New Movie At The Drive In!

As the Now Showing panel shows, you can now watch The Last Man on Earth (1964) starring horror legend Vincent Price at the Drive-In! Go now!

One Cloudy Afternoon: A New Short Film!

My favourite horror-breathing webmaster has done it again! The spooktacular Ray O'Bannon over at Ravensblight, a little haunted town full of creepy yet pleasant surprises, has just revealed a new horror short film entitled "One Cloudy Afternoon." He hasn't posted it on the website yet, but that's the glory of social networking. Check it out below!

Or alternatively, you can download it here. (Right-click, Save As)

More short films like this can be found on his website, linked above. I wish I had your spirit! :) Maybe one day I'll have my own camera...

Until next time,

MicroReviews!

So, I realized that I haven't really been keeping up with the movies that I watch on Netflix (cause I wanna catch'em all), much less reviewing the ones I want to review, before moving on to the next film because I tend to write lengthy reviews. So, to help stop the madness, I present... MircoReviews! I talked before about micro-fiction, and I suppose this will be the same concept: short, sweet and to the point. This, I hope, will also act as my "list of movies I watched successfully." :D A little re-watch prevention, you know, to keep things running smoothly! That doesn't mean I won't re-watch things, I'll just be aware that it's occurring.

Cheers

At the Drive-In

Well, we fixed the projectors but they will only play classic horror movies! It's like... some sort of rip in the fabric of time and space has caused a flashback to the past! Oh well! Since we're here...

Retro Drive-In

Now Showing

Dementia 13 (1963)

I hope to be changing the movie each week, and you can always see what's playing with the nifty Now Showing! navigation to the left! Happy viewing!

Horrortheque

I don't know how I missed it before, but if you like older (and I mean.. older) horror movies, check out Horrortheque. It's got several public domain horror movies, from black & white to the last decade. This includes movies such as...

Nosferatu, The Last Man on Earth, The Little Shop of Horrors and Night of the Living Dead.

You can watch them right from the website, and a lot of them have Spanish subtitles.

Thanks for being great!

A Spooky Little Town

Flashlight fading fast and thick clouds devouring the moon, I fled through the darkness, seeking refuge wherever it would be found... Through the dense forest, I spied dim lights ahead. A town! Oh relief... or so I thought.
Approaching, I could see the buildings were dark, twisted and old... I almost turned back, but the forest behind me seemed to swell and undulate with a darkness thicker than the night. Gathering all the resolve I had left, I started towards the town. The flashlight found a sign, before the battery finally gave way and flickered out.

The sign read Ravensblight.


//buahahaspookiesezgo!//

Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman (Movie and Legend!)

Now, I must say, I have conflicting thoughts about this film. Don't get me wrong. I thought it was great, but hey, I'm a sucker for Japanese ghost stories. There's a few things I want to say about this movie, but first, I'm going to explain the tale of the Slit-Mouthed Woman. (Wiki: Kuchisake-onna)

The Slit-Mouthed Woman (or Kuchisake-onna) is a popular ghost story in Japan. It isn't uncommon for rumors to spread like wildfire claiming that she is on the loose, taking out her bloody vengence on the general public.
The story started way back in the days of the Samurai. It was said that a great lord had a very beautiful but vain wife. Suspecting her of cheating on him, he slit her mouth from ear to ear, saying, "Who will think that you are beautiful now?"
Fast forward to the present age. Just like Americans have the urban legends about the hook-handed murderer of Lover's Lane or the madman who targets young couples stranded and out of gas on the side of the highway, the Japanese have Kuchisake-onna! The legend is told that a beautiful woman walks the streets, especially on spooky nights, wearing a common flu-mask. She will approach a stranger and simply ask, "Am I pretty?" (or "Watashi kirei?") The stranger would reply,"Yes!" It is then that she removes the mask, revealing her disfigured face. "Kore demo?" ("How about now?")
This is when things start to get tricky. There are many possibilities at this point. Allow me to map out the results.

• If you shriek at her, or say, "No! You crazy bitch!", she will slice your face to match hers.
• If you reply, "Yes," it is said that sometimes she will go away, and sometimes, she'll cut you anyway, depending on who is telling the story. (No winning, here, huh?)
• If you give her a trickier answer, like "Maybe," it tends to confuse her, giving you time to run the fuck away.

Also, a variation of the above mentioned scenarios: instead of cutting you on the street like a hardcore gansta, she'll scoop you up and take you to her hideout. I'm not totally sure what goes on there... Lots of cutting. This also goes for the last answer, because in some versions of the story, that bitch will chase you. And apparently, she's quick.
These rumors start to spread every other decade or so, ya know, bringing in the fresh meat of a new generation, that sort of thing. People claim to see her everywhere. And, during flu-season, she can hide very, very well.

Anyway, on to the movie.

Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman (2007)

Trailer

A quickie: (And I mean it this time!)
As revealed at the beginning of the movie, and the trailer, the legend began 30 years ago when a young boy claimed to have seen the Kuchisake-onna.
Now, rumors begin circulating about the Kushisake-onna on the loose, snatching up little kids and eating them for breakfast... or whatever she does with them. One kid has already gone missing but the police didn't believe it has anything to do with a crazy ghost lady.
Some boys go into the park to wait and see if she shows up; as rumor has it: she appears in the park around 5pm. As they are waiting, a small earthquake shakes the town and it's people, knocking stuff off shelves and breaking open sealed demon-wardrobes (the wooden closety kind.).
After the earthquake subsides, the boys realize it's past 5pm and sigh in disappointment... when suddenly, she appears behind them! She grabs one viciously by the hair and the others scream and run off. But when they turn around she's gone, and so is her hostage.
Next, we learn about a new teacher who is trying to bond with a girl who is obviously not having the greatest time at school and home. Girls at school pick on her for wearing a flu-mask, calling her Kuchisake-onna! The mask is to cover up bruises left on her mouth by her mother (and arm, and shoulder). The teacher tries to comfort her, fails and the girl gets sntached up by the ghost lady, right in front of the petrified teacher.
Feeling responsible, she teams up with another teacher who is having some paranormal shit haunting his brain. Together, they set out to find Mika, the missing girl. He reveals that he believes that the Kuchisake-onna is actually the ghost of his mother, who used to beat him and his siblings severely when he was young. He claims that one day, his mother and siblings all vanished. Following the ghostly voices in his head whispering "Watashi... kurei...", they rescue a young reporter boy (he's like freaking 9, but he's been running around like a detective until this point, with his little book of notes about the ghost lady), and the female teacher saves them by stabbing the ghost (um.) to death. When they go back to check on the body, they realize that she wasn't the Kuchisake-onna at all, but a young woman (and mother), who was actually possessed by the ghost. (Now, we have a random dead lady on our hands.)
Shortly after this, the female teacher reveals that she wants to save Mika so badly because she, too, has a daughter. In her sad(?) story, she explains that her daughter lives with her ex-husband, and she is not allowed to see her, as requested by the father... and her daughter, because she used to hit her. (And now she feels really bad about it.)
They follow the voice again, but not in time to save Mika's best friend from getting snatched up in the park by none other than her mother (possessed) while they were out with flyers for Missing Mika. They put their detective skills together and decide that the ghost has been taking the children to her hideout. It was rumored that it was an abandoned house with a red roof. (Vague.) Turns out, the male teacher's childhood home had... a red roof!
We cut to the hideout where the slit-mouthed woman hurls Mika's friend bodily down into the cellar. She screams, and the lady really, really doesn't like that. So she cuts her from ear to ear. Turning to the boy she gathered earlier, he screams and she gives him a good stab.
The dead boy from the cellar was chunked out into a parking lot somewhere to be found by a grandfather and young girl. Shortly, Mika's friend's father and the girls who were teasing Mika (cause they feel bad now.) are out with flyers, too. They pass by the park and see a girl walking. Mika! They jump out and run after her, only to find it is Mika's friend shambling around, cut ear-to-ear.
Meanwhile, Mika's mom is also playing detective, discovers the same thing (except she's running off nothing but rumors, asking all the children in town what they know). She speeds off into the night towards Childbeck Hill.
The teachers finally arrive at the house and begin exploring. The man, being haunted (heh) by his past, finds a knife... and remembers everything.
What really happened that day his mother disappeared:
After his siblings were gone, his mother came after him, punching him in the face. Realizing what she had done, she began crying and apologizing, because she was actually going crazy. Putting a knife in his hand, she asked him to chop her head off, because the next time she went crazy, he wouldn't make it out alive, just like his brother and sister. "Aim for the neck," she said. He hesitated. Flying in to a crazed rage again, she grabs an over-sized pair of scissors and barely misses him. She swings at him again, but this time, he swings back, slicing her beautiful face open. She collapses and he puts her body into a wardrobe and locks it up tight, but not before covering her ugly face with a mask and draping her with a rain coat, her scary-big scissors still in hand.
He killed her. And made her. Bad, bad boy!
((A side note: right before someone gets possessed, they are overwhelmed by a fit of coughing, as that is what happened moments before his mother would loose her mind and beat him. Everyone has a tell.))
Moving along, he decides that if he cuts off her head, he might be able to stop the insanity. But, opening the wardrobe, she's missing! No body of a dead lady, but a loose board reveals an entrance to a secret cellar he had never seen before. They check it out and find Mika! Yay, Mika is alive and safe, hanging out next to two skeletons, a boy and a girl. (Wonder who they could be? That's right! His brother and sister!)
I'll make the next part quick.
They get Mika untied. The ghost comes back and starts slashing people and kicking people. Mika's mom arrives and gets stabbed. Ghost lady's son (teacher) gets stabbed. Ghost lady gets stabbed in the back by the lady teacher and dies. Ghost possesses Mika's mom! Son grabs ghost mom and proceeds to battle it out with her while the teacher lady and Mika escape, but not before watching him saw her head off.
Another earthquake seals them in the cellar like a tomb, and the two girls escape, fairly unharmed. Very, very traumatized. (That's what happens when ghosts try to kill you. Especially the Japanese kind. Those are extra spooky.)
The movie ends with the teacher getting to see her daughter again to apologize and ask forgiveness. And her daughter hugs her and shows that she does not hate her. Suddenly, she begins coughing savagely...
Oh, and did I mention that the movie goes back to the pile of dead people in the cellar to show us the disembodied head of.. Mika's mom!
You can't stop Japanese ghosts. Those fuckers are undeadable!

I give this movie... a 3.5/5.
Why?
I love Japanese horror. I think it's the best kind. Their ghosts are strangely horrifying, ghost stories are super creepy, and their horror games, well, I can't even begin with that. :) Japan, you have my heart.
I have been waiting to get a copy of this movie to watch, because I've always been interested in the particular story of Kuchisake-onna, and I was really excited to find it on my Netflix. (Netflix is new to me, shaddup.) The story was full of twists and turns, and the imagery was very discomforting, which is a good thing. There was no shortage of child maimage and violence. I mean, the dead boy the grandfather found looked like he definitely had a rough time. And the ghost lady had a love of kicking children in the face with heels.
I would also like to add that the altercations between the adults, meaning the teachers/parents and the ghost lady was a little more realistic than what is normally portrayed on horror movies. We're used to seeing an insane amount of courage displayed by the adults as they race to save their children, or someone's children they are trying to rescue. The behavior of the adults had much more hesitation, confusion and sloppy fighting, much what we would expect from normal people of the public.

However...
This movie was about child abuse! Everyone one involved was either beaten or did the beating. Are you serious? Sigh... I'm not super crazy about people sneaking morals into my horror films.
And the story told by the movie really had nothing to do with the legend. At all. The legend is about a vain woman, disfigured, and on a path of vengeance to do to others what was done to her. The whole point of the legend is that she greets a stranger with, "Watashi kurei?" and then decides whether or not she thinks they should live. The lady in the movie just really hated kids, I guess. The voice in her son's head was the only mention of  "Am I pretty?"

A little disheartening if you ask me...

I liked the movie, and thought it was a good story, full of twists and controvercial violence, not to mention spooky ghost lady's with a gaping maw.

I feel like I just watched Silent Hill: The Movie all over again. A happy tingling of creepy Japanese-based awesome, but they took my beloved story and kinda ran away with it. In the wrong direction.

My analysis:
To be considered great, you must first remove it from the original expectations and anticipation. Once that is done, and you are no longer expecting a specific set of events and storyline, it stands alone as something pretty nice.

Until next time.
//pookie & muzzy//

The Human Centipede (And Brief Intro)

Instead of posting a silly welcome post, I'm going to go straight to content.

Okay, fine. A brief introduction:
I am The Spookie. Please, note the capital 'T.' I am a lover of all things spooky: horror movies, ghost stories, Halloween, complete darkness. I am happy in my little dark world, but there are plenty of things in here worth sharing. Which is why I have created this blog. I'd be happy to tell you more about myself. Message me, fools. I don't like talking about myself. So, as planned, on to the content...

The Human Centipede: First Sequence.

A fairly new movie, I am here to tell you why this movie.. rocked my socks off. I really didn't expect much from it: a strange indie film about a crazy surgeon. I've seen tons of them. But a few days ago, I watched (and by that I mean, I payed attention) the trailer for The Human Centipede and it really caught my eye. ((Trailer))
By the way, this is only the first part. Somehow, there is more.

A quickie: ((That means SPOILERS.))
The movie begins with a man, distraught and gazing at a strange photograph, parked by the side of the road. Moments later, a cargo truck joins him. The truck driver hops out and scampers off to relieve himself in the wooded area nearby. Rifle in hand, the original driver follows.
Now, we join two girls getting ready to go out clubbing. We discover that they are American tourists road-tripping across Europe, their current stop being Germany. Over the phone, a directory gives them directions to a night club they were invited to. Prepared to have the night, they set sail.
Unfortunately, trouble is in the air. The girls are lost, stressed and suddenly confronted with a flat tire on their rental car. And even worse luck, no one taught them how to change a tire. Soon they are greeted by a obese, dungeon crawler with a taste for American sluts. Creeped out, they hide in the car until he recedes back into the night. Eventually, they decide they must man-up and venture out into the cold, wet night.
The girls, being dumb girls, head through the woods, instead of taking the road back to civilization. They wander for a long time before coming to a house....

Once inside the house, we learn that the owner a) is a medical genius who surgically separates conjoined twins, and does it very, very well; b) is a diabolical scientist who really likes sewing dogs together; c) really, really hates people, humans, humanity and the like. He drugs the girls, and places them in his laboratory downstairs. (It's nice.) In waking, they discover that they are not the only captives. Remember the truck driver from before? (It was a tranquilizer rifle, not a real one.) Well, apparently, he just isn't good enough to be part of the team, for his blood/tissue/medical things do not match the girls'. The doctor buries him in the backyard.
A young Japanese man is the next candidate for our Centipede Team! And, lucky him, he's a match.
This is where we get to see the doctor in his super-snazzy lab coat. (Envy..) The three, strapped to gurneys, watch as the doctor reveals his maniacal plan... To turn them into a human centipede by connecting them, mouth-to-anus, but that isn't all, folks! He's also planning to remove some teeth, cut and enlarge the mouth/anus for better comfort, and chop up some vital parts in their knees, making escape nearly impossible.
He begins to put them under and one of the girls escapes and they chase each other around the house, finally leading to this awesome still. Take it in. You know that's a nice coat.

Either way, he gets her back to the lab pronto and continues with his procedure. Mind you, I looked, and when the surgery was complete, we had only made it through the first half of the movie.

The second half consists of their awakening from anesthesia, the doctor trying to teach them how to move together and obey commands, just like 'mein lieber 3-hund' meaning 'my sweet 3-dog.' Did I mention that he attached three Rottweilers together, ass-to-mouth, successfully? Unfortunately for him, they did not make it. (Remember that photo? He loved those puppies dearly..)

It all can't be that swell for him. The police arrive and start asking questions about missing persons in and around his residency. Witnesses had reported hearing a girl crying on his property. His behaviour become erratic and aggressive, desperately trying to sedate the officers so he might add them to his centipede, as the girl on the end is fading fast. The police demand to see his cellar but he refuses. Promising to return with a warrant, they retreat back to headquarters.

In the time that they are gone, the asian man injures the doctor when he goes to check on them and they.. scuttle off. They meet again upstairs and the asian man, the leader of the centipede, decides he cannot continue with this 'punishment', which he believes he is receiving because of the selfish life that he led. He ends his life and their chance at escape; being the leader, they cannot maneuver without him. The police return and the doctor quickly hides himself and waits. The police kick the door in and begin to look for the spooky doctor. Office A finds the broken centipede while Officer B finds the doctor.

The end result?

Gunshots alert Officer A to Officer B, who is now floating face down in the pool. As this happens, end-girl on the centipede expires, leaving only middle-girl, attached to two dead people. Back to the pool, the doctor and remaining officer shoot each other.

So basically everyone dies, except for middle-girl, who is obviously not going to survive with out some serious medical attention, and soon. How long until the officers are missed? Until the neighbors notice their car has been there for days and the trash hasn't been taken out? She stands no chance.

Rating? 3.5/5

Why?

By all means this movie wasn't scary to me, but what movie is anymore? Though, the shock factor was definitely there. I mean, no one wants a rectum surgically attached to their face. Do you realize what this means? Anyone, who wasn't the asian guy, was literally eating shit. Here's a list of reasons why I liked this movie:

It was mostly in German.

Who can't love a evil scientist with a slick coat, german tongue, mirror shades AND a tranquilizer rifle?

It was creative, and he was just plain mean.

No one won in the end. You know she's going to die, and if she doesn't, can you imagine what kind of hell her life will be when she recovers from all this? Shrinks for the rest of forever for this girl.

I really did like this movie. It was, as mentioned earlier, fucked. up. Fucked up. Alot of people rated it poorly because "it wasn't scary." But why should a movie be scary to be good? What is scary, exactly? Quick, loud surprises that make you jump? Or the kind of story that leaves to slightly disturbed in a way you can't just shake off...

Why I didn't like it? Well... I'm a nit-picker. :( Sad, but true. And unfortunately, as grand and awesome as his plan was, I can point out a few things that seem off. Such as their likelihood of survival. The centipede consisted of guy-girl-girl. Girl on the end got sick and died, and I imagined it had something to do with that fact that she was, not only because she was eating shit all day long, but shit that had already been raped twice. Consider this: the guy eats food, digests food, and then passes it to middle-girl. Middle-girl eats shit, and manages to squeeze more nutrients out of it, but not as much as front-boy. By the time the twice-over digested food gets to end-girl, there can't be anything left in it, except for hepatitis, which is something that can happen if you consume feces. You can also get things like.. tapeworms in your brain. it would have been more 'centipede-like' if he had just taken front-boy and somehow stretched him, and his digestive tract, and then added some legs. The director, Tom Six, went to a surgeon in Holland and asked how, if this type of procedure were to be done, to go about it. The procedures depicted in this movie are completely medically accurate. However, I believe the chance for survival of the centipede is falling fast.

I'm interested in seeing what the second sequence has to offer... Except perhaps middle-girl's scarred and deranged revenge. Here's hoping.

//the spooktacular spookie-ookie//