Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #27

When you're sitting around drinking your Michelob Ultra, do you ever think to yourself "Boy, this would taste great with a subtle pumpkin aroma and notes of cinnamon spice?" No, you don't, because you don't fucking drink Michelob Ultra, I don't fucking drink Michelob Ultra, and nobody in his right mind fucking drinks Michelob Ultra. Capital yucky.

RATING: 19%

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Rennie's troubling visions of a drowning boy aren't gonna stop her from going on her grad cruise to New York City. Nothing's gonna keep her from having fun and spending time with her boyfriend. Not her creepy uncle, not the crazy cokehead bitch who throws her overboard, not even the murderous hockey masked stowaway. Come for the boatload of horny teens (literally), stay for the... um... you know what? Don't bother. Forget that I even brought it up.

Rating: Drowned in a barrel of sewage%

(Image from horreur-web.com)

The Last House On The Left

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews # 26

The Last House On The Left is a tender story about a young girl who turns 17 and then goes to have fun in the big city with a friend. Meanwhile the birthday girl's parents are getting ready to have a great party for her. Also there are some escaped criminals on the loose. Also rape, stabbing, intestines, murder, dick chomping, chainsaw.

RATING: 40%

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a young girl accidentally drowns her father with her burgeoning psychic powers. Years later, she returns to the lake where it all happened (you can guess which lake I'm talking about) with her mother and her creepy therapist. The girl with psychic powers, now a young lady, accidentally revives an axe wielding maniac who had been lying dormant at the bottom of the lake. Said maniac decides to butcher a cabin full of horny teens who happened to be gathered nearby for a birthday party, thus leading to an epic showdown of psycho vs psychic.

Rating: Bashed against a tree in a sleeping bag%

(Image from horrordvds.com)

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-Two: Rankings

Ranking things is sometimes good. College football, for instance. And what about the Army, hmmmm? You ever think of that? But mostly when we say we've "ranked" something, we really mean we've classified stuff we like and/or hate according to some made-up system that's total bullshit, i.e., The Beatles are the greatest band ever followed by the Rolling Stones followed by The Silver Bullet Band, etc. Ranking involves all sorts of science and math and whathaveyou. Which is boring. So fuck it I love you.


Rating: I cannot rate rankings--that'd be silly. So I'll end this with a Q & A.

Q: Do the people who go around ranking things and then showing off their rankings foresee the storm of shit that begins when they make their rankings public?

A: You bet your sweet sweet can they do.

Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI

Having been released from the loony bin, our man Tommy Jarvis (played this time by Thom Mathews of Return of the Living Dead fame) decides to head back to Crystal Lake to cremate any of Jason Voorhees' remaining, ...um, remains. But, wouldn't you know it, Tommy accidentally revives Jason with a fence post and a bolt of lightning (I hate when that happens). Will Tommy be able to warn the cranky town Sheriff and his horny daughter (who is also one of the head counselors at the newly re-opened summer camp) before it's too late? (Spoiler: No, he won't.)

Rating: Folded in half%

(Image from colonelscrypt.com)

Music For Strings, Percussion And Celesta by Bartok

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #25

Yikes! Sounds like ghost music, but like the kind of ghost who would lift up your dishes and candelabra and spin them around while your eyes bug out and the maid goes "g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-ghost!" but then it turns out the ghost just wanted a friend or justice (murderer) and everybody ends up happy. That or Hungarian expressionist music.

RATING: 73%

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)

La Fin du Monde

La Fin du Monde is a Belgian style golden ale produced in Québec. Triple fermented with a 9% ABV (alcohol by volume), La Fin du Monde is reminiscent of Faxe and Colt 45. In a glass, La Fin du Monde is blonde and cloudy, much like the women you would meet at a bar in Québec. Though sold outside of French Canada, La Fin du Monde is more likely to be found in its natural habitat: in shady dépanneurs and unpatrolled parking lots around la belle province. Side effects of drinking La Fin du Monde include: skunk breath, road rash, cheese envy, and thoughts of separatism.

Rating: 60%

(Image from ratebeer.com)

Candy Corn

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #23

I'd rather eat candy versions of any other vegetable, including Candy Cabbage. Gross.

RATING: 11%

The Best Jack-O'-Lantern I Ever Carved

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #22

I'm terrible at carving faces for jack-o'-lanterns, so at this party a few years ago I carved a terrible American flag out of a pumpkin. Apparently, according to my rendering, there were only 11 original colonies and are currently 16 states, but whatevs. All the ironic people around me thought it was hilarious, and nobody realized I was actually terrible at carving jack-o'-lanterns. Hooray for me and America!

RATING: '76%

The Fury

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #21

The Fury is basically Carrie if it wasn't a horror movie (thanks for lying again, Netflix!), but rather a thriller in which some people have supernatural powers. In fact, it's very similar to Scanners, even down to the telekenetic kids being able to make people explode in various ways. Hrm. It kind of sucks, but if you want to check out a topless sixty year-old Kirk Douglas, this is the movie for you.

RATING: 42%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-one: The Phone in My Office

O phone! O blinking red light signifying fifty-eight unchecked voicemails! If only I knew how to use you! But no. And so you blink on, telecommunication device against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past.




RATING: 19%

Day Of The Dead

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #20

I've seen this movie countless times, and in many ways I love the weird synth music, the gory bits, and the desperation of the whole affair. But oh my Jesus if you want serious melodrama, look no further. I know, I know - it's a movie that takes places months after zombies have overrun the planet, of course there's going to be melodrama. But every single line is screamed in some totally phony accent, most of it about how awful humanity is. We get it, George, we get it. Still, "choke on 'em."

RATING: 66%

(Link is NSFW as you can probably imagine)

Happy Birthday To Me

Directed by J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear), Happy Birthday To Me was released in 1981 by Columbia Pictures during the so-called Golden Age of Slasher Films. The movie revolves around Virginia "Ginny" Wainwright and her rich, snobby friends who are among the elite at the illustrious Crawford Academy. After a prank at the local watering hole, Ginny starts to piece together some repressed memories of a mysterious accident that happened a few years earlier. At the same time, Ginny's friends begin to disappear, each seemingly killed off in a bizarre fashion. Happy Birthday To Me definitely strives to be an atmospheric slasher, not content to rely solely on boobs and blood. All in all, the movie is somewhat hampered by a lengthy running time, a lack of proper plotting, and some haphazard twists at the end.

Rating: 65%

(Image from movietrimmer.com)

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning

Poor old Tommy Jarvis (played in a dream sequence by Corey Feldman, played in the rest of the movie by somebody else) is being trucked off to the nut house. It seems that all has not been well for Tommy in the years since he killed Jason Voorhees. It should be a chance for a fresh start, but when one of the troubled (and likely horny) teens at Tommy's halfway house gets hacked up with an axe, it's only the beginning of the bloodshed. How's Tommy supposed to recover in a town full of horny teens, crazy rednecks, 50's greaser throwbacks, drifters, coked up horndogs, and guys with really sweet vans? Plus, is Jason somehow back from the dead? (Spoiler: No, he's not.)

Rating: Speared through an outhouse wall%

(Image from horrordvds.com)

Freaks And Geeks: "Tricks And Treats"

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #19

While the Halloween episode of Freaks And Geeks doesn't dip into the supernatural cheese spread, it's still a good episode. I guess when you're talking about Freaks And Geeks they're all pretty good episodes. You know - laughter, feelings, nostalgia, etc, featuring the cast of every TV show or movie that gets made these days.

RATING: 80%

The Simpsons: Treehouse Of Horror XX

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #18

Of course it wasn't very good, much like any regular Simpsons episode from the past seven or eight years, but just that there have been twenty of these Halloween specials is enough to earn it a few extra percent. I don't watch the show anymore, but I wonder if I'll feel bad whenever it finally bites the dust. Probably not.

RATING: 34%

(I'm clearly not having a very good Halloween season.)

The Worst Halloween Candy

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #17

I don't even know what this candy is called, and I can't track it down. All I know is it is super generic, tastes like peanut butter and turds, and only the worst houses would give it out on Halloween. The only thing worse than this candy is candy corn. I'd rather eat a glue gun stick than candy corn.

RATING: 5%

Scanners

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #16

Not a horror movie. Thanks for lying to me, every video store I've ever been in.

RATING: 71%
HORROR RATING: 23%

Dark Water

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #15

In this movie Jennifer Connelly plays a woman who is divorced and trying to get custody of her daughter. She has to move to a cheaper apartment so she leaves The City (Manhattan) and ends up in the barren wasteland known as Roosevelt Island so she can afford a two bedroom apartment for $900/mo (yeah, right). Unfortunately the place is haunted by a drowned girl's ghost which might be scary if you found out about it less than an hour into the movie. Until then really terrifying things happen, like there is a leak and also the water turns grimy. JESUS! Turn on the lights I'm trembling. I know this is a long review already, but I want to point out that the movie doesn't really do anything to establish why Jennifer Connelly deserves custody of the daughter more than the father. She's always popping pills, she refuses to let her daughter go to a free counselor when she starts talking to invisible people, and she lets her daughter wander unsupervised around the roof of an apartment building. At least the father wasn't trying to keep the girl around dangerous ghosts, lady!

RATING: 22%

Halloween Peeps

A Month Of Halloween Reviews #14

Just as disgusting as ever, except in spooky (generic) Halloween shapes.

RATING: 11%

The Empire Strikes Back on Spike TV

The Empire Strikes Back is a good movie, possibly the best entry in the original Star Wars trilogy. But if you ever find yourself flipping through the channels and you see that The Empire Strikes Back is playing on Spike TV, just keep flipping past it. Even if you're a huge Star Wars geek, it's not worth watching. Normally Empire is only a little over two hours long, but once Spike breaks it up with commercials for UFC and Axe Body Spray, it runs over three hours. That means, in order to see a good movie, you have to sit through at least an hour of commercials. Horrible, horrible, mind numbingly awful commercials.

Rating: Falling asleep with the TV on%

(Image from creativebrief.thoughtdistrict.com)

These Ghoulish Things

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #13

This compilation of horror novelty songs from the 50s and 60s is probably one of my favorite albums. Draculas, Frankensteins, and Wolfmans partying together, early rock/late doo wop music, yes please. Yeah, yeah, it's got "The Monster Mash," but the disc is chock full of obscure tunes like "Mummy's Ball" and Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "Feast Of The Mau Mau." In conclusion, I will now be able to make the best Halloween party music mixes for the rest of my life.

RATING: 93%

Zombieland

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #12

Zombieland is a teen sex comedy set in the apocalyptic aftermath of a zombie breakout. It's pretty fun, although I have to mention that it seems the term "teen sex comedy" should be changed to "teen kiss comedy," since most of the recent movies in this style (Superbad, Harold And Kumar) are more about some guy who just wants to be sweet and kiss his girl at the end and then does. What happened to us? In the eighties it was boobs/bush central, but now when I see nudity in a movie at the theater I'm astonished. I guess we're prudes or something.

RATING: 77%

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

Everything should be smooth sailing for young Tommy Jarvis (played by über thespian Corey Feldman). Now that the local axe weilding maniac is dead and his body has been taken to the morgue, things should be nice and calm for once around Crystal Lake. Then again, the cabin next door is being rented by a bunch of horny teens. And there's some guy lurking in the woods looking for his missing sister or something. But Jason's dead...right? I mean, what could go wrong?

Rating: Corkscrew through the hand%

(Image from iconsoffright.com)

Dead Guy Ale

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #11

_____ ____________ ___________ skeleton on a box, _____________ pretty decent beer __ pale _______ _____ _________ probably ______ ____________ ______ _____________year round ___________ _____________ winter, the hints of ________ the ___________ common ____________ you could do a lot worse _______________

RATING: 73%

The Invention of Lying

Ricky Gervais owes me $12.

Rating: 42%

Alien Soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #10

I've already established how terrific I think the movie Alien is, but the soundtrack is also a great exercise in terror. Jerry Goldsmith runs the gamut here from soft, tonal landscapes to bizarre, expressionistic animal noises. I can't think of any music that would go better with a movie about aliens with heads shaped like peens and eggs shaped like poons. If you like crapping your pants all of a sudden, then perhaps you should check out this soundtrack.

RATING: 84%

Death

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #9

There's nothing scarier than death. Nobody really knows what happens to our consciousness when we die, and all of human civilization has been built around groups of people who claim to hold that answer. Every fear has roots in death, and everybody will die, from the famous to the obscure, sinners to saints, barbershop quartets to professional fluffers. One good thing about death is that without it, human progress would stagnate, because what motivation would anybody have to create knowing that the self is its own eternal legacy? Well, I guess that's a pretty good thing, actually.

RATING: 100%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty: Academics

Academics like to complain. A lot. If you ask one of them to teach a 4:4 or a 5:5 or, as I did last year, a 6:3, they might vomit a little bit of bile into their complete-with-snarky-comment-on-the-outside coffee mugs. Is it somewhat soul crushing to spend your time explaining something you're passionate about to 15-40 terminally bored teenagers? Of course. Is your pay fairly lousy, your field of research generally unappreciated and even reviled by the general populace, and your very existence distrusted by the hoi polloi? Yes. But, shit. If you tripled your weekly in-class time, you'd still be spotting my father fourteen hours. Also, those bizarre eccentricities that make you lovable and unique within the Ivory Tower are often illegal in the real world, and worthy of layoff.


Rating: 65%