September is here, and I couldn't be more excited.
Aughost has come and gone, and Monster Bash preparations are now in full effect.
I have my costume half complete. All of our props and decorations came upstairs on September 4th. Now, I am decorating and planning the locations of everything.
Monster Bash 2011 promises to be the biggest, best and spOooOoOoOkiest one yet! I find myself moving away from a typical "theme" like Monster Bash 2008 had, and more toward a room-by-room concentration.
Monster Bash 2011 will also have a more cohesive focus on menu as well.
This will be revolutionary for Monster Bash.
Let's take a trip back -
Monster Bash 2006 - we just got our feet wet and had snacks and whatnot. We did, however, have the always-disgusting "Kitty Litter Cake": (Click the words for the recipe)
...and that went over big. This was also the debut of "Toxic Punch"...which has since become a deliciously evil staple of our Monster Bashes:
Here is the top secret recipe for Toxic Punch that I found via google search:
Anyway, more of the Monster Bash 2006 focus went toward the "Mad Scientist Lab":
Monster Bash 2007 - this was the first year we really took MB up a notch. Not so much on the menu side of things, more on the games/fun aspect. MB2007 was the inception of the "Monster Bash Scavenger Hunt" as well as the "Mummy Wrap" and "People eating Peeps" contest. This year, we just ordered sandwiches from Luigi O'Gradys. There really wasn't much in the way of spooky foods, but the reigning champ foodwise of MB2007 was the oozing Spider Cake:
I loosely based the recipe on the one from this website, and then I tweaked it because I find that green pudding oozing out of a chocolate cake tastes better than green jello. Just a personal preference. Also, I used chocolate licorice for the legs and some candy corn for decoration. He was pretty tasty...and gross.
Monster Bash 2008 - this year we had a "murder circus" theme and therefore, all foods had to be big-top style fare:
We had corn dogs, cotton candy, kettle corn, graveyard cupcakes, etc etc. Not so much in the way of gross or frightening, but a cohesive theme so it worked out nicely.
Monster Bash 2009 - was a hiatus year.
Monster Bash 2010 - was a Monster Bash "Light" due to our spoOoOOooky matrimony. This year we had some help for the brownie dessert:
and the pumpkin cake:
which were delicious editions. We also had pina ghouladas:
and eyeball caprese:
Wow, the evolution of Monster Bash food has really blown my mind. What will MB2011 bring?
So of course, when we went to see another movie and the trailer for "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" came on, I was super pumped.
I mean really, who wouldn't be, look at this thing:
Now, I had no idea until after I saw the movie, but this movie is apparently a "remake" for the 1973 movie of the same name:
I use the term remake loosely because the two don't seem to be identical in the storyline, but close enough.
Honestly, let me cut to the chase.... just go see this movie. Immediately. Go right now after reading this, because this movie was G-R-E-A-T.
I was a little skeptical at first because the villains are like 6 inches tall, I don't like bratty kids being the star, and Katie Holmes is in this, but it scared the crap out of me, Katie Holmes was pretty decent in it, I had a love/hate for the little girl.
No, not Christmas...why does that always imply Christmas?
It's the most..spoOoOoOOoOkiful...time...of...the year!
I am so pumped. This is what it all comes down to...I'm weeping a little while I type this...
Listening to "Feed my Frankenstein" on repeat while planning Monster Bash games/menu, tormenting my mother...I mean seamstress...to finish my costume, watching spoOoOooOoOoky movies over and over again, pumpkin everything, inserting the words "autumn" and "fall" and "spoOoOoOooKy" into everything in my vocaBOOlary, mummy meatloaf, ghostatoes, I could go on and on...
But the best part of all? Going to a new and spOoOOoky location to try!
Then it was Corrado's in Hackettstown (actually we've done this a couple of times, that's how good it is)
Always DePiero's and whatever store is on Rt. 17....I heard a rumor that DePiero's is closing and while it's probably true, I'm in denial and refuse to believe it. So don't even tell me if it's true or not because you heard it here first, Monster Bash Blog is dispelling the rumor right here and now. Even if it does close I'll still show up every year in my costume and scare all of the developers.
This year, to add to the tradition, we are finally making the trip to Headless Horseman in Sleepy Hollow, NY.
I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am. It looks like this year they're doing some sort of old mining town story where the mine collapsed and the town went into chaos...sounds FRIGHTENING!!
I realize some people will take offense to my title, and that's ok...not everyone is built for an extended Fall Funfest of Fright...but I think they're just in denial of the inevitable.
Don't you see it? The weather is changing now...it's different. It used to be 95-100 degrees...now...in the morning...it's what we North-Easterners like to refer to as "brisk". Sure, Summer is still holding on...for now.
76 more days, can you believe it? I sure can't. I've been working very hard to make Monster Bash 2011 the biggest, baddest, most spoOoOoOoOoOkiest party yet!
Rumor has it we have ghouls coming up from Florida to celebrate, so this year is going to be bigger than ever!
Seriously,poison ivy is so villainous that it has its own poem!
Poison ivy has been an eternally feared phrase in my house growing up. My dad is so insanely allergic that he won't even eat mangoes... that's how serious this plant it. It even affects the ingestion of other fruits!
I can remember being in 6th grade and having such a bad reaction that my one eye was swollen shut and my entire face and arms were covered in poison ivy for what felt like forever. I shuddered with horror at the thoughts of cortaid
benadryl, and that gross oatmeal aveeno garbage that doesn't work...ugh...I was constantly asked "What the hell happened to your face?!" and am forever scarred for life because of it. Of course, poison ivy is only horrible if you're sensitive to the urushiol (totally looked that word up), and you have a reaction to it. Other than that, you could tear the weeds out all day like William Bartlett, the poison ivy man:
I could watch this video all day. Look at him go! And he'll keep coming back til they're gone!
You know something, I think this could be the premise for a spOoOoOoOOoky movie! Like, a backwoods man (Bartlett) creates a dungeon made of poison ivy that he harvests from innocent people's lawns, then when he goes to collect payment he kidnaps said innocent people...murders them...and FEEDS them to his poison ivy plants! THEN, the plants TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Ivy-pocalypse! WHOA!!! coming soon on Fearnet!
Now, I know why you're really here....you want to see gross poison ivy rash pictures...right?
Well, first what you need to do is go to poison-ivy.org and check out their hall of fame...it is not for the faint of heart.
I really ate up the hype (no pun intended)...this movie was so controversial and realistic, that the director, Ruggero Deodato, was actually arrested and had to stand trial. He had to bring the actors into the courtroom to prove that he didn't make a "snuff film". To me, that makes a movie beyond scary. When real life is blurred so much with a movie that people can't tell the difference.
Here's the trailer, but before you watch it be forewarned that there is nudity in it...odd for a theatrical trailer these days but eh, what can you do:
This movie is like the original Blair Witch, except way more violent. It depicts the "real" disappearance of a group of documentary filmmakers who had gone missing after traveling to the Amazon to film indigenous tribes.
An anthropologist from NYU decides to lead a rescue team to go and locate the missing filmmakers, but instead discovers a reel can that holds the evidence of their demise.
Throughout the movie this song is playing, at what seems like the most inopportune times. It doesn't really go with the movie itself:
Weird. It's like being in the waiting room at a dentist's office, no?
Anyway, the guy who goes to rescue them discovers that they weren't very respectful of the tribes and he ends the movie being unsure of "who the real cannibals are".
Now, the movie itself wasn't what interested me, it was the controversy surrounding it.
First of all, there was so much animosity during filming that it's almost like a reality show within itself. There was so much tension during filming that I'm surprised this movie was even made. Cast members didn't get along, people kept getting shorted on pay, Columbians being paid in lunches instead of money and being forced to sit in a burning hut to get a "realistic effect", and most of all...the animal deaths being real.
I love animals.
Couldn't they have found some props to use instead? Like a rubber chicken or something?
And this brings me to the controversies of this movie:
1. Snuff Film. When the movie was released, it was actually confiscated and Deodato was arrested because it was believed that the actors really were killed. All actors had signed contracts to not appear in any promotional type of media to keep up the appearance that they were really killed, and authorities were fooled. Deodato had to void the contracts and bring the actors into the courtroom to avoid life in prison.
2. Impalement. The "impalement scene" was actually examined by the courts because it was believed that she was really killed in that manner. Deodato had to explain how he created the special effect: "a bicycle seat was attached to the end of an iron pole, upon which the actress sat. She then held a short length of balsa wood in her mouth and looked skyward, thus giving the appearance of impalement"- Wikipedia.org.
3. Grisly sexual violence scenes. There is alot of this in this movie. Rape, gang rape, genital mutilation, this movie had it all...yikes. It caused many countries to have difficulty rating it during censorship, some even banned it.
4. Animal cruelty. 7 animals were killed, and 6 were presented onscreen (taken from Wikipedia):
* A coatimundi (mistaken as a muskrat in the film) has its jugular veins cut open by the character Miguel.
* A large turtle (about one meter long) is captured in the water and dragged to shore, where it is then decapitated and its limbs, shell, and entrails are removed. The actors proceed to cook and eat the turtle.
* A large spider is killed with a machete.
* A snake is killed with a machete.
* A squirrel monkey has the top of its skull chopped off with a machete.
* A pig is kicked twice and then shot.
These were the scenes that I physically could not watch. It's too disturbing. Deodato has since condemned the fact that he had chosen to kill live animals, but since it's forever on film it makes me pretty upset. Not only the fact that they were killed, but the manner in which they are killed is horrifying.
So that's Cannibal Holocaust in a nutshell. Pretty disturbing stuff!
Let's be honest, the Exorcist is one of the greatest horror films of all time. Now, I've never seen part 2, but from what I've heard, it was pure garbage. Thanks to my good friend Netflix, The Exorcist III had magically made its way to the top of my queue and arrived at my house last night. At first, I was worried for The Exorcist III, because the original is such a huge act to follow and part 2 was a huge flop...but at the same time I was hopeful, because William Peter Blatty, who wrote the novel and screenplay for the original, was at the helm for part III. Here's a trailer:
The Exorcist III is based on the sequel novel to the original Exorcist, called Legion.
Before I had seen it, I had only one question : Is it going to be exactly the same movie as the Exorcist?
I mean, how many different movies can be made about exorcisms...there's only so many ways they can go, right?
But I can say with confidence, the answer is a surprising : No.
What I really liked about the movie is that it tips its hat to the original, and gives you little tidbits that tie them both together, but other than that, it's its own film.
Basically, the movie takes place 15 years since the death of Damian Karras. Father Dyer, who had given Karras his last rights in the original, and the police lieutenant who was there, go to see the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" on the anniversary of Karras's death every year. Dyer and the lieutenant Kinderman, are good friends and have almost an odd couple-esque type of banter.
Kinderman has been investigating the crimes of the Gemini Killer, who was a notorious serial killer who was supposedly dead. However due to a recent string of murders that feature the Gemini Killer's unique MO, Kinderman begins to doubt that the Gemini Killer is truly dead. The crimes are also religiously driven, which some deaths being crucifixions or having to do with religious figures....and also people who's names begin with a "K".
The deaths are also pretty gruesomely described, however very little gore is really seen.
This part especially creeped me out:
Kinderman, perplexed by all of this, finds out that Father Dyer is in the hospital and makes a stop to visit him...shortly after, he finds out that Father Dyer is murdered, also in the same manner as The Gemini Killer's victims. Including the double "L" at the end of words
How did the killer know that that was a movie they both saw together?!
The hospital then gets put into a lockdown, because as Kinderman reveals, only a small select few knew the real MO of the Gemini Killer, and not the one released to the press as a way to weed out the fakes.
While the hospital is in lockdown, Kinderman is told that a patient in the psych ward room 11, "Patient X", has no identity, and was found 15 years ago near the scene of Karras's death, and claims he is the Gemini Killer. What shocks Kinderman the most is that the patient looks identical to Damian Karras:
What are the chances?! This patient X, goes back and forth between looking like Karras and then looking like the real Gemini Killer, and describes killing all of his victims. It turns out he uses the senile dementia patients in the hospital to carry out his deeds...
like this one...
ahhhh!!!
Another priest, Father Morning, comes in to save the day and perform an Exorcism, but it goes horribly wrong and he almost dies. But along with Kinderman, they are able to save Karras's soul and give him a proper burial.
There were a few weirdo moments...like this one....
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be in a heaven where Fabio isn't:
how'd Fabio get in there and get such primo camera time?
Anyway, I actually really enjoyed this movie. I mean, it wasn't gory or bloody, but it was like a cool CSI episode mixed in with a supernatural horror movie. If you were scarred from The Exorcist II: The Heretic, I would say don't be afraid to give Exorcist III a shot...
Lastly, I just wanted to leave you with this...BIGGEST EXORCIST III FAN EVER:
Seriously, I do. I couldn't even think of a witty remark for it. The title is so great all by itself.
So, at work, everyone knows my love of Halloween. One of my coworkers had recommended "I Spit on Your Grave" (the remake) and said it was great. I decided to trust and see for myself.
Now, I've never seen the original. I know, shame on me. I really should see the original because originals are usually superior to the remakes. Unless you're the new Batman reboot, which is arguably the greatest thing ever (The Dark Knight holds the key to my heart).
Anyways, Let's get started! But first...
Dear spoiler-hater,
Don't hate - appreciate!
Sincerely yours,
MB Blog
I started watching it and immediately it reminded me of "The Last House on the Left". The first half of the movie I found pretty difficult to watch...it starts out pretty slow, a girl moves out to the country side to write a book or something...she runs into some creepy local trash bags...and then it becomes a grisly rape festival.
Even the sheriff gets in on the action...yikes.
finally, she manages to stumble away and fall into the water where the rapists presume she's dead.
But she isn't!
The rest of the movie is GREAT. It's pure revenge and you are rooting for her to get the bad guys...
And the death/torture scenes for these bad guys are in-cred-ible.
Ok so first there's this guy, the "videographer":
Recognize him? He was one of the characters in that movie "Bully" which was super weird and kind of sad. She ties him to the tree so that he's choking, hooks his eyelids open, rubs fish juice on him, and then birds eat his eyes...
Then there's this guy:
He's suspended over a tub filled with lye and has to hold himself up to avoid falling in...
Then there's the leader of the pack of idiots:
he ends up getting tied up, gagged, and losing an important appendage which gets shoved in his mouth via hedge clippers...
Finally the sheriff:
He ends up with a shotgun shoved where the sun doesn't shine...the trigger is tied to one of the other guys, who is sleeping and doesn't know he's tied to a shotgun trigger...
oh man...I'd hate to be that guy.
So basically, MB Blog's sPOoOoOoOoktacular review is that the first 45 mins are pretty non-memorable, but if you can get past that and get to the revenge part, it's definitely worth the watch!
Because Cablevision's prices have become so scary I just can't take it anymore, we decided to make the switch over to Verizon Fios.
So far, since we are in the "special deal" phase, we are loving it.
There's so much to enjoy...FearNet is here and bountiful with its free movies...I watch them all and have some great ones I want to share my thoughts on them with you...
There's the Chiller channel..mm mmm good...
And then there's a uterus's best friend: Lifetime Movie Network, or LMN to the "chick movie" savvy.
Oh man, I can't get enough. It's a buffet of movies that we women love.
But you know something, these movies can be pretty scary!
you can actually go through 121 pages of movies and see all of them in their majesty on the LMN website...
I mean, look at some of the titles:
"A Face to Kill For"
"A Killer Among Friends"
"Killing in a Small Town"
"A Nightmare come True"
"A Perfect Murder"
"A Vow To Kill"
I could go on and on...all of them wonderful and disturbing.
I'm going to take "best Lifetime movie" ever one step further...This movie might be the best MOVIE ever. You've got Fred Savage and Candace Cameron in an abusive relationship. Sally Jessy Raphael makes a cameo. Watching the guy from the Wonder Years as a monster terrorizing poor DJ Tanner to a brutal early 90's soundtrack is like a morbid dream come true. This movie is a must see if you are a human being who likes movies.
This movie is incredible because it is a true story. This poor woman is terrorized by her crazy husband and he STABS her and STOMPS on her head while the cop just stands there and moves his car around and looks confused...miraculously she lives and sues the police department for doing jack shit while Dale Midkiff jumps on her head and screams "I KILLED YOUR MOTHER" to their young son. This movie makes me ROAR at my tv at the cops AND Dale Midkiff. It's a must see.
This movie is so sad. Also a true story, and Mercedes Ruhl is the mom, so obviously she tears it up. It's about a boy who wants to be a woman, and is killed because of it. It's gripping and sad. Also scary that people are a-holes and ignorant and intolerant of others to the point of killing in a brutal way.
"Courtney Snow (Sara Rue), an author with writer's block, still haunted by the suicide of her best friend while they were in prep school, finds herself teaching at the very same school while trying to get back on her feet. She encounters a young student, Laurel, who seems in every way to be the reincarnation of her best friend from years ago. Laurel seems to know things about Courtney that only dead friend would have known. Is she losing her mind or is it all a cruel hoax? In order to learn what is going on in the here and now, Courtney must first deal with what happened back then. Courtney thought she knew everything about Jane's death, but she never knew the whole truth. If Jane's spirit is indeed working through Laurel, Jane's got unfinished business. One thing is certain; Jane's suicide was never the simple tragedy everybody wanted to believe that it was. "
"Single mom Rachel Easton (Jeri Ryan) and her two daughters, Molly (Peyton Roi List) and Lizzie (Kay Panabaker), move from their cramped Detroit apartment to the suburbs when Rachel gets an irresistible deal on her dream house. But with the night comes scratching from within the walls, distant cries, and a figure of a young woman in the shifting shadows of the basement, and Lizzie begins to behave strangely"
Oh my God this one is so creepy. They move into this house and their creepy neighbor is VIDEOTAPING them and keeping tapes!!! AHHHH!! That's terrifying!
A woman driving home late at night accidentally cuts a guy off driving home...the guy unfortunately is a psycho stalker who now wants her dead. This is legitimately scary to me, the idea anyway, because people on the road are in-sane!
What would LMN be without eating disorders? Perfect Body is about a gymnast who is told to lose a few pounds and it frightened me...Hunger Point has Joan from Mad Men and Barbara Hershey and it also deals with eating disorders. True Lifetime form here, people.
Bella from Twilight (fine, Kristen Stewart) is raped and becomes introverted. This one isn't too scary, minus the rape part, but it's more about her coping with it. Actually, it is kind of scary. Rape IS scary. I take back what I said before.
Ugh, it's so hard to narrow them down...What's your favorite Lifetime movie?
You know something, lately everything that has come out that's a "scary" movie has either been a remake, or a Saw continuation. It's put me in a movie theater funk.
So you can imagine how super-spoOoOooker-pumped I was when I saw the trailer for "Insidious":
SPOOOOOOOOKY!
I didn't even know what the word "Insidious" meant because I'm a moron, fortunately my dear husband is a Language Arts teacher.
Here's the definition of Insidious from my BFF Merriam-Webster:
1
a : awaiting a chance to entrap : treacherous b : harmful but enticing : seductive
2
a : having a gradual and cumulative effect : subtle b of a disease : developing so gradually as to be well established before becoming apparent
In terms of the movie itself...I had no idea what it was about...Haunted house? Haunted Kid? but this one thing I saw scared the shit out of me:
Seriously!??! WHAT IS THAT THING?!
It frightened and intrigued me.
So I had to see it.
Jim wanted to see some movie about Abe Lincoln, but when he saw the reviews on IMDB were so great, he caved.
For a horror movie that isn't a remake or a sequel/prequel, a 7.3 on IMDB is pretty incredible!
Anywho, I know there's a notorious commenter out there who hate-Hate-HATES when I spoil, but guess what buddy, I'm going to have to give some really satisfying spoilers.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Ok so there are so many things I really liked about this movie. In the intro, it shows this cryptic scene and then immediately plays these loud noises (sounding like violent violins) and the title flashes across the screen. It sets the tone of anxiety and tension.
So this is the happy family (I think there's a little girl not pictured here though):
How sweet.
Basically, the movie starts with them having moved into a new house and it's quite an adjustment. The dad is a teacher who doesn't have any childhood pictures and the mom is an aspiring musician. They have 2 sons, Dalton and Foster...and there's an obnoxious crying baby.
The one kid (Dalton, the one on the left in the picture) has a vivid imagination, and ends up in the creepy attic playing. He falls and bumps his head, and his parents scold him for playing in the creepy attic. That night while everyone sleeps, Dalton falls into a "coma" where he doesn't wake up and nobody can figure out why.
But things start getting weird...Scary things start happening...The mom, whose name is prounounced Renee, but is spelled Renai, sees and hears these super scary things, and I was pretty damn scared myself!
Scariest line of the movie: (Foster, the other child, talking to Renai when Dalton was in a coma): "I don't like it when Dalton walks around at night"...AHHHH!! Dalton's in a coma!!
It gets so bad the one night, that they actually move houses! This, to me, is really unique from other horror movies. Usually the house is scary as hell and the people stay and try to "fight back" or "face their fears" or they die in the house...I don't think it's very often that they really leave.
So they move, and of course, spoOoOoOky things keep happening.
What is going on?!
So, Barbara Hershey, who plays Josh (the dad)'s mom, explains that she had a vision about Dalton...which is when we see that horrifying image I put up on top..yikes!
And then this flashes on the screen:
Which caused me to jump 3 feet out of my seat...SCARY RED DEMON THING BEHIND THE DAD!
Something happens in Dalton's room and they run in and find the room has been destroyed and Dalton is thrown to the floor...it's time to get help.
This is probably a little comedic relief for the film, because honestly the entire movie is a massive ball of anxiety and fear and wondering what's going to happen to this poor family next...but these two ghostbuster dudes show up with some "homemade" ghost detectors:
They say that they are the filtering system before Elise comes in...so they take a look around and are frightened...
cue Elise:
Elise is great. She's like a really cool, ghost hunting grandma. She sees things and one of the nerdy ghostbuster guys draws what she sees. So, she gets right to work:
After seeing this frightening thing, she tells Renai and Josh that their son has an uncanny ability to leave his body and travel, also called "Astral Projection"
Huh?
This movie takes on a completely different storyline now, because here I am thinking this house is friggin' haunted and this kid is possessed, but no, his spirit is MIA. BUT, because his spirit is not in his body, all of these ghosts want in so they can be alive...including that horrifying demon that has the red face. Oh, and Dalton has traveled into "The Further" which is a realm not meant for the living, and he can't find his way back to his body. yikes!
Now in a wild turn of events, we find out that the reason why Dalton can astrally project so well, is because it is inherited...by...you guessed it! Josh! So Barbara Hershey knew this and Elise because Elise had saved Josh years earlier from a parasitic ghost who tried to take over his body.
We now find out why Josh has never taken pictures, in quite possibly one of the most disturbing and terrifying scenes ever.
So Josh is faced with a difficult decision, to dig up his past as an astral projector and go in and save his son from The Further, or let Dalton rot in limbo and be overtaken by a Demon.
I won't tell you the ending, but it is crazy bizarre and unexpected!
So, MB Blog gives Insidious 2 skeleton thumbs up...I thought it was great, and really a refreshing and new horror film.
Not to mention SpoOoOOktacular!
So SPoOOooktacular, in fact, that we saw it twice!
EARTH (mainly the NJ/NY area though), United States
I'm the spoOoOoOokiest party around!
Every year, Halloween gets bigger, badder, and more boooooooriffic!
We here at MB Blog strive to keep Halloween alive (or at least undead) throughout the year, getting you pumped up for the big day: October 31st!
Monster Bash Blog is dedicated to the year round Fall/Halloween lover in all of us.
