Something On a Stick Day's Eve's Eve

Mark your calendars, one and all, for a holiday rarely celebrated yet full of pointed possibilities. That’s right: March 28th is none other than Something On a Stick Day! Imagine a whole 24 hours randomly assigned to celebrate corndogs, cotton candy, ice cream bars, Salem With Trials, protest signs, and a whole lot of sharp things itching to cause some very painful horror movie deaths.

To name a few:

11. Jeepers Creepers 2

Not a great--or even good-- film by any means, but I’ll extend a tip of my hat to the opening scene, where a young farmboy catches a glimpse of one scarecrow that just doesn’t look the others, and not just because he’s a little too comfortable hanging out on that stick. Sadly the film only goes downhill from here, but it's an excellent early image worthy of at least one toothpick

10. Trick ‘r Treat

Don’t mess with a kid’s candy, particularly if the sweet tooth belongs to a pumpkin-headed, mangled face Halloween enthusiast with no tolerance for cranky candy bar swipers or snotty and insecure neighbors. Naturally, little Sam’s weapon of choice is none other than a juicy lollipop, the perfect something on a stick for autumn or spring. Or summer. Or winter. Or autumn again. 

9. The Hills Have Eyes

Poor Papa Carter spends his silver anniversary blackened like catfish while tied to a stake while his daughter gets raped, wife gets shot, and granddaughter kidnapped for a possible shish-ka-baby served on another family’s dinner table.

8. Children of the Corn

More effectively drawn in Stephen King’s short story, but the 1984 film does retain a few striking images of people staked out in the Nebraska cornfields. No one is safe, not a rotting corpse of a policeman, pre-Sara Connor Linda Hamilton, or man-child preacher Isaac. Bonus points for the implied itchiness of being tied to dried out cornhusks, particularly if have allergies.

7. Silent Hill

Poor Alyssa. Shamed by the community. Raped by a janitor. Burned at the stake at the encouragement of her Borg Queen aunt. All that's really left to look forward to is a future of blackness, annoying hourly alarms, ashy snowflakes, and the opportunity to watch others burned at the stake. The last part ain't so bad when said burnt-at-stake is infused with your blood (or the mother of someone that looks like you's blood, or something that supposedly makes sense to someone) and can therefore extend unending spools of barbed wire from her crispy appendages to gruesomely (by CGI standards) tear apart all the puritan-like townspeople that killed you first.

6. Wolf Creek

True, there’s no shrimp on a stick-headed barbie, but there sure is a head on the stick! Kind of. According to John Jarratt’s bush-wacked wacko in this 2005 shocker, the best way to use a knife--a real knife--is to jam it in a tourist’s back and sever her spine, rendering said backpacker a metaphorical head on a stick. It was definitely cuter in Lord of the RIngs.

5. Scarecrows

The life of a scarecrow probably isn’t all that great. Bird poop. Sunburn. Straw innards. And spending eternity dangling from a splintery stake in the middle of farm country. Luckily for the titular monsters of this 1988 chiller, the occasional crashed plane of bandits can call upon some sort of evil corn-infused mojo that lets them throw their voices and gleefully slaughter trespassers. 

4. Happy Birthday to Me

Not the best slasher, but easily one of the greatest movie posters of the ‘80s (and that’s a more competitive field than your average Iron Chef). Most of this 1981 film’s infamy comes from its cover art that captures the true glory of death-by-shish kabob. Painful, but delicious.

3. Zombi

You know the one contingent that actually observes Something-On-A-Stick-Day? Zombies, at least the Italian ones that hang out with Lucio Fulci. When not battling sharks or chomping through island natives, the retired conquistadors of this 1979 not-sequel-with-a-sometimes-sequel-title find innovative ways to kill alcoholics without taking a single nibble. Hence, the infamous splinter-in-the-eyeball scene. Not in zombie character, but the highlight of this zombie film.

2. Two Evil Eyes

Some guys are just asking to be impaled via log at a pagan festival. It’s only fitting if you’re a grumpy Harvey Keitel who tortures cats, hacks up his girlfriend, and generally acts like giant jerk worse than any bad lieutenant. True, the aforementioned cross-your-legs-and-wince stretch 'n stab is only a dream, but this Dario Argento directed adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story stakes itself in your memory long after Keitel wakes up.

1. Cannibal Holocaust

The ultimate woman-on-a-stick film, so great in its woman-on-a-stickiness that director Ruggerio Deodato was actually investigated by the authorities and suspected of murdering the actress famously shot in a state of impalement. Really it’s just a simple parlor trick involving a unicycle and some tasty balsa wood, you know, the kind of thing your uncle does at family reunions. If he's awesome.

The Horror of Hype

Genre fans tend to feel a little unpatrioritc pledging allegiance to the same mass-produced flag saluted by 80% of the general public. We’re far more comfortable digging our way through dusty, sometimes crusty DVDs in questionable basement or neon lit video stores than we are sitting amongst the Friday night crowd at the week’s big release. 

It’s no wonder then that movies like Paranormal Activity throw some of us for a loop. How, you ask, could I possibly enjoy the same film that my coworker with the Twilight screensaver has been raving about all month? At the same time, we also get stuck trying to evaluate our own opinions amidst the chokingly thick fog of fanboy enthusiasm that surrounds new cult favorites like Hatchet and Grace. 

So how, you ask, can one navigate the dead-end, it’s-not-as-good-as-people-say labyrinth that is viewer hype? To find a map, we first have to consider the type o’ hype, and I don’t just say that because rhyming is fun.

1.  Long Awaited Hype 

Admit it: you drooled like an overly hydrated zombie when details surrounding Land of the Dead surfaced, just as you giddily brushed off your boomstick at the sound of Sam Raimi returning to his horror roots with Drag Me to Hell. When our childhood heroes reupholster their bloodstained director’s chairs, our own expectations can grow to unreachable heights. Thus, when George Romero makes a decent, if weirdly clean smelling zombie film with a happy ending in the 21st century, we put aside the flaws of the obnoxiously acted Day of the Dead and its own cheat of a final shot in order to blast horror’s indie king for seeming to sell out for CGI and Canada. 

As hard--or maybe impossible--as it is, any film needs to be seen on its own terms and unless it’s in 3D, with no tinted glasses to fog our sight. Sure, it’s depressing to watch Dario Argento continue to roll down a hill of film quality and near impossible to not look up the address of the actress narrating Diary of the Dead in the hopes of slaying her puppies and tearing our her vocal chords, but I promise you that these directors didn’t make these films simply because they hate you. Maybe they’ve lost touch or maybe their visions were simply more startling in another era. Either way, the main thing to remember is that a film should be judged against itself, not your memory of its older brother.

2.  Defensive Hype

There’s a reason nobody makes feel good features documenting the NY Yankees. We don’t care about winners born into luxury, and while not all genre fans can latch onto a sports analogy, everybody loves an underdog. 

Hence, horror loyalists stand on virtual soapboxes to warn passerbys about studio-backed cash cows like Saw while gleefully catching rides on The Midnight Meat Train. Is it fair? In theory, yes, but this comes from a long-suffering Met fan well accustomed to disappointment. Likewise, Lions Gate earned genre fan disapproval when it failed to give a wide release to 2008‘s public transportation terror trip, and I waved my fist in solidarity. 

Then I saw the movie.

While it wasn’t nearly as awful as some recent remade offerings (I’m still washing out my eyeballs for the stain imprinted by Black Xmas)Midnight Meat Train just....wasn’t good. Well-acted and polished, but dank, oddly plotted, and ultimately, quite uninvolving. Aside from battle ready horror fans and Cliver Barker bookworms, would full price ticket buyers really have wanted to spend their Friday night allowance on such an unlikable film? The same could easily be said for Repo! The Genetic Opera, a polarizing rock opera that amassed an army of devotees alongside a migraine suffering horde of conflicted haters.

The best solution I can conjure is to assume nothing. Praise the idea of an original film and support its release for people to actually see, but don’t force yourself to love something that simply isn’t your taste pallet. This leads us to ...

3. But I’m Supposed To Love This, Right?

What do you mean, you didn’t want to marry Hatchet and have its pickaxe babies? And really: what are you doing going out to a Halloween party when you could be home rewatching Trick ‘r Treat, aka The Greatest Horror Film Of All Time, for the ninetieth time this week? 

Of all the hypes out in the cinematic universe, this may be the most difficult to overcome. After two years of nearly universal ravings about a little unreleased horror anthology, it’s hard to watch a film without feeling sadly underwhelmed, angrily disappointed, or unconsciously bullied into submission (remember: Alllllllllllllll the boys love Mandy Lane). 

We could certainly try to build our own Skinner boxes and block out any rumblings from around the genre community, but in the age of blogs, podcasts, and bootlegs, that’s about as realistic as Martyrs getting an Oscar for best foreign film (what, you agree? you didn’t like Martyrs? What kind of fan are you?) Ultimately there is no such thing as a universal opinion, even in a more isolated specimen like the horror community. There’s nothing wrong with not loving a film that makes Fangoria swoon, but try to not let your dislike grow with the positivity of others; don’t hate it more just to match the positive intensity of those who enjoyed it. The best way to handle this is to return to the film several months--or years--after its buzz has been died down. Sometimes, you can only discover what your genuine thoughts are after they don’t seem to matter anymore.

4.  Mainstream Mania

In many ways, Gore Verbinski has earned a rigidly uncomfortable seat for himself in the filmmaker realm of hell. No, the mini pirate boom of the 00s wasn’t that bad, but his fairly big budgeted Americanized take on Ringu is the heavily botoxed grandma when it comes to remakes, aka the Scourge of 21st Century Horror. And to think, most of 2002‘s The Ring‘s impressive box office return came straight out of the pockets of...well...everyone. Men, women, eighth graders...you couldn’t throw your popcorn without hitting someone raving about that randomly scary film they caught in the theaters, much as

Paranormal Activity and 1999’s The Blair Witch Project commandeered a normally neutral audience immune to the haunts of quiet horror.

So where does that leave you? You can’t be the only one in the office without a take on why Michael was standing in the corner, and more importantly, you may be the only one with the sense to explain that no dear, Heather, Michael, & Josh are NOT still lost in the Burketsville woods. Plus, if you avoid a film just because everybody else didn’t, you might actually miss a good movie.

Think of the experience like dining in a fancy, highly recommended but seemingly overrated restaurant you’ve yet to patron. You have to make reservations. Wait 45 minutes and still end up in a less than desirable seating area, then deal with rude waiters. After all that, even a decent meal can’t live up to the hype. Likewise, when watching a too-talked about film, one must be careful to judge it on its own terms. Any extra effort only adds to the aggravation and inevitable unmet expectation. 

In other words, wait a month into a film’s run and hit up an economy priced matinee. Make sure that when you give the film your less-than-premium-price dollars, you can judge the film on its own merits, rather than the experience that surrounded your viewing.

5. Late-to-the-Party Classics

We’ve all hear our parents and grandparents wax nostalgic on how Frankenstein lurched through their nightmares and Psycho made Janet Leigh swear off showering, but depending on your initiation process into genre cinema, many older classics can fall flat on modern eyes. Some timeless films work in any era, but when you’ve eaten cereal shaped like smiling vampires, it’s hard to accept that Bela Lugosi’s Dracula was once a force to be feared.

In order to enjoy a film that’s been written about for 30+ years, it helps to understand why it’s still relevant in today’s cinematic universe. Something like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, for example, may seem rather--well, silent--upon a blind watch, but pop in the special edition after after Blade Runner, Total Recall, or Dark City and note some of the architectural inspiration. From Birth to JoshuaRosemary’s Baby as the matriarch of eerily sterile NYC thrillers. Sometimes, the only way to fully appreciate an older, possibly dated film is to go backwards and watch with your head, not heart.

So which films have you hated due to humongous hype, or felt never had a true chance in the face of overexposure? Share your thoughts but remember: don’t get too excited. Then I’ll have to figure out what the Hype-Over-Hype-Type-Hype means, and that gives me a bigger headache than hearing Bill Moseley duet with Paris Hilton.

Candy is Dandy But Killing is More Thrilling

Spoiled Candy Alert:

99% of horror anthology films rely on a twist ending. Trick ‘r Treat is no exception, as two of its four tales feature a major surprise and the other two finish with, well, less surprising surprises. Still, in discussing such a film, it’s a challenge to go into any real detail without spilling or slightly splashing the secrets or worse, tiptoeing around plot turns with less grace than an elephant in high heels. Or me in high heels (I'm not an elephant; just incredibly clumsy.) Despite all good intentions, you end up revealing far too much to those who haven’t seen the movie in question, while those who have get a reading experience that’s coyer than the president of the school celibacy club.

Hence, in respect to my limited secretive writing skills, this review is reserved for those who have seen this film. All others are encouraged to rent it (SPOILER ALERT! I just revealed the ending of my own review. I’m so meta) and come back later. Think of it as half priced candy corn purchased in November, but without the cavity inducing stickiness.

Let the SPOILING COMMENCE!

Quick Plot: It’s Halloween in North America’s coolest town, a suburban paradise that seems to mandate every house carve a jack-o-lantern and attractive person attend an outdoor kegger. After a ho-hum prologue about a tired couple low in holiday spirit, the action kicks in with four stories loosely connected by place, character, and candy.

Our first tale stars the secret thespian weapon that is Dylan Baker as a suit-wearing Ned Flandersish citizen who doesn’t approve of fat kids stealing chocolate. Director Michael Dougherty builds a wickedly macabre tone that toes a licorice-thin line between black comedy and mean-spirited horror. Especially effective is the slow reveal of Baker’s character. We know as soon as he approaches the tubby pumpkin smasher that he means bad news, but it’s jarring to hear him called “Principal” and even more frightening to discover his moppet son. Wilkins, however, proves himself a fine father by not only spending quality time bonding over arts & crafts, but also insisting the little redhead get his fill of It’s the It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! It’s a promising start that ends with a perfectly played bang.

Meanwhile, a round of townspeople and tourists are introduced throughout and in between each tale, later to pop up as major characters in their own stories. It’s an innovative method to plot an anthology and wisely helps Trick R Treat avoid the inevitable one-story-drags-the-rest-down formula of most others in the genre. Most importantly, it confines the action to one specific location with what I assume must be competing with Sunnydale for lowest real estate rates in the Western world.

Story 2 follows a group of trouble raising trick-or-treaters who plan to prank the local idiot savant/pumpkin Picasso by digging up an urban (or suburban) legend in an abandoned rock quarry. The setup is brilliant and it’s in the story-within-a-story that Trick R Treat shines. Everything from the costume choices to the actual theme of parents discarding their deformed children was truly upsetting. Unfortunately, the surrounding tale simply doesn’t live up to its interior potential...especially since the nighttime lack of lighting lets us barely see the return of the school bus victims.

Next, we move to the big bash to focus on a few deceptively dense Halloween sluts, the kind who manage to annually piss me off by putting whorish spins on random costumes not meant for sexiness (seriously: who wants to fantasize about female Freddy Krueger? Guys who dig female child molesters in fedoras?). Virginal Anna Paquin pops her cherry with a bloody bite of Baker’s principal, revealing herself and her sisters to be hot werewolves. The twist was juicy enough to justify the tale, but I personally was a tad underwhelmed, proving once again that I’m insanely immune to lycanthropy. Still, the segment works to balance out Trick 'r Treat by including a perfect dose of sensuality and surprise. It's fun in a Tales From the Darkside spirit, which is pretty perfect for the overall tone of the film.

Finally, we follow the sack masked little boy who had been slipping in and out of the earlier three stories. Sam, as he’s known outside the film, is a wonderfully haunting creature that will deservedly find himself on t-shirts and action figures. He couldn't ask for a worthier a foe than the original Hannibal Lector himself, Brian Cox. There's something about the interior chase that goes on a tad too long to completely deliver on its early suspense, but the payoff is rewarding, even if the second turn is hardly a surprise.

So, which camp of Trick 'r Treat viewers do I fall into, those who have dubbed it the next coming of fear or the ones who found it as innovative as dressing like a witch on Halloween? Well, I liked the movie. Normally, if I’m planning on reviewing a film, I’ll keep my computer on and jot down stray thoughts. That never happened this time because I was totally involved in the onscreen action for the full runtime. There was no so-bad-I-have-to-remember these lines moments and anything I liked was strong enought that I knew it wouldn’t be forgotten by the time I sat down to write out my thoughts. It’s possibly the tightest anthology I’ve ever seen.

But is it great, wonderful, amzaing, the best horror film in years? I’d say not. It has its moments--bus crash, Sam's strolls--it has its power tools--Baker, Cox--and it’s tied together both by impressive scripting and a polished horror look. Had I seen this film a month before it was dipped in gold by the genre community, I’d be signing its praise to anone with a wallet and DVD player. After the early October reviews, however, I can’t help but feel a tad underwhelmed or rather, just not overwhelmed. It’s not to say I didn’t genuinely enjoy Trick'r Treat and won’t watch it again. I did and I will. But I’m just quite ready to make babies with the DVD case.

High Points
The dynamic score can be a tad overbearing at times, but ultimately pays off for every moment that it's needed


While I'm not always a big fan of comic book place panels onscreen, the opening credits are a great mood setter, especially since they bring me back to my own days of trick-or-treating long enough to receive the occasional religious booklet that read like an E.C. Comics take on the rapture


You have to admire the tightness of the intertwined action. It never feels forced, nor does it call attention to itself. Maybe you'd notice that the clown trick-or-treaters scared by Cox's bull terrier were the same kids who ran away at the sight of Emma's undercover slashing. Maybe you wouldn't. It doesn't take anything away, but catching the little connections certainly does add a nice layer of frosting to a nice cupcake of a film

Low Points
The aforementioned physical darkness of some of the segments blurs the action here and there, leaving someone sans Blu Ray or an HD TV squinting to catch all the action

As much as I love the bus massacre scene, it left one glaring question that took something away from the tale: what was the bus driver going to do with the bus and its children? I imagine he was set to crash it and hop out in time, and essentially, that happened. So what actually went wrong with the plan?

Lessons Learned

All pumpkin abusers will be slaughtered

A lollipop is not a toy... unless your playtime involves murder, at which point it's both useful and tasty

Suggesting your girlfriend dress like a boxy robot will make her feel inadequate and bitchy

Werewolf turn-ons include fake vampire teeth and elf ears

Rent/Bury/Buy

Considering the surprising lack of Halloween-themed films, Trick 'r Treat is probably a solid investment for an annual pumpkin fix. Unfortunately, all the extras seem to have been reserved exclusively for the Blu Ray edition. My Netflix DVD’s sole special feature was the wonderful animated short that inspired the film’s full length flesh out. This isn’t the best film you’ll see all year, but it’s a damn fine ride (perhaps even more fun than a hay ride, and certainly less itchy) by a director worth watching. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a similarly spirited sequel that retains its style but finds an even fresher approach to the stories it tells.