Since we (read: me) are in hyper-sensitive mode after losing Sunday, I figure we go could go outside Bengals talk for a bit for one of my favorite seasons of the year -- Halloween. There are so many reasons -- durrr, free candy? -- why Halloween rules. But I love the movies.
My best bud called me Sunday night at the movie store looking for a kick-ass movie to watch with his girlfriend. In other words, he wanted to scare the s%#t out of her. I've always prided myself as a horror movie guru and when asked what movie would "scare girlfriend", I came up blank. I struggled, I admit it.
Movies made 20-30 years ago -- the horror movie golden years -- just don't do it anymore. The special effects are laughable and, save a few masterpieces, most horror movies were driven on a madman killing people with knives, machetes and mechanical home improvement tools.
Obviously, it's the person that watches them that defines what's scary. Personally, psychological movies depicting hell scare me. Anything to do with the mind and our afterlife really freak me out. Exorcist? Not so much. But the original was a fascinating movie.
I work with a girl (err. woman) that can't stand any form of horror; not a chainsaw wielding maniac or Michael Jackson. It doesn't matter. If there is a movie that shows blood with demonic and evil intentions, then it's on her black list.
My favorite horror series is, wait for it, Halloween. Love it. The original was scary, not filled with gore and mangled bodies. In fact, you rarely saw blood in the movie. In most of the scenes, there would be dialogue between two people -- or someone on the phone -- and out of nowhere, you see a small white face in the background. The sequels, in my opinion, were great. They continued the story (except for the ultra-dumb Season of the Witch) through the sixth installment. Then they murdered it (great word for this post, eh? thought of it all by myself) with H20 and the one after that.
Hellraiser was another one of my favorites. This one just messed with your mind. But like most horror movie sequels, it would best serve you to stop after part two, Hellbound.
Today, the horror genre is different. I won't say it's worse or better -- too subjective. Today it's about gore, helpless torture and awful remakes -- awful because they can never remake the original impression they had. Although, they do have hot babes so I suppose they aren't all that bad.
So I ended up suggesting a movie that was totally obvious: House of 1,000 Corpses.