Blog Archives
Graphic Horror Blogathon March 2015
It’s that time of year once again. I started this last year and I plan on continuing it again this year. Most bloggers take the month of October as the time to focus on horror movies since it’s near Halloween, but I thought that March is a good month to take a look at horror movies as well, to help spread the love of horror outside of the fall months. And besides, March is still the early part of the year which is generally the cinematic dumping grounds with a lot of poor movies in theaters. I’d love to make this a big event, and this year I’m keeping things a bit more simple so I’d love it if you would join me!
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Graphic Horror: Tales From the Crypt Season 4
Hello boils and ghouls, it’s Halloween and I’ve come to the end of my current re-watch of Tales From the Crypt with season 4. Ok, technically the day after Halloween, but you get the point. I hope you have enjoyed my romp through the terrorvision episodes and if you would like me to get to the last three seasons before next Halloween be sure to let me know in the comments. While season 4 had a few more weak spots than the earlier seasons especially during the first half of the season, it still had quite a few high points as it made its way through to the last half of the season. There were several episodes this season that felt like they were period pieces, though they often also had a sense of taking place in modern day.
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Graphic Horror: Tales From the Crypt Season 3
Once more into the breach good friends as I continue my journey through the first four seasons of Tales From the Crypt this Halloween season. Something I noticed with season 3 is that for the most part, the twists were stronger, but the episodes didn’t always live up to them. There are still some great episodes here, many that I remembered quite well, and a couple I didn’t remember quite so well. The make up, special effects, and humor are still the high points of the season. It also has what seems like it could have been the show’s biggest star at the time, though there have been many actors who were or would become bigger stars than they were at the time of their episode. Overall it was another strong season, and unlike season 2 that ended with a fizzle, this season ended with a bang.
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Graphic Horror: Bordello Of Blood
Tales From the Crypt: Bordello of Blood 1996
Even though I haven’t managed to catch as many horror movies this month as I would have liked to, since I am going through several seasons of the Tales From the Crypt television show I thought it was only fitting to finish out watching the final movie. Even though it’s actually the second movie that was released just a year after Demon Knight, it even features the return of a couple elements from Demon Knight including the key and William Sadler, though the latter returned covered in mummy wraps to talk with the Cryptkeeper. Out of the three movies, this one is definitely the most comedic as noted by fact that it stars Dennis Miller. It also has the most nudity of the three as there are several scenes that take place within the bordello even though they are all vampire women, they are often mostly naked vampire women. And even though I hadn’t seen this film probably since it first came out on home video/aired on cable I still remembered the final twist so that wasn’t a surprise.
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Graphic Horror: Tales From the Crypt Season 2
I’m continuing my journey through the Tales From the Crypt TV series first four seasons this October and while the first season was the shortest at only six episodes, the second season is the longest with a whopping eighteen episodes. If you haven’t read my first season roundup, I will be looking at each of the episodes in full, especially the twist ending and how well it works within the episode, so spoilers obviously abound. The second season had a bit of a slow start, but about halfway through went into several of my all time favorite episodes. The budget seemed to be higher, and there’s plenty of recognizable actors like Teri Hatcher, Don Rickles, Bobcat Goldthwait, Michael Ironside, Demi Moore, Jeffrey Tambor, Patricia Clarkson, and more. I had a great time watching these and I’m looking forward to what’s in store for season 3.
Graphic Horror: Ritual
Ritual 2002
While a lot of people are familiar with the great television series Tales From the Crypt that ran for seven seasons on HBO, there are slightly fewer people who realize that they made a feature length film towards the end of their run called Demon Knight. Even fewer people realize that they made another movie the next year starring Dennis Miller called Bordello of Blood. And not even I realized that they had a this as a third movie to round out the trilogy. But when Bordello of Blood was a disaster at the box office, those plans were scrapped and the film, possibly still at the script stage was sold to Universal who stripped out all the references to the Cryptkeeper and Tales From the Crypt and released it as a solo film several years later. It wasn’t until even later that the Tales From the Crypt presents was restored when it was released on DVD and the Cryptkeeper scenes added back for the release, albeit with a very low budget version of the Cryptkeeper puppet that was also used in the DVD release of the television series which was around the same time. And after all this passing around, was the movie actually worth it? Not really. It felt like one of the mediocre episodes of the show drawn out into an hour forty-five. Mysteries were confusing for the sake of being a reveal closer towards the end, but it just made things confusing rather than interesting. And the final payoff was pretty weak anyway. I almost would have rather seen the Tales From the Crypt name left off of this movie.
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Graphic Horror: The Scribbler
The Scribbler 2014
For a couple years now I’ve avoided falling into the trap that nearly every other movie blog falls into during this time of year: reviewing horror movies for October. But since I started my Graphic Horror tag this past March, I thought it was due time to go further into the very shallow selection of horror movies and thrillers adapted from graphic novels and comic books. To kick things off, I’m taking a look at the movie that just released on VOD a couple weeks ago adapted from Daniel Schaffer’s comic the Scribbler. The story itself is a weird mix of Girl, Interrupted, Fight Club, and the Cell. Katie Cassidy in the lead role was one of the best parts of the movie, though I thought things got a little muddled in the direction. It also had a rather surprising and unusual turn towards the end that I will be discussing, so spoilers abound. Overall I enjoyed it, but the concept felt a bit stronger than the execution.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 