#46 Ghostbuster 2 and #47 The Lawnmower Man

Since yesterday was both Stephen King and Bill Murray's birthday, we did a double feature. We watched the lesser Ghostbusters movie and one of the oddest SK adaptations from the 90s.

First, Ghostbusters 2. I've never seen what the problem was with this movie. A lot of people don't like this sequel, but I think it's fine. Sure, it's not the first one, which is one of the greatest movies of all time, but what is! It nearly succeeds in recreating all of the fun of the first one. That's all it can really hope for, that magic and chemistery. I would watch this group of actors wash dishes together and although there are parts of this flick that kind of seem like that, it's still better than most movies.

Then we threw on The Lawnmower Man. It's barely a King adaptation, loosely based on a short story of the same name. It does have a lot of essential King elements though. Mean Hicks. Abusive Fathers. A Shitty View of Religion. Smoking. Telekinesis. Plus, it deals with the idea that human consciousness can be accelerated to the point of enlightenment through drugs and digital stimulation. A lot of ideas in this flick have also shown up in stuff like The Matrix and more recently in Lucy, Her, and Transcendence. So, in that way, it's pretty cool. And it has Pierce Brosnan in it.

#45 Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

I actually watched this with Witter last week, but kind of forgot about it. We talked about it some last night and came to the conclusion that this in one of our favorite in the Freddy series. Sure, it's got some (unintentional, I would argue) anti-gay undertones, but for the most part this movie is fun.

This flick has grown on me a lot over the last few years. At one point I would have said that it was my least favorite in the series, but especially watching it with a friend and having a laugh about it, this movie turns into a fun roller coaster ride of real horror moments, goofy spots, and complete weirdness. Plus, it doesn't conform to the Freddy formula. That's pretty cool. There is no group of friends that Freddy rips apart one by one. There is no female heroine. Freddy makes it into the real world because he wants to in this one, he isn't just drug into reality in order to be killed like he is in a couple of the other ones.

And, when Freddy does get into the real world, oh man what a good scene that is!

#44 Frankenstein's Army

This flick is a nice little find in the Instant Netflix queue. Thanks to horror aficionado Scott Phillips for the recommendation.

This bad boy is an odd bird. It is a period piece, set in WWII. We follow a group of Russian soldiers as they patrol the countryside and eventually go looking for some of their comrades who seem to be in trouble. This flick is also a found footage movie. It takes a bit of suspension of disbelief to buy that the (english speaking) Russians would cart around a film camera on all of their misadventures. Also, there is no mention of sound equipment, so that'll bug you a little bit now that I've pointed it out. There are other little historical inconsistencies with the plot and logic of the show, but as the flick progresses, we forgive these problems because, well, the payoff is worth it.

I won't get too far into it because I imagine that most of you haven't yet seen this flick, but, let's just say that the soldiers stumble into a factory of tortured humanity where a descendent of Frankenstein has been funded by the Third Reich to bring their two talents together. He is delivering the goods!

The back half of this movie plays like a first hand document of someone roaming around the best f**king haunted house ever created. The gore is plentiful, the monsters impressive, the dangers many and bloody. Enjoy!

(One note: I think that it is awesome that the Nazis were so unarguably doing evil shit, and we find out more and more weird stuff that they were looking into all the time, that a movie like this actually almost seems conceivable. Boy those Nazis are villains. And when you throw Dr. Frankenstein into the mix, forget about it!)

#43 Dawn of the Dead (1978)

The king of the Zombie movies. There isn't much to be said that hasn't been said already. This movie is groundbreaking, socially relevant, horrific and also a little bit boring. It is also the template that all other epic zombie movies use.

Most of the flick is about how to fortify a mall. We watch the entire arch of our group of characters as they escape from society, overcome their differences, work together to insure their own safety and eventually have all of their plans torn apart not by the flesh eating monsters but by entirely different monsters. The killing and the blood effects are just thrown in there so that we don't stop paying attention.

Also, Tom Savini is king.

#42 Bubba Ho-Tep

Bruce Campbell gets back to his campy horror roots in this flick about a couple of long dead cultural icons battling a 2000 year old mummy to save the residents of a rest home. Campbell plays (fairly convincingly, I might add) an aging Elvis who traded places with an impersonator in order to escape the trappings of fame. Now he's wasting away in a Texas rest home where his only real friend is John F. Kennedy, played by Ossie Davis (yeah, you read that right). 

When the two crazy old geezers realize that there is a mummy sucking the souls of their fellow residents and writing Egyptian graffiti on the bathroom wall, they do the only thing they can: they devise a plan to whip the mummy's ass.

This movie is awesome for a bunch of reasons, but the best one is that it is actually pretty sweet and melancholy, even with all the craziness of the plot. 

#41 Simpson's Treehouse of Horror 13-15

Two out of three of these I've never seen before. I bought the DVDs since last Halloween. These seasons were getting back to the point where the Simpsons were getting good again. Some highlights include a parody of InnerSpace, Professor Fink's dad being voiced by real life inspiration Jerry Lewis and Homer's stint as Death. #14 was also written by John Swartzwelder, a guy who has probably had more to do with The Simpsons being the cultural juggernaut that it is than anyone else who has worked on the show. They don't inspire the old nostalgia that the first few season's specials do, but it is still fun to watch the folks of Springfield get bloody.

#40 Beetlejuice

Another classic from back when Tim Burton had something to offer the world. All the major players in this movie used to be maverick young entertainers who were hungry to make their mark on cinema. Now, they are all old, rich, crusty white people that are so severely out of touch with their fellow man that they don't understand why nobody likes them anymore.  Wynona has fallen on hard times and legal troubles. Alec frequently goes on drunken rampages. Geena let one bomb sink her career and now shoots bows and arrows or some nonsense. Jeffrey got busted for child porn. Tim tries over and over to rehash his former glory by dumping out whatever crap Hollywood thinks would make a good 'Burton Project'. And Keaton just started looking for paychecks but hasn't done quite as well as his replacement in Burton's heart, Mr. Johnny Depp.

Oh well, we'll always have Beetlejuice.

(It does look as though Michael Keaton is looking to return to form in the weird new flick, Birdman, Burton's new project makes me more interested than I've been for one of his movies in a long time. So here's hoping.)