Some city folk, a bunch of kids and He Who Walks Behind The Rows go into a cornfield together… stop me if you’ve heard this one. Children of the Corn, a series of movies I have known of for a long time, but never really dove into. I’ve seen the first one at least once, possibly twice, and was sure I’ve seen one more. I grew up watching as many horror movies as I could, so why the hell haven’t I seen all the Corn movies (eight total)? This was a question I couldn’t figure out an answer to, so it only seemed right to sit down and watch all of them… in a row. As people began milling about on the second cold, crisp morning of 2011, I planted my ass on the couch and pressed Play.
The first Children of the Corn was released in 1984, based on the short story of the same name by, none other than, Stephen King, which I have not read. For those that aren’t familiar with the Corn movies, here’s a quick run down for you. Deep within the cornfields of tiny town Gatlin, NE sits a cult comprised of children, who have killed all the adults and believe that once you reach the age of sin (19 years) you now must became a sacrifice to “He Who Walks Behind The Rows”. That’s pretty much the gist of it, just picture crazy little fuckers who are religious extremists. Now toss in a couple, Burt and Vicki (played by Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton), who are on a road trip and you have the first of the series. My initial thought upon reaching the end credits was, “damn, I really didn’t remember much about that movie”, which was then followed up with a satisfied feeling. This is not a bad movie, it’s not great either but it certainly is not bad. The diner massacre scene which opens the film was outstanding, certainly a highlight, and so was the child getting hit by the car.
It’s important to always be prepared for the inevitable zombie apocalypse, even during the holidays. Below you will find a nice little instructional video of how to keep your head on straight amidst all the normal holiday distractions.
Do you like watching horror movies? Do you like to win free stuff? Who are we kidding, of course you do! Follow this link to learn all you need to join the Kryptic Army!
Our great friend Jon of Kitley’s Krypt is getting ready to start another year of the Kryptic Army and is looking for some new recruits. This is quite simple and pretty damn fun. Every month you get a new “mission”, where you are given a sub-genre or theme, and your goal is to watch two films that you have NOT seen in that category during the month. Then you write a quick review of the films and send them in. This is a great way to discover some old, even newer, titles that you might have overlooked or not gone out of your way to see. Best of all, this costs nothing and you are going to watch movies anyway, right? Why not watch two new movies a month and win some stuff.
We felt that it would only be fitting to start out 2011 with a fierce line-up for House of Horrors. Lots of ideas were tossed around, and as we all know, January can be damn cold and since there’s nowhere as cold as outer space, it’s time to go for a journey. For the month of January, House of Horrors will be having it’s first sci-fi horror double feature!
Starting out the night will be Event Horizon. Starring Sam Neil, Laurence Fishbourne, Kathleen Quinian and Sean Pertwee, Event Horizon takes place in the year 2047 when a group of astronauts are sent to investigate and salvage the long lost starship, Event Horizon. The ship disappeared mysteriously 7 years before on its maiden voyage and with its return comes mystery as the crew of the Lewis and Clark discover the real truth behind its disappearance and something even more terrifying.
January’s main feature is the one and only Alien, Ridley Scott’s masterpiece of sci-fi terror. When a mining ship lands on a planet to investigate upon a suspected SOS, the entire crew are unaware of the terror which they would unleash upon their ship. When an alien life-form attaches itself to the face of a crew member, the rest of the team act fast to try and separate the two organisms. Unbeknown to everyone, this is the start of the terror which would affect every member of the seven person crew.
Be sure to check out the trailers below and mark your calendars. As always, House of Horrors is free and open to the public, so bring your friends!
Hell yeah. That’s what I was thinking the time the end credits rolled around for Waxwork. This is one wild movie. That’s probably the best word I can think of to describe Waxwork: wild. In a way I feel ‘wild’ doesn’t do justice, it’s too bland of a word, but at the same time if I didn’t use ‘wild’ I would probably just look in a thesaurus to find something else. So, I’m sticking with it.
There’s some crazy shit going on that would make a full explanation a bit challenging, and perhaps give away too much and be unnecessary, so we are going to just focus on the bare bones of this story. In the middle of a residential neighborhood (a very prosperous one, mind you) a waxwork museum featuring nothing but macabre exhibits opens up. Some college kids, including Gremlins‘ own Zach Galligan, attend a special midnight opening when things start to go crazy. Instead of playing off the somewhat familiar “Oh no, the waxworks are coming to life” scenario, Waxwork offers something a little different. The college kids get sucked into the exhibits, essentially into other dimensions where these exhibits come to life. Not convinced yet? No problem.
Waxwork might be the only movie I know of to combine werewolves, vampires, mummies, zombies and even the fucking Marquis de Sade into one fun filled 90 minutes. We have David Warner, who played Jennings in The Omen, as the mysterious magician of sorts who runs the museum, who also has all sorts of wacky employees. Each little world offers nothing more than successfully executed homages to monster movies of yesteryear. The zombie vignette, for example, is a great, fun filled homage to Night of the Living Dead, and even John Rhys Davies pops up in the werewolf vignette. And while Waxwork doesn’t exactly offer new material to the subgenres, it presents them in a fun, interesting and clever way.
Still aren’t fully on board? Okay, how about this? Waxwork came out in 1988 and features everything one would want in a 80s flick. Similar to Night of the Creeps, Waxwork combines monsters, blood (and other fluids) flying all over the place, funny one-liners, good-looking babes, a tough-as-nails cop, a couple decent scare moments and all the other cheese filled fun oddities of the decade. I laughed out loud many of times, and was quite pleased with the amount of gore. There’s heads getting smashed or chopped off, legs being eaten, blood spraying all over the wall… oh yeah, there is no short on the red stuff. Oh, can’t forget the crazy little explanation of exactly what is going on and how it relates to Galligan’s character.
Every step of the way with Waxwork was quite fun, and I kept realizing I was enjoying this much more than I imagined I would. Then came the big climax, and holy balls was it a huge pay off. The ending is just too ridiculous to mention, and quite frankly, would be better enjoyed without any knowledge of what’s about to happen. But just know, there is nothing like it. Once the credits hit and “It’s My Party” plays, no joke, I couldn’t have been any happier.
Now, don’t get the wrong idea here. Waxwork is not great filmmaking, nor does it strive to be. There’s hooky acting, crappy dialog, poor editing and everything else you would expect from a campy, lower budget 80s flick, but that adds to the charm. I want to stay away from building Waxwork up too much, but there’s no denying it, Waxwork is one crazy ass, wild romp.
And for those with Netflix accounts, Waxwork is streaming right now so go find out for yourselves!
Modern horror has been, in my opinion, one huge game of hit or miss. I would even go as far to say that more times than not, it’s miss. One could say this about any genre at any time, but you can’t deny the boom in the horror genre over the last 10 years. Mainstream American horror has been severely watered down with remakes and un-originality, which causes us to look elsewhere to find our fix. Two places I tend to revisit time and time again are the worlds of independent cinema and foreign films.
For foreign horror, one place that continues impress me is France. While not all of France’s recent horror efforts are exceptional or even completely original and groundbreaking, titles like High Tension, Inside, Frontier(s), and The Ordeal (to name a few), have help put France on the horror map. And now Mutants, my most recent venture into French horror, can join the list. Continue reading
This is something we like to do with Oshkosh Horror, we want to promote local talent!
Here we have a great example of some Halloween fun. This past October 31, a group of friends in Oconto Falls decided they didn’t want to participate in the typical go-to-the-bars-for-Halloween, and opted to make a faux trailer for There’s No Place Like Home, which features madmen dressing up like characters from The Wizard of Oz and taking it to the streets.
There’s No Place Like Home was made from a concept by Adam Krause and Chris Coopman, and stars Adam Krause, Chris Coopman, Douglas Hegeman, Amanda Cook and Kevin Kimmes. Krause also shot and edited the trailer, and hopes to make this into a film someday soon. Until then, check out the video and remember, there’s no place like home!!! Yeah, that was a pretty cheesy way to end the post, huh?
For the past, oh five years now, I spend Thanksgiving sleeping until I can’t sleep anymore, and then I dive head first into a wide array of movies. This year, which was no exception, I was able to bang out six movies total, all being first watches except one. Six movies, two batches of popcorn, two veggie dogs and five freeze pops is how I spent my “holiday”, and here’s my thoughts on everything.
It’s been somewhat of a tradition for us to show food-related movies for November’s House of Horrors, in honor of that one day. We’re still keeping up with that tradition this year, but also throwing in a little treat. Oh, and double features are back, yes!
There’s a lot of holiday inspired horror movies, but for some reason Thanksgiving has gotten the shaft. There’s been a select few who have tried, even Eli Roth tackled the sub…ject with his faux trailer for Thanksgiving, but last year Kevin Stewart and Jordan Downey released the “ultimate low budget experience”, ThanksKilling. The plot of ThanksKilling is quite simple, a fowl-mouthed homicidal turkey axes off college kids during Thanksgiving break. That’s it. But really, do you need more to a movie when it’s a killer turkey that’s a hand puppet? We think not. Plus, the tagline is “Gobble, Gobble, Motherfucker!” Don’t kid yourself, you’re sold.
For our second feature, we are taking the idea of eating to a different level. Cabin Fever tells the story of five college graduates who rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a horrifying flesh-eating virus, which attracts the unwanted attention of the homicidal locals. Get it? Flesh-eating virus…eating…Thanksgiving…November… Yeah, we thought it was pretty clever, too. Cabin Fever introduced the horror world to writer/director Eli Roth in 2002, with Peter Jackson saying Cabin Fever is “an unrelenting, gruesomely funny blood bath. I loved it!”
Be sure to check out both trailers below and mark your calendars. As always, House of Horrors is free and open to the public, so bring your friends!
Being that this was our first time for 31 Days of Horror, we were more than pleased to see we had a total of 12 survivors! Congrats to those that survived, and to those that weren’t able to make it to 31, have no fear, you will have another chance next year.
Now, for your entertainment, we present you with our survivor’s film lists. Along with the film breakdowns, we are also including one response on one film from each person. Individuals are listed in alphabetical order.
Glenn Buettner
1. Backwoods Bloodbath 2. Incest Death Squad 2 3. Horrid 4. Zombieland 5. Dead Alive 6. Survival of the Dead 7. Graveyard Shift 8. Blood: The Last Vampire 9. Tremors 10. Dawn of the Dead (2004) 11. Let The Right One In 12. House of 1000 Corpses 13. The Devil’s Rejects 14. The Evil Dead 15. Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn 16. Shadow of the Vampire 17. The Host 18. Scanners 19. Night of the Living Dead 20. Army of Darkness 21. Fatty Drives The Bus 22. Sleepy Hollow 23. Undead 24. High Tension 25. Ringu 26. Deep Star Six 27. Bubba Ho-Tep 28. Shaun of the Dead 29. Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town 30. Frankenstein Created Woman 31. Red: Werewolf Hunter
Glenn’s thoughts on Red: Werewolf Hunter – “Felicia Day is adorable. Adorable cannot save a bad movie.” Continue reading
