comes to mind: cool.

Whether you prefer George Romero's original treatise on American consumerism set against the backdrop of zombies attacking survivors in a mall or Zack Snyder's more action-packed remake, you're going to get a really unique film.

Romero expands the world of zombies that he originated in the classic Night of the Living Dead.  In that film, Romero used zombies to comment on racial attitudes in the US and in his follow-up, Dawn finds ol' George making a statement on out-of-control American consumerism.  Don't be fooled though... this 1978 film does not get bogged down in preachy sentiment.  Instead it's a thrilling and comedic ride that features monsters, blood and gore in what is most certainly a precursor to the hilarious Shawn of the Dead (but with more real tension).

Zack Snyder (of 300 and soon to be Man of Steel fame) put his name on the big-budget map by helming a remake of DotD that could have gone horribly wrong.  While the writing of the remake does not feature the deepest dialogue nor does it delve into the commentary that Romero did, Snyder showed a deft hand at both casting and tempo.  From the opening sequence featuring an exhausted Sarah Polley (who, to her credit, successfully avoids all blond horror leading lady stereotypes) returning home to her husband (Louis Ferreira, himself a veteran of the campy classic Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2) and getting a nasty surprise to the final thrilling escape attempt by the desperate survivors, Snyder crafts a witty, moody and tense film that begs the question:

What the hell do you do when you're one of the only ones left?

This has long been one of my favorite themes in storytelling.  Born during the 80s and therefore growing up during the Cold War and not long after in a post-911 world, the possibility of nuclear fallout has always been present during my lifetime.  Seeing some variation on that scenario played out in any media- cinema, tv or in novels- has always set my imagination going.  Would I survive? Would I be strong enough?  Would anyone who survived be able to piece together a civilization again?

And if not...  what do you go on living for?

Both Dawn of the Dead films provide a glimpse of this doomsday scenario but they leave the worrying to us... and it sticks with us long after we turn off the tv.

A clip from the original (which won't upload for some reason):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oykvs8ePij8&feature=endscreen

And from the remake:

(Kudos to Zack Snyder on bringing back Ken Foree to repeat an ultra-cool line that, in case you didn't realize the first time, means you're fucked.)

Rest in pieces,
The Hootenanny

Hootenanny Halloween Countdown: Creepshow

The countdown resumes boys and ghouls...

Part of the fun of Halloween season is watching all the deliciously creepy flicks that seem to make their way into our dark, empty homes and keep us company whilst we sleep- alone, in the dark.

One of my favorites is the collection of short films, a collaboration of masters of terror Stephen King and George Romero called Creepshow.  This film is a chilling homage to horror comic books of the 1950s such as "Tales From The Crypt," "The Vault of Horror," "The Witching Hour," etc.

The Hootenanny Countdown Selection Committee has chosen the clip below to represent this fine film.  Starring Academy Award nominee Hal Holbrook and the legendary Adrienne Barbeau (who will no doubt have another entry in this year's Halloween countdown), it is the tale of an obnoxious, shrew of a wife who pushes her quite professor husband around and shrilly commands anyone she meets to "just call me Billie."  Ol' Hal just usually sits and daydreams of how to get rid of her but never actually believes he could...

that is, until, a colleague of his discovers an old crate hidden away in their university.

The following clip... may delight you.

That's what you get for messing with old mysterious crates that have chains on them.

Sleep tight kids!

Hootenanny Halloween Countdown: Something Wicked This Way Comes...

Greetings my tasty ones...

Today marks the beginning of my favorite season of the year... Halloween!  That's right kiddies... I do not solely celebrate All Hallow's Eve but rather an entire season of macabre mayhem and spiritsssssssss.....

This year I have chosen to mark the Verbal Hootenanny's Countdown with some of my favorite quotes from some of the scariest tales told on the Silver Screen.

I hope you'll join me as I begin my journey into the depths of madness, courtesy of the Month of October.

Our first selection is from one of the earliest tales of magic and evil.  Of witches and madness.  Of ghosts and curses.   A story of a man who learns what COULD BE and, with the help of his serpentine wife, begins to make it so... however, as these stories often go, all is not what it seems:  Fair is foul and foul is fair.

Our first quote of the season comes from Act IV, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth.  Hovering above a boiling cauldron, the 3 Witches who have helped shape Macbeth's fate chant a spell to summon the future...

First Witch

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

Second Witch

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Witch

Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.

First Witch

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Third Witch

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch

Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Enter HECATE to the other three Witches

HECATE

O well done! I commend your pains;
And every one shall share i' the gains;
And now about the cauldron sing,
Live elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.

HECATE retires

Second Witch

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!

Enter MACBETH.

Shakespeare kicked ass, didn't he?

Such spooky writing and yet so pretty at the same time...  hope it helps get you in the mood.

Stay tuned Hootenanny-ers... Halloween doth come!