10 Lesser Known Halloween TV Episodes

When I was a kid, I anticipated the Halloween specials that would air just like everyone else, but I also had a special affinity for Halloween episodes of my favorite shows.  While a number of recent shows have had beloved Spooky season themed eps, I thought I'd look back at a few lesser known ones from the spooky hallows of television history. 

Frozen (2013) The Bugg Wants to Build a Snowman!

Synopsis: When princesses Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) were children, Elsa endangered her sister’s life with her magical ice powers. Her parents taught her to keep her ability a secret, locked away, but when Anna announces her engagement to a man she’s just met. Elsa loses control and retreats to an ice castle in the mountains leaving the entire area in a deep freeze.

Review: As a 38 year old man with no children, I often put off or don't watch many of these animated features, but I have to admit I enjoyed Frozen immensely. The story takes a springboard from Hans Christian Andersons’ The Snow Queen and diverts it with engaging songs, crisp animation, and thrilling action sequences. The songs are the real highlight with “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” and “Let it Go” building the dramatic moments with “In Summertime” and “Fixer Upper” providing the laughs.

I don't know Veronica Mars from Betty Jupiter, but Kristen Bell was perfectly plucky as Anna. Idina Menzel sells her character’s tortured isolation, and Josh Graf provides good laughs as the snowman Olaf while Firefly and Tucker vs. Dale alum Alan Tudyk gives a good twist on the Prince Charming role. The songs were stuck in my head for hours, and, for once, I wished I had children if only for an excuse to watch it again.

Final Note: Adele Dazeem appears uncredited. Source: John Travolta.

Rating:: 9/10

Beautiful Ladies Of Genre: Pamela Anderson Is Barb Wire (1997)

When people think of Pamela Anderson, a few things spring to mind. Baywatch is probably tops of that list, but her appearances in Playboy or her intimate video with former rocker husband Tommy Lee are probably pretty close behind. I was never really a fan of any of these things. Baywatch took itself too seriously for me to find it funny, and while I admire her for being a groundbreaker in the legitimizing of celebrity sex videos, the less naked Tommy Lee I have in my life the better. When I did start to become a fan is when she appeared on the syndicated TV show VIP as the private eye Vallery Irons. While it was no She Spies (but what is?), VIP was once a staple of my late night weekend viewing. If I hadn't become a fan of that show, it is doubtful that I would have delved back into this film that she made at the height of her orange bathing suited fame. Based on a nine issue Dark Horse Comics miniseries, Barb Wire, a tough, beautiful, blond bounty hunter, seemed a perfect fit for the buxom, fair haired actress, and with some action experience and a new harder edge persona, thanks to her marriage to the aforementioned Mötley Crüe drummer, all that remained was the execution. Couched in a classic story we will all still remember as time goes by, join me for all the bullets, breasts, and bubble baths that make up Barb Wire.

Love Actually (2002) Yes, Actually, Love Actually!

For many years, five in fact, I’ve thought about writing a review of Love Actually, one of my favorite Christmas films and romantic comedies, but I wasn’t sure what really to say about the film. This year, I’m trying to take the spirit of the season more into my heart. Working in retail as I do by day, it can take the Christmas spirit right out of you, and gentle solaces in films like Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Silent Night Deadly Night can be the thing that puts it back in. While I wouldn’t add Love Actually to the vaunted status of those films, there’s something sweet and romantic about Richard Curtis’ film that appeals to the humanist in me during a season that is dominated by religious imagery. There’s no doubt that it is a bloated and flawed film that both exploits the viewers emotions and dabbles in cliché however I forgive it its trespasses. After all Christmas is the time to tell the truth, and the truth is that I love Love Actually.

It would take more time than I want to spend to write a full synopsis of the film as it concerns ten separate love stories that intersect and overlap over the month leading up to Christmas. As you can see by the chart after the jump, it could be quite confusing, but with a two and half hour running time, there’s plenty of space to get to know everyone. However there are still relationships and minor notes that I have picked up even after many viewings over the years. So I’m going to count off a few of the stories by their importance to me in the film.

Elf-Man (2012) It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane! It’s Wee-Man Vs. Re-Animator?

December is finally here, and as readers of the LBL know, I always enjoy watching all the naughty and nice that holiday films have to give. So that means I have to take a lot of risks at time, and today’s film certainly was one. What I didn't expect was that it would have so many connections that were right in my wheelhouse and, most shockingly of all, that it would actually be kind of, in a way, alright. Boy, that would look great as a blurb on the poster on a poster for Elf-Man. My first exposure to the film was seeing a two by three picture for it on my local Redbox, and the title caught my eye instantly. It sounded like the original, overly descriptive title for Will Ferrell’s Elf, and visions of a knock off film danced in my head like the much talked about sugar plums. When it slid out of the machine, I had no idea Elf-Man starred the shortest member of the Jackass crew as well as having connections to House, House II: The Second Story, and Re- Animator. However it would become a light, almost magical Christmas treat.

Sharky’s Machine (1981) This Machine Grows ‘Staches

If Hollywood lore is to be believed, and who am I to dispute it, when Clint Eastwood made Every Which Way But Loose, his buddy Burt Reynolds thought that Clint was stepping on his toes. Comedy, after all, was Burt’s bread and butter with a pair of Smokey and the Bandit films, The Cannonball Run, and Hooper already in the can. Burt told Clint that if Every Which Way was a hit that he’d try and one up Eastwood with his own “Dirty Harry” type character. Every Which Way was a success, and it lead Clint to do a sequel, Any Which Way You Can, before Burt could get his hard boiled cop going. In 1981, Burt finally brought his vision to life. Setting his cop tale, Sharky’s Machine, in Atlanta, Ga., near his real hometown of Waycross, Reynolds crafted a tale that was part “Dirty Harry”, but it’s hard to think that Eastwood’s character would ever be as introspective or sensitive as Burt’s Tom Sharky. So come with me to the land of many Peachtree Streets, where Southern charm meets up with big city sleaze, where one cop can make a difference, that is, if he has the right machine.

The Beverly Hills Cops: Three Directors, One ‘Stache.

Bo bo boo bobo bo bo, boo bo bo boo bobo bo bo, boo boo boo bobo bo boo boo. If you don’t recognize the tune that I just wrote down then a) you’re prose tone deaf, b) you weren't around in the 80s when it reached #3 on The Billboard Hot 100, c) you have no capacity for joy and happiness in your life, or d) any combination of the above. Well, for those out there that don’t know it, that’s “Axel F.”, the main theme from Beverly Hills Cop, today’s Movember film selection featuring the mustachioed Eddie Murphy at the height of his powers. Joining the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1980, the stand up comedian soon parlayed his success there into a film career making 48 Hours in 1982. When his co-star Nick Nolte proved too sick to host SNL as promotion for the film, Eddie became the first regular cast member to also host the show. His next film was Trading Places with SNL alum Dan Ackroyd, and this pair of hits catapulted Murphy into leading role territory. The result was a string of hits, including The Golden Child and Coming to America, that all began with one Detroit cop taking a trip to Beverly Hills. From there, a franchise and a superstar were born of the 80’s, but in the matter of a decade, Murphy and his character Axel Foley were struggling for survival. Today, I’m going to talk about all three films in the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy, each by a different director, but with one tune, one laugh, and one ’stache that holds them together.

The Bigger and Badder Halloween Top 13: #8: Village of the Giants (1965)

So far on the B&B H13, we've had a huge snake, a dinosaur on the loose, a gaggle of deadly enlarged rabbits, and a colossal croc, but today I have one of the scariest things to ever reach enormous proportions, teenagers. Thankfully, today’s movie was made in the 1960s because they don't make an iPhone big enough to quell a tremendous teen of this day and age. Back then, all anyone wanted to do was make the scene and go-go dance with some oversized ducks, but not everyone could make that kind of happening get to happening. I'm getting ahead of myself though. Today is the first time (and possibly not the last) that I'll be talking about Bert I. Gordon, the master of the B grade giant creature feature having directed 10 such films in his forty five year career behind the camera. (Editor's Note: I know this doesn't make sense because Food of the Gods was yesterday, but, to make in clear, in layman's terms, I fucked up and reversed the order on these two films.) Of course, if your initials spelled out B.I.G (and you were not Notorious), you might have a certain affection for the overly large in life as well. The flick I'll be talking about today came out in 1965, right at the height of the “Beach Party” movie craze, and grafting elements of this style onto an extremely fast and loose adaptation of an H.G. Wells novel, Gordon created a film with great comedic moments, some near scandalous special effects, and maybe even a thing or two to say. I hope you’ll join me now as I take a trip to the nice, quiet town of Hainesville which is just about to become The Village of the Giants! 

The American Scream (1988) Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Slasherness

One of the only things that are more authentically American than Mom’s apple pie is the horror comedy. I now you don’t hear them mentioned in the same sentence as often as one should, but it’s true never the less. All the way back in 1820, American author Washington Irving founded the subgenre with the slapstick tale of Ichabod Crane “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” which featured as many laughs as screams. Flash forward to the 1920s, and while horror films were some of the first made, horror-comedies were not far behind with 1922’s Ghost Breakers and 1926’s The Cat and the Canary leading the pack. In the 1940s and 50s, Abbot and Costello brought about a new realm of horror comedies with the 1941 film Hold that Ghost, and thus began a franchise which would see the comedy duo meet everyone from Frankenstein and Dracula to The Invisible Man and Boris “The Killer” Karloff. The sixties saw such titles as Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors and Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers. However the real heyday of horror comedy was the 70s and 80s which saw diverse films such as Theater of Blood, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Love at First Bite, Motel Hell, Evil Dead, Gremlins, The Stuff, Vamp, and many, many more combine laughter and nightmares. So when I ran across a VHS copy of a horror comedy called The American Scream, from 1988 right in the thick of the sub-genre’s boom, I knew this could go one of two ways, I could be standing up to salute when the credits rolled or wondering if Homeland Security had a toll free number.

Destiny Turns on The Radio (1995) If Only I Would Turn Off the Movie.

There are many reasons that I don't normally walk out of a movie. First off, I am all kinds of cheap. So if I spring for a movie ticket, chances are good that I'm going to stay. Secondly, I can generally find something to focus on with any film that will get me through a bad one. Some actor, set designer, or a cinematographer will do something to keep involved. Lastly, there is generally a specific reason I make the trip to the Multiplex. It may be to review a film, tag along with a friend to see something I don't necessarily find to be my cup of tea, or because it has an actor I like in it, but there is always a reason. That being said, I have walked out of one film in my 36 years. Today, I'm going to relive those painful memories as I watch the film that drove me down aisle. So anchors away and fate be damned as Destiny Turns on the Radio for the second time in my life. I don't know what karmic debt I am repaying, but I should be even after one and half lifetime viewings of today's "classic".

Get Off on the Goldfoot: Kicking off Summer with Vincent Price

While the calendar might denote a specific day that summer begins astrologically, I think most of us will agree that when June arrives, summer is upon us. Here at the Lair, it’s no different. It’s the time of year I break out the Bermuda shorts, drag out the lawn chair, slather up with coconut oil, and start soaking in the rays. It also means that my heart turns to the lighter side of genre fare. From the blood soaked beaches to the dense tropic jungles, you’ll find me turning up the heat all summer long. To start it off, I wanted to bring in the king of cool in a pair of sizzling films. When you think about beaches, surf, and sand, the name Vincent Price surely springs to mind right away. Well, perhaps not right away, but I think today I can bring it  a little closer with two films featuring Price commanding a phalanx of two pieces.

Deadly Doll's Choice: And God Spoke (1993)

So often in life, it's always Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, but for this month's movie swap, Emily and I have turned that all around. It's about to get all Jan, Jan, Jan. Quite accidentally on both our parts, we each chose a movie that featured everyone's flea powder allergic Brady, Eve Plumb in my case and Jennifer Cox, who played Jan in the Brady movie, for the Doll. In a way, they couldn't have been more different films, but they had more in common than just the middle child of Carol and Mike. For my pick, I chose the action farce Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury, a delightfully silly film starring Kevin Sorbo as the titular character. Head on over to The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense to find out if Emily thought the Poolboy's waters were just fine or if it went off the deep end. For her choice, Emily picked a mockumentary from 1993 of Biblical proportions, ...And God Spoke. So in this beginning, let me say that this film might not movie heaven and Earth, but I saw it... And it was good...well, pretty good.

RIP Peter Bergman (1939-2012) or There's One Less Bozo on This Bus

Yesterday, while listening to Penn's Sunday School, a podcast from the very opinionated Penn Gilette, I learned some very tragic news. It seems one of my personal heroes had succumbed to a long battle with leukemia and he was no longer with us. The man I'm talking about is Peter Bergman,  a founding member of The Firesign Theater. If you're of a certain age (read older than me), you might remember Firesign from their series of surreal, award winning albums from the 70s such as Were All Bozos on this Bus, Waiting on the Electrician or Somebody Like Him, Don't Crush that Dwarf Hand Me the Pliers, Dear Friends, and How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All. Each of these albums pioneered a style of improvisational comedy, took stoner humor to an intellectual level, and proved that comedy records could be as relistenable as your favorite rock record.

Big Money Rustlas (2010) F***king Westerns, How Do They Work?

Historically I love a Western, but also historically (and yes historians have written about it because it is so vast), I can't stand Insane Clown Posse. You might ask why that is, and there are so many good reasons. First and foremost, as a fan of rap and hip hop in general, I have to say that their music is horrid. Lacking any real skills on the mic, they make up for it with so called "shocking" lyrics full of violence, misogyny, and general stupidity. I should point out that these are the guys who wondered in their 2010 song ”Miracles" how magnets worked, but couldn't muster up the wits to find out. Then there's the fact that these are grown men in their 40s wearing black and white clown makeup without a sense of irony. I know lots of people have clown issues, but the only Psycho Clown that will get me creeped out is Shivers the Clown. So I will never be convinced that Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J are hard mofos. Instead, I will assume they they are opportunistic entrepreneurs who somehow stumbled on a crazy rapping clown angle and made that work for them, and not just for a while, ICP have been doing their thing since 1989.

Les Adventures Extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010) : Rollin In the Deep with Luc Besson

If you're like me, and I assume you are because you're reading this, then you didn't care for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Apart from nuking the fridge and making Indy's adventures an interstellar affair, Spielberg made a film that lacked heart, a surprise from a director who is usually all heart. Between Indy's adventures, trials, and foibles, I needed something more to connect the series of action sequences. What I never would have thought was to look to France, and Luc Besson, for a film to sate my appetite for an adventurous blockbuster with as much introspection as explosions. Les Adventures Extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec (a.k.a The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sac for the French impaired) features a woman who is no wan Indiana Jayne, but rather it paints a portrait of a strong, independently minded woman who is educated, sexy, and clever, in the era directly after World War I, not a time renowned for advances in feminism. She doesn't explore for science or greed or even the discovery, but rather to save her sister's life. .

Graveyard Disturbance (1986): Lamburto Bava Cracks a High Life with the Low Dead

I was a teenager once. I did lots of stupid things. However, if you base what teens like to do on what their movie counterparts take part in, then its logical to think that there's a point in every one's life where hanging out in a graveyard sounds like an incredible idea. There are so many films that start out with that premise, but I don't think even in an adolescent state any amount of booze, loose women, or desire to prove myself non-chicken would get me to hang out in a cemetery all night. I'm not saying I would expect anything to happen, but there's no reason to tempt fate. Almost as scary as a night in a graveyard is the idea of horror on television. While there have been a number of successes like Masters of Horror and American Horror Story, often horror feels de-fanged on the tube like the series Fear Itself. So when I heard that today's cemetery themed film by Lamburto Bava had been made for an Italian TV series called "Brivido giallo" (literally translated as "Thrilling Yellow"), I wasn't sure what to expect. What I got was a mixture of Bava's Demons, Scooby Doo, and, sadly, much of the reserve you would expect from a television terror.

Deadly Doll's Choice: Joyful Noise (2012) Dolly, the Queen, and Me

When I agreed that I should go to see Joyful Noise as part of the ongoing swap series I have with Emily of the Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense, I might have been drinking. Okay, I was definitely drinking. When else would seeing a movie starring a Country singer, a Rapper turned actress, and a plot grounded in gospel music sound like a good idea? From my hazy recollection, the answer to that is about 5 or 6 beers in. At any rate, while my decision was clouded by alcohol, my viewing experience was done in an unmercifully sober state. Heading out on January 19th, Dolly Parton's 65th birthday, I made my way across town to the slowest theater, pitched up in the back row directly under the projector, and experienced the film called Joyful Noise. Well, first off, they didn't call it Astounding Vision for a reason. It's not the kind of film I would pick out to see on a big screen, but, while I didn't become moved by the spirit, I might have just enjoyed myself a bit more than I expected.

Blood of Dracula's Castle (1969) It Tests Shale-B Positive

Ask any vampire (go ahead, find one, I'll wait), and they will tell you that there is no place they would rather have their castle located than in the middle of a Arizona desert with hardly a tree or bit of shade to be found. Okay, maybe they wouldn't, unless they were that glittering, gibbering fool Edward Cullen, but if you're Count Dracula in an Al Adamson film, there's no better digs to have. Al is a cult movie legend. From films like Satan's Sadists to Blazing Stewardesses and Black Samurai, he left an enduring mark on horror, trash, and sleaze cinema in his all too brief eighteen year career. Today's film was his third directorial effort, and much like H.G. Lewis did with A Taste of Blood, Adamson was looking for a way to bring one of horror's greatest figures into the 1960's. However, unlike Lewis, Al wasn't going to settle for a Dracula surrogate, he was going to go for the real deal. So along with a psycho killer and a lunatic (and I'm not talking about the director), Dracula moved into a sandy castle intent of sipping the Bloodiest of all Marys.

Glen Cannon (Gene O'Shayne) is a photographer for Universal Magazine. One day while snapping shots of his model girlfriend Liz (Jennifer Bishop), Glen receives a telegram telling him that he's inherited a castle in Arizona from his distant Uncle. The castle is currently occupied by Count and Countess Townsend (a.k.a The Draculas) (Alexander D'Arcy and Paula Raymond), their moon worshiping butler George (John Carradine), the Frankenstein monster's cousin Mango (Ray Young) and close friend Johnny (Robert Dix), a psycho who gets extremely nutty during a full moon. Glen and Liz travel to Arizona to take possession of the castle, but the Count and crew are not ready to vacate. After all, they have a full basement of nubile your lasses chained up in the basement to drain. Imprisoning the young couple, the blood drinkers prepare for a sacrifice to the Moon god Luna, and one way or another, they intend to keep their desert home.

One of the things that's nice about this film is that the title helps answer an age old question, how do you get blood from a stone? Apparently, from the stones that make up Dracula's Arizona castle (which was really a Castle shaped ranch in California). It also raises quite a few though. Like "What happened to Dracula's pointed teeth?", "How did the terror of Transylvania get to the sun-drenched climes of Arizona?", and  "John Carradine,  why?" Unfortunately, none of these other questions get answered. While Blood of Dracula's Castle is not one of Adamson's greater efforts, it is a highly entertaining film. Despite the fact that the transfer I watched (from Mill Creek's Undead: Vampire Collection) was scratched and flawed beyond belief, I was completely entertained by the silliness that unfolded for ninety minutes. I can't say that it was a well made film, but it was a film that seemed aware that it would be good for a laugh. That goes a long way in my book.

Topping my list of the film's enjoyable bit would have to be the performance of Alexander D'Arcy. The Egyptian born actor was nearing the end of his career which began in 1927 with a small role in The Garden of Allah. IMDB describes D'Arcy as playing "oily types", and that pretty much sums the Count. With a pencil thin mustache, slicked back hair, and a smile that would make Mitt Romney weep, D'Arcy oozes his way through the film as Townsend/Dracula, and I loved every moment. His companion, the Countess, was originally a role intended for Jayne Mansfield, but when the actress passed, it went to Paula Raymond. Paula has appeared in many Noir films such as City that Never Sleeps, but her acting career was derailed in 1962 when her nose was severed in a car accident. After extensive plastic surgery, she returned to acting, but if her appearance in Blood of Dracula's Castle is any indication, she never reclaimed her former beauty (she did have nice gams though).

John Carradine is a delight as George the butler. If there's something that just about any film could use, it's a Carradine. John gets deeply hammy waxing poetic about the moon god, and playing off hothead Robert Dix,  he gets a number of great moments. Dix was also an acting veteran having appeared in films such as Sam Fuller's Forty Guns and Forbidden Planet. The cast is brilliant until you arrive at the protagonists. Gene Otis Shayne, whose last credit was 'Dancer' on The Monkees, and Jennifer Bishop, one of the original Hee Haw Honeys, are easily the worst part of Blood of Dracula's Castle. They try hard to muster up some charisma, but are easily overshadowed by the veterans. If these two characters could have been more realized, the entire flick could have overcome some of the cinematic flaws with the complete, quirky spin on the monster team-ups like House of Frankenstein. 

Some people have said that Al Adamson is an acquired taste. I don't know who these folks are that need time to ease into something as awesome as Al. His films are the kind that make me long for a Drive-in Theater playing double features culled from his career. Blood of Dracula's Castle is far from a perfect film. The story wanders all over the map (and varies according to what cut you watch), the lead actors are lame to the point of tragedy, and the film making never rises above standard. However, there's a ton of heart in this film. There's a lot of fun to be had while watching it, and there is such a thing as that long cliched beast the "so bad it's good" film. For horror fans and cult cinema junkies, Blood of Dracula's Castle is an excellent way to spend ninety minutes. If you're one of the high minded film snobby types, then Adamson's movies were never for you in the first place. For the rest of us, there's dozens out there for our enjoyment, and Blood of Dracula's Castle is a great place to start, or continue, an Al Adamson movie addiction.

Bugg Rating

And if you want to take a hit off the Al, you can do it right here. That's right, the whole film is embedded below. So check it out and let me know what you think!

The Midnight Hour (1985): That's When The Halloween Love Comes Tumblin' Down

The '80's were the last decade where one could regularly expect any holiday season to be accompanied with a new round of special presentations from the TV networks. Some of them would end up being favorites, at least for a few years, and then they'd be dropped in favor of new specials. Others were one and done. If you missed it the year it aired, then you were out of luck. No DVR or VCR was going to save you, and streaming was something one did when catching tadpoles. So it's no surprise that almost thirty years after it originally aired, I'm finally getting to see one that I missed when I was eight years old. In 1985, theaters received one of the greatest additions to the horror/comedy genre ever, Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead starring horror luminaries such as Linnea Quidley, Clu Gulager, and Thom Mathews. Not to be outdone by it's big screen rival, television wanted to get in on that sweet sweet horror comedy dollar, and they had their own set of names to throw at it. Hence, the 1985's ABC movie of the week The Midnight Hour features a stacked cast including LeVar Burton, Wolfman Jack, and Invasion of the Body Snatcher's Kevin McCarthy among others. It's a Halloween classic that has been forgotten, and I hope I can do my little part to bring it back.

It's Halloween in the small town of Pitchford Cove, and the whole town seems to be readying itself for a happy celebration..For one group of friends (Peter DeLuise, Shari Belafonte, DeeDee Pfeiffer, LeVar Burton,and Lee Montgomery), that means stealing their costumes from the local witchcraft museum. In the process, they also unleash an ancient curse on the town letting loose zombies, witches, vampires, and all the beasts of  hell. Unfortunately, with Halloween in full gear, no one notices that the big costume party is being crashed by real monsters, and that long dead witch Lucretia (Jonelle Allen) has returned for revenge against the town who burnt her at the stake. The fate of the town soon falls into the hands of Phil (Montgomery), a descendant of the witch-hunter who previously battle Lucretia and Sandy Matthews, a spectral cheerleader who's come back to fall in love, and if they don't stop it before midnight, the curse becomes permanent.

With the cast I've listed plus Dick Van Patten, Kurtwood Smith, Cindy Morgan, Mark Blankfield, and Macaulay Culkin all appearing, The Midnight Hour the kind of flick you sit back, put on, and play a spirited game of "who is that and what was he in?" with your fellow viewers. While quite a few of the actors might be considered second tier, genre fans will delight in the extensive cast. They will also delight in a story that borrows a bit from Return of the Living Dead, seems prescient of The Monster Squad coming two years later, and entertains for a solid ninety minutes. The characters are engaging and funny. The monsters look great as designed by Steve LaPorte, then working with Rick Baker Studios, and the music, ranging from Wilson Pickett's titular song and  "Little Red Riding Hood" by Sam the Sham to"Mama Told Me Not To Come" by Three Dog Night and "How Soon Is Now" by the Smiths, is well placed. However, I do suspect that licensing the tunes now may well be what keeps The Midnight Hour off the mass market and on the grey market.

The best performances come from Burton, Belafonte. and Mongomery. While DeLuise plays essentially the same character he did on 21 Jump Street, Burton is a far cry from either his Roots, Star Trek, or Reading Rainbow self, and I liked seeing LeVar get to cut loose and have a little fun. Belafonte, who would go on to star in the short lived '90's supernaturally themed show Gravedale High, has the most part because she has to both turn into a vampire and do a dance number at the end. Strangely enough, she makes both seem natural in the context of the film. Lee Montgomery, having already starred in Ben, Burnt Offerings, and Night Shadows, had the most background in horror of any of the cast. It really showed in his portrayal of Phil. While he was the nerdy outsider even in his group of friends, Montgomery never allowed Phil to become a complete sad sack thus making him a worthwhile hero to root for in the end. I'd also like to take a moment to mention the man in the big chair. Director Jack Bender has mostly stayed in the realm of TV throughout his career, but he brought horror to the big screen later in his career with Child's Play 3 and went on to direct episodes of Alias, The Sopranos, and Lost.

If you're like me and haven't seen The Midnight Hour, I can't recommend enough adding this to your Halloween season viewing list. Being a child of the '80's, it still projects the feeling of that era. In my mind, i can remember when the strange houses on the street were the ones without Halloween decorations out. I can remember the fall days of October when the air was filled with the smell of burning leaves and the crispness of the air left  everyone's cheeks red and shiny. The days when no one was too cool to wear a costume and churches gave out candy instead of hosting Hell Houses. Often Halloween is now relegated to being an also-ran holiday, one with a dubious nature, but movies are magical that way. The Midnight Hour made me want to hit the street and start ringing doorbells. Who knows? That might even be me at yours right now!

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Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It

Bugg Rating

C'Mon Attractions: Nic Cage, Harry Potter, H.G. Lewis, Cuba Gooding Jr & The Vibrator walk into a Bar.....

Another week, another batch of trailers. Surprisingly, they aren't a weak batch of trailers, well, at least not all of them. So c'mon with me as we give Harry Potter the creeps, see if George Lucas can take the TIE out of TIE-fighters, find a telling title with H.G. Lewis, hold Nic Cage hostage, and invent the vibrator. Yeah, it's going to be a busy week.

 First up, check out Daniel Radcliffe in James Watkins' follow up to Eden Lake, The Woman in Black.
 

So clearly, Radcliffe is trying to show he's ready for grown up roles, and happily he didn't have to get naked and have sex with a horse as he did on Broadway.  Instead he's wisely chosen something not too far out of his wheelhouse and with a real "The Others" vibe making it appear to be classy and shit. I've never read Susan Hill's 1983 book on which the film was based, but if Hammer Films (Yeah, that Hammer Films) can score with this one, then it might be a return to form.Creepy vintage toys and scary kids abound, and we all know that if Dementors couldn't break Harry Potter, then a ghost or two should be no problem at all.

Next Up
A Long, Long
Time Ago In Europe
World War II Was Fought.
Spielberg Gave Us Private Ryan,
And Now His Bearded Bro George Has
Penned and Produced This WW II Dogfighting
Film Starring Cuba Gooding and Being Directed By A
TV Director. (Granted of The Wire and Treme), but the
Question is this. Will the full weight of ILM and Skywalker Ranch
Behind it matter or will no one care about a CGI aeronautical recounting
of the story of the Tuskegee Airmen. Only time and the adjusted grosses will tell....



Let's move on to something a little more in my area of expertise, the films of H.G. Lewis. Well, back when I was a young Bugg, Herschell's films were some of the first to get me into gore films, and I've kept up steadily with the news of new projects over the years. In 2002 he made Bloodfeast 2: All You Can Eat, and it not only held up to the original it added a little something to the myth of H. G. Lewis. He came back after 30 years and really released a greats film. Sadly. it's only been nine years since last we saw H.G. and he's arrived back on the scene 21 years too early for this to be any good.


I want Herschell to go out with a great one, but a satire on how reality TV is headed toward violence, I'd rather just watch The Running Man again.

Now,Joel Schumacher, Nichole Kidman, Nic Cage, and a pair of big ass glasses.

While I do want to see this one as a guilty pleasure, what I'm really fascinated by is how many movies the cash strapped Cage is going to spurt out. What is this 67 in two years? That's Gene Hackman kind of numbers. Anyway, this time Kidman is along for the ride, I suppose cashing a check to pay for Keith Urban's highlights. Schumacher is hit or miss, but pairing Nic and Nic might be an entertaining ride.

Speaking of an entertaining ride, I'm going to make like the Bugg I am and buzzzzzzz on out of here before you roll this one. It's the spiritual brother to The Road to Wellville, but with a naughty twist that's sure to get some knickers in a bunch. Instead of telling you what it's about, I'll let the imdb synopsis speak for itself.....

"A Romantic Comedy about the Invention of the Vibrator"

Yeah, and I'm willing to look over Maggie Gooseface's presence because that premise in and of itself would get my ass in a theater seat every time! See you folks later, and when you get done don't forget to turn out the lights.... it'll wear out the batteries.