Halloweenapalooza Report!
Halloweenapalooza (formerly The Halloween Horror Picture Show) featured the most extreme content of all five years of the festival . Almost all of the features would have to be released unrated, and I don't mean "PG-13 movie that added the F-word to the DVD release so they could plaster 'Unrated' on the box." Sadly, it was another year of "Where the hell are all the people???" but still, as always, the event was gobs-o-fun.
The features...
HOODOO FOR VOODOO - A very entertaining horror/comedy with a great soundtrack. Though it's not quite as funny as it needs to be to justify the silly tone (there are some good sight gags and one-liners, but the movie needs more of 'em), there are some definite "Whoa!!!" gore gags and the whole movie is a lot of fun. A nice way to start the festival.
DEATH ON DEMAND - Six people go on a reality internet show where they must survive the night in a house where horrible, horrible events took place. This supernatural slasher flick is filled with unlikable-but-entertaining characters, lots of laughs, and sex-and-gore-a-plenty. A real crowd pleaser of a movie...even if it was a teeny tiny crowd.
THE BUNKER - Directed by Joseph Monks, who is totally blind. Ironically, the visual elements of the film are pretty darn good, but the story is padded to the point where it actually becomes laughable. It's got slooooooow opening and closing credits, an unrelated bookend story (which itself is padded out with an unrelated sex scene), several scenes that could be snipped with zero impact to the final product, and a late scene where a character explains What's Really Going On in a phone call, followed immediately by flashbacks that show us exactly what we just learned. THE BUNKER is well-acted and definitely has some effective moments, but it should've been a half-hour short.
100 TEARS - My wife and I didn't stick around for this one because we'd already seen it. But I'll cover it anyway. After the first 15 minutes, I thought that I might be witnessing the greatest slasher film ever. Unfortunately, it becomes repetitious very quickly (one shot of intestines spewing onto the floor is gasp-inducing; three or four of them...not so much) and though the acting is good, the writing is weak. Still worth seeing--it IS a psycho killer clown movie, after all.
GIMME SKELTER - A whack-job who believes that he's the son of Charles Manson and his followers embark on a killing spree in a small town. Though not officially a horror-comedy, the movie has some huge laughs (most notably the payoff to some "Missing Girl" posters seen throughout), more attention to character than you might expect, smart dialogue, and lots-o-gore. I loved it.
GHOST MONTH - The only "classy" film of the event, and also the only one shot on film instead of digital video. An effective little ghost story, but nothing we haven't seen before. Loses points because after one revelation, our heroine doesn't scream "And you're just NOW telling me this?!?" She really should have. But earns points because the ghosts are done with makeup and masks instead of being all CGI.
BLOOD CAR - Halloweenapalooza got this one on my recommendation. One of my favorite micro-budget horror efforts. Hilariously tasteless throughout, but the last few minutes in particular are an absolute masterpiece of dark comedy.
After BLOOD CAR, there was a block of nine short films. "Gruesome" is, of course, the music video based on Greg Lamberson's novel JOHNNY GRUESOME, which I'd already seen a few times but never on the big screen, so that was pretty darn cool. I won't discuss the others individually, but aside from W.O.R.M., I wasn't enthralled with any of 'em. Too many of them ended with no real answer to the question of "Why did people feel this idea was worth the time and energy?" Moving back to features...
THE BLOOD SHED - There is an audience out there that will find this to be the most hilarious, demented, messed-up horror/comedy of all time. I hope they discover it and treasure it always. But personally, I frickin' HATED this movie. It grated on me. It made me want to cry. When you don't care about or like any of the characters, it simply becomes weirdness for weirdness sake, and this has some of the most annoying, cringe-inducing weirdness I've ever seen in a movie. The only good thing about it is that it just sort of ends without much warning, when I was expecting the torture to go on for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Ranks up there with EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES and THE PIANO TEACHER as my all-time most unpleasant cinematic experiences.
ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! - Zombies vs. Strippers. That's pretty much all you need to know to make a qualified decision on whether this movie is for you. Obviously, this is not a motion picture that takes itself seriously, but it offers up plenty of zombies and plenty of strippers. The first few minutes were in 3-D, although the 3-D really didn't work very well (unless my eyes were just screwed up after a day and a half of movies). One of the most entertaining films of the festival.
The next film was 99 PIECES, which sounded good, but quite honestly after that many movies we were brain-fried and not up for what sounded like an interesting but probably slow-moving and quiet film. (I have no idea if that description is accurate, but the movie certainly wasn't zombies vs. strippers.) So we left. Hopefully I'll be able to track this one down and report back.
Will next year be the year the Halloween Horror Picture Show / Halloweenapalooza finally attracts the audience it deserves? I'll certainly be reminding you about it on this blog, so keep reading for the next year.
The features...
HOODOO FOR VOODOO - A very entertaining horror/comedy with a great soundtrack. Though it's not quite as funny as it needs to be to justify the silly tone (there are some good sight gags and one-liners, but the movie needs more of 'em), there are some definite "Whoa!!!" gore gags and the whole movie is a lot of fun. A nice way to start the festival.
DEATH ON DEMAND - Six people go on a reality internet show where they must survive the night in a house where horrible, horrible events took place. This supernatural slasher flick is filled with unlikable-but-entertaining characters, lots of laughs, and sex-and-gore-a-plenty. A real crowd pleaser of a movie...even if it was a teeny tiny crowd.
THE BUNKER - Directed by Joseph Monks, who is totally blind. Ironically, the visual elements of the film are pretty darn good, but the story is padded to the point where it actually becomes laughable. It's got slooooooow opening and closing credits, an unrelated bookend story (which itself is padded out with an unrelated sex scene), several scenes that could be snipped with zero impact to the final product, and a late scene where a character explains What's Really Going On in a phone call, followed immediately by flashbacks that show us exactly what we just learned. THE BUNKER is well-acted and definitely has some effective moments, but it should've been a half-hour short.
100 TEARS - My wife and I didn't stick around for this one because we'd already seen it. But I'll cover it anyway. After the first 15 minutes, I thought that I might be witnessing the greatest slasher film ever. Unfortunately, it becomes repetitious very quickly (one shot of intestines spewing onto the floor is gasp-inducing; three or four of them...not so much) and though the acting is good, the writing is weak. Still worth seeing--it IS a psycho killer clown movie, after all.
GIMME SKELTER - A whack-job who believes that he's the son of Charles Manson and his followers embark on a killing spree in a small town. Though not officially a horror-comedy, the movie has some huge laughs (most notably the payoff to some "Missing Girl" posters seen throughout), more attention to character than you might expect, smart dialogue, and lots-o-gore. I loved it.
GHOST MONTH - The only "classy" film of the event, and also the only one shot on film instead of digital video. An effective little ghost story, but nothing we haven't seen before. Loses points because after one revelation, our heroine doesn't scream "And you're just NOW telling me this?!?" She really should have. But earns points because the ghosts are done with makeup and masks instead of being all CGI.
BLOOD CAR - Halloweenapalooza got this one on my recommendation. One of my favorite micro-budget horror efforts. Hilariously tasteless throughout, but the last few minutes in particular are an absolute masterpiece of dark comedy.
After BLOOD CAR, there was a block of nine short films. "Gruesome" is, of course, the music video based on Greg Lamberson's novel JOHNNY GRUESOME, which I'd already seen a few times but never on the big screen, so that was pretty darn cool. I won't discuss the others individually, but aside from W.O.R.M., I wasn't enthralled with any of 'em. Too many of them ended with no real answer to the question of "Why did people feel this idea was worth the time and energy?" Moving back to features...
THE BLOOD SHED - There is an audience out there that will find this to be the most hilarious, demented, messed-up horror/comedy of all time. I hope they discover it and treasure it always. But personally, I frickin' HATED this movie. It grated on me. It made me want to cry. When you don't care about or like any of the characters, it simply becomes weirdness for weirdness sake, and this has some of the most annoying, cringe-inducing weirdness I've ever seen in a movie. The only good thing about it is that it just sort of ends without much warning, when I was expecting the torture to go on for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Ranks up there with EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES and THE PIANO TEACHER as my all-time most unpleasant cinematic experiences.
ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! - Zombies vs. Strippers. That's pretty much all you need to know to make a qualified decision on whether this movie is for you. Obviously, this is not a motion picture that takes itself seriously, but it offers up plenty of zombies and plenty of strippers. The first few minutes were in 3-D, although the 3-D really didn't work very well (unless my eyes were just screwed up after a day and a half of movies). One of the most entertaining films of the festival.
The next film was 99 PIECES, which sounded good, but quite honestly after that many movies we were brain-fried and not up for what sounded like an interesting but probably slow-moving and quiet film. (I have no idea if that description is accurate, but the movie certainly wasn't zombies vs. strippers.) So we left. Hopefully I'll be able to track this one down and report back.
Will next year be the year the Halloween Horror Picture Show / Halloweenapalooza finally attracts the audience it deserves? I'll certainly be reminding you about it on this blog, so keep reading for the next year.
posted by Jeff Strand at 11:53 AM
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