Today's Movies

They Came Back Wrong

Linda Blair Halloween Movie Night

This will double the amount of Linda Blair movies we've seen. There was Savage Streets with Linnea Quigley and Roller Boogie without Linnea Quigley. If people stay for a bonus third movie we can get Linda into the Five-Timers Club and still stay with the theme by watching Hell Night.



Linda Blair is to Halloween movies as Jamie Lee Curtis is to Halloween movies.

The Chilling has some more familiar faces. There's Dan Haggerty

 

from my favorite bad Christmas movie Elves.



And Troy Donahue



from Hollywood Cop and Deadly Prey.



Those are some A+ bad movies which bodes well for The Chilling.

We've watched at least one Exorcist homage before this, Abby (AKA Blaxorcist), so now you'll know what that was imitating. Two things are wrong with that statement: Nobody watched Abby while it was playing and everybody's already seen The Exorcist. In fact, if no one is in the mood to watch it we can just watch another homage:



But why wouldn't you be? It's perfect for Halloween. Some of it takes place on Halloween. It's based on a true story about a priest named Walter Halloran and it was made by Hollywood. So they share a lot of letters.

It is too a good point.


Here's what happened last week:

Something I Just Noticed

Escape from New York
The Thing
Big Trouble in Little China
Escape from L.A.
Breakdown

Today's Shows

Horror Anthology Television Night

I've been wanting to do this theme for awhile but there are so many hours of horror anthology TV shows it's hard to find the best. Or the best worst. But Halloween gave me enough direction so I could put together 2.7 hours of entertainment.

Except there's surprisingly few Halloween-themed episodes. I searched through the shows we're watching on Friday, which are The Twilight Zone (60s), Amazing Stories, Ray Bradbury Theater, The Twilight Zone (80s), Amazing Stories (again) and Tales From the Darkside, respectively. I also considered Night Gallery, Outer Limits and shows that were part of the 80's horror anthology explosion: Tales From the Crypt, Freddy's Nightmares and Monsters.



There's a lot of them. This guy came up with 62. I did manage to find enough that have the spirit of Halloween.

"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" isn't one of them though. It did air on October 11th, 1963. It's directed by Richard Donner (Superman, Goonies) and written by Richard Matheson (Duel). In fact, even though most of these episodes were chosen for their "spirit" they have well-known authors.

"The Pumpkin Competition" isn't one of them though. The director did do production design on The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi. I think that means he could build me a rancor pit. Wait, nevermind. I can do it:



"The Screaming Woman" is written by Ray Bradbury and stars a post-booze and pot but pre-cocaine Drew Barrymore. So 11-years-old.

"The Shadow Man" is by Joe Dante in his fourth directorial effort: Hollywood Boulevard, Piranha, Rock 'n' Roll High School and I was this close to showing Gremlins 2: The New Batch once.



"Go To The Head of The Class" is directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Mick Garris, the man who brought you The Fly II and Critters 2. Well he brought me those things. Fine, the man who brought you, sigh, Hocus Pocus.



"Halloween Candy" is directed by Tom Savini, make-up artist for many of our movies and director of the Night of the Living Dead remake. It's written by the guy who wrote Beetlejuice and, well Beetlejuice. What else do you need?

Here's what happened last week:

Today's Movies

Aliens in Disguise Movie Night

Halloween is coming up which means dressing up as a monster. But what if the monsters were dressing up as us? It happens in Soviet Russia and it could happen here.

Or least in Utah. The Varrow Mission is the best movie filmed in Utah since Don't Go Into the Woods... Alone!



Did they just say, "If you want it chopped off, just take it to the woods"? I watched The Varrow Mission last year at Halloween and could barely stand waiting a year to show it at Bad Movie Night. Now I'm frustrated that I just saw a great Simchat Torah horror movie.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers sees the surprisingly quick return of Jeff Goldblum, missing from BMN for only a month. Maybe now's the time to watch The Fly. Or Vibes.



Leonard Nimoy is in this movie, the only non-Star Trek credit to his name. Don't look that up!



Compare this movie to The Day of the Triffids. Both are about space plants attacking Earthlings. They diverge when the Pod People infiltrate humanity in order to insidiously fructify while the Triffids hit people over the head.

Here's what happened last week:

Today's Movies

Spoiler! She gets blood dumped on her.

Slow Motion Opening Shower Scene De Palma Movie Night

Brian De Palma gets a lot of grief for borrowing touches of Hitchcock for his movies but for all of Hitchcock's shower scene innovations he never thought about opening his movie with a woman showering in slow-motion. De Palma did that for both these movies.

The stars come out to shine in October. In Dressed to Kill there's Michael Caine (in his first but not last BMN holiday theme month), Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen and Dennis Franz. For Carrie we have Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie from Twin Peaks, William Katt from House, John Travolta from The Boy in the Plastic Bubble and Perfect (I never thought BMN would see three Travolta movies, at least with none of them being Battlefield Earth), Nancy Allen from Dressed to Kill and P.J. Soles in her fifth movie:


Carrie
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble
Halloween
Rock 'n' Roll High School
Uncle Sam

Carrie and Star Wars shared casting calls so I can easily imagine William Katt as Luke Skywalker,

John Travolta as Han Solo and P.J. Soles as Princess Leia because she's got spunk. Let's see, I'm going to make Moff Tarkin Piper Laurie, Obi-Wan is going to be Betty Buckley,

C-3PO is Sissy Spacek, OBVIOUSLY. R2-D2 should be Edie McClurg because she's the comic relief! This is getting hard. Okay, Chewbacca is Amy Irving because of all the hair:



Darth Vader would be played by Nancy Allen because she's good working with cyborgs:



But he would be voiced by Sydney Lassick because I've always liked his voice:



And of course Porkins would be Michael Talbott.



This all works vice versa too even though it means Peter Mayhew and Mark Hamill cast as the popular high school couple.



Here's what happened last week: