RIP Wes Craven

I was saddened to learn that one of the greatest horror directors of recent years, Wes Craven, passed away yesterday due to brain cancer.  He brought us a number of amazing horror movies and was the creator of such horror icons as Freddy Kreuger and Horace Pinker.  In my first site's run, I had what I called the Happy Horror Hall of Fame that I would make inductions for in October, followed by a week of movies associated with said induction.  Alongside Robert Englund and Vincent Price, I also inducted Wes Craven.  Here is the article I posted regaling him and his films:

Greetings, Happy Horror fans!  Today, we gather to induct a new face into the Happy Horror Hall of Fame, a true icon of the horror genre.  He’s created several iconic characters including Horace Pinker, Ghostface, and Fred Krueger.  Today, we are happy and honored to induct Mr. Wes Craven to the esteemed Hall of Fame.

Mr. Craven was born in 1939 in Cleveland, Ohio to Baptist parents.  He briefly taught English and Humanities before he first started his long career in film.  During his boyhood, an experience with a strange man on the street later influenced his creation of Freddy Krueger.  He looked out the window one night and saw this man walking up the sidewalk wearing a sweater similar to how Freddy’s would be.  The man stopped and turned and looked at young Wes’s house and scared him, so he got away from the window really fast.  A while later, he decided to look out the window again and found the man still standing there watching the house.  Scared now, he ran and woke his brother up and they both went to look out and found the man right at their window, looking in at them.

Mr. Craven has gone on to create several classic horror films.  His first, The Last House on the Left, was created in 1972, followed in 1977 by the crazed cannibal film The Hills Have Eyes.  In 1982, he directed the big screen adaptation of Swamp Thing, followed in 1984 by what would be one of his most famous creations, A Nightmare on Elm Street.  The next year would see the TV film Chiller (with Repo!  The Genetic Opera’s Paul Sorvino) and The Hills Have Eyes Part II.  In 1987, he produced what was intended to be the final Freddy movie, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.  The years 1988-1992 saw a string of projects, with The Serpent and the Rainbow, Shocker, Night Visions, The People Under the Stairs and the television series Nightmare Cafe coming out during the time.  1994 saw him writing, directing and producing Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, which introduced the idea of Freddy being more than just a movie character.  He also directed all three films in the Scream trilogy, and has been rumored to be linked to Scream 4.  In 2005, he filmed both werewolf film Cursed and airplane suspense film Red Eye.

Mr. Craven’s been a very prolific director and producer, and it’s with great pride that I hereby induct him into our website’s Hall of Fame.

Tune in all this week as I bring you reviews of some of his noted (and maybe one not-so-noted) films.  Take care, everyone, and this is Red Hawk signing out!

Happy Horror Classic: Valentine (2001 horror film)

So, this is a reprint of an article I wrote a few years ago.  I got the idea of renting and watching the film Valentine for an article to celebrate Valentine's Day.  I'd just seen the My Bloody Valentine remake the previous month and enjoyed it, but I didn't review movies that hadn't hit DVD yet at the time.  And so, for Valentine's Day, here's my review of 2001's Valentine!

"Roses are red, Violets are Blue, They'll need dental records to identify you." - Dorothy, reading her Valentine card

Another Valentine's Day has come and gone, and while I know this review is slightly late, I figure better late than never, eh?  At least it isn't delayed as my Halloween III review!  At any rate, I know alot of people remember My Bloody Valentine, especially with the big 3-D remake hitting theaters last month, but I'm not too sure many people remember this little flick.  It came out in early 2001, directed by Jamie Blanks, who also directed the original Urban Legend.  Since we like to bring some of the rarer movies to the reading public, here's my review of Valentine!

We open on a school dance with a bunch of junior high kids, focusing on one boy, Jeremy.  He approaches various girls to dance, yet they all turn him down (usually extremely rudely because of his less-than-attractive looks).  The nicest of the girls he asks is Kate, who just tells him "Maybe later".  The last he approaches is Dorothy, a larger girl who's sitting by herself on the bleachers who accepts.  Later, they show Jeremy and Dorothy making out under the bleachers when a group of boys climb up them and start making comments, calling Dorothy and Jeremy "Buffalo" and "Pervert" respectively.  The boys dump a punchbowl over Jeremy and start ripping his clothes off.  The last images we see of this scene are Jeremy, cowering in the middle of the gym with a bloody nose as the kids look on (including one in a cherub mask).

We flash ahead to the present day, where one of the girls who turned Jeremy down, Shelley, is on a date with a boorish idiot named Jason.  Jason talks about human reproduction (specifically how it relates to he and Shelley) and impresses her by splitting up the bill (and referring to himself in the third person repeatedly).  At the end of the date, Shelley just walks away after he asks for a kiss.  Later, we see her driving up to the medical school she's attending for some late-night studying.  While she's about to dissect her cadaver, she hears a sound and runs into another student near the lockers.  She also finds a strange Valentine with a sinister message to it.

Heading back to the lab, she starts to put her knife to the cadaver's abdomen when it suddenly draws a deep breath.  Shelley reacts, jumping back to the wall by the door (and being surprised by her actual cadaver appearing behind the door).  Shelley takes off running, being chased by a cloaked figure, eventually hiding in the morgue.  The killer, finally revealed to be a tall person in a Candyman-style coat and cherub mask, enters the morgue and sees several bodies inside body bags.  The first two, the killer unzips, but then loses patience and starts stabbing each bag violently, except the last one.  On the last one, the killer unzips it and grabs Shelley, cutting her throat in the process...

I really enjoyed this film.  Sure, it's a bit formulaic in places, but really, that's what made the original slasher films so successful.  It looked to me like they had alot of fun filming it, which is always more fun for me to watch.  They also put alot of work into it, which also really shows through.

Cast-wise, there are alot of somewhat big names that stand out.  Playing adult Paige Prescott is Denise Richards, the ex-Mrs. Charlie Sheen.  Besides being known for that, she's also been in Scary Movie 3 (playing Charlie Sheen's wife in the Signs-inspired scenes), Starship Troopers, the lead role in Tammy and the T-Rex, and National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1.  Playing Alex, adult Kate's boyfriend, is David Boreanaz of Buffy and Angel fame.  Besides his role as Angel, he's also been in Justice League: The New Frontier as the voice of Green Lantern Hal Jordan, The Crow: Wicked Prayer, and as the voice of Squall Leonhart/Leon in the first Disney/Squaresoft mashup Kingdom Hearts.  In our starring role as adult Kate is Marley Shelton.  Besides playing Dr. Dakota Block in the Planet Terror segment of Grindhouse, a bit part at the beginning of Sin City, and the role of Victoria Winters in the attempted 2004 revival of Dark Shadows, you can find her playing Dr. Jacob Hood's bodyguard/co-worker Rachel Young on CBS's series Eleventh Hour (one of my favorite new shows this season).  Lastly, the part of Ruthie, an abrasive, spurned woman with a grudge against Dorothy's current beau, was played by Hedy Burress.  Mostly known for voicework roles nowadays, I was surprised to find out that she voices the summoner Yuna in both the Final Fantasy X games and the Kingdom Hearts II game.

All in all, I score this one a 4 out of 5.  It was a good movie, and definitely fits in with the typical slasher films that popped up in the late 1990s/early 2000s.  If this kind of slasher film is your cup of tea then I can definitely recommend it to you.  And so, until next time, take care of yourselves, and this is Red Hawk signing out!

Happy Horror Classic: Trick 'R Treat (2009 film)

Welcome to Happy Horror Classic.  From time to time, I'll repost something I have from the earlier version of my site on here, as it was there, under the title.  Today, since we're getting close to Halloween, I thought I'd bring you my review of the somewhat recent Halloween-themed anthology, Trick 'R Treat, that I posted in 2010.  As you'll see, I did a lot worse that October than I did this year.  So, enjoy this blast from the past, unedited, for your perusal!

You know, there are rules, you should be more careful. You might upset someone. - Henry

So, you're all probably wondering "What happened to the three weeks you promised us?  Why did we just get those guest video game reviews (amazing as they were)?"  Well, I'll come clean with you.  I had this whole month planned out, every day had something I was going to cover... but when it came time to do them, I just kept putting them off.  Some of it was lack of forethought (some of the movies I'd scheduled I didn't actually have, some of them I still don't).  The third week was a complete disaster, there was no way I was going to get that one out on time.  So, here's what I'm going to do.  Once October and November are over (because I have something planned for November, and this time I DO have the movies in hand to cover it!) I'll do what I can to get the movies I would've covered in those three weeks covered, and the three Hall of Fame entries up, as well.  So, with that proclaimed, let's get on with the review, and back on track!

A few years ago, I read about this movie in ToyFare Magazine, as one of a crop of horror movies that was going to be coming out soon.  The synopsis for Trick 'R Treat sounded interesting, and I waited to see when it was coming out... and waited... and waited.  Later, I found out that the studio was sitting on the movie, and it was unlikely to see any kind of release any time soon.  Well, two years later, in 2009, it was finally released, direct to DVD.  Was it worth the wait?  Pull up a chair and, like Mr. Owl says, let's find out!

Trick 'R Treat opens on a street.  We see a pair of legs cross in front of a car (whose driver has to slam on its brakes to avoid hitting the crosser), the owner of the legs pulling a wagon, as a couple come up the sidewalk.  The woman, Emma, wearing a bulky cardboard box-like robot costume starts complaining and starts taking the outfit off on the sidewalk, then bends down to blow out the jack o' lantern in front of the house.  Her boyfriend, Henry, warns her not to, that it's breaking tradition, and she scoffs at his reason and blows the pumpkin out anyway.  After they enter the yard, she starts to tell him to start taking the decorations down, but he doesn't want to, telling her Halloween's not over yet.  Finally, she caves in and tells him to go inside while she starts taking the stuff down, not realizing that she's being watched...

This movie is actually a bit of an anthology.  It tells five different stories based around the traditions of Halloween.  The stories sort of weave together throughout the film, touching on each storyline at different times, and even showing characters from other storylines in the background.  While I normally give a brief summary of each of the storylines (like I did with last year's reviews of Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror), I don't want to do it this time for fear of spoiling some things in the film.  By the end of the film, however, everything comes together.

That is a lot of pumpkins.

The film has a really great cast to it.  Brian Cox plays Mr. Kreeg, a crotchety old man who has an encounter with a VERY persistent trick or treater.  He's been in a lot of films, including The Ring, the original Hannibal Lecter (or Lecktor, as it was spelled in the film) in Manhunter, Red Eye, and this year's new release Red.  Leslie Bibb plays Emma, the woman with no respect for Halloween traditions in the opening.  She was also in The Skulls, Wristcutters: A Love Story, Law-Abiding Citizen and the Iron Man films.  Dylan Baker plays Mr. Kreeg's neighbor, the school principal with a bit of a secret of his own.  He's been in quite a few movies, himself, including Fido, Spider-Man 2 and 3, and Hide and Seek with Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning.  Anna Paquin plays Laurie, a teen girl trying to find a date for a party and ends up walking alone through the woods dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.  She's been in a ton of things, including the X-Men series, Open House, the True Blood TV series and the upcoming Scream 4.

All in all, I really enjoyed the film and have no problems giving it a perfect 5 out of 5.  Stay tuned for the Big Three reviews I always do at the end of the month.  Until next time, take care of yourselves, and this is Red Hawk signing out!