But! It all brings to mind wintertime horror movies- not necessarily films centered around the holidays, but the ones full of so much snow and depressing, stark, bleakness of the season that you will put a Snuggie over your Forever Lazy even if you're watching them in July. It should be noted that I kind of love that depressing, stark, bleakness of the season and I'm happy to be in the midst of it again.
A few notes!
- That Shining poster with the written note-according to LEGEND, Kubrick had designer Saul Bass work up 300 versions of the poster image, and I suppose this is one of them. I don't know why I put "legend" in all-caps, so don't ask.
- Oh, Haunts. I watched it in bits and pieces and eventually made it all the way through. I'm unsure if I should give it another go, or if that would be a waste of time. It's one messed up little movie- and the ending! Okay, maybe I should watch it again. I'll probably regret it, but still.
- Why did I only just find out that an alternate title for Devil Times Five (shown here under another alt title, The Horrible House on the Hill) is Peopletoys?? That is the best.
- How many movies have used some variation on the tagline for Wind Chill ("There are some things worse than dying")? I'm sure Wind Chill isn't the first to use it, even. Also, I didn't think Wind Chill was that bad, really. SO SUE ME
- That Dead Zone poster. What.
- Have you seen The Children? I love it! It's at the top of my "watch it again" list.
- Death House, btdubbs, is Silent Night, Deadly Night, which is one of those "I saw it a million years ago and I kind of hated it, but maybe I just wasn't in the mood or maybe even I just didn't get it at the time, so I should try again...or maybe it just stinks" kind of movies for me. You know how it is. Still, Mary Woronov!
I love all of those posters of The Shining; I never knew that they all existed. It'd be cool if I could find the newspaper one because it's pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note: you live in New England too?! That's funny. And we are totally being spoiled with the weather so far. I'm just trying to brace myself for when the shit really hits the fan and we start getting pounded with snow...
That second Shining poster is incredible.
ReplyDeleteGreat set of posters, Stacie! I never even knew Saul Bass designed posters for The Shining.
ReplyDeleteAnd have fun getting used to our bleak New England winters!
Love those illustrated posters for Dead Zone, Brood & especially Terror Train. Never seen them before. They don't make 'em like that anymore...but they should.
ReplyDeleteSilent Night, Deadly Night is one of those films that I keep finding myself coming back to now & again. It's not required holiday viewing like Black Xmas or maybe one of the SNDNights, but I come back to it every so often. I think part of it is that it has so many of the tropes that BC & Halloween would use so well just after (SNBN came out a year before BC, in fact). The escaped psycho, the camera-as-killer POV thing, the freaky phone calls & the fact that the Killer is calling... from inside the house! It SHOULD work, especially with the nifty pseudo-Don't Go in the Basement type back story,but it just doesn't quite get there.
I think the reason I come back is two-fold: the fact that a lot of the people involved were Warhol Factory vets (the director, Woronov, Astrid Heeren- looking fab and fur-clad for most of her screen time- plus Ondine and Candy Darling in the flashback scene); and the sort-of-70s-meets-olden days vibe it has. It's like a lesser version of the documentary-style movies of the time, along the same lines as The Evictors, The Legend of Boggy Creek... The Town that Dreaded Sundown maybe, but not quite up to the standards of the best of the period, like TCM and Wes Craven's early stuff. I do live me some sepia-toned flashback, though. Like Fulci's House by the Cemetary or certain giallos of the time...love it. SNBN could have been a contender, but it isn't campy or creepy enough to be that good, despite some occasionally effective visuals. I don't hate it, but I don't quite love it either.
I quite liked Wind Chill. I'm aware it both sucks and blows (oh my god, I made a pun!) but I still liked it.
ReplyDeleteI was reading this just now for the first time, and idly wondered, "What's a Forever Lazy?" And then at that exact moment an ad for it came on the TV.
ReplyDeleteWhich is insanely coincidental enough to qualify it as a Christmas miracle. If it is, though, I don't think it greedy to ask for another one. Y'know?
Love Haunts.
ReplyDelete