Halloween Horror Challenge: Day 7: A Great Hero: Nancy Thompson

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Day 7: A Great Hero: Nancy Thompson

For me a great hero is someone who is willing to sacrifice themselves in order to save those around them. Especially the ones they love. My favorite hero is Nancy Thompson played by Heather Langenkamp from the Nightmare on Elm Street. Nancy is likable, smart, and resourceful. She feels like the door next door and she is someone that everyone can relate to. She gives her life in Nightmare on Elm Street 3 because of love. She can’t save those around her and she dies trying. BUT, she never gives up and she fights to the bitter end against Freddy. She’s fantastic!

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31 Days of Horror: Day 6: “Stitches” (2012)

This is the kind of slasher that is about five times better than it has any right to be. So often at Slasher Studios we have been mourning the loss of the “fun slasher.” Well my dear readers, if a fun slasher is what you want…a fun slasher is exactly what you get here. At 85 minutes, it never its pacing never drags and is filled with such a maniacal glee that even the hard core slasher snob will find something to enjoy here.

The performances are all top notch with a special kudos Ross Noble as Stitches who plays the clown with a demonic glee and Tommy Knight as Tom who is so sincere and sweet that you actually care about his future. The rest of the cast performs well and it’s interesting to see such a bunch of misfits interact. Oh…and the deaths?! The cherry on this slasher sundae! Easily some of the best gore I’ve seen in years with the bitchy girl Sarah getting her just desserts involving an umbrella and another boy dying to…wait for it…”(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight.” Classic. Ladies and gentlemen, my new favorite slasher!

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Horror Movie Challenge: Day 6: Favorite Movie by Favorite Director (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare)

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Day 6: Your favorite movie by your favorite director: “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare”

To me, New Nightmare is that rare horror film in which everything works. The performances are pitch perfect, lead by a tour-de-force performance by the amazing Langenkamp (she has never been better than she is here). The script is full of twists and turns and the movie is quite possibly the best looking of the entire series. What starts out as a maze of mirrors becomes something much more than your typical nightmare. As I said before, the film brilliantly examines the role film plays on those who watch it. Something that Wes Craven’s Scream would play out to great effect two years later and something that I myself toyed with in writing Popularity Killer. I really can’t say enough about this film and homages to the original are expertly placed. I think about this film on a nearly daily basis and I hope one day to create a work on art that has the same merits of this film. It really is something special.

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Horror Movie Challenge: Day 5: Favorite Horror Director (Wes Craven)

I’m a few days behind because I’ve been at Oshkosh Horror with Don’t Go to the Reunion but I’m back with full force. My favorite horror movie director is, and will always be, Wes Craven. Watching A Nightmare on Elm Street at a young age, it became the first horror movie that I truly loved. The Scream films were a huge part of my teenage years, and, as an adult, I’ve learned to appreciate and understand his raw 70’s films like The Hills Have Eyes and Last House on the Left. In his 70’s, he’s still making horror movies and he is just as much my hero as ever.

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31 Days of Terror: Day 5: “Dark Night of the Scarecrow” (1981)

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Dark Night Of The Scarecrow is a made-for-TV movie that appeared on CBS in October of 1981. Directed by Frank De Felitta, this film has a lot of heart and will hopefully get more recognition now that it has a Blu-ray release. This very nice HD transfer along with great artwork and a fun and informative insert will be a needed addition to your movie collection, if it already isn’t.

The film, with a running time of 96 minutes, tells the story about the friendship between a mentally challenged man and a young girl who befriends him. After a brutal dog attack, the young girl, Marylee is mauled. A number of the towns people automatically assume the her older friend, Bubba, is at fault. Four friends take the law into their own hands and hunt down poor Bubba. Disguised as a scarecrow, Bubba hides out in a field but is tracekd down by the lynch mob and murdered. Sooner than later, the scarecrow appears again…

There are a few good reasons to check this film out. First is the scarecrow mask. It is the perfect amount of creepy and works great within the story. I would love to find this mask someday at a horror convention. Another reason is the filmmaking itself. The colors are vibrant and the cinematography is stellar. It’s great to see so much passion go into a film that was produced for the television audience. The acting is spot on and it’s a real shame that we don’t have made-for-TV movies like this anymore.

So if this film has been on your to-watch-list, by all means move it up to the #1 spot. The Blu-ray packaging is great and I haven’t seen that much work go into an insert since the early days of DVD. It’s a great story line paired with a great mask and that is always a win-win!

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A Swing and a Hit: “Billy Club” (2013) Review

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When a group of old friends: Bobby (Marshall Caswell), Allison (Erin Hammond), Kyle (Nick Sommer), and Devon (Mathew Dunlop) go off together to commemorate their two Little League friends and coach, they begin to find themselves hunted. They start to wonder if it’s a kid from their past they played a prank on.

Directed by stars Drew Rosas and Nick Sommer, and also written by the two, Billy Club is a great revenge horror with everything to please horror fans. Sommer and Dunlop provide HUGE laughs for the film. Every moment with them provides great entertainment. We are also given a strong female lead in Erin Hammond. Apart from the laughs come excellent and gory kills. Every kill will leave the viewer cringing all the way through. The story itself is really engaging and keeps you guessing until it’s blowout ending that will make you want to go back and watch it all over again. Billy Club is also supported by amazing filming styles that will put many large budget horror films to shame. For great laughs and great kills, check out this excellent indie slasher.

–Cody Landman

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Horror Movie Challenge: Day 4: A Great Horror Movie Doctor (Jeffrey Franken – Frankenhooker)

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Picking a great horror doctor is difficult because the horror genre is filled with bad to awful ones. Even the best ones like Dr. Loomis have a tendency to use their patient as bait (see the Loomis-Lloyd relationship in Halloween 5) more than anything else. But, let’s take a look at Dr. Franken from Frankenhooker. Here is a doctor who is willing to do anything to save the woman he loves. Sure that might mean blow up some prostitutes but love does come at a price. He might not be a “good” doctor to some but he is to the love of his life and doesn’t that mean something?!

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Horror Movie Challenge: Day 3: Favorite “Saw” Scene: Dr. Crews (Friday the 13th Part VII)

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If ever there was a character in a slasher that you wanted to see die a slow and painful death, that character would be Dr. Crews. A monster of a doctor who uses his patient’s mom as a shield against Jason, he deserves everything that he has coming to him. Where did Jason find a circular weedwacker in the middle of the woods? Who knows but it has never been put to such good use.

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31 Days of Horror: Day 3: Popcorn (1991)

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This special 31 Days of Horror review comes from a previous review on Slasher Studios from Riley Lender. Enjoy!

Popcorn is one of the last movies of the slasher era and to me, one of the most under rated and unknown too. This movie starts out with Maggie (Jill Schoelen) having a nightmare of a man trying to kill her, but before any damage could happen, she wakes up. Her mother receives prank calls, having someone call but no one on the other end type of deal. Maggie proceeds to go to her class, Cinema to be exact, where they decide to have a fund raiser at the old, and local rundown movie theater. They then go to the theater where they get it ready for the B-rated 50’s horror movies they’re going to feature in 3 weeks.

They find a film in a case that is extremely bizarre and continually says “I am the possessor”. Maggie passes out at a scene in the film that she has saw in her dream. She then finds out the history of the movie, the man who made it, killed his family and himself on stage as it played in the background. Her mother gets another phone call, this time saying “I am the possessor, I want her! I want her!, knowing where the voice is from, she goes to the movie theater to investigate, where she ends up being murdered. Not knowing of what the previous night entailed, Maggie gets ready for the big night at the theater. A strange man who recites the possessor movie buys a ticket off of Maggie, she tells Toby (a boy from her cinema class she likes), he tells her that she should call the police. Making fun of him, saying that they wouldn’t believe her about a man who was supposedly dead. One by one, each member of her class is killed off, but not knowing who the killer is because whoever it is, is replacing the dead bodies with themselves and making it seem like they’re alive. The power ends up going out because one of the deaths involved electricity.

Maggie is behind the stage, in the dark when a man grabs her and is taken to the basement, then the power comes back on and the movies continue to play. Being tied up to some sort of device that holds her head in place, she discovers the killer is Toby, stealing people’s faces and making Maggie believe he is everyone. She finds out the reason for his killer is when the possessor was first shown in the theater that Toby was in the first row and has been burned because Maggie’s aunt set the theater on fire, leaving him not only burned but also extremely disfigured too. She then finds out that the man who made the possessor was actually her father. Her aunt is actually still alive and Toby has her right behind the screen, to get ready to finish what Maggie’s father was unable to do. He sedates Maggie and puts her in a cast with a dress over it, getting ready for their final scene. Now on stage, everyone believes it to be a joke laughing at Maggie because they think it’s all an act. The only person to discover the truth, Mark, then crashes onto the stage using the fly prop from one of the films they were showing. Mark knowing who Toby is, then frees Maggie and kills Toby with the fly. The police and ambulance end up showing up and BAM! Movie is over!

This film is considered to be the predecessor to the Scream franchise, which is clearly seen, is parts of the film. It’s one of the most underrated films I can think of, but it’s one of my favorites. There’s something fun about it and it didn’t lose the seriousness either, keeping true to what they wanted to execute. With next to no gore and no skin showing, There’s just nothing to hate about this film, period.

–Riley Lender

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Slasher Studios Podcast: Horror Movie Challenge

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In October, Slasher Studios will be featuring a horror movie each day. Play along at the Slasher Studios Horror Film Club. We will be discussing one week at a time on Slasher Studios Podcast. Show starts at 10PM central. To listen in live: Slasher Studios Podcast: Horror Movie Challenge.

Day 1: A memorable animal in horror
Day 2: Childhood horror
Day 3: A favorite saw scene
Day 4: A great horror doctor
Day 5: Favorite horror director
Day 6: Your fav movie by your fav director
Day 7: A great hero
Day 8: Best comedy-horror
Day 9: A boring horror
Day 10: Favorite classic horror
Day 11: Most psychotic killer
Day 12: The goriest movie
Day 13: Favorite foreign horror
Day 14: The cheesiest horror
Day 15: Great 80’s horror
Day 16: Great indie horror
Day 17: Fav horror franchise
Day 18: A movie people hate that you love
Day 19: A movie that disappointed you
Day 20: A great twist
Day 21: A lame twist
Day 22: Best movie based on a book
Day 23: Scariest old person
Day 24: A movie you expected to be bad, but enjoyed

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