Day 15: 31 Days of Horror: Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

Friday the 13th Part 2 is a mindless horror movie, but it's still fun to watch. It's the first appearance of Jason Voorhees when he's the killer. Spoiler alert for those who have not watched the first part that came out in 1980, Jason was not the original killer of the series, he's just the one most talked about.

Part 2 follows around a group of more unsuspecting camp counselors. These counselors are not at Camp Crystal Lake, since it was shut down after the multiple murders, which had occurred there five years prior. The new camp is not very far from Camp Crystal Lake, but no one seems to be all that freaked out about the legend of Jason Voorhees. One by one, the camp counselors are brutally killed off.

Part 2 really does not make sense to me. If Jason didn't drown and die in the lake, then why did he jump out of the water as a dead, drowned little boy at the end of Part 1? Made me think that Jason did drown in the lake, but because of his death, he was still able to haunt the lake. Then, another question arises, if he is a ghost boy haunting the lake, then how did he all of a sudden age into a grown man with a short span of time? I'm just going to assume that he's a boogieman, who somehow, after witnessing the death of his mother, was able to rapidly age and come back to life and murder a bunch of camp counselors, thus avenging her death. Or maybe he just becomes an adult because it'd be too messed up to watch a little drowned boy slaughtering a bunch of people.

I really like the beginning of this film and how it does a flashback of what had occurred in the prior movie. I also liked when the shrine of the mother was found in a little shack in the woods. The bag over his head was creepy to begin with, but I think that the reveal of his real face was even creepier. I think Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers are scarier than Jason, but I wouldn't want to come face to face with him ever. 

Day 14: 31 Days of Horror: Martin (1976)

George A. Romero may not have done what he did for zombies for vampires, but he still made one heck of a horror movie about a man who believes himself to be a vampire. This movie is called Martin. It's weird and disturbing.

Martin is a strange guy. He truly thinks that he is a vampire. He will find his victims and will drink their blood. The question remains though, is he an 84-year old vampire or just an odd guy who for some reason craves the taste of human blood? Well, he's definitely odd, but I am still unsure about what was going on with him. I think he's just a serial killer who tries to get away with his killings by convincing himself that he's a vampire.

Martin kind of reminds me of Dexter. Not in the sense of who he chooses to attack, but how he does it. He uses a needle to stab his victims with, so that they fall asleep. After that, he drinks their blood. Dexter did not drink his victims' blood, nor did he ever feel remorseful while killing someone. Martin always seems to feel bad when he's attacking someone and taking their blood. He always goes on about how he needs the blood in order to live. Sounds like a dark passenger to me. Maybe the creator of Dexter watched Martin in the past?

Martin is an intriguing movie. The first attack is hard to watch and the rest of the movie is messed up. What makes Martin work so well is that they make the character seem real. You get to hear his point of view, see flashbacks involving his life, and he calls into a radio show to discuss what it's like living in this world as a vampire. Great stuff, but this movie is a rare one to find. You can find it on Netflix though.

Day 13: 31 Days of Horror: Repulsion (1965)

This is one disturbing film. It focuses in on a young woman, Carol, who is a bit unhinged. She starts off being guarded and recluse, then she progresses into a full out paranoid state of mind. It's really unnerving to watch. She cannot stand that her sister is having an affair with a married man, but things become worse for her when her sister leaves her at the apartment by herself to go on vacation. Even though Carol is old enough to be alone, she is struggling so much mentally that  it ends up being a poor decision to leave her alone. 

When alone, Carol is very frightened. She imagines footsteps in the hallway, strange men in her bedroom, and cracks in the walls. She ends up getting to a point where she does not leave her flat and she is always wearing her nightgown. This movie has a slow start, but once she starts losing her mind, it becomes very interesting. I was very freaked out by this movie by the end. 

I think more Haunted House makers need to watch this movie. I've been to two this year, which were both a ton of fun, but would both have been scarier if they took from this movie. There are scenes when the protagonist is hallucinating hands grabbing at her out of the wall. The walls look like they are made out of clay, but the effect is really cool. They could have fake hands come out of the wall like that, if it's about the actors not touching the people going through. I always end up flailing my hands around because I can't see in any of the haunted houses, so if I felt a fake hand coming out of the wall, I'd be scared!

Day 12: 31 Days of Horror: House (1977)

This movie left me disoriented. I was entranced by its strangeness, its artistry. I can honestly say that I've never seen a horror movie, or a movie in general, that is even close to the strange level of House (1977). Ok, I may be over exaggerating a little because I have seen Santa Sangre (1989), it's not paint, it's holy blood! However, House is a close second when it comes to the weirdness level.

Japanese movies are awesome. Battle Royale and House are now my two top favorite Japanese movies. So well made and, well, cool! I need more of this film style in my life!

House follows a young girl, Oshare (Gorgeous), as she struggles with her father getting remarried. She leaves her home and decides to visit her aunt, who has been wanting her to come and stay with her since her, Goregous', mom passed away. She even allows her to bring some friends along! This may seem like a very sweet gesture, until you get more involved with the plot, which I do not want to ruin. Let's just say, some very creepy stuff goes down during this visit. Nothing is what it seems to be and the house is not exactly the safest place to be, especially for Oshare and her friends.

I loved all the weird names for the girls in the film. The translation of their names to English is kind of stupid, but what are you going to do? This film is funny, but that humor is just there for some comic relief from the absolute horror that you are about to be smacked with. Trust me, I sat there in shock when the weirdness started to unfold and then couldn't look away once it multiplied. It was brilliant and mesmerizing to watch.

I've learned some things by watching this film. Being friends with someone named Kung-Fu is awesome. You will always be entertained when that person decides to randomly kick a door for the hell of it. Something isn't right when your friends start to randomly disappear in a house. You should always listen to your friend if they think they're seeing weird things happen. Yeah, they might not be hallucinating and suffering from paranoia! Don't wander around someone's house once you notice that a ton of cobwebs are covering the place. Duh!

Day 11: 31 Days of Horror: Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Phantom of the Opera is one of the most over-the-top silent movies I have seen yet. There are so many exaggerated gestures, which I am not very accustomed to watching in a film. It's more on par with how people act in plays or musicals. I tend to find overly theatrical acting irritating to watch, but for this particular film, it actually works. 

Scariest thing in this film is definitely the Phantom. He is played by the brilliant Lon Chaney. His makeup is gruesome and when his face is revealed for the first time, it is frightening. I thought I'd feel bad for the Phantom because he was in love with a girl who did not love him back, but he was so creepy and a bit forceful, that I didn't feel bad for him. He was like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, but instead of improving his character, he just became more of a creepy stalker. No one likes a creepy stalker!

I really enjoyed when the Phantom would get up to his crazy shenanigans around the Opera house. He sure scared a lot of people. Especially when he sent threatening letters to the Opera about the singer he didn't like and what he was going to do if they let her sing again. He wasn't kidding. He caused a chandelier to fall because they let her sing again. Christine Daae is the only one he wants. He wants her a little too much though. 

The Phantom is obsessed with Christine and will do anything to have her to himself. He resorts to kidnapping her and bringing her to his secret hiding place in the catacombs. He tries to murder her lover, first by about setting him on fire, and then attempting to drown him. The Phantom clearly is very delusional about how to woo a woman. All he did was scare her. He seemed to think that the woman didn't love him because his face was so grotesque, but that was not the case. Yes, his face was frightening, but he was repulsive because of how mean and evil he was. He murdered others in the opera house and didn't feel remorse for any of the murders or his attempted murders. 

This is a great movie to watch to see how the horror genre started out. I wish that I could go back in time to see how audiences reacted to this sort of horror back in the day, without ever having exposure to the horror movies we have today. 

Day 10: 31 Days of Horror: James and the Giant Peach (1996)

Ever since I was a kid, I've been drawn to bizarre, somewhat frightening stories. Not always able to handle the scary films because of my over-active imagination, but it didn't keep me away from them. I have always been able to read scary stories. I was a huge R.L. Stine fan, mainly for his Fear Street books, which I began reading when I was about 8 years old. Still remember the one called 'Switched,' where best friends minds switch and one starts committing murders when she appears to be her best friend. There's a good plot twist in that book, too.

Before that, I read almost every Roald Dahl book that I could get my hands on, one of my favorites being James and the Giant Peach. I don't remember the book being frightening, but the movie version is. It also happens to be one of those movies from childhood to successfully scare the watcher all the way until their adulthood. I still know adults who refuse to watch this movie because of how much it scared them as children.

James and the Giant Peach has some horrific scenes in it. The one that sticks out first is the big rhinoceros that James sees in the clouds. That rhino is scary! It's like the evil whale, Monstro, from Pinocchio! I hate Monstro the whale and I am not a fan of that scary rhino! I associate both with brutal attacks and sinking ships.

Next up, the evil metal robot torpedo shark! Its teeth are like razor blades that spin quickly in a circle. The shark tries to bring down the peach and sink it. It shoots little mini-torpedo sharks at the peach to try to get them. It attempts to eat one of James' bug friends, Mr. Centipede, once he fell and got closer to the shark's mouth.

Last, but not least, the sunken pirate boat. Mr. Centipede about gets murdered by a bunch of skeletons. The creepiest one is the one who looks like Jack Skellington and grabs at Mr. Centipede as he's trying to return to the peach!

This movie is very well done. If you haven't seen it or if you haven't read the book, then you need to now!

Day 9: 31 Days of Horror: American Horror Story (2011 to Present)

Yeah, I know I've posted about American Horror Story before and it's not a movie, but it is a mini-series and can be enjoyed like it's a long movie. Any horroraholics out there should be watching this show! It is brilliantly done, extremely creative and the acting is above average with each season. One of the best things about this show is that it changes the focus of the show with each season. Nothing is ever dull in the world of American Horror Story! I'm more than obsessed with it! This post will have some spoilers, but it's more regarding the history of the Murder House.

Season 1, the Murder House! First five minutes are perfect for grabbing the viewers attention, extremely creepy. The house holds a lot of secrets and anyone who dies in the house is stuck in the house forever, so there are a lot of ghosts haunting it. The house remains on the market, despite the deaths that take place in it. This means that a lot of unsuspecting families end up purchasing the house and becoming victims of the house.

The newest family to move in is the Harmon family. Ben Harmon found the house and decided to move his family there after he basically ruins it. Vivien Harmon, his wife, had suffered through giving birth to a stillborn baby and Ben had an affair with one of his students named Hayden. Their teenage daughter, Violet, is not thrilled to be moving, but she loves the house when they see it because it's so strange and creepy.

The haunting of the ghosts in the house begins almost immediately. However, the Harmons do not realize this until later in the season, mostly because they refuse to believe that what they are seeing is a haunting. It's not an easy thing to accept. Some of the ghosts in the house are friendly, but unfortunately, others are very malevolent. There are ties to Rosemary's Baby (1968), Psycho (1960), Gaslight (1944), The Shining (1980), the Black Dahlia murder case, Sal Mineo's murder, and even The Changeling (1980) in this show. So good!

There are scenes that show the history of the house and previous owners, dating all the way back to the original owners from 1922. The Montgomery family built the house. The husband, Charles, was a doctor who becomes a drug addict, obsessed with anatomy and creating mutants in the house's basement. His wife, Nora, found him to be impossible to deal with once they move into the house. She also finds their baby son to be a nuisance. They were wealthy socialites from Philadelphia, however, they started losing money once they moved into the house. So, Nora thinks of a way for them to start making some extra money and her solution was to have her husband perform illegal abortions for girls in the area, in his 'lab' in the basement.

Things backfire on them though, once 1926 comes around. One of the girls who went under Dr. Montgomery's knife did so without the consent of her boyfriend. It is an understatement to say that the boyfriend was upset because it caused him to do something unimaginable. He kidnapped the Montgomery's child and murdered him, sending pieces of him back to the family. You'd think that'd be the worst part, but no, the worst part is that Dr. Montgomery decided to sew the child back together and the child comes back as a bloodthirsty Infantata. Distraught by her husband's horrific creation, Nora decided to murder her husband and then she committed suicide. That's how the curse of the Murder House begins.

Season two is amazing as well, it takes place in an asylum and has similarities to The Exorcist (1973). A nun becomes possessed by a demon and starts wreaking havoc on the asylum. A nasty nun, with a not so holy past, commits a journalist to the asylum, even though she is mentally stable. Then, later, she is wrongfully committed to the asylum after she tries to fix some of the bad things that have been going on there. A sadistic scientist is performing heinous experiments to supposedly 'correct' some of the criminally insane. Then, there's Bloody Face, one of the creepiest serial killers in history, who may be in the asylum or on the loose. I think that this season is definitely darker than the first one, but I love both of them for some creepy viewing.

Season three, Coven, just started on Wednesday. It started out with a bang! Jessica Lange and a whole bunch of actors from past seasons are back, with a few new faces. Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett are already killing with their scenes. I cannot wait for next Wednesday already! Wish the season premiere could have been two hours instead of one! This show is not for those who cannot handle scary or hard to watch situations, but if you can, then do yourself a favor and check this show out!