The Wasteland Watchatorium - 001 Twisted Movie Genres: Horror
TWO-GUN PIXIE PRESENTS:
The
Wasteland
Watchatorium
Salutations nerds and nerdettes!
Welcome back to the Nerd Wasteland! This month we would like to bring to you a list of several nerdtastic films perfect for the Halloween season.
As a chill crawls over the atmosphere please; turn off your lights, grab your favorite comforter and get ready for some great Halloween programing. We here at 2GP have put together this collection of horror-themed nerdy movies which your geeky mind may enjoy, some you may hate-to-love, mayhap others you love-to-hate. These genre-twisted films should get your geeky pulse racing…
001 -
TWISTED MOVIE
GENRES:
HORROR
• The Book of Vile Darkness
Direct-to-DVD release
Running Time: 86 minutes
Rated: R Directed by: Ferry Lively Written by: Brian Rudnick Starring: Anthony Howell, Eleanor Gecks,
Dominican Mafham
So, are you looking for a bit, or a lot, of fantasy mixed in with your horror?
The third installment of the Dungeons & Dragons movie is the best of the series (by far, so far) but that's not really saying a lot. Obviously this movie will appeal to the RPGers but fans of B-movie horror flicks should appreciate it as well. A paladin of Pelor whose faith is broken by the disappearance of his father joins a party of evil adventurers on a quest to discover the secret resting place of one of the most powerful tomes of arcane magic ever penned; the Book of Vile Darkness. Our hero hopes this book will help him find and free his father but his new companion's seek the grimoire for the boss, a malicious mind flayer. While battling devils, demons, and demi-humans the ex-paladin must uphold his moral values and holy codes all while keeping is true alignment and reasons hidden from the malicious fellowship of adventurers he travels with.
• Todd McFarland's Spawn
Original Airdate: May 1997 - May 1999 Original Network: HBO Created by: Todd McFarland Starring: Keith David, Richard Dysart Number of Seasons: 3 Number of Episodes: 18
There are not many superhero genre movies out there that mix in a good dose of horror but this is still the standard.
This 1997-1999 award winning graphic animated series debuted on HBO and took the world of animated super hero features to the next level of entertainment. The series relied heavily upon re-working the original Image Comics comic's early run. The show follows the now ruined life of Al Simmons, an ex-USA Commando and Vietnam War vet. After being killed by his best friend Al Simmons makes a deal with the Demon-Lord Malebolgia. In exchange for his soul and service as a general in Malebolgia's satanic army Al is given super human strength and demonic abilities along with a sentient cape and set of chains. As a "Hellspawn" Al is allowed back on Earth but instead of doing Malebolgia's will Al tries to return to his normal life and wife. Ultimately Al must battle the forces of both Hell and Heaven while discovering true evil lies in the hearts and desires of mere mortals.
• In The Mouth of Madness
Rated: R Running Time: 95 minutes Directed By: John Carpenter Written By: Michael DeLuca Distributed By: New Line Cinema Starring: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jurgen
Prochnow, Charlton Heston
Not all horror is simply horror. There are sub-genres and this is a great example of a Mythos horror story, or more accurately in respect to the gentleman from Road Island, a Weird Tale.
This psychologically unhinged Lovecraftian-inspired tale breaks the boundaries between reality. We find an insurance investigator trying to track down a missing author. This author, Sutter Cane, out sells the bible and his stories have been known to invite madness in the minds of the mentally unbalanced. Soon, the mind-bending horrors of Cane’s books begin to become reality. Nightmarish apparitions appear as what is "real" becomes a question in light of the unfathomable entities older than time and space start to rend our reality apart. The use of a cursed book, or in this case a series of novels by the same author, which drive readers into fits of permanent madness is as Lovecraftian as you can get and this movie handles that trope beautifully.
• John Carpenter's The Thing
Rated: R Running Time: 109 minutes Directed By: John Carpenter Written By: Bill Lancaster Distributed By: Universal Pictures Year of Release: 1982 Starring: Kurt Russell, Keith David, Wil ford
Brimly, T.K. Simmons, Richard Dysart
Most consider the fantastically great movie Alien as the standard of sci-fi / horror, and it may be but then again, as Master Yoda famously said, “there is another...”
In 1938 John W. Campbell penned the chilling sci-fi horror story, "Who Goes There?" This led to a 1951 film version, The Thing From Outer Space. In 1972 another, less direct adaptation, was filmed called, Horror Express. Then, in 1982 John Carpenter directed the Bill Lancaster script based upon John Campbell's original story.
A group of scientists working in Antarctica discover an alien spaceship that has been frozen in the ice for perhaps 100,000 years. From this crash an alien organism is released. This organism quickly begins to replicate itself into anyone's form it kills and begins to mimic the scientists, none of whom knows who is human and who is the thing. Tensions and paranoia build to an explosive ending as some of the greatest special effects of the late 1980s (hell, or even the 90s) disgusts your senses. The use of isolation and the stark, emotionally cold, white backgrounds work perfectly to set the atmosphere of this film. This is the most accurate (and disturbing) version of John W Campbell's literary masterpiece to date.
• Bone Tomahawk
Rated: R Running Time: 132 minutes Directed By: S. Craig Zaher Written By: S. Craig Zaher Distributed By: RLJ Entertainment Starring: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew
Fox, Richard Jenkins, Lil Simmons
The great western movie never really died and every so often it drifts back into town like a familiar tumbleweed. We are currently seeing one such drift which brings me to one of the least used genres to mix with horror...
If some very forward thinking person said to you that if you took The Hills Have Eyes and mixed it with True Grit that you'd have the makings of a great film i bet you might question them. As it turns out that is exactly what someone did. In this case that someone is S. Craig Zaher. Bone Tomahawk centers around a posse of Wild West archetypes on the hunt for a missing frontier woman. They soon discover she was not kidnapped by your run-of-the-mill Indians but by (possibly) inhuman, cannibalistic cave dwellers. This character-driven story does not skimp on the horror but it also doesn't feel the need to extend itself in meaningless amounts of endless gore. Bone Tomahawk beautifully handles the balance between scenes rife with deep character development and those of savage, unbridled horror.
• Killer Klowns From Outerspace
Rated: R Running Time: 88 minutes Directed By: Stephan Chiodo Written By: Charles Chiodo Distributed By: Trans World Entertainment Starring: Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John
Allen Nelson, John Vernon
A pure cult classic!
NO, this isn’t really a twisted genre but come on! Clowns! Alien Clowns! Human-Eating Alien Clowns! Need I really say more, really? LOL!
When a meteorite crashes (lands) in the nearby woods a mysterious circus tent appears. Townsfolk start to go missing in short order as horrific looking, jack-toothed alien clowns emerge from the tent! This dark comedy is made that much more “horrifically funny” because the killer clowns use cute tricks to capture and kill their soft human prey (such as making balloon animals to capture humans, hungry shadow puppets, and even a cotton candy cocoon to store their human food - and crazy straws to suck out their bodily fluids!) Keep your eyes peeled on this title as a cable TV series is allegedly currently in the works!
