31 Days of Halloween 2018

October 3:

Children of the Corn (1984) - There is a lot to be said about child actors both good and bad, well mostly bad. Children of the Corn is inundated with child actor and so suffers from it. Not all mind you but some are terrible. The story though is wonderful, part religious critique and the fallibility of belief and part real live threatening wrath of God. It really is an excellent thing Director Fritz Kiersch in his debut feature, leading us down a path and then blowing that up into a supernatural threat. The original story by Stephen King and screenplay by George Goldsmith are both quite passable. Presented for most of the movie as a story about the children a town in Nebraska becoming a cult to "He who walks behind the rows" in this case corn rows. You never get the sense that there really is such a boogeyman. It just seems like the older kids have created a religion and eventually it will be found out. The "by who" is a thing since the children kill all the adults in the town. The early part of the film is carried by the performances of two kids, Isaac (John Franklin) with his creepy religious fervor and Amish awkwardness and the absolute malice of Malachai (Courtney Gains). A good name for a blog in that "The Malice of Malachai".  It ends up being Burt (Peter Horton) and Vicki (Linda Hamilton) who are passing through and end up on the wrong road at the wrong time. A lot of the film is these two adults being threatened by a gang load of children. When the turn comes it is that the God is real and it is not happy. I love that this is where this movie goes, that there is actually something behind the kids prayers and that it is a vengeful God. Now I can't remember if I ever watched another of this series (there are 10 if you count the one coming out this year) but I sure do like this original.

I also watched all eight shorts in the Huluween collection. I liked the one entitled The Box the best as it really was dark and precise in its threat.

October 4:

 Terrifier (2017) - This film is certainly a showcase for gore special effects. Written and Directed by Damien Leone who has had a career in the craft this evil little film splurts, gashes and gurgles it way through the story of a massacre. The victim are random and the killer a sadistic supernatural mute clown with a high tolerance for pain a desire to maim. Tara (Jenna Kanell) and Dawn (Catherine Corcoran) [buffy reference?] are a couple of drunk young women on the way home from a party when they cross paths with the clown (David Howard Thornton). He stalks them through an abandoned building until finally managing to kill each woman. It is a strange first act in which it closes with a final girl kind of moment only to have that not be the case. There is some playing with the viewers expectations that are interesting in this first part of the film. Unfortunately this is a film about a psycho clown killer and the initial setup leaves a half dozen people for him to off. The gore is plentiful and the characters as developed as needed to be victims. Unfortunately the focus shifts from Tara and Dawn to Tara's sister Vicki (Samantha Scaffidi) about two thirds of the way through the film. It is wierd to sort of have two climaxes in one film and the first way too soon. We get the second final girl showdown before the film ends with a supernatural twist. The structural problems are a shame because Thornton knocks it out as The Clown. If it was not for the intro scene at the beginning of the film it would be completely bleak. Even that though is a hopeless storyline. So the question is who do you pull for? The filmmaker, I guess wants us to pull for what he hopes is a new iconic killer but why?