halloween

I found Rob Zombie's take on Halloween to be insufferable. Lacking everything that made the original appealing and containing Zombie's requisite amount of excessive vulgarity, it ranks as one of the worst remakes I have ever seen. To date I have yet to see the sequel, but if it's anything like the first, I have very little hope for it. Then it was announced that the next installment in beating a horse to death would be in the third dimension.

These plans have not changed, as Bloody Disgusting reports that the Weinstein Company is going to take Halloween 3, which was initially slated for a 2011 release date, in a new direction and are currently "open for pitches." Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer, who worked on My Bloody Valentine 3D together, were originally slated to bring Michael Myers into the third dimension, but as B-D notes, whether or not they're still attached to the project is anyone's guess.

While I'm sure the film will eventually get made, we can only hope they decide to eschew the third dimension in favor of, you know, a good story and competent acting. 3-D works in only a limited number of scenarios, and a slasher film is NOT one of them. I don't care how many eyeballs or pick axes get thrown at the screen, it ultimately serves as nothing more than a distraction.

Check them out after the jump.

Once again we find ourselves in the throes of our favorite holiday: Halloween. What I love about being a horror geek at this time of the year is that all the non-horror people get to pretend they are just like us. Video stores are beset by droves of customers clamoring for the horror section all of whom would otherwise avoid it like grim death. I don't mean to sound elitist, the amount of horror films I watch on a weekly basis is probably wildly unhealthy, but here is my list of the top five must-watch titles for All Hallows Eve.

Between the release of Where the Wild Things Are last weekend and the (alleged) re-release of Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 next weekend, I suppose that it's only appropriate that we came across this bit from G4's Attack of the Show this weekend, wondering what it might look like if the rocker-turned-auteur re-imagined the sh*t out of Maurice Sendak's classic childhood book instead of Spike Jonze. Watch and see....

By Jenni Miller

"Listen to this!" A friend pressed the ringer on his BlackBerry, and it played the theme to The Omen, "Ave Satani" by Jerry Goldsmith, which he'd assigned to a particularly heinous client of his. Another friend had, for a time, assigned a relative the unforgettable score from Halloween as composed by writer/director John Carpenter himself. And I'm sure somewhere there is someone with the theme from The Exorcist, which was written by Mike Oldfield.

Ringtones aside, there's no denying that a deft soundtrack or score can ratchet up the tension in any movie, especially one that uses droning noises and other disturbing, almost subliminal effects that can slip past the viewer and straight into our brain. Some of my favorite spooky soundtracks sure to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end include the above, naturally, but there are a few that need some love as well.

Thirst, directed by Park Chan-Wook, 2009

After bowing in limited release in late July, Park Chan-Wook's latest has finally made it to my neck of the woods, and although I've already reviewed it elsewhere, let me put a bit more plainly how I felt about the acclaimed director's take on the vampire genre.

At the very least, it's interesting, but more often than not, it's little more. When Park starts out concerned about how our priest protagonist (Kang-ho Song, very good at internalizing his guilt) will keep his newfound blood-sucking tendencies in check, it's a nimble and unpredictable little morality play. When Kang-ho re-unites with a childhood friend, it's a passionate and peculiar little romance. But beyond that, the plotting takes a turn towards self-destructive junkie-love turf and is never quite as engaging for it.

Thoughout, Chung-hoon Chung's cinematography proves lovely, and Park doesn't shy away from especially juicy sound work when the time comes for it, but for all the technical prowess on display, Thirst isn't as dramatically complete an outing for Park as his Vengeance Trilogy, JSA: Joint Security Area or I'm a Cyborg.... For running 2 hours and 15 minutes, it doesn't drag so much as ramble, and while it's bound to hold the interest of those already interested, I struggle to think that it's ultimately much more than the sum of its (body) parts.

In anticipation of this year's San Diego Comic Con, Horror Squad and SciFi Squad have launched the ultimate fan polls, asking you readers to vote not only for the best films of all time in their respective genre, but also on favorite characters, future scream queens, films from the past year and so on. We're going to ask you to make some tough choices here, but that's the point -- how else are we to determine the best of the best? So check out our Ultimate Horror Movie Fan Poll below and vote away! When you're done, head on over to SciFi Squad and do the same. We'll announce the winners just in time for this year's Comic Con.

The following is a transcript of an interview between Sheriff Leigh Brackett of the Haddonfield Police Department and Elisabeth Rappe, also known as the Horror Virgin.

LB: Ms. Rappe, what brought you to Haddonfield this evening?

ER: My editor, Scott Weinberg.

LB: The editor of Cinematical and Horror Squad, correct?

ER: Yes, sir. He wanted me to investigate the murders that happened here. The ones in 1978. I'm sorry if this upsets you, I understand your daughter was one of the ones slain that night.

LB: Yes. We don't like to talk about that here in Haddonfield. Why on earth are you digging up the past, young lady?

ER: Well, sir, I'd never actually seen Halloween before.