Month: January 2011

In the not so distant past your Unk, along with his fellow Pennsylvania pal CHRISTINE HADDEN of FASCINATION WITH FEAR, created a couple of conjoined twin posts together. The first concerned our FAVORITE HORROR HOMES and the second explored our LEAST FAVORITE HORROR HOMES. Both were Internet sensations that resulted in mass suicides across the globe and heavily censored high-profile films. Now we're back with our 3-D third installment, duel listings of our FAVORITE HORROR TOWNS because YOU did not specifically ask us not to!

So below are my TOP TEN FAVORITE HORROR TOWNS. If you don't see your favorite town there then that means I either don't feel the same as you, do feel the same as you but totally forgot that I do or CHRISTINE has it listed over at her place. See, we went out of our way not to have duplicate towns for the sake of your entertainment and now don't you feel like a heel? Check out Christine's list HERE. If you still feel your favorite town has been neglected then by all means leave a comment. Let me warn you though, I did not include ELM STREET's SPRINGWOOD on purpose just because I'm still mad about that last movie stinking like a crab dip litter box.

10. SILENT HILL

I guess nobody would want to actually spend too much time in SILENT HILL due to all the triangle head monsters, faceless killer health care professionals and worst of all, swarming cucarachas but hey, at least you get a warning alarm before they appear. I know the place is run down and falling apart, but I'm all about the shabby chic and let's hear it for snow considerate enough to look pretty but not stick around. It's like the whole town is a giant haunted house with streets for hallways. Hey, except for that considerate snow thing, it sounds kinda like Philly!

9. GREEN TOWN (SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES)

If I had my way it would be autumn all year round and what better place to spend a crisp fall day then in the town featured in this RAY BRADBURY classic. Maybe the 1983 movie directed by JACK CLAYTON (THE INNOCENTS) pales in comparison to the novel but can the novel boast an appearance by PAM GRIER? I think not. Perhaps your Unkle Lancifer was born in the wrong time, I'd rather deal with armies of tarantulas in my bedroom than people yacking on cell phones any day of the week. Yeah, I know it looks boring but that's what tall dark transient carnies are for. By the by, Green Town, Illinois is featured in two other BRADBURY works, "Dandelion Wine" and "Farewell Summer." I admit it, I never read those two but doesn't that just give me something to look forward to in my twilight years?

8. HOBB'S END (IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS)

Fictional fiction author Sutter Cane's fictional New England town can be said to be located at the crossroads between STEPHEN KING's Castle Rock and H.P. LOVECRAFT's Dunwich. Named after a fictional London underground transport station featured in 1967's QUARTERMASS AND THE PIT (which altered the moniker from "Hobb's Lane" a fictional street prominent in the 1958 television serial of the same name) Hobb's owes just as much of its existence to frequent CARPENTER inspiration NIGEL KNEALE. It's interesting to note that "Hob" was once one of the Devil's many call signs. Fictional or not, I dig any town with a covered bridge dimensional doorway.

7. SALEM'S LOT

Speaking of our old pal STEPHEN KING, one of his many great creations is the town of Jerusalem's Lot, Salem's lot for short. (If you prefer "Salem" to "Jerusalem" thank the publisher's marketing concerns.) You can visit this unfortunate town via KING's novel (or through 2 short stories featured in NIGHT SHIFT), TOBE HOOPER's 1979 mini-series, the RUTGUER HAUER featuring 2004 miniseries or even the 1995 radio play found HERE. I don't care how you go there, just go there. KING himself, at one point, admitted that it was his favorite of his works and if I thought about it for a while I'd probably agree with him. Also, if you like vampires, there is at least one vampire in this town.

6. BODEGA BAY (THE BIRDS)

DAPHNE (REBECCA, DON'T LOOK NOW) du MAURIER's original short story took place in a British coastal town but ALFRED HITCHCOCK placed his telling smack in the muddle of the non-fictional Bodega Bay in California. In fact the only element HITCH retained from du MAURIER's story is those kooky ornery birds. HITCH's choice is what lands the classic here as what a scenic spot he chose, even if many of the scenes in THE BIRDS are in fact shot on UNIVERSAL sets. The famous (and rumored haunted) schoolhouse shown in the film to be within running distance of the bay actually exists miles away. Bodega Bay has also made in appearance in THE GOONIES, PUPPET MASTER and a little something called THE FOG but more squawking on that film later.

5. KINGSTON FALLS (GREMLINS)

I love this little compact town even though it has the fakest looking snow I've ever seen and is merely a Universal back lot fated to appear soon after in BACK TO THE FUTURE. (There sure is a preference for small towns in this compilation; I must be trying to tell myself something.) Kingston Falls seems like a place where everybody knows everybody and the jewel in its crown has got to be Dorry's Tavern (which was included in our "Best Horror Watering holes" found HERE!) I think the only minus to this burg is the witchy asshole known as Mrs. Deagle (POLLY "FLO" HOLIDAY) but a faulty stair elevator seems to have cleared up that miserable problem.

4. SANTA MIRA (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS/HALLOWEEN 3: SEASON OF THE WITCH)

Everything is perfect in the fictional town of Santa Mira, California and you can thank mind controlling aliens and clockwork replicants for that. Whether it's the landing pad for pod people or the home to a Stonehenge tripped booby trap Halloween mask novelty company, Santa Mira is a town like no other. So what if you have to give up your personal identity, think of the peace and quiet!

3. VALENTINE'S BLUFF/ HARMONY (MY BLOODY VALENTINE)

Maybe FOOTLOOSE's KEVIN BACON would have a hard time in the dance forbidding mining town of Valentine's Bluff found in the 1980 slasher MY BLOODY VALENTINE but as I'm loath to do a jig and chuck confetti anyway, I'm thinking I'd fit right in. How could I say no to a town with such a hospitable and accommodating laundromat like Mabel's? The town was renamed and relocated into the dance neutral Pennsylvanian mining town of "Harmony" for the 2009 remake and truth be told, I like it just about the same. Harmony may not be quit as charming as Valentine's Bluff but it makes up for that by being home to that crapilly built bridge that THE MOTHMAN is always trying to warn everybody about.

2. POTTER'S BLUFF (DEAD AND BURIED)

This place covers all of my bases. It's small, it's coastal, it's lost in time and it's inhabited by zombified weirdoes. It's the perfect storm of all of my wants and desires in regards to cinematic towns. Also FLASH GORDON's MELODY ANDERSON lives there. I'm packing my bags as we speak. DEAD AND BURIED was filmed in Mendocino, California; other notable films filmed there include CUJO, THE HOWLING and HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP.

1. ANTONIO BAY (THE FOG)

Let's face it, Antonio Bay is the coolest fictional town on Earth. Sure the town's ancestors murdered lepers in the name of prosperity, stole their gold and then strangely just hid the gold in a church wall anyway. If you want omelets in your future, you better be ready to trick some eggs into smashing their boats into some rocks. Many towns were actually used within the course of the film to represent ANTONIO BAY but I'm most interested in Point Reyes, California, the home of Stevie Wayne's radio station lighthouse. I want to have my ashes dumped from the top of that lighthouse! Not the ashes of my cremated body but the ashes of my set-on-fire copy of the 2005 remake of THE FOG.

EXTRA BONUS TOWN! SUNNYDALE (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER)

I did my whole list concentrating on movies and books and forgot that I could include television shows as well. I don't want to bump Antonio Bay out of the spotlight, but I'm thinking perhaps I should for the fictional town of Sunnydale from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. After all, over seven seasons Sunnydale exists in 144 episodes and that's not even counting novelizations and comic books. Quite an achievement if ya think about it, Sunnydale was destroyed in the last episode of BUFFY but remember it exists on in all those earlier installments. If you've never visited, you should.

So that wraps it up. Don't forget to let CHRISTINE take you on a tour of her favorite towns HERE and let us know if there are any other horror towns you'd like to visit!

I think 1981's MADHOUSE (a.k.a THERE WAS A LITTLE GIRL, a.k.a AND WHEN SHE WAS BAD) tastes like horror movie comfort food. I don't know if it's good but it's always been good to me. I don't need or want every horror film to be a blasting, rousing shower of fear; sometimes I just want to sink into a nice tub of lukewarm creepy. MADHOUSE makes me ardently nostalgic even though we never crossed paths in my youth as I was fated to discover it decades after its release in a pile of used tapes in a second hand store. I drug it home thinking it might work as a shrug-off, time waster but from its vivid opening credits (complete with an eerie sing-song rhyme) I found myself strangely ensnarled. Corny, melodramatic and outmoded at birth, it's easy to understand why this one has eluded much fan-boy recognition. On the other hand, it's smartly shot, atmospheric and unaffectedly eccentric. MADHOUSE is an out of touch weirdo and it may not have the chops or desire for spotlight attention but I've always gravitated to quiet loners anyway. Half mass though it may fly; I spy a freak flag billowing.

One of MADHOUSE's greatest charms is its lead TRISH EVERLY who christened this her one and only film. As a teenager I read many a horror paperback and I have to say the heroines who I conjured in my head always looked like TRISH even though I was unaware of her existence at the time. What a shame she never went on to other films; I feel like her character Julia Sullivan is the type that we just don't get to see enough of anymore. She's an un-hip, unassuming altruist (she teaches deaf children) and she's a bit of a doormat/pincushion to her horrifically scarred, witch cackling sadistic "twin" sister Mary (ALLISON BIGGERS). Yes, Julia is living the dream as a functioning adult with fantastic hair, a slutty pants-optional best friend doomed to die and a stand up main squeeze with a CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC moustache. Just because she relies on her man to save her ass doesn't mean she won't hack a person's back into hamburger meat with an ax when given a reasonable opportunity. Everyone may think Julia is letting her imagination get the best of her, but time will show that she has a valid reason to suspect her sibling of siccing a Rottweiler to chomp on her favorite pupil. I love Julia Sullivan and I wish she would invite me over to her wicker and fern heavy apartment.

AN ASIDE: It doesn't hurt that Julia's pad exists within an incredible Georgian mansion. I Googled this shit up and learned that MADHOUSE was filmed in a real joint called "The Kehoe House" which is now an Inn rumored to be haunted (by twin ghosts no less.) Incredibly none other than JOE NAMATH owned the joint from 1980 to 1989 and he tried but failed to transform it into a disco. Don't feel bad for Broadway Joe though, it turned out to be a highly lucrative investment. Aw, I love that JOE even when he was a lascivious drunk on live television. He was so swank on THE BRADY BUNCH.

Although filmed in the States, MADHOUSE is an Italian production directed and written by OVIDIO G. ASSONITIS. OVIE may not be the best director in the world but as the man responsible for TENTACLES and BEYOND THE DOOR, he has brought more joy into my world than many a celebrated director ever has. Telltale Italian sensibilities are all present and accounted for. Appreciation for color, shadow and inventive angles abound and God bless whoever rented the wind machine to shove the foliage about. (Attention all directors: if you are too cheap to spring for a wind machine get the crew to shake branches outside the window. Wind is very important for setting a mood for me.) In the end MADHOUSE may be little more than an old, dark house flick hugging on a lady-in-peril with family-issues movie but that's just fine by this guy. Some movies simply exist to shove me in a canon and shoot me to my happy zone. This semi ridiculous bruiser does so every time.

Believe me I'm not blind to MADHOUSE's quirks and foibles. I know it's not without its awkward tics. Some of the stalking scenes drag and some of the supporting players need to look up "supporting" in the dictionary and take it down a notch and the death by Rottweiler bit does become repetitive. Truth told, some of the killer canine set pieces, thanks to slack puppy-puppetry, feel more like TRIUMPH THE INSULT DOG sketches gone awry, but expertly hung Christmas lights and a party attended by corpses tends to salve my wounds.

Many have pointed out that MADHOUSE's climax resembles that of HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, and I can only touch my nose and point in agreement. Both films came out around the same time so it's nearly impossible that one cribbed off the other, but the similarities are uncanny. Besides the dead birthday party guests and the rampant sibling rivalry present, both films carry a verbatim line, "Take a good long look!" I blame the collective unconscious and synchronicity myself as those pimps are always up to something. In a way, the two films are mismatched battling twinsies from the same litter themselves and I have no problem awarding both Snausages.

MADHOUSE's greatest notoriety may come thanks to a questionable inclusion on Britain's famed "Video Nasty" list. Out of all the films listed it may deserve inclusion the least. I've always found it more GASLIGHT than ghastly, but a recent uncut edition from CODE RED does kick the blood and violence up a notch. More importantly, I can now view this pet pleasure in widescreen, which compliments it like an enamored groupie. The darks are darker, the Christmas tree lights blink a little brighter and miniscule details just pour out of the walls. Now if I could only switch RIZ (CANIBAL HOLOCAUST) ORTOLANI's score to something more sweeping and appropriate rather than randomly blippy.

As is, MADHOUSE hits the spot for me. It doesn't have the wild youthful energy of some of its contemporaries but instead accentuates a comparatively brooding, more classical stance that scratches a certain itch. Yes, I just used the word "classical" to describe a movie that features a power drill being inserted into a dog puppets head. I guess you can thank TRISH EVERLY for that.

Do you remember about a decade ago when I was working at a video store and I was in charge of the buying and I was ordering every post-SCREAM slasher revival flick that came down the pike even though most of them were beyond terrible? Neither do I, but the journal that I wrote whilst wearing a monocle says that it happened. The other night while rummaging through the furthest reaches of Netflix streaming I spotted a film from that sour time period that I actually liked. It's called FLASHBACK and it's from Germany and I recommend it with only a half dozen or so caveats. I feel it's my duty because the cover art is abominable and is sure to repel any potential advocates.

First of all, this endorsement is for slasher fans only. If you're not a slasher fan you might as well keep walking; nothing to see here. Clichés abound so your enjoyment level probably depends on how much you embrace certain tropes. Secondly, the Netflix streaming version (unlike the DVD) only presents the film dubbed and oh, what a dub it is. Personally I can get into bad dubbing. I find it sort of amusing and strange and think it can add a weird surreal cartoon tone to things. Yeah, it makes the film harder to take seriously but it adds a goofy fun element too. The dubbed version of FLASHBACK is particularly ridiculous and clumsy and may be the absolute corniest found this side of THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, but I say lean into the turns and get down with the sickness.

Let's get to some of the good stuff. I like the slick but not too slick way this film was shot and it's setting in the Austrian Alps is postcard glorious; as routine as some of the action is, the location and the novel atmosphere are worth the trip. Another big bonus is the multitude of kills which are deliciously bloody and darkly humorous in an almost HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME type of way. A sickle ala CURTAINS is deftly put to use for most of them, but an assortment of more unusual tools and devices are utilized too. The bloodshed is fierce but funny, leaning on slapstick rather than mean-spiritedness. You will also find ELKE (BARON BLOOD, LISA AND THE DEVIL) SOMMER lurking around the premises and that can only be a good thing. Dubbed or not, ELKE is ELKE.

I'm unashamed of digging the plot, which is as rickety and boiler plate as they come. A psychopath in ladies garb is murdering people. As a child, Jeanette watches her parents murdered by the killer during an URBAN LEGEND-influenced home invasion. She spends ten years in a mental hospital under close scrutiny of a psychiatrist smelling of red herring and is released to tutor French to a trio of tech savvy spoiled siblings. People get slaughtered left and right and the list of suspects is tenfold. Has the killer returned or is Jeanette bonkers? As mundane as this all may sound FLASHBACK does offer a few semi-unpredictable twists and turns. Nobody needed the bungling cops accompanied by flip musical cues in HALLOWEEN 5 and they certainly don't need them here, but they are a small price to pay to see a sickle wedged in a head and body parts flying out of a snow blower.

Perhaps some of the reason FLASHBACK is better than you'd expect is because it stemmed from an original idea from HAMMER mainstay JIMMY SANGSTER (THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE NANNY, WHO SLEW AUTIE ROO?) although it's obviously been filtered through and influenced by the aforementioned SCREAM-machine as well. Like I stated though, I enjoy this jaunt scads more than most of the other wannabes littering video shelves early last decade. It's got yummy gore, a devil may care disposition, jaw dropping scenery and ELKE SOMMER after all. I suggest slasher fans check it out and why not give it a bit of a leg up with some inebriation to boot. It won't change your world but it might change your night and as awkward as the dubbing is, like many wretched and unnecessary annoyances in life, you do get used to it. You might even end up like me and learn to love it.