2010 Horror Fest Pt. 3

Before I get started, this post was supposed to contain at least 1, but possibly all, of the first three Friday the 13th films. I found out last week that they were available on Netflix Online, and I was very excited, as I hadn't watched them in years.  However, when I went to watch them this week, they were no longer available. That is terrible timing on the part of Netflix...


Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1968)

This film is a big improvement over the previous Hammer Dracula film I watched (Dracula A.D. 1972). This is the third of the Hammer "Dracula" films, and forth vampire film by the studio overall.  However, it is the first to star Christopher Lee in the title role since the original, The Horror of Dracula, in 1958.  He doesn't appear in the movie until about 40 minutes in (he has to be resurrected from his death at the end of Horror...), but he manages to own the picture with a great, menacing portrayal, despite the fact that he doesn't have one word of dialog in the entire film!  Instead, he relies on his sinister gaze and intimidating bearing to convey the evil of Dracula.  You really don't need much more than that to have an effective Dracula film, and this one succeeds. I am a sucker for films like this that use creepy old castles or manors to create an atmosphere of foreboding and hidden evil around any corner.  There isn't much to the plot - Dracula needs to be resurrected, and when he does, he tries to feed and create more vampires.  You really don't need much more than that to have an effective Dracula film, and this one succeeds.





The Toolbox Murders (1978)

As I said last year in my first post on my love of horror movies, I said that I like them all: scary, campy, gory, weird, good and bad.  I have watched a lot of bad horror movies in my time, but have enjoyed a lot of them.  However, there is one thing that a horror movie can never be and still manage to be enjoyable, and that is boring.  And The Toolbox Murders is a BORING movie.  So boring that I finally gave up and fast forwarded through the last 20 minutes in order to see how it ended. 

The shame is that the movie had a pretty solid start, and a decent final scene.  Unfortunately, what happened in between those parts was a slog.  There were way too many stretches of nothing happening, and an excruciating monologue by the killer (whose identity they revealed out of nowhere about 40 minutes in) that I am sure was meant to establish how crazy and unhinged he is, but instead almost put me to sleep (in the middle of the day).

As I said above, the only thing I really liked about the movie was the beginning.  The movie starts right of with a bang - the killer shows up and starts his murder spree.  As you can tell from the title, the killer uses various items from his tool box to dispatch his victims, so its a nice change of pace from your standard butcher knife killings that most slasher films employ.  Another thing I liked was how, instead of an added on musical score, the film uses the music that the first victim is playing in her apartment to accompany the kill.  This is always an effective technique and adds an extra sense of scary realism when it is used in place of a musical score (its scarier because it makes the scene seem like something that is really happening instead of something that is taking place in a movie).

Unfortunately, after those opening scenes, there is nothing else in this movie that could make me recommend it. 




Day of the Dead (2008)

This is the semi-remake of the classic 3rd film in George Romero's Dead zombie series.  Its also the first pleasant surprise of my 2010 horror fest.  I really wasn't expecting a whole lot from this film - I remember it not getting very good reviews when released and it was direct to video.  I decided to give it a shot anyway.  I am glad I did.

The plot is super thin - people start getting sick, the military shuts down the town, and the sick turn into zombies and go on a rampage. However, it works.  The zombies (they are of the super fast, come out of nowhere variety rather than the slow, mindless, shambling type of the Romero films) are particularly menacing and creepy, and the film manages to convey the sense that you are being smothered, by both the situation and the swarms of zombies themselves, that zombie flicks should.  It definitely owes (ripped off) a lot from 28 Days Later, but if you are a fan of zombie films its worth checking out.