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The Shiznit Halloween movie liveblog: Sunday edition

Ali

30th October 2011

I'm almost ready to go with Sunday's Halloween movie liveblog, after the 'incredible success' (read: 'zero retweets') of yesterday's waffling. The headcheese toasties are ready, here we go...

It's Halloween on Monday and to mark the occasion - and to justify all the pumpkins and plastic bats hanging up in my house - I've been liveblogging all of the horror films my wife and I are watching this weekend. Here's a full account of yesterday's movies, including The Exorcist and Happy Birthday To Me, but Sunday promises to be, if anything, even more spooktacular. Big words. Yeah, I went there. I'm that confident.

Let the loud typing during the movie begin!


13:30 - First up today, probably my favourite horror movie ever: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I love it so much, I wrote an essay on it at university (almost entirely unprompted), and have been known to remove the limbs of anyone who spells it 'Chainsaw'. It's TWO WORDS.

13:37 - I already want Franklin the cripple to die. He must be one of the most annoying characters in film history. I think the first time I watched him die, I actually high-fived someone.

13:47 - I love the psycho guy the kids pick up in the van. Think he's a little misunderstood, though. I've had less coherent conversations with work colleagues.


13:54 - Someone doesn't know the rules. She who wears the shortest of the short-shorts dies first.

13:59 - Wife and I currently debating whether a crippled person could actually go swimming in a watering hole: "Can you get arm-bands, but for legs?" It's a fair point. Oh, and Franklin?



14:03 - Oh God, I made an error. It's not shorty short-shorts who dies first, it's Freddie from the Mystery Machine, with his stupid hair and his flares. He just got a mallet to the head for his troubles. One of the best all-time horror movie villain entrances, that. Leatherface is just a pouty teen, judging from the way he slams his door.

14:08 - Shorty the next to go. Hung out to dry. Fucking horrible but so, so simple and effective - hoisted onto a giant hook. "That's so good," says wife. "... And horrid," she adds, after a look of consternation.

14:12 - Researching Texas Chain Saw gifs, I came across this from the remake. Sort of sums it up.


Really enjoying how much everyone else is hating Franklin too. Hurry up and die, fatso.

14:18 - "He should tidy up." That's my wife on Leatherface's interior decor. She should really be running this liveblog, not me.

14:21 - YES! Franklin is shish kebab! Serves you fucking right you whinging bastard. (*high fives universe*)


14:23 - Now begins the hour-long portion of the film in which Marilyn Burns screams endlessly. Oh good.

14:27 - That chase in the woods is excruciating. The stuff of nightmares. Leatherface is never less than about 10 feet behind Marilyn Burns at all times. Didn't even realise I was holding my breath. I wrote about all of this and more in my uni essay, I'll have you know. I probably used words like 'synonymous' and 'egregious' in it, too.

14:30 - I think the broom guy is even scarier than Leatherface. Just switches from attentive local to utter wackjob in seconds. Only a real maniac would even dare go up against a gigantic knife with a broom, anyway. I think it's his cackle that freaks me out the most, particularly when he's jabbing Sally in her hessian sack while driving. Boy ain't right.

Get out of my car and into my nightmares.


14:36 - Never really noticed that Leatherface talks like Pingu.

14:40 - Dinner time with the Leatherfaces! This is like the worst Come Dine With Me EVER. I'd like to hear Dave Lamb's sarcastic response to Grandpa sucking on Sally's finger. I'm sure it'd be hilarious.

14:43 - Update: Marilyn Burns is still screaming.

14:50 - Brrr. All done. Now that's a movie that should come with a free shower. Probably the most perfect ending to the film, given the circumstances. It's a film completely without hope until it gets to the last 30 seconds and that pick-up truck appears. Not sure what happens to the tubby truck driver, though. PREQUEL? I am in actual love with the last shot of the movie: Leatherface swinging his chainsaw around like he's mowing an invisible hedge that's trying to eat him. Brilliant.



14:51 - Let the DVD menu linger just long enough to give a VRRRRUMMMM noise, which scared the living shit out of me. Bastard. Luckily, the next movie on the schedule is a bit more easygoing... Back soon!



15:10 - Next up this afternoon is the seminal 2011 horror classic, The Dog Who Saved Halloween. Starring ex-Superman Dean Cain in a return to form that critics are calling "surprising" and Blossom star Joey Lawrence widening his range by providing the voice for the titular dog, it's been compared to Pixar in that it's a film that provides something for everyone. Pray silence please, for a classic is about to begin.

15:11 - But not until after we watch the blooper reel first.

15:12 - That just goes to show I will literally laugh at any blooper reel. On with the film! Dean Cain's in it! And Joey Lawrence! And Blossom herself! And Lance Henriksen! And Joey "Coco" Diaz, whoever he is!

15:15 - Would you look at that? The movie's budget actually stretched to CGI bats. Just like Batman Begins! Already, the dog has done the classic 'embarrassed paw over face' at his owner's antics, it's all downhill from here. Enter Lance Henriksen, complete with pause for children to hiss.

15:17 - "You're in the doghouse now!" Save some of this gold for later, guys!

15:20 - The lead actor in this is like a low-rent Kevin James, which as a concept, sort of blows my mind. The lead actress is the girl who played Amber in Clueless ("I cant do any activity where balls fly at my face!" "Well there goes your social life!") except she's all grown up. And here's Dean Cain, playing a thief. Yeah, A THIEF OF OUR HEARTS. And of money.

15:22 - This is the third movie in 'The Dog Who Saved...' trilogy, with Zeus the dog having already saved Christmas AND Christmas vacation. Apparently he's only useful around major holidays. The rest of the year he just shits everywhere.

15:25 - It's Booger from Revenge Of The Nerds! I wonder how his career is going at the moment? Oh, right.

15:27 - So the plot revolves around Lance Henriksen's creepy neighbour, who is apparently a giant psycho and just hoiked a body bag from the boot of his car. BOO HISS etc. I think I read about it in this month's Little White Lies magazine.

15:28 - Joey 'Coco' Diaz is Dean Cain's partner in crime, a crinkly-faced Italian-American actor who would probably let you believe he was in Goodfellas and/or The Sopranos until you actually asked him. Turns out he only started acting in 1998 and his career highlight is as a train passenger in Spider-Man 2. I thought he was in The Departed, but it turns out it was The Deported. He did play 'Sheriff' though, which is pretty good.

15:31 - Here is a screen grab which I have selected at random.


15:38 - WELL HELLLOOOOO KRISTEN MILLER.


I would save her Halloween, if you know what I mean.

15:40 - Joey Lawrence is really bringing his A-game. I truly believe he IS that dog. Really impressive voicework from the former pop star.


15:46 - Joey Lawrence and Mayim Bialik are enjoying a Blossom reunion via dogs. This is just delicious.

15:48 - Turns out Lance Henriksen's creepy neighbour is actually a member of the Ku Klux Klan and just came out with an extremely racist diatribe about how there were "too many blacks in the neighbourhood". Not really. But he does have a hook for a hand. He's planning something mysterious in two days. Racist klan rally? Probably.

15:55 - Fart joke. I expected better from Dean Cain.

16:04 - Everything has gone awry! Awry I tell you!

16:10 - The first line I laughed at. "I'm telling you Ted, this house is haunted!" "You're haunted, Stuey! You're haunting me!" Dean Cain LOL. Another fart joke. This one went right in Superman's face and had a fire visual effect.

16:12 - Another fart joke. The writers may be running out of ideas. I didn't even finish writing that sentence before they added ANOTHER fart joke. It's a fart-fest.

16:13 - OH NO! The treasure Dean Cain and his Italian-American friend were trying to steal turned out to be candy!

16:16 - I think Texas Chain Saw Massacre is edging it at the moment.

16:20 - The dog just operated a remote-controlled car with its paws. I feel this is pushing the limits of credulity somewhat. He is a lovely doggy, though. LOVELY DOGGY.


16:21 - I can't figure out if Rufus the cat is being played gay or stoned.

16:24 - The dog just played the piano. This is just ridiculous now. I don't believe that would happen. It's just not selling the concept to me. It doesn't ring true.

16:25 - I'm not watching this on my own, by the way. My wife is here. That makes everything okay. Right?

16:30 - The dog saved Halloween! It was all a big misunderstanding! Lance Henriksen wasn't evil at all, he was just a drama professor staging a haunted house! Zeus the dog saved the day, but I'm pretty sure he used a few stand-ins for some of the action scenes.

16:32 - Wife was literally in hysterics at the short montage of the dog wearing numerous Halloween outfits. I've never seen her so happy.

16:34 - It's all over, folks. Credit insight: Shelley the spider was played by 'Steve'. More later!
18:32 - I had a nap. All that excitement was too much for me. Currently debating tonight's next film. By which I mean my wife is telling me what it's going to be.


20:26- That was a bloody good nap. Glad I got some sleep in early, because tonight's film is The Exorcism Of Emily Rose and that's almost certainly going to give me night terrors. There's even a plot point in the movie about people waking up at the exact same time every night, when bad stuff happens. This will undoubtedly happen to me tonight.

20:29 - Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson, acting dynamos! They're going to dramatise this shit out of this baby.

20:30 - While we go through all the exposition stuff, let me share with you an Emily Rose anecdote. A friend of ours once watched this film with her sister, and after finding out she was terrified by it, set her alarm to go off at the exact time the bad shit happens in the movie, making sure that when her sister woke up in fright, she was locked in a terrified grimace on her floor, staring right at her. INSTANT HEART ATTACK. She died. Not really, but it did happen.

20:32 - Objecting to the over-use of stock cat meows. Is it that difficult to get real cats to act on command?

20:35 - CAMPBELL SCOTT BE ROCKIN A TACHE UP IN THIS BITCH


He's talking to Laura Linney in a bar. Half-expecting him to deconstruct her psyche then take her home to fuck her.

20:40 - Remember, this is a 'TRUE' STORY. Chills!

20:44 - Jennifer Carpenter just got sat on by the invisible man. Most distressing. She's very good in this, if I remember correctly. And there's nothing creepier than bedsheets pulling themselves off the bed. That's why I snuggle myself up way into... too personal. Sorry.

20:47 - Oh snap! Courtroom evidence doctor man just got LAURA LINNEYED. (Hoping this catches on as a thing).

20:53 - Getting properly scary now. All bleeding black eyes and church demon old ladies. Found this pic looking for something else, but it scared me all the same, so in it goes.


20:54 - Jennifer Carpenter doing the unsexiest limbo ever.

21:00 - Oh look, it's the smarmy douche from the first Mission: Impossible movie. "Kittridge, you've never seen me very upset." That guy. He's talking. Right now. As I'm typing. I'm not really listening. He's a bad guy. She's not epileptic you fool, she's possessed! Gah!

21:05 - If I wake up at 3am this morning, I am jumping straight on this laptop and liveblogging my inevitable death by ghost. The people need to know how it all went down.

21:13 - Fuck this. I want to stop now.


21:14 - Eating spiders and scratching the walls and bending in unnatural poses and talking in tongues and squealing like a pig? When you think about it, getting possessed really isn't all its cracked up to be. I don't know why people even bother, to be honest.

21:17 - "OBJECTION, your honour!" "On what grounds?" "How about silliness?" SUSTAINED.

21:19 - Shohreh Aghdashloo is giving evidence now. She could talk me off any day. TMI?

21:28 - 3am again. The witching hour plus three (which is half of six, which is one third of 666, the number of the beast). Thankfully, I have never woken up to the sound of my dictaphone screaming. All I have on mine is Rampage Jackson refusing to answer my questions.

21:30 - According to Tom Wilkinson, 3am is "demons mocking the holy trinity". So now you know.

21:35 - Wife and I are in agreement: not enough courtroom prosecutors frame their crotch then fling their hands towards the defence aggressively when win a point. Not enough BOOYAHing either. Room for improvement.

21:38 - J-Carps going apeshit now. Getting Captain Howdy on our asses. "AND DELIVER US FROM EEEEEEEEEEEEVILLLLLLLL!" Top marks. Now she's summoned cats to attack Tom Wilkinson and jumped out a window. Now she's freaking out horses. Enough.

21:42 - Getting silly now. Emily freaking out in a thunderstorm, getting the horses all spooked. Turns out there are six demons in her; Cain, Judas, Belial, Legion and Lucifer among others. No Dereks or Johns in there, unfortunately. If they were they kept themselves quiet.


21:46 - If only Campbell Scott's prosecutor could see the flashbacks we all saw. Case closed!

21:51 - This is actually one of the better exorcism films I've seen. Like the whole 'science versus religion' courtroom battle, although I could have done without Campbell Scott having to wear a villainous moustache to make it clear he's the bad guy. For what it's worth, he's right. There's no such thing as ghosts! Newsflash, Laura Linney! Get with the program sister!

21:54 - There's a Zach Galifianakis lookalike in the jury.

21:57 - ICONIC IMAGE ALERT


21:58 - J-Carps just got smacked up by the Virgin Mary. TRUE STORY, YO. Tom Wilkinson is crying, it's so moving.

22:02 - Campbell Scott's closing argument: "In conclusion, I have a moustache. Prosecution rests."

22:06 - Laura Linney closing. Says 'NAT' instead of 'not'. "That is NAT a fact." This is pretty weak as big closing statements go: "I'm not asking that you believe in demons, just that you believe in Father Moore." Who believes in demons. No wonder he gets busted.

22:09 - Final verdict is a total cop out, too: Guilty, but with time already served. Equivalent of a no-score draw. Sort of wish the judge got possessed and gave the verdict as 'InNoCenT!!!' sort of like how Ted's dad gets possessed in Bill & Ted.

22:13 - Turns out they were all ghosts all along, and it was just a big ghost joke. That's it, all finished for tonight. Film starts great but ends poorly. The scene with the guy's big black eyes bleeding put the shits so far up me I'll be burping farts for days. But it turns into a stodgy courtroom sludgefest at the end. NOT ENOUGH DEMONIC POSSESSION. That would be my main note on the film. On most films.
Right, that's me. All liveblogged out. While the rest of you were watching X Factor or Downton Abbey or whatever, some of us were learning something. That's this site all over: entertaining AND educational. NAT.

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