Blog Archives
Graphic Horror: Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight
Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight 1995
The Graphic (Novel) Horror blogathon is coming to a close, but not before I manage to eke out a couple more horror movies here in March. Also, if you haven’t checked the main page for the blogathon recently, there are a couple updates with folks out on different blogs who have contributed their own articles so be sure to check them out. I was a big fan of the television show Tales From the Crypt, and even though it was around the time when this movie came out, I probably didn’t catch it in theaters, instead finding it when it came to home video and agreeing with the general consensus that the movie wasn’t nearly as good as most of the episodes made for HBO. I especially found it interesting in this viewing that I had a hard time finding good screenshots to take as there is rarely anything interesting happening on screen and the creature effects are mediocre at best. The movie eschews the show’s typical morbid twist and instead relies on a macabre fantasy/action plot with demons and a fun wraparound with the Cryptkeeper tying it in with the television show. There are moments of fun in this movie but they are few and far between.
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Graphic Horror: Alien
Graphic Horror: Alien 1979
This is something that I haven’t done very much since starting my Filmwhys podcast, and that is to go back and watch an essential movie that I hadn’t seen, only I didn’t do it to talk about during an episode of Filmwhys. (Instead I’m talking about it here in a review) Before now I had seen Aliens a few times, and somehow skipped ahead and watched AvP in theaters, but never went back to watch the original even though there’s always the debate over which is the better movie: Alien or Aliens. For my part, I don’t think I’ll ever like this one as much as Aliens, but it is still a great movie that I really enjoyed. And for the record, I did watch the 2003 Ridley Scott director’s cut of the movie instead of the theatrical release, although I didn’t go back and check to see what the differences between the two versions are.
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Graphic Horror Guest Post: Revival
When I put the call out for this blogathon, I was hoping for both people looking at horror movies that could become graphic novels as well as horror comics that could make the transition into becoming a movie. And Vic over at Vic’s Movie Den answered the call. But of course, since it’s Vic’s Movie Den and not Vic’s Comic Book Den, I offered to post his look at the horror comic “Revival”. So without further ado, I shall leave the rest of this post to Vic!
Graphic Horror: Vault of Horror
Vault of Horror 1973
Following up from the Tales From the Crypt adaptation the year before comes yet another adaptation of several of the EC Comics stories from their various horror comics like Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, and others. It follows basically the same format as Tales From the Crypt with a frame story about several people coming together and telling tales of their demises. The difference is that this time they are all taking an elevator that brings them to the sublevel instead of the ground floor, and they are talking about these vivid dreams they’ve been having, and also there is no curator inviting them to speak, instead they bring up speaking on their own, and there is no woman in this group. There’s also something about the stories in general that weren’t as interesting overall as several of the ones in the Tales From the Crypt anthology. I also found it interesting, even though I’m not a Doctor Who fan at all but I noticed that Tom Baker is one of the main characters in one of the stories.
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Graphic Horror: Born Dark Comic Kickstarter
Born Dark Issue: 0 Kickstarter
We’re just in the beginning of this Graphic Novel Horror Blogathon, but it’s not just about horror movies that are or should be graphic novels, it’s also about graphic novels that could become movies. And there’s a brand new one looking for funding for their issue #0 which will propel them into a full fledged series. It’s doing quite well at the moment, but still has a ways to go. It’s called a “dark fantasy” but it also delves into some horror elements. And I’m not just trying to convince others to back this project, I’m excited enough about it that I have backed it myself. And to help tell you more about this comic, I asked a few questions of the writer, Lela Gwenn. Click here to visit the Kickstarter page, or click any of the images to go there as well.
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Graphic Horror: Tales From the Crypt
Graphic (Novel) Horror Blogathon: Tales From the Crypt 1972
Welcome to my first entry in the Graphic (Novel) Horror blogathon, where I and other bloggers take a look at horror movies that could be, should be, or were graphic novels. I’m kicking it off by watching the movie that was made many years before one of my favorite TV shows that were both inspired by the pulp EC comics series including Tales From the Crypt, the Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, and several other titles. I had never seen this movie before today, but as this was an anthology inspired by the comics just like the television series, I was already familiar with the story of two of the shorts even though there were some minor differences, mainly in the length as the TV series was a full half hour while this includes five shorts and a wraparound story in about an hour and a half. The budget for this movie felt quite small with many cheap looking visual effects, but I think it still often captured the feeling that I got from the Tales From the Crypt television show with the macabre stories and occasional twist endings. While not as good as the TV show, it was still entertaining to watch.
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Graphic (Novel) Horror Blogathon
Graphic (Novel) Horror Blogathon
March is upon us and the Graphic Horror blogathon is on! I’m happy with the amount of participation in my last blogathon, the Comic Strip Double Dip, but this time around I wanted to do something a little less strictly associated with superheroes. Instead, I was thinking about how so many blogs out there spend October looking at horror movies and largely ignore horror for the other 11 months. So I wanted to do my part to promote horror movies on the other side of the calendar as Halloween, like in March. But of course, my site being my site and all I still have to have some sort of superhero or comic book connection when I started thinking about all the horror comics out there, like the classic Tales From the Crypt and various other EC Comics, 30 Days of Night, and the Walking Dead. There’s a few others, but I also started thinking about horror movies and thriller movies that would make great graphic novels, like the Cell, or Nightmare on Elm Street (which actually did become a comic book). So I’d like to hear from you and what horror movie you think is well suited to be a graphic novel, or even vice versa.
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Superhero Shorts: Marvel Zombies: The Movie
Welcome back to another edition of Superhero Shorts, where each time I showcase a superhero themed short film and have a brief talk with the creator. This week I’m talking with Jim Ojala and his teaser trailer based on the popular run of the Marvel Zombies storyline where most of the Marvel superheroes had been turned into zombies and ended up attacking and killing those who they were trying to protect. I’ve kind of been wanting to do something horror themed, and as there isn’t always a lot of horror/superhero crossover, I thought this was a great choice. As usual, you can watch it below, or you can view it on Jim Ojala’s YouTube channel, and you can also visit his official website to see some of his other work and what he is currently working on.
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The Toxic Avenger
The Toxic Avenger 1984
A lot of B-movie fans, and especially horror B-movie fans likely know the name Troma. It’s a small company that’s churned out a whole lot of low budget films over the years with titles like Yeti: A Love Story, Surf Nazis Must Die!, and Killer Condom. But before doing horror movies, they mainly did sex comedies. The Toxic Avenger was more or less their first foray into horror, even though it’s not what anyone would call full blown horror, it has the death scenes and blood and gore which is a staple of these kinds of horror movies. And it was a success… eventually. It wasn’t quite the slow burn that the Rocky Horror Picture Show would become, but it found a foothold as a midnight movie and is considered a cult classic. Heck, there was even a children’s cartoon of it. As for my own experience with Troma films, I know I was familiar with the Toxic Avenger, but I can’t for the life of me remember exactly how. I think I watched at least one of the films when I was younger, and I know I caught some of the episodes of the cartoon. I also watched Tromeo and Juliet, which was directed by the James Gunn who would later go on to direct Super. But my knowledge of Toxie had mostly faded when he came back on screen in all his cheesy glory. This is a cult movie for a lot of the same reasons the Room is a cult movie. The acting is horrible, the effects are obviously cheap but brutal (for the time at least), but in the end, I had a blast.
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Do You Enjoy Watching Bad Movies?
I think I may have asked this question a long while back, but since I’ve been watching several bad movies lately I thought it was prudent to ask the question again. There are a lot of bad movies out there, and there are a lot of articles out there lambasting those same movies. Many of them appear to obviously have been a bad movie before the writer ever decided to watch the movie, so the question becomes “Why did you watch the movie if you knew it was going to be bad?” I can’t answer that question for everybody else, but for myself, it’s because I still enjoy watching them. Even a movie that I wasn’t really looking forward to going into, the Host, I still greatly enjoyed watching it because when those awful moments in the movie showed up, it made me laugh harder than some of the best comedies around. Besides superheroes and sci-fi, there are also plenty of horror movies out there that are atrocious and plenty of sites that are devoted to watching these low budget, occasionally good, but often just plain bad movies.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 