I just couldn’t wait till next year to put this up. This was made as a promo for FEARnet’s Trick ‘R Treat marathon – and directed by the talented writer and director of Trick ‘R Treat himself, Michael Dougherty.
Halloween is a great time to get creative and make a new friend, as you’ll see below! Hey, I’d hang out with this cool kid.
Hey! I’m pretty sure you’ll all be busy tonight. Whether you’re waiting for your friends to come over and watch some scary 80s classics and get tipsy, taking your kids out to trick or treat, going to a party, or to pass out candy yourself, or to watch Trick ‘R Treat and wait for American Horror Story to come on like we are, you may have some time to kill. Here’s some last-minute suggestions.
1. Remind yourself of the four Halloween Rules with this twisted, fun list Fearnet.com put together to promote their Trick ‘R Treat marathon last year. You can tell they had a pure blast creating them. Check them out below!
3. Want to see one last really great Grim Grinning Ghosts video (until the 2012 Halloween season, that is), this time that someone who knew their old-skool Disney put together? Depending on your age, it may very well take you right back to your childhood. Being forty-COUGH COUGH…ahem (clearing throat) years old, I didn’t think this was still actually possible for me. If you remember watching Disney’s Sleepy Hollow on TV when they used to run it the Sunday before Halloween and getting the hell scared out of you by the Headless Horseman chasing Ichabod Crane over the covered bridge, this will warm (or chill) you right up. Those skeletons really know how to kick up their heel-bones and dance, too.
4. Have you heard of perhaps the scariest goddamned flash horror games on the internet, The House and The House 2? Well, if you haven’t seen them, hold off since I’ve been working on a piece for both. However, this truly frightening, interactive Halloween greeting-game from the same studios that created the aforementioned soil-yourself frightening games. When I played the flash games, I got the suspicion they were created by a team in South Korea, Japan, or Thailand, because they had a serious Asian Horror vibe. At the time (in between my high, girly screams and yelps caused by jump scares), I also remember thinking, There is NO WAY anyone in the US could have come up with something this fucking terrifying. Well, after I finished playing this one, a card hops up from the team that created it, and wouldn’t you know, the studio that created all three was Sinthai studios in Thailand. Patted myself on the back for that call!
Before I give you the link to “The Halloween”, some hints: at least three things will be swooping down or rushing past you onscreen. Just start moving your cursor around and clicking on everything it indicates you can click on. It’s not a first-person shooter game, it takes place all in one room, (unlike, say, House or House 2) and not really a puzzle game. The closet it comes to being a puzzle game is you have to click on everything multiple times, in various orders, sometimes many times, for the sudden scares. Light switch, the corner of a piece of paper sticking out of a grate, a pumpkin, if you can click it, keep trying.Turning the lights on and off a bunch of times will give you something …but at some point when you click them on and the room is light again, something blood-curdling may be there this time. You’ll see something when the lights are off, too.
It could take you up to fifteen minutes to get to the grand finale that wraps up the game (and the biggest scare), depending on whether you’re new to this style of point and click game, maybe less if you play these kinds of horror flash games on a regular basis. If you need hints, comment or drop me a line. If all else fails, I’ll post a walk-through, but since there’s not much exploring to do, you’ll probably get it. You’ll discover just how brave you are, based on knowing you have to click the same item a dozen or more times before it activates the next big scare. Oh, and don’t bother scanning the code with your smart phone, it just takes you to the Sinthai company’s URL–nothing much to see there. Well, you CAN get the URL, I’m just saying it’s not a missing puzzle piece or extra to the game. I believe at the end some kind of thank-you note from the creators pops up with a friendly message and Halloween wishes. I’m sure as hell not going to play the game NOW to find out.
“…You’ve heard the rumors, right? It gave me such chills when I heard about it…”
When it comes to frightening Japanese horror shorts, there’ s a lot of contenders. I’ve seen a ton of J-horror short this year, several so disturbing and creepy they left me badly shaken. Then there’s Keita Amemiya‘s Rattle Rattle (2006), which is the first segment of an arguably uneven J-horror anthology called Unholy Women (Kowai Onna). It’s the scariest J-Horror short I’ve seen all year (let alone all month), and that’s why I saved this for Halloween!
My advice is to watch Rattle Rattle on You Tube streaming, if you have the technology for that, and if you’re feeling especially brave, turn off all the lights. Seriously, I dare you. The first time I discovered and watched this–it was recommended to me by a trusted source– was after dark, on my lap top. I kept turning the sound down lower and lower as I got more and more creeped out, and by the last ten minutes it was down all the way. I didn’t have the nerve to watch it again until almost six months later, and since it was a sunny, cheerful afternoon, I got the nerve to watch it via streaming on our flat screen. It was still scary as hell (and also filled in a couple blanks in the plot; the first time I was too busy being freaked the hell out before to focus on every pesky little detail).
I’ve talked to other horror fans, especially those who love Asian Horror, and they agree with me that this segment embodies everything about J-horror that scares the shit out of us. Elements like not knowing quite what you’re looking at, which makes it all the more creepy and unsettling, things that aren’t supposed to be there, or move the way they do, never being safe from whatever scary entity is after you, no matter where you go, what you do, or how long you wait, finding out a horrible truth, then finding out another horrible truth on top of it. Most of the time you don’t even have to do anything wrong, or anything stupid, all you have to do is show up, and you’re fucked . It never forgives …it never forgets, as one of the taglines for The Grudge correctly assures us.
At first the story in Rattle Rattle seems like the familiar–but always creepy on varying levels– theme of an innocent, frightened young woman being pursued ruthlessly and horribly by an onyro (a vengeful female ghost such as Kayako Saeki or Sadako from Ringu; here’s a great, thorough article I highly recommend if you want to learn a little more). As I said, it’s hardly a new theme if you’ve seen a couple J-horror movies; I hear a lot of people say thery’re sick of seeing the pale, skinny ghostly girl with long black hair hanging over her face bla-bla. However, in nine out of ten cases, I’ve noticed those same people continuing to see Asian horror and admitting they’re scary when done right.
“Someone did jump from here recently…”
Anyway, that’s what I thought this short movie would completely consist of. Don’t get me wrong, I was already terrified and my heart rate was up. Then, though I didn’t think it possible and already was regretting my decision to watch the movie after dark as I knew I’d have to really apply myself to relax enough to sleep, I got even more frightened when I turned out to be wrong… and wrong a second time…
OK, I don’t want to talk this little-known gem up too much, so I’ll just tell you if you want a real scare for Halloween (or any time), invest half an hour and watch one of the most frightening J-horror shorts you’ll ever see. That’s why I saved this for Halloween. Watch this till the very end—there’s a moment when it looks like it’s over, but isn’t. You’ll know it when it’s over, trust me… Happy Halloween!
Hey! I highly recommend going into this one clean. Just give it a watch. Relax, though! It’s just one of those funny prank fails, happens to be Halloween-related. Would you wear this lame costume to scare your friends? Watch the short (it’ll fly right by), THEN read my piece underneath (trust me). Perfectly safe for you to shut off the lights and crank to volume up while you watch this viral video below! What could possibly go wrong?
Yeah, you could say that prank failed horribly! I love the idea that someone on You Tube might just think it’s a regular “fail” viral video and have no idea it’s made by a team of talented horror filmmakers. Surprise! Hopefully including the idiotic tweener trolls that now seem to make up half of You Tube’s viewers base, or the elitist hipsters who go out of their way to find something to insult in every video/trailer/clip, no matter how good it is. Actually, I kind of feel sorry for that last group, they’re missing out on some cool stuff.
I found this one while I was looking into the directors of the various segments of V/H/S.; I was most impressed by the first and last stories. The most memorable and fun ones, the ones that actually frightened and even disturbed me. I was fairly sure of the direction “10/31/98” (the segment where three guys go to what they think at first is a really inventive haunted house on Halloween) was taking, though that was due to the fact that one reviewer spoiled the hell out of it by not understanding the fucking difference between writing a plot set-up and a plot synopsis.
That’s on the reviewer, though, because knowing where the plot was going was not due to the writing and acting in the segment itself, which was outstanding. Even with the spoiler for everything but the last five minutes lurking in my brain, things got so freaky and wonderfully chaotic in that final segment that I was 100% in for the ride, and the dénouement was a brilliant and fun payoff. They definitely made the right call saving their segment for last, because it was a show-stopper. Both David Bruckner’s “Amateur Night” and especially “10/31/98” brought something fresh and thrilling to the found-footage genre that’s been given a very bad name in the last ten years by dogshit movies likeThe Devil Inside, Apollo VII (I don’t respect that crappy movie enough to research the correct Roman numerals in the title), 8213 Gacy House, and many, many WAY too many more. You know, the all-too-familiar kind; the ones that don’t have an ending, and instead just …stop.
Yup, the short you just saw and the final segment of V/H/S are indeed both the work of Radio Silence, AKAthe team Chad, Matt & Rob. Like “10/31/98”, the above video sure didn’t end the way I thought (I knew something scary was going to happen, but not ...that ). This “Mountain Devil” short is one of their highest-rated on You Tube, but you can bet your ass I’m going to start watching the rest and posting the best. Let’s hope their work appears in more movies soon and gets the wider audience it deserves!
Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity? No. No, they can’t.
How about the release date first? Magnet Releasing picked up the film several months ago (good news all around) and the Don Coscarelli-directed John Dies At The End is set to hit On Demand December 28th, with a theatrical release date to follow on January 25th. Here’s that second trailer in HD – and it’s even more trippy than the first one!
The hilarious plot synopsis:
Soy Sauce. It’s a drug that promises an out-of-body experience with each hit. On the street they call it Soy Sauce, and users drift across time and dimensions. But some who come back are no longer human. Suddenly a silent otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero. What it gets instead is John and David, a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down jobs. Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity? No. No, they can’t.
I still haven’t finished the novel yet; not because it doesn’t hold my interest, but because if I read it before bedtime, I get really, REALLY weird dreams, and my dreams are already weird enough without assistance!
In case you missed the first teaser trailer, check it out below in HD! It’s just as entertaining.
I know this was a very tough event to get into—in fact, I thought at first you had to be a VIP/insider of some sort. After some digging, I just read that the limited number of tickets available to the public were upwards of $300 per person (I would have coughed it up), and sold out within minutes (unfortunately, so many people went online that the server crashed).
They really pulled out all the stops for the special dinner show. I mean, they went to freakin’ TOWN. I wish I could travel back and RSVP to Constance and George’s wedding! Well, there’s always the 50th Anniversary Event (and it’ll probably take me seven years to save up the scratch to attend, anyway)…
The official press announcement was: The Plot Thickens. . . After five husbands and five untimely deaths, the Black Widow Bride of the Haunted Mansion will wed once more. Has she found her soul mate? Or will another groom meet his doom? Join us, Foolish Mortals, and we’ll dig up the answers at our ghostly celebration that everyone’s dying to attend.
This event (which took place on 9/9/09, get it?) clearly utilized lavish planning, rehearsal, craftsmanship, and talent to organize. They pulled out all the stops and managed to incorporate every element they possibly could, even including the “ghost host” as the MC (well, his voice, anyway, as far as I know there was no corpse hanging from the rafters). Watch the 15-minute special “Dinner Show” event below, in HD:
If that’s not enough incentive for you to watch this, SEE! A member of the wedding party transported to the altar via a Doom Buggy. SEE! Madame Leota perform her séance to make sure the groom shows, and SEE! her officiate the ceremony (the actress they cast has her and her voice nailed). SEE! A cameo from our three ghostly friends looking to hitch a ride (the trio’s surprise appearance, and the Doom Buggy, got the biggest crowd reactions of the wedding)… and more, including the “Newly-Deads” cutting the wedding cake on the Haunted Mansion upper balcony. I’ve seen other coverage of the evening’s festivities, and as of yet, the above video is by far the best (though I’m sure there’s other stuff to look for).
Even if you’re pretty familiar with the story, every fan should check out DoomBuggies.com. You couldn’t ask for a better, more thorough, comprehensive, loving tribute/fan site to the Haunted Mansion. Hours and hours of entertainment! I simply cannot recommend it enough.
Hurry baaaaack… Hurry baaaaaack…
there’s always room for one more!
So, probably not a big shocker what “Halloween Edition” means… these are all from horror movies that take place on Halloween, or in the days leading up to it, with at least the last act taking place on Halloween. You won’t see Michael Myers, but John Carpenter is in the mix here. Actually, once I started in with the screen caps I was having so much fun I had trouble stopping… Anyway, check this out. Look familiar?
Hey! No white shoes after Labor Day! BITE
I only own one of these movies, and I’m re-considering that right now. Second, I own the special edition of this flick and boy is it worth it:
Ginger is looking good …for now!
and finally… I think anyone who saw the movie will pick up on this one…
Hint: we’re in flashback/back-story mode.
OK, that’s it! Now I have to force myself to toss the rest of the grabs on my desktop. More Halloween goodness coming soon, so I better get to writing it. Plus, you guys remember there’s a prize for this, right?
No need to guess this, I just really liked it and wanted to put it in here!
Ok! So here’s the second Halloween 2012 treat (three more to come). I promised another Ju-On gallery, and this time– y’know, Halloween Treats and all– I’m going to focus on Kayako. It also seems fitting, since on Halloween 2004, I was first introduced to the series and to Kayako (and her family) when my mom and I went to see the movie The Grudge in the theater (in a packed house, closer to the screen than was optimal when seeing a really scary movie). By thirty minutes in, we were holding hands!
Looks like lots of people have been doing searches and landing here because they want to dress like her for Halloween. Maybe this will help you out with the make-up. There’s a couple of make-up tutorials on You Tube but it seems as though most of them don’t understand Samara from The Ring and Kayako from The Grudge/Ju-on are two different characters. Here’s the closest I got, just taking photos to use on T-shirts I’d be selling. I wanted a recognizable image yet needed to do my own to avoid copyright infringement. Well, I gave it a shot, anyway!
Oh, and please note I’m going to be adding to it over the next 48 hours until it is juuuuuust right. I have over 100 images but need to start sleeping before dawn breaks. It can’t be healthy for my system to keep the sleep-cycle of an undead crack whore, so I’m making an effort to get in bed and at least TRY to fall asleep before I hear birds chirping outside. Keep checking back, as you’ll keep finding plenty of new, scary, Ju-On photos and content all the way up to Halloween night!
Overall, I really made this as a tribute to her character. I even added a little behind-the-scenes stuff on the multi-talented Takako Fuji, who has played Kayako six times in full-length features, in addition to the two short films. As far as I’m considered, The Grudge 3 doesn’t even count as part of the series, since she didn’t play Kayako in it; in fact she wisely turned it down. I’ve read a few recent interviews with Fuji-San (they needed a translator) which I purposely sought out to remind myself that the Ju-on series were only movies, and Kayako doesn’t really exist. Fuji-San said that even though she has a strong background in modern dance, her back would always hurt for a day or so after each time she filmed a staircase-crawl (that makes my back hurt just thinking about it), that she’s a smoker who would take cigarette breaks in costume as Kayako which would make anyone walking by seeing her start to laugh, that she sometimes gets asked to “do” Kayako at parties (she always does), but most of all, kept apologizing “for all the nightmares!” That helped… sort of… a bit… a little, tiny bit, anyway.
So here’s that gallery, in some different formats to mix it up. She remains one of the most frightening female horror icons of all time, even probably up in the top five for me.
The above and below are shots where the lighting is dim, but what you CAN see is clearly Kayako, just enough to know who you’re looking at and to scare the shit out of you.
mirror mirror, on the wall, who’s the scariest one of all?
Fuck!
You’re not even safe under your own bed sheets…
This is from the very first Ju-On TV movie, and the first time I’ve ever let out a shriek watching something on my TV in my own home. During daylight, no less. Almost had a goddamn heart attack when Kayako quietly said, “Kobayashi?” held still for a long moment, then suddenly SWOOPED down close to his face. And that was the last time we (or anyone) ever saw Kobayashi Dear…
Here’s some really frightening PR shots taken…
When someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage…
…a curse is born.
…The curse gathers in that place of death.
Those who encounter it…
…will be consumed by its fury.
More quotes from this interview later on.
More coming soon; I’ve now looked at the maximum amount of depictions of Kayako (after dark) that I can without risking nightmares. If you have requests for photos/pics, please put them in the comments below and I will do my best to accommodate them!
Yes, Grace (2006) is indeed the short film written and directed by Paul Solet that the 2009 feature film of the same name is based on. If you’ve seen the 90-minute version, I’m sure you know the plot. Here’s how I would describe it (since the official synopsis is too spoiler-ish): A young woman, Madeline, who is in her third trimester of pregnancy, and her husband have a very bad car wreck, mainly caused by him driving like an asshole. He is killed and she is able to crawl from the wreck, but sadly the baby does not survive. Madeline makes the difficult decision to carry the deceased baby to term. That’s enough horror for at least two feature-length movies already …but, believe it or not, things are about to go downhill and become far more frightening and disturbing from there.
Cover of DVD release of Grace (The 2009 feature film, based on the short film Grace, 2006)
The best working link for the six-minute short horror film I could find was on Fearnet.com (see below). BUT! Do NOT read the description, don’t look, just start watching, since the description spoils every plot element from start to finish. Repeat (because I hate spoilers and when people just relate the plot from start to finish in a description before you even watch something), unless you’ve seen Grace already (the short film OR the 2009 feature), just hit the play button and go full screen. Oh, and do not watch while eating …or if you’re breast-feeding. Even if you’re not, trust me my fellow horror fan chicks, you’ll be crossing your arms across your chest like I was!
I highly recommend you do NOT watch this film if you’re pregnant unless you never get scared or upset by anything you watch in a movie, ever (though the French horror film À l’intérieur (AKA Inside, 2007) makes Grace look like The Brady Bunch, and I’d never suggest Inside to someone with even a pregnant relative, let alone even begin to explain the plot points to anyone who is pregnant). Grace also doesn’t take an especially low-key approach when it comes to gore, either, so back out now if you’re easily upset, or offended. I’m pretty jaded, but even ol’ Mrs. Horror Boom here winced several times. Intense, brutal, and frightening, Grace could very well sign you up for a nightmare… don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Grace stars Liza Weil, Brian Austin Green, and Susan Foley (the feature-length film starred Cabin Fever ‘s leading lady Jordan Ladd as Madeline). Oh, and the end titles just credit baby Grace as played by “herself”. Though it’d be way creepier if they listed a name, now that I think of it.
If you want to go behind the scenes, the below version has a really cool commentary. There’s also a short about the make-up effects used; drop me a line or a comment below if you’d like me to add it to this post.
I don’t know if enjoy! is the right phrase to sign off on Grace with, so I’ll go with George Romero‘s traditional sign-off: stay scared!
Do you know how beautiful you are?-Madeline, to her daughter
As the moon climbs high o’er the dead oak tree, Spooks arrive for the midnight spree. Creepy creeps with eerie eyes, Start to shriek and harmonize. Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize!
I can’t believe this FIRST aired in 2003 (according to this great Disney Wikia); it looks so old-school –AND SO COOL! “House Ghosts” was the 50th episode of House of Mouse, originally aired on Toon Disney‘s New For You! Show on October 10, 2003. Plot: It’s Halloween, and Pete unleashes some grim grinning ghosts onto the club to try to scare everyone away. This is definitely the highlight of the episode! OK, I haven’t seen the entire epiode, just this, but I find it hard to believe anything could top this show-stopper. Oh, and I forgot all about the Disney character “Pete” until I saw this. Among others, look for an appearance from Constance, AKA the Ghost Bride, who resides in the attic section of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. She had a fun back story; a “black widow” who had chopped off, I think, her last six husband’s heads!
Maybe this is a tribute to the rare “Hatbox Ghost” from the attic. The mid-60s-looking Herman’s Hermits/Brian Jones shag hairstyle threw me off.
Yep, I think that’s him. Either way, both these guys are beyond cool-looking!
OK, I actually stumbled on the whole 8-minute “House Ghosts” episode, and it had so many great references, including appearances by James Woods Hades (and his demo reel), the Devil in Night on Bald Mountain, and …more than I can count. Worth watching just to see the cameo by Mr. T alone! Nope, I am not making that up. Check it out below!
HORROR BOOM 