18 More Days Till Halloween, Halloween, Halloween… October Update!

13 October 2012

Wow, I’m going to really have to step up my game. Halloween is coming up sooner than I thought! I’m going to post every day, I know that. I’ve had lots of ideas for the month of October. Yeah, it took me a couple weeks to realize we were well into October—hey, every month is sorta Halloween when you’re a horror fan!* Then October shows up and kicks the fucking door open. I love all the horror releases this time of year. Plus, we’re seeing Sinister at some point over the weekend, which I’ve heard nothing but good things about. Trying not to get my hopes too high, I just want to see a decent horror movie in a full theater –especially one that earns a couple genuine screams.

Here’s how that came to happen. A friend comped us tickets for a Patton Oswalt show at a semi-local casino, which was already a great night. I played a nickel slot machine—oh yeah, I’m a REAL high roller when I’m broke. While we were waiting my for last comped drink, I told my husband (not for the first time this week, either), “GOD I want to see Sinister, it got really, really good reviews,” not really expecting him to go for it when money is so tight.

Him: Nope, we can’t.
Me: But it’s not found footage.
Him: It got two and a half stars in the Seattle Times.
Me: Yeah? Did [name of reviewer who I tend to dislike for reasons I’m not going to go into here, redacted] review it?
Him: (shakes head “no”)
Me: Because [redacted] hates horror movies. I don’t give a fuck what [redacted] says.
Him: Not going to happen.
Me: I can’t see it by myself, I know I’m going to scream a couple of times and that’s, like, really embarrassing when you’re sitting alone, even if you’re a chick.
Him: (I can’t remember, I’d had three comped lemon martinis and was feeling no pain, probably him patiently explaining to me again why we can’t).
Me: OK, not to jinx it, if I win enough to pay for the tickets for us? Then we’re going.
Him: (sighs)

Full of confidence and comped drinks, I picked a slot machine called “Haunted House”. Yep, that’s where I’m sitting till I lose my money. Twenty minutes later, I won enough to go see Sinister. Woooo! I was waving my arms around like Kermit The Frog after he introduces a guest on The Muppet Show and hugging everyone I knew. My ecstatic reaction wasn’t due so much to the fact that it was the first time in my life I actually came out a little ahead on a slot machine (though they were probably thinking ‘that’s not a big enough win to get that excited about’) but because I wouldn’t have to wait for Sinister to show up on DVD in six months. OK, and those fine comped lemon martinis contributed some to that reaction, too.

Back to Halloween, I was thinking of posting one scary movie review a day, then one very scary short a day, but I’ve been searching around and saving all the most frightening horror shorts over the last couple months, and so far I’ve only got a dozen or so good enough and scary enough to post. I don’t want to use them all up in a row, then have the rest of the year be boring. I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, and I’m hoping I can apply myself enough to write a recap/review of American Horror Story: Asylum every week. Oh, and Halloween weekend–or on Halloween if I can get the timing right– I’ll post the scariest J-horror short of the month, if not the year.

Heads up! It’s that time of year again!

Also, I’m either going to put up a FAQ page or a Q&A page to the site. I look at the WordPress dashboard when I check my stats every day to see what Google search terms were used, and while some of them are really disturbing— “free snuff movie real blood” —is one of the ones that makes me glad I coughed up a little extra money to stay mostly anonymous on the blog— other are questions I instantly know the answers to. Here’s an example. Search term: who ripped off yokos jaw in grudge. Kayako Saeki, in the attic! Search term: what are some fuckedup scary movies from france Answer: Frontier/s, Martyrs, and Inside to start. Don’t watch them all in a row, or even on concurrent nights, though…

Anyway, if you want to see more of something, tell me. I’ll post a poll later. Thanks to every single person who has checked out the site when I told them about it, ANYONE who has left a comment, and you know what? Thanks to every single person who has been here (especially regularly –I hate to sound sappy, but it always makes me smile, even on a shitty day). Plus, if you have a question —pretty much ANY question— about a horror movie,** I’m your online go-to woman!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the point of this post— Horror Boom is now on Facebook (under “Horror Boom”, with the explode-y vector that’s the featured image of this post, plus the monster-hand-in-the-popcorn-box photo below. You’ll know it when you see it. If you’re on Facebook and want to give Horror Boom a ‘like’, it’d be really cool of you and appreciated. Right now there’s three likes, and one is my brother (thanks bro, I know you’re not a horror fan). If you hate Facebook and don’t want anything to do with it, I totally understand and certainly would not even consider asking you to join just to like Horror Boom. Just saying, if you’re already there and have a minute, please check it out. Thanks to Andrew for the first like, by the way. All you guys rock!

Scariest Short Horror Movie of the Week will be posted soon…

*Especially these election year Halloweens!
**or horror-related book, or comic, or icon, or TV series, or …okay, you get the idea.

Ethan Hawke Talks About Finally Making His Horror Movie Debut In Sinister (kroq.cbslocal.com)
Top 10 Halloween Events (essentialtravel.co.uk)
Halloween Horror Movie Month: Sinister (2012) (dtmmr.com)
Inspiration: Horror Movies (gweberblog.wordpress.com)

Poll: What Are You Most Psyched To See?

5 October 2012

Excision (2012) – This Is One Seriously Twisted Red Band Trailer… So What Are You Waiting For?

18 September 2012

1 Comment

You’re a very troubled little girl. -William (John Waters)

(Raising her hand to calmly ask a question in Anatomy Class) Can you contract an STD from having sex with a dead person? -Pauline, Excision

Okaaay! Uh… wow. I remember seeing a piece on this movie somewhere; I think the movie might have been in production (or post) at the time. I recall hearing that there weren’t just walk-outs, there were actual PASS-outs, when it played at the 2012 Sydney Film Festival (and one or two other showings). At some point I added it to my IMDB Watch List. When I saw the image above, it came back to me. Today I finally saw the full-blown intense Red Band trailer below. I know I hadn’t seen it before, because I would have remembered John Waters showing up in it (for one).

You might want to put down anything you’re eating before you watch this..

The official website for the film has some lush, vivid stills so twisted I didn’t even consider putting them here; at least one of them, anyway, grossed me out just to look at. If/when you look at the “Stills” section of the elaborate website, you’ll know the one I mean as soon as you see it. Gah. There’s a ton of media, both stunning and grotesque, and news galore on the official site. There’s less NSFW content –but loads of updates– on the official Facebook page for the movie.

If you’re looking forward to seeing Excision as much as I am (hey, why are you looking at me like that? Don’t judge me!) then you’ll be happy to know the release date for the DVD and Blu-ray is coming up faster than Pauline’s lunch in the trailer you watched. OK, maybe not that quickly, but soon! Here’s the official Press Release:

On October 16th, Anchor Bay Films presents the harrowing coming-of-age horror film, and instant cult classic, Excision, from writer/director Richard Bates, Jr., which the Sundance Channel deemed, “Without question the most mind-blowing grotesque film to screen at this year’s fest.” Boasting an impressive and eclectic cast including AnnaLynne McCord (The CW’s “90210,” Transporter 2, Fired Up, FX’s “Nip/Tuck”), Traci Lords (Blade, Zack & Miri Make a Porno, Cry Baby), Ariel Winter (ABC’s “Modern Family”), Roger Bart (Hostel Part II, Law Abiding Citizen, American Gangster), Malcolm McDowell (The Artist, A Clockwork Orange, Rob Zombie’s Halloween, HBO’s “Entourage”) and cameos including Ray Wise, director John Waters, and Academy Award® winner Marlee Matlin, Excision comes to Blu-ray™ for an SRP of $24.99 and DVD for an SRP of $22.98.

Excision turned critics’ stomachs as well as heads, garnering much attention at festivals this past year. Noel Murray of AV Club calls it, “One of the damnedest ‘adolescent misfit’ movies you’ll ever see — for those who can stomach the splatter, that is,” and Chris Bumbray of JoBlo exclaims, “While it’s more than a little sick, and will likely leave you queasy by the time the credits roll, Excision is nonetheless a truly unique horror ride into the scariest of all place:s the mind of a teenaged misfit.” Excision holds a 94% “want to see” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Based on a short film of the same name, Excision follows a disturbed and delusional high school student, Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord), who, with aspirations of a career in medicine, goes to extremes to earn the approval of her controlling mother (Traci Lords). While dealing with being an outcast teenager and obsession over curing her sister’s cystic fibrosis, Pauline becomes continually deranged as her fascination with surgery and the human flesh grows into something abysmal and demonic.

Bonus feature on the Excision Blu-ray™ and DVD: audio commentary with writer/director Richard Bates, Jr., and AnnaLynne McCord.

Thanks, Official Press Release (and Anchor Bay)! Nice to start the week with some good news. I have no idea how they got stunning AnnaLynne McCord to look so terrible; when I watched the trailer I didn’t recognize her until her credit came up. In some of the freaky dream sequences/fantasies I can recognize her, with all the glamour make-up on and fetish costumes. I’m confident she call pull it off; in addition to some of the rave reviews her acting in this movie is getting, she played a teenaged, breathtakingly gorgeous but vile, sick little bitch on Season Five of FX’s Nip/Tuck who, among other malignant things, taught an eleven-year-old girl how to make herself throw up to keep her weight down, because 80 lbs was ‘too fat’.*

I’m also tweeting the first clip that was released. Remember when you’re watching it that A. that is not an actual dead bird, it’s only a movie and B. not to watch while you’re eating anything …or feeling queasy already, because it even made me wince a little. I’m tweeting it too, though, mainly because the clip’s title is “Bird Surgery” and maybe I can come up with some corn, hack-y joke.

Whoop! Sorry, I seem to have accidentally posted some images of the lead actress in an upcoming unrated French horror movie instead of… no, wait, I was right the first time, these *are* in fact some images of the lead actress from “Excision!”

*which she did sheerly –and successfully– out of spite, because she hated the girl’s mother (for sleeping with HER mother, mainly …longer story than you’d probably care for right now). Her horrible character also banged the girl’s father for the same reason. Oh, I’m looking forward to posting my list of Ten F*cked-Up Things That Happened On Nip/Tuck. That piece just wrote itself (if anything, I had trouble narrowing it down to ten)!