9 Years of Parade-Worthy Horror

Today is the nine-year anniversary of my very first posting on WordPress™. After I upload this, I’m going outside to wait for my parade. There’s sure to be tens, maybe dozens, of people showing up, so I better get there early to get a good viewing spot. Okay, that made no sense at all.

That said, over the years and in line at the grocery hole (Thriftway™ — more expensive than Safeway™, but easier to get to), I’ve been asked a least one million billion questions about myself and this here Drinkin’ & Drive-in blog. Figured it was about time to put it on the glass so everyone who reads this thing (thank you) can finally get some closure.

“How long have you been doing the Drinkin’ & Drive-in blog and how did you get started?”
I was hired by Microsoft (aka, MSNEntertainment.com) back in 1997 to do a PAID daily horror/sci-fi movie blog called Fright Site. That program ended in 2010 (at least their checks didn’t bounce), but I wasn’t done yet. After about three seconds of studied and careful consideration, I started up Drinkin’ & Drive-in on WordPress.com and have been doing it WITHOUT PAY since June 9, 2010. So 25 years total, give or take. (I’m not really a math guy.)

How come you don’t accept paid advertising on your blog?
Because ads suck. I’d rather keep doing the blog for no pay than have it cluttered with banners promoting trendy pants and boxed squeezy mattresses. (Disclaimer: WordPress™ might have small pop-up ads that, like my thirst for beer, I have no control over.)

“How would you describe your blog?
I don’t do horror/sci-fi/fantasy movie reviews as it requires more brains than I currently have operating inside the vending machine that is my head. Rather, I just endlessly watch all kinds of horror and sci-fi and merely relate what I’ve witnessed. As opposed to a food critic, I would rather not analyze the notes and complexities of food and just eat the damn hamburger.

“What are your favorite kinds of horror movies?”
Longtime readers (thank you, David. H and Jon from NC) will know I’m a big fan of giant monster movies, Japanese or otherwise. This is followed by ghosts, werewolf and shark movies. My least favorite types of horror movies are those with slashers/serial killers. There’s more than enough of those types of people in the news everyday. For sheer crazy weirdness, I really dig those Japanese extreme gore movies and pretty much anything regarding UFOs.

“Have you ever seen a UFO?”
Not as yet. But I do believe the people who say they’ve seen one. The truth is out there, I want to believe, etc., etc. I do, however, eat UFOs  almost every day: unidentified frying objects.

“Are there any types of horror movies you won’t watch?”
Though I have seen enough of ‘em to know not to watch that kind of stuff anymore, are horror movies involving torture porn, rape and real or fake violence against real and/or fake animals, though I will make an exception for critters that are zombies. (I’m looking in your direction Zombeavers/2014). Oddly, I don’t feel the same way about violence towards fish. (Ironically, I’m eating a tuna fish sandwich while writing this.)

“You don’t use swear words in your blog — why not?”
Anyone can swear — it’s like the karaoke of language. My “journalism skills” are offensive enough without adding salty/florid language to it. That, and I just sound dumber than usual if I do.

“What are your favorite horror/sci-fi movies?”
Too many to list, but here’s a few classics I never get tired of watching over and over and over: Planet of the Apes (1968); Godzilla (1954); The Legend of Hell House (1973); 30 Days of Night (2007); The Thing (1982); The Wolf-Man (1941); Alien (1979); The Evil Dead (1981); Let The Right One In (2008); An American Werewolf in London (1981), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). There’s about two dozen more, but this is a nice representation of my cinematic tastes.

Recent ones (as this time and space) that kicked me in the britches are The Witch (2015), It (2017), It Follows (014), Stranger Things (2016), The Babadook (2014), Godzilla (2014), Shin Godzilla (2017) and Kong: Skull Island (2017), to name a few.

“After all these years, why keep going?”
A curious but relentless compulsion, really. That, and it’s a way to justify all those decades sitting on a couch watching TV. And no, I’m not fat from doing that, nor would I even think about body shaming someone who is. I currently weigh just 6.5 lbs. over my target weight for height and age, despite my insatiable thirst for all things adult beverages, which is generally Budweiser™. And I don’t drink hard alcohol — too many notes. That’s not to say I’d turn down a complimentary sip or three. Ahem.

What critique would you give your blog?
I tend to ramble. I feel as though it should be more “don’t bore us — get to the chorus.” But I don’t wanna leave anything out. Obsession is harsh mistress. Also, I occasionally repeat myself due to the erratic nature of both my brainwaves and horror movie release schedules. That bugs the insects outta me.

“How come your blog or even yourself is not on social media?”
I do this blog for free, so why make more work for myself? As for me not being on social media, besides the fact that trendy medium sucks green donkeys, I don’t think the world needs to hear what I had for breakfast or what cat video I just watched.

“How old are you?”
For an accurate answer, cut my liver in half and count the rings.

“How much longer are you going to keep doing Drinkin’ & Drive-in?”
That’s up to my liver.

Not The Stairway To Heaven

The instructions to make The Doorway (2000) must’ve come off a box of Count Chocula™: Take four college kids, put ’em in a haunted house, have a doorway to Hell in the basement, and let unnatural nature take its course. 

Of course the ancient medallion keeping the doorway to Hell from swinging both ways is knocked off the sacred nail holding back epic evil, and a succubus (female demon that likes to get jiggy) roams from bedroom to bedroom, wreaking mattress havoc and sticking out her plastic green tongue.

The students try and solve the mystery of the skanky spook by hooking up with their ghost-hunting college professor, Roy Scheider. (Hey, this was the guy who kicked Jaws’ wet butt, so it was a strategic move.) The only thing missing is a dog named Scooby Doo. Rory doesn’t last long, though, getting his entire face ripped in half by the face-ripping face-ripper. Then everybody else falls prey to the smelly forces emanating from the basement. 

There’s a happy assortment of boobs and a lingering sex scene, which was pleasant on an R-rated sliding scale. The creatures that come a’knockin’, however, aren’t particularly scary, nor unique. In fact, the whole flick lamely rips off The Legend of Hell House (1973), The Amityville Horror (1979), Night of the Demons (1988),  and Hellraiser (1987), without batting an evil eye. 

The girls are cute (especially the short blonde chick), but the guys are dorks of chess club proportions. In the end, it all sucks. But the thing about doorways is that you can always go out the same way you came in.

A Ghost You Can’t See

In the 2015 scare-deficient The Dead Room, three paranormal researchers go into a run down house in the woods that a family fled after being spooked out of their lease by something invisible and angry. Think Casper the Unfriendly Ghost. An insurance company hired them to prove/disprove the place is haunted. It is. Claim settled.

The team is made up of Holly, a young Goth-y girl who is a psychic, Liam, the guy who knows how to run all the cameras/gear by plugging the right chords into the right holes, and the older man, Scott, is an outright skeptic. Once geared up, they wait for the ghost to make spooky stuff happen. It takes a while, but soon the unseeable entity starts throwing furniture around like it was being yanked by fishing line. Then anything sharp gets hucked right at soft and splittable heads.

After much door slamming, windows breaking, books unshelving themselves and indoor wind, the crew abandons their paid gig and packs their cameras to leave. It’s here they see smoke-like smoke coming from behind a wall. Doesn’t smell like burning, so clearly there’s a ghost in the walls. Time for some sledgehammer action.

After breaking through the sheetrock, they discover a room with a ladder leading down into a hole. Well heck, who wouldn’t want to go down there? I’m surprised there wasn’t a pushing contest to see who got to go first. Once in the “basement”, they find a mummified corpse of an old woman chained to a chair. She looks like she hasn’t washed her hair for decades. Ick.

And it’s here the team figures out the secret behind the hauntings. Unfortunately, their revelation came a few beats too late and the ghost you never get to see evicts all of them — permanently. If this sounds familiar, it’s because they took giant ice cream scoops of The Legend of Hell House (1973) and slapped a dumb title on it.

Insane Haunted Santa UFOs

Serial killers…haunted houses…UFOs…insane asylums. It’s like a horror snack platter. Still not seeing anything involving robot cheerleader werewolves. And if any of you big time Hollywood film producers are interested, I have a script. Plug ’n play, man. Just sayin’.

SECRET SANTA (December 13, 2016)
“A group of eccentric college kids struggle to get through the hectic exam period. A liquor-filled Christmas party is planned to ease the stress. They plan to toast the end of the semester with a Secret Santa exchange. Little do they know, a killer is in town and has a special present for all the girls and boys. Will they dare to open their presents?”

Santa as a serial killer. There’s a horror plot device older than Christmas itself. And as for “eccentric” college kids, there’s a better descriptive word: obnoxious arrogant over-privileged jerk wads. Yep, that’s one word.

BEHIND THE WALLS (2017)
“Years it has waited, now someone’s moved in. Through the eyes of the evil within we witness a broken family desperately seeking a new beginning in a new home. But this house lives, watches and wants them to stay — FOREVER.”

Of course the house wants them to stay forever — rent’s gotta be paid. I question this evil house’s sincerity, though; for instance, in The Legend of Hell House (1973) and The Amityville Horror (1979), the malevolence therein keep telling their tenants to get out. Admittedly, not a good business model if you’re an evil landlord.

SAM WAS HERE (2017)
“California, Mojave Desert, 1998. A strange glow appears in the sky. Sam, a forty-something door-to-door salesman, travels through the few inhabited zones of the Californian desert in search of clients, yet everything seems deserted. When his car breaks down, Sam becomes a prisoner of the empty, hostile environment. Alone and without human contact for days on end, he listens continuously to a talk-show on the only local radio station. The host, a man named Eddy, takes calls from listeners who share their thoughts on a child killer at large in the area.”

I bet the strange glow in the sky is a UFO. Everybody knows UFOs glow. Outside of that, I wonder what Sam sells? That’d be cool if he sold hot air balloons that light up so you could see ‘em, say, over the desert at night.

ELOISE (January 5, 2017 (UK) / 2017 (US)
“Four friends break into an abandoned insane asylum in search of a death certificate which will grant one of them a large inheritance. However, finding it soon becomes the least of their worries in a place haunted by dark memories.”

Given how many abandoned insane asylums used in countless horror movies, you kinda wonder what made everybody leave? As they say in prison, three hots and a cot.

Undomesticated Cannibals, Ghosts, Wildlife

Yep, four more new ones (as of this e-scribbling). It’s almost like there’s some sort of, I don’t know, “film factory” churning these things out night and day. And yet with all these market fresh movies on the docket, no one has made me a lucrative offer to cameo as a monster, first victim, or celebrity walk-on. (I’m not really a celebrity – but I do dress like one.)

So, in case you haven’t fulfilled your daily recommended dose of infomercials…

PROOL (aka, Prey / October 13, 2016 / Netherlands)
“When the police discover the bodies of a slaughtered family living on a farm just outside of Amsterdam, they are clueless as to what happened. Lizzy, an attractive veterinarian working in the Amsterdam Zoo, confirms their suspicions; there must be a lion on the loose. And judging by the wounds of the mutilated victims, the beast must be big, strong and vicious…”

If lion/tiger gone wild horror movies are your zootopia, try The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) and Burning Bright (2010). Both are quite good. I’m not lion. Heh.

HELL HOUSE (November 1, 2016)
“Five years after an unexplained tragedy on opening night of Hell House, a Halloween haunted house tour, a documentary crew travels back to the scene of the disaster to investigate the events of that night. During an interview with one of the original staff members, they are given never-before-seen footage taken by the staff of the haunted house. It reveals the terrifying truth about what really happened on the opening night of HELL HOUSE!”

Sounds like more tired found footage crap-o-rama, the tap water plot included. For a much better take on the “haunted house tragedy” tip, start at the top: The Legend of Hell House (1973), from which this movie borrows/pays homage to/rips off its title.

THE SHELTER (November 4, 2016 / VOD; January 3, 2017 / DVD)
“On a star filled night, widower and homeless man Thomas Jacobs finds shelter for the night when he falls upon a vast two-story house with the lights on and an inviting open front door. But soon enough, he realizes that the house won’t let him leave, as its doors are all locked while its windows cannot be opened or broken. Destiny has brought Thomas to this place. What does it want from him? Will he survive the ordeal?”

A widower AND homeless? Something tells me the evil house is a Tupperware™ party compared to what he’s already lived through. But hey, a warm and dry evil house with toilet paper privileges is still better than sleeping under a bridge next to hobos who are all probably evil and/or poisonous.

ESCAPE FROM CANNIBAL FARM (2017)
“The Harver family embark on an idyllic summer camping trip to the British countryside where they can bury past tensions and enjoy some family bonding. But when their camp is sabotaged by an unseen intruder in the night, they head to the nearby creepy old farm desperate for help, where vengeful farmer Hunt Hansen and his hideously deformed son aren’t farming animals. Caged and waiting for their limbs to be severed, cooked and eaten one at a time, the Harver family must overcome their differences and unite in order to escape alive.”

Not sure what this says about me, but I totally want to see the Harver family get turned into a Sunday buffet by Hunt Hansen. I never fancied those Harvers, what with their “past tensions,” “differences” and “family bonding.” This ain’t supposed to be Leave it to Beaver (1957 – 1963). Leave it to Cleaver maybe…

Legendary Ghost-Busting

So word comes down the chute that a remake of The Legend of Hell House (1973), one of the scariest haunted house movies you’ll ever see, is in the works. No doubt looking to cash in on the generic ghost movie craze to clog the theatres. (I’m looking in your direction The Conjuring, Insidious 1 & 2, Sinister, The Quiet Ones, Occulus, Dark Skies, The Appearing, The Possession, blah, blah, blah.)

While I’d rather not see another re-boot butcher job done to a horror classic, let’s see if Hollywood can top this: a scientist with really cool ghost-busting gadgetry teams up with a couple of mediums (i.e., unemployed clairvoyants) to solve the mystery of Hell House. Referred to as the “Mt. Everest of haunted houses,” the ghost, or “ghosts” that actually spook the infamous Belasco House is in constant question.

Whoever invisible is scaring the complete crap out of everyone’s chute, manages to have sex with one of the occult chicks and gets another one – the wife of the scientist – to take off her clothes in a very unscientific manner in front of Roddy McDowall, the only clairvoyant survivor of the first investigation 20 years ago.

The brilliantly chilling Legend of Hell House still holds up over four decades after its release and still scares the complete crap out of whomsoever’s chute dares to watch it – mine included.