The Final Girl Hall of Infamy

Just as I promised, kids, here's a rundown of the worst slasher killers to grace the screen- in my humble opinion, of course. This list was actually tougher to compile than yesterday's, for I had to wax philosophical on such questions as- "What's lamer? A killer in no special garb at all? Or a killer in a stupid costume?". Decisions, decisions. Once again, the films themselves have no bearing on inclusion in this list. I do like some of these movies, even if the psychos themselves are less fear-inducing than Everybody Loves Raymond. Without further ado, here's the inductees for The Final Girl Hall of Infamy, 2006!

10.

The killings in Night School are quite frightening to behold. The killer, sadly, is not. Crocodile Dundee would be proud of that knife, but the rest of the ensemble looks like it belongs on a bad guy from Renegade or Walker, Texas Ranger. Vroom vroom!

9.

While the killer in Graduation Day does use my absolute favorite slasher weapon, the football- with- a- sword- attached, he looks like he's in the middle of gym class. A grey sweatsuit is frightening indeed, but not for the reasons they were going for in this flick.

8.

Behold my scary, scary jean jacket! I'm... going to... glare at you while I sweat! Yeah, that's it! Booga booga! This guy from Slumber Party Massacre might be a big ol' drill-wielding pervert, but scary-looking he ain't. The glistening sweat sheen is gross, though, I'll give him that.

7.

The next entry in the "normal guys doing nothing scary are not scary, dammit" category* is this non- threatening fellow from Pranks. I'm having trouble deciding which of the following is the biggest reason he's so very dull: the light blue t-shirt, the feathered hair, or the fact that he has no weapon. You're a triple threat of boredom there, dude.

*see also: He Knows You're Alone

6.

Oh, you know I loves me some Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. As Ricky, Eric Freeman chews up the scenery like it's made out of Rice Krispie Treats, and I couldn't be happier. I could, however, be more scared. Look at that mug! The only thing scary here is the bad, oh so very bad overacting.

5.

Fie thee, The Last Slumber Party! A pox on your house! Sores on your private no-no parts! These and many other bad things I wish upon thee, foul beast. Verily. This guy needs to learn a thing or two about hamming it up from Eric Freeman. He does, however, repeatedly hold a scalpel up the the camera in a threatening fashion...and he's still not in the least bit terrifying.

4.

OK, I know I'm supposed to find the killer in Terror Train scary. I know I am, but I look at this picture and I just have to laugh. He looks like Gene Shalit! Gene Shalit, staring at me... stalking me...whoa. Wait a minute...that is scary.

3.

Maybe... maybe, if done absolutely right, there's a chance that a psycho in a mascot outfit might be a little bit... unsettling. I doubt it, but I always like to have hope- that's just how I roll. What this geek from Girls Nite Out shows us, however, is that if your mascot looks like a mentally handicapped bear wearing a toupee, there's no chance in hell.

2.

Oh my dear god, do I love Killer Workout. Really, truly, I adore this movie. The videotape is one of the true gems of my collection. I'm going to write a nice, juicy post about it one of these days, whenever I feel I can do justice to a slasher movie set in an aerobics studio. Until then, though, feast your eyes on Rhonda and her weapon of choice, the oversized novelty safety pin. I love the fact that she's posing for us with her oversized novelty safety pin. She's not scary in the least, but she rocks my face off anyway.

1.

Sweet, sweet Charles Nelson Reilly above, won't someone save us from the killer in Slumber Party Massacre 2? Please? Not because I'm afraid of him, but because I'm afraid I may gouge my own eyes out just so there's never a chance that I'll see him again. Yes, readers, the top spot in The Final Girl Hall of Infamy belongs to this tool, the worst slasher psycho I've ever witnessed. He's the resurrected killer from Slumber Party Massacre, and somehow he's sprung forth from the dreams of Crystal Bernard of television's Wings. As if that idea isn't the worst you've ever heard, you should know that he comes to life as a "rock and roller"- complete with silver-tipped, high-heeled boots and tassels on his black leather jacket. He dances, he sings, he does the fucking worm and spins on his back. There are many musical montages, wherein he dances around acting "cool" while he chases his intended victims. I repeat: there are musical montages. He does the worm. It sounds alot more fun than it actually is, believe me. The scariest thing about the whole affair is that I've actually sat through it all.

On a final note, I present the Lifetime Achievement Award to my favorite movie psycho. She's not scary, yet she's not unscary. She's very righteous, and if you're a racist, a drug-taker, a fornicator, a cheerleader, or a bad rapper, she will take you down. She used to have a penis, but now she's a girl and just as cute as a button. She wields a mean acoustic guitar as well as a mean lawn mower, and she is one Happy Camper. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Angela from Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland. Bravo!


Again, feel free to list your favorite terrible killers. I do so love a list.

The clock is ticking kids, and at 11:59pm EST tonight, my Silent Hill 2 Giveaway Contest will turn back into a pumpkin. Don't miss your chance to enter! Follow the link for the rules.

Happy Friday the 13th, everybody!

The Final Girl Hall of Fame

Welcome to the Final Girl Hall of Fame! What is this so-called "Hall" of "Fame", you ask? Will there be a televised broadcast of the induction ceremony, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and Dean Cain? First of all, no...no televised ceremony, sorry. I hope you didn't get too excited over the prospect. Secondly, the Hall of Fame is...a list! That's right! A List! I love a list. Who doesn't? Only jerks don't like lists.

Herein we've got the 10 Scariest Killers in Slasher Movies, according to yours truly. I thought about calling this my 'favorite killers' list or something, but the phrase 'favorite killers' just sounded a little too sick and twisted to me. So here are what I consider to be the scariest killers, based mostly on their appearance, but the way they move, sound, and generally carry on will be taken into consideration as well. The quality and/or scariness of the movies in which they appear has no bearing on inclusion or ranking- the movies themselves could be meh. This is just a list of the slasher psychos who give me the biggest, best heebie jeebies. Without further ado, please welcome the Final Girl Hall of Fame 2006 inductees!

10.

They're creepy and they're kooky...yes, readers, it's the boys from Just Before Dawn. These overgrown inbred brothers are exactly who you don't want to run into on your camping trip. They're not as deformed as the inbred brothers from Wrong Turn, but they don't need to be in order to skeeze me out. They wheeze and they giggle and they've got weird sores and they'll put your clothes on after they kill you. They seem to really get a kick out of killing people who wander into their neck of the woods- seriously ooky, indeed.

9.

One of my favorite slasher flicks from back in the day is My Bloody Valentine. Harry, the vengeful miner out to put the kibosh on the Valentine's Day Dance, has always gotten under my skin. The black miner garb (complete with headlamp, gasmask, and pickaxe) makes Harry look damn threatening as he's stalking the tunnels of the mine. Watch the sequence where he's smashing out lightbulbs with his axe as he moves along the tunnel, enveloping himself in darkness as he goes- and see if I'm not right!

8.

You're probably sick of hearing me go on about this movie by now, but what would a list of my favorite/ most scary things be without a mention of Black Christmas? It certainly wouldn't be complete, I can tell you that. So, nestled in at #8 is Billy, the psycho in the attic who kills off sorority girls one by one, at his leisure. Assuming his name really IS Billy- we never quite know for sure. The picture of him here is about the only time you really see him in the movie, and that's just fine. Look at that eye! This dude is one psycho psycho. I can't really describe for you the phone calls he makes to his intended victims- you've just gotta hear them for yourself. The calls get more frightening and more twisted as the victims pile up, and by the end I'm quaking in my Tims. NOTE: I do not wear Tims.

7.

Poor Cropsy. He just wanted to pass out on his bed in peace after a long night with the bottle, but those damn campers had to try to be funny, and Cropsy ends up burned within an inch of his life. Soon he heals up enough to put on some raggy-looking clothes, grab some giant hedge-clipper/scissor things, and get down to business. The business of killing campers in a movie called The Burning, that is. Cropsy is mighty pissed and he has giant scissors which he will use to cut you up into many tiny pieces. I don't like that in a person, as a rule. People like that frighten me.

6.

In Friday the 13th Part VII, Kane Hodder took over the role of Jason Voorhees, and he really made the character his own. Suddenly, Jason seemed to be 8 feet tall and built like a house ...just huge and imposing ...and damn if he didn't have a purpose. Jason storms around, very intent on getting to his victims, all the while unaware of how gross he's become. He's gooey and almost melting, he's done the "I'm alive- no, I'm dead- no, really, I'm alive" thing so many times. But with Kane Hodder in his squishy shoes, Jason is a force to be reckoned with, and you're simply not going to escape.

5.

Before he became reanimated Super Jason, or Jason in Space, Mrs. Voorhees' boy was just a confused psycho, living in the woods at Crystal Lake with a potato sack covering his disfigured face. Clad in overalls, Jason still didn't fuck around, though- if you were on his turf, well...you wouldn't be for long. This backwoods weirdo Jason from Friday the 13th Part II creeps me out, from his shanty hut with the mom shrine to his one eyeball peering at me through the sack. Put the pitchfork down, Jason. Listen to mommy! That's a good boy, Jason.

4.

One yellow rain slicker + one weird, vaguely see- through mask with makeup on it = Fuck. That. Noise. This ensemble, sported by the killer in Alice, Sweet Alice, is seriously frightening. I don't even like looking at it.

3.

You know what? The first 15 minutes or so of Scream comprise one of my favorite scenes from any slasher flick. C'mon readers, think back to that time, before horror movies became all ironic and "too cool" to actually be scary...before Scary Movie played this up for laughs. Think back- you know Ghost Face scared the hell outta you the first time you saw him. You can't lie to me! The moment during the phone conversation, when he tells Drew Barrymore that he can see her, was devastating. Catching that glimpse of Ghost Face running by the window behind her- I could feel the tension in the movie theatre when I saw this flick. People were scared. When he chased down poor Drew, all in slow motion, black robe flying and knife raised, I was completely terrified. Way to go, Wes Craven!

2.

Curtains is a little-known slasher flick from 1983. As movies in this genre go, it's pretty standard fare- but the mask the killer wears is simply beyond eerie. If you talk to someone who's seen Curtains, without a doubt, they'll mention the ice skating scene- the highlight of the movie. A young woman is out on the ice, doing her thing early one morning. She finds a creepy doll buried beneath the snow, and then begins a magnificent sequence- one of the best in all slasherhood (I think I made that word up, but go with it). The killer, dressed entirely in black, wearing a hag mask, and wielding a scythe, skates intently toward the young woman. She raises the scythe...and you know the rest. It's all done in slow motion, and the scene takes place in bright, broad daylight- a great touch- proving that you don't need the darkness to create terror. Once you see this scene, it'll never leave you- and neither will that face.

1.

Is there any doubt as to who'd be at the top? Call me predictable, but of course, it's The Boogeyman himself. Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for Halloween's Michael Myers! Yes, The Shape from the first Halloween (OK, maybe a bit from Part II...) is the one who kept me awake many a night as a kid, and who still has me looking over my shoulder when I'm alone at night as an adult. Nick Castle, who had the role in the first movie, was almost graceful in his movements- very threatening and commanding, yet ethereal and fluid at the same time. There's a quietness about him here, and you never know where he is at any given time. He doesn't stomp around- you only hear him breathe. The expressionless white mask with the darkened eyeholes is the stuff of nightmares. Somehow, in all the subsequent Halloween flicks, they managed to fuck up the mask every single time. The shape of it changed, the amount of hair on it changed so much that Michael Myers ended up looking like a dorky, pasty-faced troll doll by Part 6. None of the subsequent actors in the role could match Castle's movements, and Michael Myers went from being The Boogeyman to being a weird chubby guy in a jumpsuit. It's a shame, really, because even after 25 years, the original is still so terrifying.

So there you have it, folks! feel free to chime in with your OWN choices. Tomorrow I'll be running a list that's the evil twin to this one: the slasher killers who aren't scary whatsoever. Now that's a good time.

Remember, my Silent Hill 2 Giveaway Contest ends tomorrow, Friday the 13th (yikes!) at 11:59pm EST! Many will enter, but only one will win! Will it be you? Who knows. Miss Cleo might know, but I think she's on the lam.

How Fitting.

How absolutely fitting that I was in the middle of a my post about The Last Slumber Party (1987) when it disappeared. Poof. Just like that. How was it fitting? Well, I was in the middle of a sentence declaring this movie the biggest pile of crap I've ever seen. The same evil force that made me buy The Last Slumber Party obviously doesn't want me talking smack about it either, and therefore made me click 'ok' at the wrong moment, sending my rant into the foul netherworld from whence it came. The Patron Saint of Giant Shitpiles Caught on Tape, meddling again, I guess. Sigh. I will try again, because I honestly believe that this movie is so bad, that if I can spew enough bile about it and maybe I can prevent just one more person from seeing it, then I will have accomplished some sort of mission in my life. You know I love a so-bad-it's-good movie. This movie, though...this movie...I think I may make it a personal goal to buy every copy of this movie in existence. Then I will load all the copies into a big box truck, haul them out to the New Mexico desert, where I will commence burying them in a big hole next to all those Atari ET game cartridges. Before I bury them, however, I will dump my dirty cat box on them and flip them off with both hands just to show them some more hate.

I think the plot was something like this: some girls are having a slumber party. The father of the girl hosting the party is a doctor at a mental hospital. One of his patients escapes, comes to the house, and kills everybody.

I say "I think" because I couldn't hear the dialogue for the first 10 or so minutes of the movie, either because the sound was simply so poor or because there was music drowning it out altogether. Yes, lame metal music by "Firstryke" just played and played and played while people talked about something. You know, it doesn't even matter that I heard nothing, because what I did hear made virtually no sense at all. The writing and direction in this flick were the absolute worst I've ever seen in any movie. Ever. Evvvvaaaaaaaaar. There were jump cuts, characters inexplicably winding up in entirely different locations from one scene to the next...long, lingering shots that went far beyond long and lingering...I can't describe accurately how bad it was. It's far beyond my feeble grasp on language to do so. Take this shot, for example:

It's one of the "I'm 'in high school' but I look like a 40-year-old crack whore" characters in the shower. This shot, with a little zoom in and a little zoom out and a little shitty synthesizer noise, goes on for well over a minute. I timed it. I want you to stare at that picture while saying "beep beep beep" over and over for a minute and ten seconds, so you can feel my pain. A minute is alot longer than you'd think. A minute is a very long time in hell, indeed.

The writing is second to the directing in general crappiness only because the characters manage to speak in complete sentences. The same sentences, over and over and over, but complete sentences, at least. If I had to hear "You scared the shit outta me!" when nothing had happened one more time...pow! Zoom! To the fucking moon with this dvd, off the end of my foot! Here are some choice names for the boys used repeatedly throughout the movie: queer, queerbait, faggot, homo. And for the ladies: bitch, whore, wench. I don't even know the character names.

Judging from the beginning, I thought the movie was going to try to rip off Halloween alot more than it actually did. Check out this shot:

Remind you of anything? Laurie, Annie, and Lynda (Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Loomis, PJ Soles) walking home, having some 'girl talk' maybe? And the one in the middle there is the 'nerdy' one...her girlfriends are gonna set her up with a guy, despite her protests! Yeah, just like the whole Ben Tramer bit in Halloween. Had it continued the blatant rip-offs and been a 5th-rate Halloween, The Last Slumber Party would've been a much better movie then what it actually is.

Want to feel like you were there with me? Stare at this for a minute or two:

Yes, an action news flash that's just a poorly dubbed voiceover accompanying a lame graphic. It's actually one of the more exciting shots in the movie.

The killer, dressed in surgical scrubs, kills everyone the same way: by drawing a red line across their throats with a scalpel. Then he bugs out his eyes and holds the scalpel up to the camera for thirty seconds or so. Why, I don't know. But he does it...over...and over...and over...

You know, if I were me (wait, I am me) and I were reading this exact same review, I might think "Well, yeah, but I like bad movies- I'm gonna check this one out!". I might check it out, and later I would kick myself in the ass so hard I'd never see my Buster Browns again. I do like bad movies, of a type. Not this type. Please, readers, please...stay away from The Last Slumber Party. Stay as far away as possible. I really took one for the team by watching this. I suffered so you don't have to- that's how much I care. Take my word for it. Look- even Tom Selleck hates this movie!

See how unhappy he is, despite the bug-eyed killer? If Tom Selleck can't enjoy it, then how can we mere mortals expect to?

I feel a bit like this review is a jumbled mess- sort of all over the place and garbled. If you find it that way, too, then again, I say- how fitting. Because The Last Slumber Party is a big garbled mess that makes no fucking sense. I give it one quarter out of 10 stuck up middle fingers. You know why it didn't get a zero? Because at some point, one of the characters said "Who'd you think it was, Shelley Hack?" and any movie that name-drops Shelley Hack deserves one quarter of something. Otherwise, I hate you, The Last Slumber Party! F you and the dvd you rode in on!

Slasher in Four Colors

Conveying scares and horror on the printed page is tough business (yes, even for you, Stephen King!). Add pictures into the mix and it's... umm... tougher. With film, the director (and by default, the editor) retain complete control of the train even after it's left the station. The audience sits in the theatre and the movie plays out before them. They've got no choice about the pacing or the atmosphere; they're thrust into the story, for good or for bad. Yes, of course at home you can pause the dvd and all that, ya weisenheimer. But ultimately, the story itself is going to play out as the director intended.

With a comic book, though, the reader is in complete control of the process, from beginning to end. You can breeze through the entire story in a minute, or take an hour, closely inspecting each and every panel. Given the variables, it's difficult for a real atmosphere or mood to be established. To my mind, atmosphere and mood are key elements in deciding whether or not a horror movie is successful. That said, what chance does a horror comic have at hitting its mark...particularly a slasher comic?

Well, after reading Hack/Slash: Girls Gone Dead, I came to the conclusion that the slasher genre is surprisingly well-suited to the comic book medium. There's not many scares, per se, but there's a heck of a lot of fun. Think not Friday the 13th, but rather Friday the 13th Part III and you'll get the idea.

Hack/Slash is the story of Cassie Hack, the survivor of an attack by a killer called The Lunch Lady- who just so happens to be Cassie's mother. Cassie teams up with Vlad, a scary-looking monster-type guy, and the duo sets out to rid the world of 'slasher killers' one at a time.

In Girls Gone Dead, Cassie and Vlad are in Panama City Beach, Florida, tracking down what they think might be another slasher. The action begins on page 4, and it couldn't be more like your typical...well, slasher. Boy A and Girl B head out onto the sand for a little you-know-what*, and they meet their grisly end- complete with the trip-n'-fall from Girl B:

*I mean 'sex', as if you didn't know. Don't play coy with me!

Eventually, the daring duo tracks the killer to his hotel room, and they discover who- and what- he is. He's Father Wrath, a hateful televangelist turned murderous-avenger.

I'm not gonna reveal all of Father Wrath's story here (and there's alot more to it), in case you want to seek this out. If you're into comics and slashers, well, this is like two great tastes that taste great together. Writer/creator Tim Seeley obviously has a huge love for the genre, and the book has all the hallmarks of what makes these movies fun. And you know what? Maybe it's just me, but I'd love to see Father Wrath on the screen, in action. He's pretty damn spooky looking. Scarier than the school mascot-turned-killer in Girls Nite Out, that's for sure.

The artwork by penciler Federica Manfredi and colorist Davide Amici is a perfect blend of realism and 'comic book' style, and there's a decent amount of blood spilled.

I'm really looking forward to reading more of the adventures of Cassie and Vlad. I'll get to come March, when Seeley and Co. release Hack/Slash: Trailers. It's- you got it- shorts acting as trailers for stories that won't be... an idea that, quite frankly, I'm insanely jealous of. Why didn't I think of that, dammit? It's alright, though. I trust Mr. Seeley to take care of the genre- I wish I could say the same about Hollywood .

To read more about Hack/Slash: Trailers, head over here.

Oh, and if you haven't done so yet, well, why don't you enter my Silent Hill 2 Giveaway Contest? See, I added a link there so you don't even have to scroll down. Hugz.

I'm not, trust me.

You know what's worse than looking forward to a movie, finally seeing it, and being disappointed with it? I'll tell you what's worse! Looking forward to a movie, finally seeing it, and being disappointed with it- when everyone in the world has told you the movie is great! That's what's worse! And that's exactly happened to poor ol' me last night when I got to see the 1973 made-for-TV flick Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. I'd read glowing review after glowing review of this movie, praising it's scariness. Maybe all the Peanut Butter M&Ms I ate were affecting my judgment, I don't know...but I will say that I wasn't overly impressed.

Kim Darby and Jim Hutton (father of Timothy Hutton) are Sally and Alex Farnham, a young couple who inherit a big, creepy old house from Sally's grandmother. The couple hires handyman Mr. Harris (William Demarest) to help with fixing up the place- he's worked on the house before and knows what's what. There's a locked door which Sally is dying to get into, and when she finally finds the key, the door opens to a dark, dank study. Sally wants to turn this into an office for herself, but Mr. Harris tells her to forget that idea. There's a fireplace in the room, but it's bricked up and the ash door is bolted shut. Mr. Harris did that a long time ago, though he won't tell Sally why. He insists that some things are best left the way they are, and that's that- stop meddling! Personally, I think Hollywood needs a Mr. Harris. Anytime some bozo got the idea to revive a series, or screw with an established history, Mr. Harris could stop them in their tracks. Just imagine...

"Let's make a movie about Leatherface's childhood!"
"Some things are best left the way they are! Stop meddling, ya idjit!"
"Hey, that old guy's right! What a stupid idea! Let's come up with an entirely original idea instead!"

Mr. Harris Goes To Hollywood could save me alot of stress. His reasoning isn't good enough for that Sally, though. She really needs to get that fireplace open, and when she's alone, she unbolts the ash door! Pfft- ain't that just like a woman? Can't leave well enough alone. I bet she's a terrible driver, too!

When Mr. Harris finds the door open, he promptly re-bolts it...but it's too late! Tooooo laaaaate! They have been let out...they who stalk the darkness and want to claim Sally as their own...they who creep around and whisper Sally's name...they...who...are about 7 inches tall and have shrivelled gourd-like heads. Dammit.

The fatal mistake of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, for me, was the overexposure of the things in the dark. Hearing whispered voices, catching a glimpse of something scuttling behind a table, thinking maybe you see a face in the window...these things are scary. Watching creatures run around- creatures that look like Smurfs stricken with that awful condition that makes you age before your time- is not scary.

The rest of the movie runs the typical course: Sally keeps seeing these creatures everywhere and she's sure they're out to get her, but everyone thinks she's crazy. Unfortunately, Sally's the one who's right. Eventually the shriveled little things do get her, and Sally disappears into the fireplace to...I guess become a shriveled little thing herself.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. For a TV movie, it's certainly original and scarier than most of the others you'll see. If I had seen this when I was a kid, it probably would've left me afraid to go to bed that night, and most nights afterward. This movie had a great premise- what's scarier than the idea that yeah, there really is something lurking in your room in the dark? Knowing there's something there but not knowing what it is- that's terrifying. It would've worked better if we'd never really seen the pint-sized creatures...I couldn't help but think "Just step on them!", or "Just kick them really hard!" whenever Sally was being tormented. Now this movie would be a great candidate for a re-make. Like Mr. Harris says, some things are better left the way they are, but not all. I give it 6 out of 10 mini-pumpkinheads.

What am I wearing? For God's sake, what am I wearing? Eyyyyahhhhh!

Call Me Care Bear

If you were around way back in October, you know how much I lurve a contest. My first one was such a raging success that I've decided to have yet another contest! A contest wherein you can win a prize! Rod Roddy, won't you shine your smile down from heaven and tell these kids what they can win in my big January Giveaway Extravaganza Bonanza Tonydanza?

A NEW CAR!

Now, Rod Roddy, I know much you liked to exclaim "A new car!" while you were here with us, but that's just not funny. And though I do love each and every reader out there just like I love each and every kitten ever made, I simply don't have a car to give away. What I do have , however, is this:

Word to your mother! I'm giving away a copy of Silent Hill 2 for the PlayStation 2 game system! Yeehaaw! Now, before you start touching yourself in your excitement over this display of my magnanimous nature, let me tell you now that it's a used game. Used, but in 100% working order...just like David Crosby's sperm. I don't even know if that made sense, but it suuuure was grody! "Used?!" you say? Yes, yes...let me tell you the boring little story...

You should certainly know by now that I Heart Silent Hill. Really, I do. I've had this here copy of SH2 since the day it was released, whenever that was...and what a happy Stacie it has made me. Shortly thereafter, another version of the game was released for the Xbox game system, with new, additional material. I didn't have an Xbox system, and what a bitter Stacie it made me. Several tax refunds later, I decided to splurge and buy myself an Xbox, because I'm nothing if not a huge nerd. I found a cheap copy of the Xbox version of SH2 recently, bought it, and so I don't need this version anymore. You see? I'd love to pass it on to one lucky winner out there, in the hopes of spreading some good scares.

To win, all you have to do is send me an email (my addy can be found in my Blogger profile to the right) with 'Stacie is the best' in the subject line. That's it! YOU get a chance to win a free videogame, and I get to feel all cool. Send me an email (send just one email, please- one entry per person!)by next Friday, January 13th, 11:59pm EST. WOW! Friday the 13th! Anyway, I'll pull one entrant's name from a hat and send them the game. Easy, breezy, beautiful. And here's some images from the game to let you know just what you're in for....hee hee heeeeeee!



Those nurses creep me right the fuck out.

The Return of Gore

The Mercury News posted an interesting little article about the current trend in horror films: the resurgence of gore and that special 70's feeling.

It's true, movies like Saw, The Devil's Rejects, and Hostel seem to be the antithesis to the WB-friendly, late-90's, ironic horror trend. As Eli Roth, the writer/director of Hostel and Cabin Fever, says:

I think scary movies are back. People clearly don't want to see a horror movie to laugh.

Trends come and trends go...just ask Macarena, wherever she is. I agree wholeheartedly, in particular with the second statement (I'm in more of a "Well, we'll see, won't we?" place with the first.). My point of contention is that 'gore' does not equal 'scary'. 'Visceral' and 'grisly' don't equal scary...they equal gross. I don't refuse to watch a movie with gore, but I certainly don't get bummed out if a flick is blood-free.

I love Dawn of the Dead, with all it's blood and guts and the chomping on them, but it's The Haunting that scares me...and it's got exactly one visual special effect- and no blood (of course, I'm talking about the 1963 version, silly). When Jason Voorhees squeezes some unfortunate guy's head until the unfortunate guy's eyeballs pop out and fly towards me in magnificent 3-dimensional fashion, I say "Eww!" with much glee. But when Michael Myers stands in the doorway covered in a white sheet, stark still but audibly breathing, I get goosebumps...and on and on. The movies that keep me up at night tend to be the most 'tame' blood/effects/gore-wise: The Haunting, Halloween, The Changeling, Black Christmas, The Ring, The Blair Witch Project...

I haven't seen Hostel yet, and honestly, I don't know if I will. I'm really not into watching people being tortured. People getting their heads punched off by Jason, please, hell yes- bring it on. It's fun- fake fun. But hours of torture and cruelty? That's not fun to me, and it's certainly not scary.

Am I in the minority on this? According to Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations I am. As he states in the article:

With video games and all the entertainment options, it really takes a lot to impress audiences today. The level of violence and gore cannot be too intense for a lot of people. Horror fans in particular are very keen on seeing the most intense, violent images they can.

These kids today, I swear.

You can read the article in its entirety right here.

Ah, the good old days.