Halloween

Carlos and I spent the Halloween weekend watching scary movies.

Friday night, we went to Jason’s house. He had Shawn of the Dead picked out for us to watch. Everyone at the party was too involved in conversation to really watch it. Since most of the people had already seen it, it was the perfect movie for that part of the party.

We then figured out how to stream movies from Netflix. After some discussion, Julie recommended 1974’s Black Christmas. (She had seen the remake, but not the original so the movie was new to everyone.)


The synopsis: It's time for Christmas break, and the sorority sisters make plans for the holiday, but the strange anonymous phone calls are beginning to put them on edge. When Clare disappears, they contact the police, who don't express much concern. Meanwhile Jess is planning to get an abortion, but boyfriend Peter is very much against it. The police finally begin to get concerned when a 13-year-old girl is found dead in the park. They set up a wiretap to the sorority house, but will they be in time to prevent a sorority girl attrition problem?

The movie stars Olivia Hussey (earlier in Romeo and Juliet with Leonard Whiting), Keir Dullea (Dave from 2001: A Space Odyssey), Margot Kidder (Lois Lane from Superman), and Andrea Martin (from SCTV). Debbie said that she looked like Howard Stern.

Trivia: Andrea Martin is the only actor to appear in both the original version and the 2006 remake.

Jason’s internet connection messed up four minutes before the end of the movie. We don’t know how it ended. I think the man in the fur coat is the killer. Carlos and I are going to watch the finale later today. I’ll post an update.

Jason’s version of his party can be found here.

For Saturday night, I picked one movie that both Carlos and I have seen before, but scares the shit out of us – The Descent.


The synopsis: A caving expedition goes horribly wrong.

I purposely made that very brief. I don’t want to give anything away.

He and I watched the first hour of the movie with just a few candles burning – all the lights off. We agreed to then turn the movie off. We were getting too freaked out.

Carlos said that I should finish watching the movie during the day – after he is gone. I think that misses the point of a scary movie. I have shipped it back to Netflix.

One day, we’ll get through the whole thing.

There is a sequel coming out in 2010. All six of the original actors are listed as being in the cast of the new movie. Hmmmm. There must be a lot of flashback sequences.

Carlos and I then watched Trick r Treat, recommended to me by one of the members of a Yahoo Group I’m in called Queer Fear. Great recommendation! Though I think I liked it a bit more than Carlos did.


He did like that one of the stars was Tahmoh Penikett. He's a huge fan of Battlestar Gallactica.

The synopsis: Five interwoven stories that occur on the same block, on the same night. A couple finds what happens when they blow a jack o' lantern out before midnight, a high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer, a college virgin might have met the right guy for her, a group of mean teens play a prank that they take too far, and a hermit is visited by a special trick or treater.

The tone reminded us of the 1982 movie Creepshow. (Did you know there was a Creepshow 2 in 1987 and a Creepshow 3 in 2006?) The movie was definitely scary and gory, but had some humor about it too.

Here are the trailers for the movie -

Trailer #1:


Trailer #2:


Grades (out of 10):
Black Christmas – 6
Shawn of the Dead – 7 (based on past viewing)
The Descent – 9
Trick r Treat - 8