Remember back in the good old days of two weeks ago when Christine Hadden of FASCINATION WITH FEAR and I each shared our ten favorite horror homesteads? Well, it happened whether you remember it or not. We had so much fun that we decided to go on a second tour but this time we're visiting our ten LEAST favorite horror dumps! Check out my ten most unwanted properties below and do make sure to travel over HERE to check out Christine's least favorite picks!
10. THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) (2009)
Don't get me wrong, Dr. So and So has exquisite taste in art and I love how clean and modern everything is but the spiral staircase is a real deal breaker. Personally I like to put a bandanna (or three) around my human centipede's neck and take it to the park to play Frisbee every afternoon. Spiral staircases are stellar for averting unwanted escapes but in general they tend to be difficult to maneuver time wasters.
9. WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971)
Ever since I was a kid I've found Chuck's living arrangement leaving much to be desired. Poverty doesn't have to be grim (think Edith the egg lady's trailer in PINK FLAMINGOS) but this pad blows. I'm thinking if you ever find yourself coming home to find four senior citizens sleeping in the same bed it's time to start packing.
8. TIDELAND (2005)
I wouldn't say no to sharing a living space with JEFF BRIDGES. That said, I'd like to specify that I'd prefer it to be the living JEFF BRIDGES and not his rotting corpse in a white wig. See, contrary to word on the street, I really do have standards.
7. THE COTTAGE (2008)
I had mixed feelings about this movie but a very definite reaction to the crazy killer's yellow kitchen. Quite simply it horrified the crap out of me. Not that I can verify it in anyway but I'm sure that I once read that more murders were committed in yellow kitchens than kitchens of any other color. For some reason the assumed happy hue just irritates the hell out of people and that is why you will never see a yellow hospital. Naturally the kindertrauma kitchen is pink, a color known only for making people hungry for Frankenberry Cereal, Strawberry Quick and TINY TIM tuneage!
6. EATEN ALIVE (1977)
The Louisiana hotel in EATEN ALIVE is nice enough but let's be real here, there are way too many crocodiles in the front yard.
5. THE HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS (1976)
What the hell is so funny THWLW? Let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little f*cked up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown. I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to f*ckin' amuse you?
4. 13 GHOSTS (2001)
I have as much use for a too clever for its own good clockwork puzzle-box house as I do another SAW sequel. You pull the wrong lever and suddenly the bathroom has glass walls and the door disappears. No thanks, privacy is my middle name and my last name is control.
3. HOUSE OF WAX (2005)
There's so much wrong with this concept that I don't even know where to begin. Call me crazy but I don't relish the idea of having to wade through molten wax to crawl into bed every August.
2. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2007)
This prefab pile of crapola reeks of unearned mundane vanilla privilege. I intuitively know that the thermostat is set at least twenty degrees higher than I would feel comfortable in. It makes me think of staying at a boring relative's house and waking up early and pretending to be still asleep in order to avoid brain numbing small talk over coffee about last night's episode of CSI: MIAMI. Demonic possession and hourly soul rape would be a welcome reprieve.
1. HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1989)
I believe the worst place ever invented is this here riverside shack in Haddonfield, Illinois. I'm not even sure this fragile lean-to stands next to a legitimate river, it looks more like a stream or a brook to me. We've all seen this scenario play out before, a theoretically straight guy down on his luck exploits the hospitality of an elderly amateur pirate in order to put a roof over his head. After a year of who knows what kind of illicit behavior the roustabout gets bored, puts his mask back on, clocks the parrot, kills his benefactor and then moves on to greener pastures. Give me ROB-ZOB's driftin' hobo Mike over HALLOWEEN 5's poorly masked, unappreciative moocher any October 31st!
Damn it again, you guys left off Popsicle Stick Edtion of Nancy Thompson's house from  NOES 3! I can't decide if it would be the best or worst place to live but I mean how often do you get to live in a popsicle stick, paper mache house?
Also big LOL on Charlie and in the Chocolate Factory. For as long as I've seen that movie, I've felt the same. That whole scene just inspires smelliness and death. Ugh.
The mention of Halloween 5 makes me think of Jason's makeshift cabin in Friday 2. It's so weird because it looks like he put it together with spare parts, yet it seems to have a toilet with plumbing!
The frisbee – Human Centipede remark made me choke on my coffee!
On Charlie and The Chocolate Factory: I'm a bit off topic, but the site of Violet Beauregard going slowly blue and then violently inflating caused me deep kindertrauma indeed.
Including permanent damage to my spelling abilities. "Sight". Slaps own forehead.
Some good choices, but I would have topped my list with the ultra-awful home of Buffalo Bill (Jame Gumb) from Silence of the Lambs. Brrrr.
Tim,
Wonka & friend's boat ride through the psychedelic tunnel, especially when the chicken gets its head chopped off, resulted in permanent Kindertrauma here.
I dunno, I actually like choices 3 and 4.
I agree with you Tim, especially since her dad cared more about himself and his dealership…and it's no surprise she's resentful towards him.
"I find it disturbing that in both versions, all four grandparents sleep in the same bed."-Doug Benson on "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"
WILLY WONKA is one of my Top 5 Fvaorite Movies. I remember when I used to watch my sisters kids we used to watch the video about once a week. It never seemed to go by without someone commenting on the grandparents all lyin in bed together in the 'living room'. I think what made it all the worse was that in the scene where Grandpa Joe finally gets up and dances around they show him looking under the bed where a chamber pot is shown. Ummm…yeah. The grandparents didnt get outta bed for ANYTHING including making #1 and #2. "Cheer Up Charlie" indeed!
Actually, the scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Grandpa Joe gets out of bed to accompany Charlie to the chocolate factory really pissed me off. The family is struggling to make ends meet and four of the seven are layabouts. Suddenly, when the opportunity to do something "fun" comes up, Grandpa Joe's infirmity is revealed to be mere laziness! Get a job, Grandpa Joe!
Ha ha! Great call on the Willy Wonka house…four grown adults in one bed? Not usually the type of thing you see in a kid's movie, eh? Love the House of Wax choice, and that damn House of Laughing Windows has creeped me out since the first time I saw the film. Looks like the Dairy Queen lips, or perhaps an homage to The Rolling Stones…?
I thought it was an homage to the incredibly creepy landmark in Asbury Park, NJ called Tillie.
http://www.njn.net/arts/starts/pressroom/2412/tillie.jpg
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There's an even creepier clown in Middletown, NJ that graces a Food Circus store.
http://www.weirdnj.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=28
A better shot of the Middletown evil clown that I had to drive by every day to go to work (shudder)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Middletownclown.jpg
CHUCKLES, add to it that Grampa Joe was hoarding money the family could have put towards food (and candy!) for his tobacco habit! (He eventually quits cold turkey when he notcies 'a loaf of bread looks like a banquet' but shit! He had to have been hittin the pipe the rest of Charlies life and Charlie was what? 12?
And how effed up of Charlie to invite Grampa Joe with the OTHER 3 grandparents sitting RIGHT THERE! What a slap in the face!
So yeah, while people wanna be freaked out by the LSD-like boat ride, the Oompah Loompas, Violet turning into a giant blueberry pilates ball, or Wonka pretending to go ape shit nasty at the end I think that the small onion-like layers of the story (grandparents in bed together! grandpa spending food money on his 'habit', the teacher busting Charlies balls in front of the whole class cuz he can only afford one Wonka bar…..) are what REALLY make the movie a Horror Fans Delight!