Bohemian Rhapsody is the great movie of all time

Bohemian Rhapsody. Is this real life? Or just fantasy? Surprised that there is a lot of backlash with this flick. Sort of polarizing to some extent partly because they don't really go into his later years, specifically the relationship he had with his partner, Jim Hutton. Basically the movie begins and ends with the Live Aid Concert. Shows at the beginning this is peak Queen and the movie is how they got there. Personally, good call to bookend it with Live Aid Concert. That's storytelling and shit. Guess a bunch of people were pissed that they didn't go into the relationship with Jim Hutton more. I'm fine with the way it was. A lot of that relationship was implied. That they were happy and ended as such. This movie was more about the his time with Queen and not so much about what came before or after. Again, I'm good with that. Bitches be bitching. This movie is amazing. Shut your mouths. This is the greatest movie of all time.

Rotten Tomatoes Consensus: Bohemian Rhapsody hits a handful of high notes, but as an in-depth look at a beloved band, it offers more of a medley than a true greatest hits collection.

Pros: Rami Malek's performance is pretty fucking sick. I like that he lip syncs. Some don't. Those people are fools. Tells a good story. Flows well. Is long as shit but doesn't really feel like it. Casting is pretty much spot on. Brian May's portrayal probably most. I mean Malek probably looks the least like the person he is playing which is insane. Movie has it all. And you can't fuck with that soundtrack.

Cons: Is a bit too long. The Live Aid Concert is slightly anticlimactic because it doesn't get any better than watching the real thing.

Gist of the movie is the biography of Queen mostly with a focus on lead singer Freddie Mercury. Follows a somewhat fictional account of his life just before joining the band, Queen coming together and finding gradual success before making it big, him nearly marrying a chick and then coming to terms with his sexuality, him getting a big head and leaving the band (which actually never happened), him firing his manager, and finally getting back with the band, getting with partner Jim Hutton (not remotely how it really happened but that's okay), and performing at Live Aid. Disclaimer,: anyone who dislikes this movie doesn't know what the fuck he or she is talking about.

Directed by Bryan Singer of X-Men movies. It stars Malek in what has to be an Oscar nod as Freddie Mercury. It stars Rami Malek as Mercury, with Lucy Boynton as Mercury's fiance Mary Austin, Aidan Gillen (Littlefinger on Game of Thrones) as original band manager John Reid, Ben Hardy as drummer Roger Taylor, Tom Hollander as lawyer Jim Beach whom Mercury dubbed Miami, Gwilym Lee as guitarist Brian May, Allen Leech as the Judas manager who outed Mercury as gay and talked hella shit Paul Prenter, Joe Mazzello as bassist John Deacon, and Mike Myers as some fictional asshole record executive. Beach (one of the producers of the film), May, and Rogers (both creative and music consultants for the film) as were heavily involved in the project which is nice. I am not sure why Myers is in the film other than that he epically used the song in Wayne's World. His Scottish accent is the exact one he always uses, the one for his dad in So I Married an Ax Murderer and Fat Bastard in Austin Powers, which is an interesting call. Despite that shit, the film uses him as a solid foil.

Best scene of the movie is when Freddy and the band are in the office of Ray Foster, Mike Myers's character, when Mercury sells everyone on A Night at the Opera. The little speech he gives is inspire as shit, talking about opera and poetry and how it is is going to be the greatest album ever and will have something for everyone and how it's going to be legend. Foster is all, stick to the formula. Mercury has won everyone over though. "Fortune favors the bold," says their manager. Their lawyer, Jim Beach, is asked to weigh in. Mercury cuts everyone off, saying he is a bad ass and needs a bad ass name, "I dub thee, 'Miami'." "What do you think, Jim?" "Miami," Beach corrects. Everyone is stoked. The band said that that was him. Possessed by Mercury. Foster lost the room and off Queen go to make their greatest achievement.

Favorite line of the flick comes after Taylor tells Mercury, "You're a legend, Fred." Mercury responds "We're all legends." After a few moments he adds, "But you're right, I am a legend." That he was. Classic Freddie Mercury. Also, love that he was into cats. Makes him a legend in my eyes. Like that he talks to them on the phone and such. Feel the same way about my little Richard Parker. Such a good cat buddy. Love a good cat owner and Mercury was very sweet to kitties. Pet the next one you see for Freddie Mercury.

Anyway, I will say the Live Aid Concert is sort of a let down. It looks a little fake and the way they shot it, with focused shots on Mercury that didn't happen in the real footage of the event, is a little distracting. It's sort of like, "oh, I don't remember that closeup" or whatever. It happens just enough for it to be off. I'm buddies with this chick who is fucking obsessed with the real Live Aid video. Like I showed her the college commencement speech from my graduation by David Foster Wallace which is still just so inspiring and such and she showed me that video, equally inspiring to her. She did not like the way it was done in the movie. I get it. But it was still not terrible and in no way ruined the movie, which was fucking great. Also, Queen never actually broke up like they do in the movie with Freddie basically being an asshole. In reality, the band was just taking a break after touring together for a decade. This was in roughly 1983. But they were working on The Works which came out in 1984. So not so much of a breakup. Need some drama I suppose.

MVP is obviously Malek who kills it. Like other successful biopics--I, Tonya, Man on the Moon, Lincoln, Capote, The Social Network, so forth--dude becomes his subject. And more than the look, Malek really nails the attitude. He does a good job of being magnetic although I imagine it's not too hard when you are the star and all and have talent and what not. As he told Hollywood Insider:

"what I really knew I needed was to capture his spontaneity. The man's not choreographed. Every time he steps out onto a stage, no one knows what he's going to do, and that's what I knew I needed to tether myself to. In order to do that, I realized, I can't work with a choreographer, I need someone to help me with movement, someone to help me discover the impetus for why he does what he does. Why every flick of the wrist occurs with him in such an elegant, sometimes dainty and sometimes aggressive way, depending on his mood. I just had to find his humanity — what his conflicts were — and discover all the sides of him, because I knew there was more to Freddie Mercury than a man who holds an audience in the palm of his hand. But I had to get that down as well."

He totes does while doing his thing out there on stage. I mean, couldn't imagine what this would have been like if Sasha Baron Cohen hadn't been let go. He looks like Mercury and all, moe so than Malek for sure, but I couldn't exactly see him nail the Queen front man. And thank fuck Malek knew enough not to fucking sing. One of the previews they showed before the movie was for Rocketman, the Elton John movie. That dude, we see, sings. I mean, he sounds fine but he ain't fucking Elton John. And I'm sure Malek is no Freddie Mercury. Just lip sync it and look dope doing it, like Malek does here. This should be required viewing for anyone making a musical biopic and this should be the main thing that aspiring directors take away. Great fucking flick.

Mandy is the greatest movie of all time

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Motel Hell is the worst movie of all time

Motel Hell. For Thanksgiving I am starting this thing where I watch movies involving cannibalism. This is the first. In it we get a guy that sells human meat to the public who can't get enough. This happens in many of these types of movies. Like all of them, I imagine, there is this obligatory scene where the guy doing the killing and selling the meat is all like, "it's the quality of the meat! Everyone loves this meat! The best kinda meat there is. Everyone sure can't get enough of it! It's the meat!" Yeah, pretty sure I wouldn't eat whatever someone who talks like this is selling even when I did eat dead animals. But yeah, I couldn't imagine a movie I dislike more than this. It is in no way enjoyable. Horribly made with a nonsense story and is also very disturbing. A trifecta of shit. Worst movie of all time. (However, after some time, now that I am sitting down to write it and I'm thinking about it and all, I remember it being pretty funny).

Pros: Hell of a chainsaw dual. The way the killer gets it is pretty solid. Like that kids wander into the slaughterhouse and are forever mortified. More kids need to know how the sausage gets made.

Cons: Tone is way off for the subject matter. It is intentionally campy but also tries to be scary. It sometimes works, like with another movie that is basically this exact movie only better (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), but not for me, not here. The plot hinges on the survivor chick being really stupid, basically. Can't believe this shit is Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Gist of the film is Farmer Vincent's meat sticks drive everyone crazy with how delicious they are. People come far and wide to stay at his hotel and munch on his sausage. Everyone seems to think the world of him even though he kills animals for a living and freely talks about eating dog and shit. One day this chick and her biker boyfriend wreck near the farm (I think Vincent caused this but am not entirely sure). Well the biker either dies there or Vincent kills him, also unclear, and claims he buried him on his property. The girl comes to eventually and freaks. They bring in the sheriff, a relative of Vincent's who is also cool with eating dog but we find is unaware of the human entrees, is upset that Vincent didn't call him but explains to the chick that burring her boyfriend is indeed legal in that county. The next day Vincent goes and talks to this chick, giving her the most basic religion talk and because she is fucking stupid she is all, "I guess that makes sense," and decides to stay. From there she and the sheriff seem to sort of have something going on at first, he takes her to the drive-in while Vincent kidnaps people, severs their vocal cords, and buries them up to their necks in his garden. He then slaughters these folk and turns them into sausage. Dude is charming, I guess, in a "aw, shucks," sort of way, and, improbably, wins the heart of the much younger girl that he saved earlier. However, when the girl finds out that he is using long-pig as mystery meat she gets all revolted and his hotel/sausage empire comes crumbling down.

This idiot

Directed by one Kevin Connor whom I've never heard of, it stars one Rory Calhoun whose name sounds familiar and face is def familiar (he has 126 acting credits but none of them are think I've seen before), the late Nancy Parsons who is most remembered as Balbricker from Porky's which I've never seen, Nina Axelrod is the reasonably attractive one, and Paul Linke is the sheriff. We also get small roles from John Ratzenberger who was Cliff Clavin in Cheers who plays one of the people that gets planted and turned into sausage, and Wolfman Jack who plays the role of Reverend Billy.

Ok. So first, let's discuss this dog eating bit. Great way to turn me off. Slaughtering animals, especially dog. During the picnic scene with the girl, his sister or whatever, and the sheriff, he talks about how grandma loved that dog and so forth and when she got sick told him to take care of it when it was barking. "And boy did I take care of it... She loved that dog but when I told her what I done, she still ate it and thought it was delicious." They all think this is fucking hilarious. What the fuck, man? "Meat's meat," he says. That it is. All fucking morally wrong, I say. They take the opposite approach. Most people live in a gray area.

Anyway, best scene has to be the chainsaw dual, been seeing a lot of these lately (strangely). This is the big fight at the end. It features Calhoun wearing a pig head, which thankful looks fake as fuck, and him and his cop nephew really going at it. It's pretty impressive for this time and considering how old the dudes going at it are and all. Plus one is wearing a pig head.

Favorite kill is Nancy Parsons's character mostly because she sucks. You fucking hate this bitch so much that you are really rooting for the "stock", the people that were going to get eaten, when they break loose and rip her apart with their bare hands, possibly eating her. Also, at one point, when the old sausage king is trying to sell his pretty, young lady on human consumption, he tells her that he treats his stock "better than most farmers treat their animals." Jesus, that ain't saying much. Also, this is how basically every farmer justifies killing anything. So yeah... Don't eat meat people.

Best line of the movie needs some context and comes at the end here. So dude is constantly hyping up his meats and shit. Quality of it and so forth. We know it is human and all that. He would lay on the quality think and always tack on "no preservatives" at the end. You don't really give a shit about the "no preservatives" bit because, you know, long pig and all. But he keeps harping on it. Then at the end, with his dying breath, the old guy says, "I'm the biggest hypocrite of them all. My meats... I used preservatives." Pretty fucking funny.

The MVP for this movie has to be Rory Calhoun. Has a couple of solid lines and really just goes over the top with his performance. I like how he seems pretty genuine about all this insane shit that he is saying and then the next minute is pretty much Leatherface. Quite a balancing act this guy has going. Apparently the movie was going to be way fucking brutal with bestiality and shit but they apparently didn't have the money to make any of that shit look real so they went the other way with it and Calhoun was more than happy to just yuck it up. So that was Motel Hell. After writing about it, I'm pretty sure I liked it but it's still trash and that whole dog eating bit left a bad taste in my mouth.

The Girl in the Spider's Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story is the worst movie of all time

The Girl in the Spider's Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story. Jesus. Like the off brand for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Loved that movie. Was expecting David Fincher or something in that vein. But this movie doesn't have the same vibe even. Make that clear from the get-go with the shitty intro music instead of that hot Trent Reznor/Karen O "Immigrant Song" from the original movie. Also, replace all the actor with far less talented sort of look-a-likes. Like instead of 2011 it girl Rooney Mara, 007 Daniel Craig, and the classic beauty and icon Robin Wright we get Claire Foy, Sverrir Gudnason, and Vicky Krieps, respectively none of whom I'd ever heard of. Plus the movie was based on the first book in the series not written by Stieg Larsson. Despite that Larsson, at the time of his death, had a fourth book in the series most of the way complete and outlines for several more, this work by David Lagercrantz does not use the Larsson book as its source and completely does its own thing. Yeah, read the book, you can tell. Last that I'll be reading in the series unless Larsson's longtime partner, Eva Gabrielsson, finishes the series that Larsson had mapped out. Anywho, little surprise, after some shitty internet research, that this is indeed the worst movie of all time. This movie fucking sucks.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: The Girl in the Spider's Web focuses on the action elements of its source material for a less complex -- and only sporadically effective -- franchise reboot.

Pros: Occasionally (unintentionally) hilarious. Love that LaKeith Stanfield guy.

Cons: Pretty boring. Impossible not to compare it unfavorably to the Swedish and David Fincher movies that came before it. Not crazy about the cast. Lot of magical internet bullshit that is ridiculous (hacking into an airport's security system by planting a cell phone in the vicinity of its router [which I might add is all run through the crappiest consumer-grade home wifi version]). Must have forgotten to change the router password and username from admin admin. Also, some very fortuitous shit happens that Lisbeth seems to psychically just know will happen. Also, why the fuck is Stephen Merchant like a serious actor all of a sudden. He was solid in Logan but it's a hard pass after this one but wish he'd focus his time on the shit that put him on the map like Meet Ricky Gervais, The Office, and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, which is a true gift to the world.

Sooo... Gist... Once again, hacker woman Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist are in the middle of some shit. This time Lisbeth has stolen a missile control program from the US's National Security Agency that gives whoever has said program the power to launch any nuke in the world. Turns out the key to unlock it is the program creator's son (the programmer guy is played by Steven Merchant by the by) who has some horribly explained number magic that makes little to no sense since they dropped the whole autism angle that was in the book. Various spies and government people and Lisbeth's sisterand her gang are trying to steal it from her and shit whilst pinning the murder of Steven Merchant on Lisbeth. Directed by some guy named Fede Álvarez, it is supposed to be a direct sequel/soft-reboot of Fincher's film. Starring in the film are never seen her Foy as Lisbeth, never heard of him Gudnason as Blomkvist, Stanfield from Sorry to Bother You as some NSA agent come to get his program back, and Sylvia Hoeks (no idea) as Lisbeth's sister Camilla. This film is fucking trash.

Fucking lame

Oh boy is there some shit with this movie. There was little to enjoy about this flick. Lisbeth was the tough but vulnerable feminist antihero in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In The Girl in the Spider's Web she is a fucking superhero. Also, lots of not only right place, right time, it's like Lisbeth is psychic when it comes to this. Example...In the ridiculous airport prison break, Lisbeth leaves a suitcase in the middle of a crowd. Security grabs it. When they open it it is full of dildos and a cell phone. That cell phone gets her access to all the computers on the network and access to the cells in the airport holding. Stanfield's character gets broken out as a result of this and she has a person get on the PA and tell him go to such and such a gate via a popup message. When he gets there, in a trashcan waiting for him are a cell phone and what I thought was another dildo. It turns out this is a conk device that he uses on a security guard after he gets out that appears out of nowhere pointing a gun at Lisbeth. No fucking way would she know this guy was going to be there. Finally, the white paint on Lisbeth's face when she punishes some over-the-top evil wife/hooker beater at the beginning of the movie looks fucking stupid. Fuck this shit.

Nothing stood out as far as best line goes. Best scene and best kill are one and the same and was basically the only part of the movie I legit enjoyed. This was towards the end, spoilers, when the male douche villain guy gets stabbed with this neurotoxin that he had scientists whip up that causes permanent blindness. He was going to use it on Blomkvist but shit went down and Steven Merchant's kid stabs him in the ankle with it. What happens from here is all fucking hilarious. First he falls out of a window, breaking his leg compound style when he hits the ground 40 feet below. From there he gets up and feels his way to a nearby forest. Meanwhile, Lizbeth's sister is making her escape with her driver heading down the road. Something miraculous basically has to happen for her to not get away. Enter this idiot stumbling around on the road, blindly feeling his way around. The driver, of course, doesn't see him and nails him which causes the car to spin out of control and hit a tree so that the bad guys don't get to make it away scot-free. This was obviously ridiculous. I couldn't stop laughing. Luckily there were only three other people in the theater, all of whom where likely equally hating this, most of whom where also laughing. Not good.

MVP is Stanfield whose talent was so beyond this movie it was fucking unbelievable. He does cool/nerdy well here like he did in Sorry to Bother You. He wasn't really given much to work with but does his best, adding little flourishes like a "pow" and finger guns when he knows he is on camera. He adds a bit of comic relief to what is supposed to be a serious movie. These things he does well. That was all it really took for an MVP on this piece of garbage. The sooner I forget this, the better.

Night of the Demons 2 is the greatest movie of all time

Night of the Demons 2. I know. Not what you would call a classic, but it is a super fun flick for a Halloween night at home. If you actually watch this you you'll notice a familiar face among the mean girls as one Christine Taylor, wife of Ben Stiller. This flick would help launch her career as she would go on to be remembered for such roles as the K-Mart girl (Matilda Jeffries) in Zoolander, Kate in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Sally Sitwell from Arrested Development, and her true breakout role of Marcia Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie. I remembered when the those Brady movies came out thinking that that had to be the girl from the original series, just that she had aged exceptionally well. That was not, in fact, the case as the role was indeed played by Taylor who looks hella like Maureen McCormick, the woman who played Marcia in the show. Wasn't the only person who thought she looked straight up like that chick apparently as they make reference to their similarities in this movie, which came out a year before she took on the role in the film version. In this dickface character Rick, played by one Rick Peters, calls her "Marcia" as sort of a put-down while they are driving to the party towards the beginning of the flick. After some shitty internet research, this appears that this was before she was cast in the movie. Regardless, she is a very pretty lady and maybe one of my favorite bits of the movie which is, let it be known, the greatest of all time.

Pros: Personally thought it was more developed than the original (which isn't saying much). Acting is surprisingly fine, for the most part. Gore/practical effects aren't too shabby. Kill off Jehovah Witnesses and some other religious zealots, always a plus. Pretty ladies (again, for the most part).

Cons: Basically more or less the same as the original just more ridiculous. Not exactly what I'd call a real scare. Nor does it have what I'd call a coherent story-line. Some horrible early 1990s CGI.

Ger

Kids from either a Catholic high school or college (the actors are like 30ish) face off against the demon-possessed Angela from the original Night of the Demons movie after an idiot seminary student conjures her up. Also, she just happens to be the sister of one of the students, a quiet goth girl named Mouse. It was directed by one Brian Trenchard-Smith who did a couple of the later Leprechaun movies including Leprechaun 4: In Space and stars Cristi Harris who is a very attractive lady who gets topless as the redhead Bibi, Darin Heames as Z-boy, Merle Kennedy as Mouse, Amelia Kinkade reprises the role of Angela, Rick Peters as douch Rick, Jennifer Rhodes as the older kick-ass nun chick, and the lovely Taylor as the hot one. The movie was indeed direct to video.

Some shit/observations... The movie is crazy homoerotic with frat dudes in their tighty-whiteys peeping on the sorority, or whatever they are, galls across the way. All of the male parts are over-the-top and ridiculous. We have Perry, the fucking loser seminary student with a magic priest book that conjures Demon Angela, who was already around but whatever. Speaking of the demon/s, can't understand shit they are saying. Plus all the shit with her having a sister is dumb. They occasionally abandon it and then halfheartedly come back to it. Also like how they sort of kill off Taylor, turning her into a demon, and then bring her back because, hey, she's pretty. 

Best line of the movie is also a pretty decent kill. It comes after they end up at the location where Angela reigns or whatever where they throw an inappropriate party considering what went down and what not. But someone takes lipstick off site and now Angela is free to run amok. As such, she finds Taylor and her dude who is also involved in the best scene as a result of this kill/line. The line comes when Angela finds them making out or whatever. They are petting and what not when Angela's hand sort of appears in the car with them and starts grabbing at the dude's dick. He is all like, cha, when they sort of realize it was his date who was doing the tugging. That is when Angela pops up says "strapping young buck, how about a little head?" and chops his head off. Angela thinks this is hilarious. And, you know, totally is. But yeah, Angela is still gross, even in her human form. Weird they chose this chick to build the franchise around.

My favorite scene in the movie is also with this decapitated fellow, I think this is Rick, maybe. In it one of the bros comes up on him playing basketball with his own head. Again, hilarious. The guy who walks up on him is all, what in the fuck, so Rick sticks the head back on his neck and is about to kill the guy when Perry comes out of nowhere and sprays him with a supersoaker filled with holy water followed by a roundhouse which knocks the dude's head off. Rick screams "technical foul, where is the ref when you need one?" At this point Perry punts his head whilst screaming "field goal!" Completely absurd. Doesn't get much better than that.

Best kill is tough but I'd go with Angela who dies in a sort of grand finale. So the gist here is Angela is getting her sister to turn evil or whatever and orders her to kill the nun, who is tied up. Instead, the sister stabs Angela which is pretty dumb. That gives all the teens the chance to gang up on her, shoot her with motorized squirtguns of holy water and what not, sort of melting her into this weird snake thing. That is when Perry, ever the roundhouse enthusiast, kicks a cross in the wall resulting in sunlight coming in and hitting Angela. I was all, "what the fuck is that supposed to do?" when it hits her and she fucking explodes in ridiculous and incredible fashion. Love it when the bad guy explodes unexpectedly, spoilers.

MVP of the flick is obviously Taylor. Not only is she quite a looker, you can tell she is something special, even here. I mean, she has a ways to go before Zoolander and what not, but she plays a serviceable mean girl and even displays a little bit of range as she goes from abused college chick, to sorority bitch, to hardened kick-ass, to demon. And that is the greatest movie of all time, Night of the Demons 2. Better than Night of the Demons even. What what.

Trick 'r Treat (2007) is the greatest movie of all time

Trick 'r Treat. Catching up on a couple Halloween movies I didn't have the heart to write last week with being depressed about my dog's passing and all. Heart hasn't been in it, I guess you could say. So here is this, later than it should be. Night of the Demons 2 coming soon. So, yeah, Trick 'r Treat. Watch it every Halloween with a pumpkin beer in hand. This is sort of my It's a Wonderful Life. Winner of a bunch of niche genre awards, this beats out Creepshow and Tales from the Hood as the best anthology of all time, at least IMO. Is held in decently high esteem by critics, who generally aren't kind to horror, boasting an 83% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes when it was harder to get such things and has something of a cult status among genre enthusiasts. It's sort of a travesty that it didn't get a theatrical release which has been the stuff of mystery since its straight to DVD release in October of 2009. I bought this right when it came out without knowing anything about it and was completely blown away. You don't see a lot of new movies with big names which include an Academy Award winner, Anna Paquin, attached to them as well as such a well regarded producer/director in Bryan Singer (he's probably most known as the director of the good X-Men movies [in which Paquin played Rogue]) that get relegated to the bargain bin right off the bat. As such I've always been pretty curious about the film's history and why it took so long to come out and never actually hit theaters. Best I've heard is that it was supposed to come out October 2007 but distributer Warner Bros. pulled it with no explanation, sitting on it until it finally got the old we-don't-give-a-fuck-about-this-movie treatment. Speculation has that they didn't want to compete against the fucking garbage Saw IV and that this was sort of backlash from disappointing box office numbers from Superman Returns, a movie Singer produced (his production company Bad Hat Harry [a reference to Jaws] produced Trick 'r Treat), directed, and wrote with this film's director, Michael Dougherty, from the previous year. But here it is with a premier in my living room. This shit is a gem, though I'm not sure it would have actually made all that much money.  Regardless. Greatest movie of all time.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: A deftly crafted tribute to Halloween legends, Trick 'r' Treat hits all the genre marks with gusto and old fashioned suspense.

Pros: Probably the best Pulp Fiction type segmented movie that isn't Pulp Fiction. Each segment is about the perfect length. Even the weakest of them is solid and pays off later. Cast is a solid A with an  honest to god Oscar winner who is also a pretty lady. Has something for every type of horror aficionado. Looks great. Has great atmosphere. You can't watch this and not be stoked for Halloween. No shit, this is my go-to movie of the season.

Cons: Movie is basically perfect although the serial killer principal story is sort of weak.

Pretty lady

Gist here is pretty straight forward. Spoilers below if you want to watch it. (I recommend reading this and watching it anyway).  We have five interwoven Halloween tales, so of told in a Pulp Fiction type style--a couple where the dude is a holiday fanatic and the wife not so much who is punished by this little pumpkin creature for taking down the decorations too early (which sort of serves as the intro for the movie and is by far the shortest skit), a werewolf (Paquin) making her first kill (they play it like she is a virgin who has decided to give into her friends' peer pressure and have her first fling), a serial killer school principal (who ends up being a werewolf entree later in the flick) who is raising his son in an unconventional manner, a group of kids who play a prank on a semi-autistic girl and are punished by the murdered zombies who were too once outcasts when they were students, and an old bastard who steals kids' candy (and we find out was paid to kill the outcasts who come back as zombies from the earlier skit) who has to fend off this miniature, pumpkin-headed monster/demon intruder--all taking place in a medium sized Ohio city known for it's holiday celebration. Present in all of these stories is this little pumpkin headed demon thing, which is pretty cute and looks sort of like my little doggy Lu, that enforces Halloween traditions. Those who break these made up norms suffer his wrath.

Staring in the film are Dylan Baker (he was the pedo in that movie Happiness that don't recommend anyone watch) as the serial killer, Leslie Bibb who was Ricky Bobby's wife in Talladega Nights, Brian Cox as the old man, some kids and other randos from Dead Like Me, Paquin as the werewoof, Thurman Murman as this kid who gets killed, and mostly unknowns. There has been talk for at least five years about a sequel but that shit ain't never gonna happen.

Best line of the movie was "Charlie Brown is an asshole." As a crazy Peanuts fanatic, I feel you kid. Snoopy is my guy. As a writerly sort, I identify as that little pup.

So cute

The best of the segments, IMO, is the one featuring the kids who go out collecting jack-o-lanterns for this ritual involving the dead special needs kids. They have to collect one for every kid that died and this will summon them or something. It all ends up being this mean spirited prank on this girl that the kids call "Rhonda the Retard" who seems to have a mild case of Asperger's where the others dress up like zombie kids and come after her after she descends to the bottom of the quarry via this lift thing. When they do this she goes nuts and falls and hits her head, crying somewhat hysterically. As she makes her way over to the lift, the zombie kids really do come to life. She then gets on the lift, locks the door, and goes up as her tormentors are ripped apart just below. Don't fuck with this chick (or any chick or kid for that matter).

Favorite kill and MVP both involve Brian Cox, the original Hannibal Lecter, among other things. We are sort of introduced to this character early on during the principal bit with Dylan Baker (who is also dope). He sort of creeps up on the principal as he is trying to shut up Thurman Murman whom he is burying in his back yard. We also, at one point, see him, Cox, yelling for help from his window and getting attacked. He obviously has some shit going on. Once we get to his bit, spoilers here by the by, we see this little demon kid, Sam whom is in all the skits, killing folk who break the Halloween rules and what not, who sets his sights on Cox for stealing kids candy. The way he does it is a pretty good gag, really, sort of subverting who gets the trick. He outfits his little doggy with a costume where all the kids see are these glowing eyes that make it look like a monster. So Sam comes to take his treat, basically. First he dongs and dashes him a couple of times, the last time planting a shit ton of jack-o-lanterns on his porch. Then, when he goes back in the house, Sam makes a bunch of noise and shit so that Cox knows someone is in there with him. At that point the dog runs up stairs, where the noise is coming from, we hear a yelp from the dog and then once Cox goes upstairs, "trick 'r treat" and various other incarnations of that are scrawled in blood on the walls. So it is implied that he kills the dog, which you know, hated it, but maybe not. I choose to think not. Anyway, the little Sam monster and Cox tussle for a while before finally Cox shoots it in the head with a shotgun. Instead of brain and shit blowing out the back of his cute little pumpkin monster head, we get pumpkin goo which is fucking cool. It doesn't actually kill Sam, we see as he comes back and attacks Cox before Cox finally gives him a piece of candy, saving his life. This reprieve, however, is short lived as we find out that Cox was the bus driver in the dead kids section. So when Cox goes and answers the door for the last time of the night, he is visited by the children that he murdered so many years before, ready to get their revenge. Fucking sick.

All of that is to say that Cox really sells the shit out of a scared old man with a life-long mean streak in him, not to mention justifiable paranoia. For this performance, he gets the MVP. Love that guy. And that was one of two of my Halloween movies this year. This one, of course, is an every year watch, much to my female companion's irritation. The other one, Night of the Demons 2, I'll get to soon.