Satan's Slaves

After their mom (who was a briefly famous singer) dies, some creepy ghosts start showing up around the house, specifically of their mom and grandma. It turns out maybe their mom made a deal with the devil in order to have some kids? Dang isn't being a parent already a deal with the devil? It had some creepy parts but I especially liked where the main woman finds a hidden Satan track under a record label.

RATING: 75%

Haxan

This is a movie about witches and devils and so forth that is ostensibly a horror movie because people in the 1920s would probably be scared if somebody dressed up as Satan for Halloween. Anyway, there's some ok makeup and some old ladies kiss the devil's butt but it's more of a historical curio than a good movie or anything.

RATING: 44%

V/H/S Viral

I guess it wouldn't be Halloween season (um at least since 2013) if I didn't plug one of these anthology bad boys in and intensely dislike it. Seriously, everybody should watch V/H/S 2 for the crazy cult segment, but no sketches in the rest of this series have been any good. Here we've got a magician short, a dimension jumping short (that's got some ok oddities), and a skate punk short with a society freakout wraparound. I theoretically still like anthology horror, but maybe what I'm figuring out is that I just really love Creepshow.

RATING: 29%

Star Trek: The Next Generation - "Devil's Due"

Picard puts an alien devil on trial and she's like, hey, why not sleep with me instead?

RATING: 83%

Star Trek - "The Magicks of Megas-Tu"

The Enterprise takes a trip to the center of the galaxy and wind up meeting the actual biblical devil who turns out to be a pretty nice guy.

RATING: 76%

The House Of The Devil

Everybody was talking a whole bunch about how this movie from 2009 is great, it's totally like a great 80s horror movie, man. Well, let's be real about 80s horror movies for a second - most of them are basically the worst. They're not as bad overall as 90s horror movies, but you gotta sift through a whole lotta Deadly Friends to find the gems. Anyway - The House Of The Devil is as good as one of the better mediocre 80s horror movies, and it has a real orchestra soundtrack and no Avid farts so I think it gets some major pointage there. The plot is a college student goes to a house to babysit but be careful because I bet I know whose house that is!

RATING: 60%

Daredevil Vol. 12: Decalogue

This storyline starts with a support group meeting in a church basement to help people whose lives have been affected by Daredevil in some way. Eventually, it turns out one of them has a demon baby living inside of him, and thJESUS I'VE NEVER EVEN READ THE ILIAD WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE???

RATING: 59%

Reign In Blood by Slayer

The other day Quammy posted this video on the Facebook, and it reminded me that I haven't heard this album since high school. It's pretty good I guess, although basically everything about Slayer is what people make fun of about 80s metal bands-- obsession with Satanism, fast wailing licks, ridiculous hair, and vague neo-Nazism. Wait, that last one isn't a stereotype of 80s metal bands. Oh, right, that's why I could never really get into the band in the first place. Well, the music is still alright.

RATING: 61%

25 Days or Less of Christmas Songs - #1: Little Saint Nick

The Beach Boys' 1963 single "Little Saint Nick" comes over the loudspeakers whenever I walk into a mall during the Christmas season. I always smile when I hear it. Not because it dredges up any especially warm holiday memories though. Mostly because part of the chorus ("Merry Christmas Santa") sounds like they're singing "Merry Christmas Satan." And I happen to think that that is awesome.

Rating: Rum and eggnog%

(Image from loungemusica.blogspot.com)

Tenacious D And The Pick Of Destiny

Approximately as stupid as I expected, which, consequentially, was as stupid as I was looking for.

RATING: 66%

Faust Symphony by Liszt

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #24

I'm not a huge fan of Liszt, but his symphony after Goethe's Faust (really, three long musical character sketches) is a decent mid-Romantic composition. It's not especially scary or dark, even the Mephistopheles movement, but it's bombastic without being cloying, and its chord clusters shift seamlessly without losing the leitmotifs. I don't really know what I'm talking about with classical music, so I made up most of that last bit, but on the other hand there's no Devil in real life who can grant me the knowledge I need to be a genius in every (any) arena.

RATING: 72%

(Alternate Faust[us] ending here)

Rosemary's Baby

I don't care what Polanski says, I knew the bitch was hysterical the moment she got her hair cut short without asking her husband first.

RATING: 82%

(Image from www.horrorlair.com.)

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Kit Marlowe was the Brian Wilson of Elizabethan drama. Doctor Faustus features scads of demons, pyrotechnics, a painstakingly detailed cosmology, a would-be pope crossing continents on flying horseback, Helen of Troy rising from the grave, and plenty of gore and erudite ambition, but I couldn't find a single captivating, sexy or sympathetic character in the entire play. Unless, of course, you count Marlowe himself: Cambridge graduate, dramaturgist, poet, member of the School of Night, secret agent, tavern brawler, sodomite, and rabid tobacco enthusiast.

Ah, dead shepherd, they don't make 'em like they used to.

RATING: Better than I'll ever be, but still no Shakespeare%

(Image from www.history.neu.edu.)

An Open Letter to the Banjo Guy

Listen, Banjo Guy, we both know you didn't bring that banjo to the bar to regale us with banjo songs, because you haven't played it once all night. I'd also bet a prize pig and three jugs of moonshine that you're not going to a banjo band practice later on, since it's one o'clock in the morning. Now I don't particularly hate bluegrass music, but I do particularly hate other straight males under 30 who think they're cute, and the temptation to wrest that hillbilly hipster fashion accessory from your little white stick arms and use it to give you the beating and/or strangling of a lifetime is hard to resist. On the upside, you'll probably look cooler with a neck brace than you do with a fucking banjo, and the little girls will be falling all over themselves to sign your multiple casts.

RATING: HEAVY METAL%

(Image from crabapplenyc.wordpress.com.)

The New R3 Logo

Seeing this is the crowning achievement of my life. Please can we keep it?!

On only a marginal aside, a Darkhawk/Satan buddy cop movie would complete my life on so many levels.

An excerpt:

EXT. CONVENIENCE STORE, EVENING

(DARKHAWK and SATAN stand over JOHNNY TUNICCIO'S CORPSE)

SATAN: In all my years on the force, I've never seen anything like this.

DARKHAWK: I'm a series of cliches, wrapped up in some weird early-90's art.

SATAN: You're right...we can't tell the Chief. We're going to have to settle this on our own, and before this is over, we may have to turn in our badges.

DARKHAWK: Does anyone know who I am?

SATAN: Let's punch it, DH...I've gotta be back in Hell by midnight.

RATING: 99% (just about perfect)

(image courtesy of Glenn, I assume)

Chris' Teeth

So what the fuck is up with Chris Loll's teeth? Has he made some sort of Faustian bargain with the tooth fairy? I used to have nice teeth when I was younger, but then I started smoking, drinking, and grinding grains and animal parts into a fine paste before swallowing. Now I have yellow teeth like a man should. Chris' teeth ought to have their own T.V. show or something.

RATING: 90%--I haven't seen his molars and God willing I never will.

(Image from Chris Loll's facebook profile)