Horror Classics: I Drink and Live-Blog "Phantasm"

A horror expert I know recommended 1979's Phantasm to me at some point, and so here goes.  BTWS, it's my birthday today. I mostly celebrated over the course of the last couple nights/week, but somebody left a bottle of champagne here and I'm trying to occupy myself until Isaac gets home from work so I can watch the second showing of the new Breaking Bad with him.* MOVIE TIME.

A couple is banging in the graveyard, lady on top, doing all the work. Boobs and also then she stabs him. And maybe some other guy was watching. Daytime: mansion. Baldy McPonytail and his friend are both wearing pinstripes. Oh, maybe it's not a mansion, it's a mausoleum. Their friend killed himself, apparently. The second suit guy is walking around inside the marble death museum, and hears some weird scraping noises, but sees nothing. He stops to look at Jody and Ann Pearson's wall plaque/death slot.

Now some douchey kid on a motorcycle comes tearing through the cemetery, straight up driving on the grass, over graves and shit. He hears a noise and sees something out of his peripheral vision. We see a dark shape duck behind grave markers. Suit guy inside hears the same noise inside again. What is that? Scraping, almost the sound of some rubbery friction or something? The old man who watched the murder smacks him on the shoulder and tells him the funeral's about to begin. He is tall and creepy. I'll call him the Undertaker. Oh, it's the funeral of the guy who got stabbed during cemetery sex, Tommy.

The motorcycle kid is apparently somebody's little brother who wasn't allowed to come to the funeral because he had nightmares after his parents'. The kid watches the pallbearers carry the coffin to the grave through some binoculars. Death spy! I'm guess it was second suit guy's parents' grave he was visiting earlier. The motorcycle kid sees the Undertaker pick up a coffin by himself and stick it in the back of a hearse and mouths "What the fuck?" to himself. Totes, kiddo. The kid is like 14 or 15, maybe.

I think now he's gone to see a psychic. A cute teenage girl lets the kid, Michael, into the house and he goes in to see her creepy grandmother. The grandma is in all black, in an old-timey wheelchair, wearing sunglasses even though it's dark and only candlelit in there. Grandma doesn't talk. Michael's worried Jody (his brother, I think) is going to leave town or something. Maybe this kid is actually 16, because I'm pretty sure he was just driving in this flashback. He fixes some fancy black muscle car in the driveway as Jody greets some preppy friend. Oh, he's 13, and Jody plans to send him to live with their aunt because Jody's a dick and likes to spend time on the road. Psychic Grandma says (through the girl) that Jody won't really leave without him. Michael tells the grandma about the Undertaker. And apparently the Undertaker stared at him while he was riding through the graveyard and made him crash. Serves him right, that's some shitty cemetery etiquette.

"Just some good ol' boys, never meaning no harm."

The psychics have Michael put his hand in some black box. He can't take it back out until he's not scared anymore. They claim the Undertaker stuff was all in his head. Grandma laughs after Michael leaves. WTF? Ponytail finds Jody jamming on the guitar and drinking Dos Equis on the porch and joins in. They're pretty good and seem like they're actually playing and singing. Ponytail uses a TUNING FORK for his acoustic guitar. Old-timey. Now the psychic blonde girl opens a door in the mausoleum and then there's a scream and then we see Jody pull up to a dive called Dune's Cantina in the muscle car. Lot's of quick cuts here, friends. Michael has creepily followed him to the bar and watched Jody chat up some woman at the bar, who he leaves with before he even drinks his beer. What a waste.

Michael follows them to the cemetery where they're going to fuck, I guess. She's in a purple dress, is she the same purple-dressed lady who killed Tommy? This seems to be her M.O. She claims the cemetery's not spooky, it's "exciting." Michael watches as they lay down on a grave to make out because Michael is sad and creepy. He gets pumped about her exposed boobs. "Wow," both brothers say, about the boobs. Michael hears that strange noise again as Jody and the blonde get down to business. Now it kind of sounds like something's being dragged.

Normal, small-town interactions.

A weird little figure in a black robe chases Michael, who runs screaming out of the woods, interrupting Jody's tryst, Jody has to take the lady's underwear out of his mouth and pull up his pants to chase Mike down. Jody thinks Michael was just being chased by a "gopher in heat." Jody gives Michael the car keys and tells him to go home, because that's the responsible thing to do. Michael's bleached-out jean jacket is pretty hot. Jody goes back to the grave, and the chick he was banging is gone. I do love the way his chest hair kind of pops from behind the lace-up front of his shirt. THE SEVENTIES! Michael has a leopard print pillow and a nightmare that his bed is in the graveyard and two zombies or something emerge from graves underneath him and attack him as the Undertaker looks on. Michael follows Jody back to Dune's the next day, but then just starts walking around town, sucking a Tootsie Roll Pop. He sees the Undertaker across the street, who then stops, turns, and stares at Michael and creepily sniffs the air around the ice cream truck? I don't even. The bartender at Dune's says that chick never came back to the bar last night.

Michael works on the muscle car, which is all jacked up in the garage. From under the car, he hears and sees something weird. Something is shaking the car. Get out, kid! The car shakes off the jack, but Mike is okay. Jody thinks it was some "retarded kid" from up the street who fucked with the car. Mike has a giant knife that he puts in a shin scabbard under his pants. Nice tube socks, too. He takes a rosary or something and sneaks out of the house. Like Jody gives a fuck. Back to old Morningside Cemetery. Michael kicks in a window of the mausoleum/funeral home(?) basement and climbs in. He finds a styrofoam head with a wig on it, then wanders into some kind of casket showroom with amazing orange carpet. He hides in a casket because some guy has shown up, looking around suspiciously. This guy is wearing coveralls. OBVS. Through a crack under the lid, Michael sees as the Undertaker shows up, and he and Coveralls silently leave the room.

This is a thing, I guess.

Because he is stupid, Michael follows them out into the mausoleum hallways. Okay, he hears some weird noises, then a weird metal ball flies over his head. Now Coveralls has grabbed him! Michael bites the fuck out of Coveralls' arm, gets away, and the shiny metal ball lands on Coveralls' face, holds on with weird arm things and then starts drilling into Coveralls' head and spraying red paint blood out the other end. I have no idea what is happening.

Michael has some sweet white '70s Adidas kicks. He pulls out the knife and finds himself face to face with Undertaker. "Um... oh shit," he says to the guy. Michael runs away. He slammed the Undertaker's hand in the door, which is still moving. He chops the fingers, and yellow paint sprays out! Instead of grabbing the knife again, Michael picks up one of the still-moving fingers. The little hooded guys (I'm going to call them Goth Ewoks from now on, BTW) chase him and get one of his shoes as he climbs back out the window he broke. Later on, he's asleep on the shag-carpeted Brady Bunch stairs with a shot gun in his lap.

Jody, with his shirt all unbuttoned, is like, "What are you doing?" and takes out the bullets. Jody is skeptical about Michael's story, but Michael shows him the moving finger in a box with a large puddle of mustard.

Jody doesn't believe the Undertaker picked up that coffin by himself, but he's going to go to the police. Michael goes to get the finger in the box, and out comes some creepy giant demon fly thing! Oh, it's in his hair! Gross! Michael's got it in his jacket and he and Jody go to put it down the garbage disposal. They should really run some water down that.

Oh hey, Ponytail just showed up! He wants Mike to go ice cream trucking with him, but the fly comes out of the sink and lands on Ponytail's head. They catch it and put it down the disposal again. Jody is now wearing a sweet leather jacket and giving Michael gun safety tips like, "Warning shots are bullshit." Jody's going to go up to the funeral home all by his lonesome. He tells Michael not to follow him, but he will. Apparently Ponytail had to go back to work, but it's also now suddenly nighttime, so who knows? Jody climbs in the broken window.

"So he went home and finally found the only thing Daddy had left him, and that was a gun."

Oh, and there's one of the Goth Ewoks. It jumps on his back and makes creepy growling noises. I think it's biting Jody? In a very dangerous gesture, Jody shoots it off of his back over his own head. With a handgun. Bullets have very little effect, but give him enough time to climb back out and run away. But a hearse follows him out of the cemetery. I mean, did you really think the Undertaker wouldn't hear the gunshots in the basement?

Jody shoots at the hearse to no avail. Suddenly Jody's muscle car shows up, but it appears no one's driving. Oh, it's just his brother, who is in junior high. The hearse chases them, but Jody says, "There's nobody driving that mother." NOBODY BUT GHOSTS OR ROBOTS OR WHATEVER, MAYBE ALIENS WITH THAT METAL BALL THING. Jody claims he's going to get "that bastard" and shoots at the hearse, even though nobody's driving it. He disables it and it crashes, while his underage brother continues to drive.

Oh, it was actually one of the Goth Ewoks driving. Jody calls it a dwarf, but I like Goth Ewok better. He moves the hood and sees that it's his dead friend Tommy's corpse, or at least his decaying head! Jody calls up Ponytail (Reggie) from a phone booth and tells him to bring his ice cream truck to get the Tommy Ewok. They put it in his ice cream freezer. Jody doesn't know why "they" would crush the bodies into the Goth Ewoks, and Michael thinks it might've happened to their dad. Also, there was a (sassy?) black landlady and a roaring fire in the fireplace. I love this carpet. Jody has Reggie take Mike to hang out with Sally at the antiques shop. Lots of white bell bottoms on ladies! Michael wanders around the shop, discovering various creepy animal tchotchkes from around the world. Also, a cabinet of black and white photos. One of them is an old-timey funeral picture, and it's our friend the Undertaker driving the horse-drawn hearse! He's been bleeding yellow blood for centuries! Apparently "Three Blind Mice" always plays in Reggie's truck, just quietly when he's off duty. I think the Tommy Ewok is going to break out and get him.

Jody has made the mistake of falling asleep. In his dream, he's in the mausoleum, the Undertaker is walking towards him, when some of the Goth Ewoks break out of the wall and grab him. Sally is driving Mike home at his own insistence when they come upon Reggie's truck, on its side. Because he is a man (sort of), Mike tells Sally and her friend to stay inside their Slug Bug. The lock's been broken on the freezer, Tommy Ewok has escaped. All that's left is a yellow puddle. One of the stupid girls opens the door to the Ewoks, and they climb in the car and attack them. The car starts driving away, but Michael's rolled out the rear window onto the street. OBVIOUSLY. He wakes up and runs home, where Jody hugs him. Jody's pants are so tight. Mike takes a swig of beer because he never does age-appropriate things. Mike screams as Jody carries him upstairs and jams a screwdriver into his door so he can't get out. Because when mysterious forces are coming for you, you should probably just imprison people. Mike stars doing something with a shotgun shell and a thumb tack? My ladybrain cannot comprehend what the MacGyver is happening. Oh, he's taped it to the hammer and shot a hole in his door?

Jody's off in the muscle car. I just want to take a moment to admire the wood paneling and half a stuffed cougar coming out of the wall next to the arsenal as Michael grabs himself a handgun. Oh, well the Undertaker has come to his door and throws him into the hearse. Another hearse besides the one they shot up earlier, duh. Somehow Mike shoots his way out of the hearse, jumps out the back window (again) and the hearse drives into a pole and immediately explodes for some reason. Conveniently they are back at the cemetery, where Jody is opening his parent's mausoleum slot or whatever to see if their bodies are still there, I guess. I'm glad it was a different jean jacket that got ruined by the fly and the garbage disposal earlier, not this sweet acid wash one. Everything has gone red, the metal ball is flying? Mike finds the coffin, but Jody is gone and his dad's coffin is empty. He screams and here comes the metal ball. But Jody shoots it with a shotgun!

The brothers go find some mysterious door and suddenly Reggie the Ponytail shows up, he's not dead. He found some girls and let them escape. Inside the room, we see a bunch of barrels, some of which kind of look like desktop computer towers. Also, it's very bright and white and there are two metal rods coming out of the floor. Apparently the barrels are where they make the Goth Ewoks. I think the rods are a doorway, because Mike's hand disappeared into it. But he remembers that thing with the box at the psychic's earlier and tries again, getting pulled inside. There's a red sky and a line of Ewoks on the ground. Jody pulls him back out, and Michael says the dwarves are slaves. They have to be crushed because of the gravity and heat on their planet, which is through that door. Sure.

Suddenly everything goes dark. Now they're fighting Gothwoks in the dark. Jody runs around outside looking for Mike, and Reggie's alone in the interplanetary doorway room. I love the sweet leather vest he's wearing over his ice cream man outfit. I think he's going to treat the doorway rods like a tuning fork now, but to what end, I could not tell you. He gets thrown back as the barrels are sucked through the doorway. Jody finds a blonde in purple outside. UH-OH. Reggie manages to crawl out of the room. Mike is outside somewhere where it's super-windy, yelling for Jody.

Reggie finds the purple lady, and she stabs him. Jody now yells for Mike and finds him. They go to look for Reggie, who's been gut-stabbed. The blonde alien lady and the Undertaker watch him as he dies, I guess. The Undertaker takes the knife out and Reggie dies. Jody won't let Mike go help him. They now drive away in the muscle car and the whole funeral home/mausoleum mansion turns a funny, fuzzy color and maybe disappears. Now Jody is rattling on about some sort of mining shaft. HEHEH, shaft. The brothers temporarily separate. This is a bad plan. While attempting to lock up the house, Mike finds the Undertaker at his window. The Undertaker jumps through and Mike runs away. He somehow lost him in his house, which is not actually very big. The Undertaker just busts a door open with his mind, growls "Boy" and Mike runs as the Undertaker walks after him, telling him he's going to die, I guess. Mike tells himself not to fear as hands grab at him from the dirt. He's got a knife again. He finds a sexy blonde in purple who also has a knife, but she doesn't fuck with him. Mike's managed to lead him to the mine shaft. The Undertaker falls down into the hole and from somewhere a giant boulder rolls down the hill and covers the entrance. Oh, I guess it was Jody from up the hill. I do not feel like this is very secure, but what do I know?

Remember this?

Oh, Mike knows it's not going to work. Apparently Jody has somehow died in a car wreck now and Reggie (who lived?) claims the Undertaker was uninvolved. A single tear falls down Mike's face and Reggie keeps saying he had a bad dream. They snuggle by the fire. Reggie asks Mike to go on the road with him. Is this Reggie an alien replacement? Reggie starts to play the guitar while Mike goes to pack and gets sad about a picture of Jody. Oh, the Undertaker's in his bedroom! Hands break through his mirror and pull him through and eat him, I guess? I don't even know. THE END.


*This live-blog is a week old, BTWs. 

Quote of the Day: Let's get naught-ay

My internet girlfriend Lindy West is at it again on why "naughty" should be banned from sexy contexts. One fine example:

Naughty Policewoman: "Bang bang! I shooted him because he was bwown!"

Horny Internal Affairs Investigator:"It was clearly an accident. You're free to go...DOWN ON ME!" #socialcommentary

Why Can't Children Be 'Naughty' Anymore? Because 'Sexy' Stole It." (Jezebel)

Energy Drink Review: Rockstar Energy Water TROPICAL CITRUS

This drink is inoffensive.

Yeah, I know I reviewed Rockstar Energy Water, but this time I've got a YELLOW FLAVOR. Also, I had to be at work at 7:45 this morning (instead of the normal 12:30 p.m.), so I've got some serious yawns going.

FLAVOR: Tropical citrus! It's not a particularly strong flavor, just kind of citrus-y. I will reserve my judgement on the drink's tropicality for now, but it basically just tastes like citrus water stuff.

EFFECTIVENESS: Twenty minutes and about a third of the way through the 20 ounces, I'm definitely feeling perkier. An adorable mayor from Ireland and his entourage came through my lobby and entertained me briefly, but this caffeine situation is way more effective. Oh no, it's been an hour and I'm flagging again. Better drink the last five or six ounces real fast!

OVERALL: This drink was perfectly adequate, especially for the a.m. hours what with its non-carbonation and subtle flavor, but I'm glad I brought Monster reinforcements for the afternoon.

Horror Classics: I drink and live-blog "Friday the 13th"

I tried to put 1980's Friday the 13th on the queue so I could watch it on Friday, September 13, but I failed and it was not here in time. But it's, like, less than a week later, so it still counts, right? Here's the thing.

Setting: Camp Crystal Lake 1958. Some counselors are singing in some lodge. Somebody is creeping on the kids sleeping in a cabin. A set of Aryan camp counselors break off for makin' out times. Those yellow polos with high-waisted shorts, white belts, and high-top Converses are a pretty good hipster look. They lay a blanket down somewhere and go at it. They get interrupted and stomach-stabbed. Inefficient murdering, but A-1 on the psychological distress, I suppose.

Now it's Friday, June 13 of "the present," says the screen. Some lady backpacker wanders through a town in the early morning. There is a dog at a gas station. She's looking for the camp. The dog apparently gives her directions. She goes into the local general store/restaurant to ask how far it is to Camp Crystal Lake. The locals are weird about it, say it's about twenty miles. Some old dude says he'll give her a ride halfway. A crazy guy on the street calls it "Camp Blood" and says it's got a death curse. The driver tells her she's good looking and kind of grabs her ass as he helps her into his truck. This girl's heading up to be a cook at the camp for "inner-city kids" AKA black.* The driver guy tries to tell her it's jinxed because of the 1958 murders, a drowning 1957, some fires, bad water in 1962, etc. He thinks she should quit. He thinks her boss can't fix it up well enough. OOH! He drops her off at a rural Moravian cemetery. I guess she'll walk the next ten miles? Who does not make appropriate arrangements to get to one's job?

KEVIN BACON!!! He's got a lady friend and another pal driving the truck who wants to bang somebody. Lots of banjo music. A shirtless guy chops wood. He's got a pretty sweet mustache and cutoff shorts. The 80s!! He calls the new arrivals over to help him take out a tree stump. Mustache Steve is apparently the boss. They're revamping the camp and shit. He tells some chick with super 80s hair that she draws well. She draws cabins and Steve's face, apparently. Steve's glasses are, like, octagonal. He's trying to convince her she should stay at least a week. They clearly banged already. Her name's Alice. She goes to talk to Bill, who is painting something and wearing white pants, no shirt, and red suspenders. OMG. Kevin Bacon is a teeny-tiny baby here. Steve leaves for town or something.

Foreshadowing!

Some dick shoots arrows right next to a brunette chick setting up an archery target thingy. A jeep picks up Alice. She doesn't like when people call children "kids." She is stupid. Mysterious jeep driver missed the turn to the camp. She gets upset and bails out of the moving car. Correct move, Alice. She's injured, so she is totally sucking at escaping into the woods. Don't know why she didn't just run back down the road. I mean, he's on foot. The faceless dude slices her neck.

Back at Camp Crystal Lake, Kevin Bacon is wearing a speedo and the other dudes are in sweet short denim cutoffs while they set up the docks by the lake. Someone is watching them from another shore. First counselors to fuck get killed first! Ned, the jokester from the archery range is apparently drowning. It's all that denim that weighed him down in the water. No, wait, he's pulling a Squints! Gross.

In her cabin, Alice is wearing only a pink robe and sees a snake in her cabin. She calls Bill to come kill it. The other counselors come in to "help." Bill chops the snake with a machete.

Ned jumps around in some racist headdress as a random cop shows up at camp. The short girl in pink needs a bra. The cop's looking for the town crazy guy, Ralph. The cop's got sweet aviators. Bill's balls are visible through his pants. THE 80S. Ralph is hiding in the pantry and scares Alice. He claims he's a messenger from god and that they're doomed and the camp is doomed blahblahblah. OFFICIAL WARNING. He bikes back to town. Sweet basket on that bike.

The gang makes burgers for dinner. There's a problem with electricity, but Steve showed Kevin Bacon how to use the generator, so it's all good. There is an otter in the lake. Pink shirt and Bacon make out by the lake. Ned, in his stupid football jersey, watches jealously. He's just the funny Jew, he never gets laid. He thinks he sees somebody in a cabin and goes to investigate. Bacon and his lady are worried about Neddy. Also, a storm's a-comin'! Pink shirt talks about some weird dream with blood-rain, which is not at all a bad omen or anything. They run away from the rainstorm. Regular rain, not blood-rain. They run into a cabin--I suspect the same one Neddy's hiding in and he'll be watching them bang. Bacon reveals that he's got a sweet tank top on. Yeah, make out on those camp bunks. Alice, who is clearly the mom of the group, worries about them ("Jack and Marcie" apparently). Bill plays the guitar. Brunette busts out some Strip Monopoly.

Jack and Marcie are sexing in the cabin on those sketchy sheets. NAKED BACON ASS GETTING SQUEEZED. Thunder and lightning. Ha! Ned is on the top bunk, with his throat slashed. YES! The Monopoly gang is opening some beers now. Back at the sex cabin, Marcie runs to pee. Good, don't get a UTI, Marcie! Those fuckers fucked and now they will die.

Alice "draws first blood" because Bill had to take off a boot for rent. Bacon/Jack lights up a joint. Right as he feels blood dripping from the upper bunk, a ridiculous knife comes up through the bed and his chest. OMG YES.

Maybe a Sleep Number bed would've helped.

Marcie makes it to the bathrooms successfully, but I suspect she won't make it back to the sex cabin. Ew, she's barefoot in there, as well as pantsless. She hears something outside the stall and thinks it's Jack. IT'S NOT JACK. Jack got stabbed from under the bed!

Marcie quotes some weird old movies to herself in the mirror or something. Her white underwear makes me uncomfortable. Now she thinks Ned is lurking and goes to investigate. Marcy goes into the shower area to look around. WHY?! Nobody's there. Shadow. Axe. Scream. Axe in eye. Thunderclap.

Alice is winning Strip Monopoly because she's still wearing a shirt. Brunette remembers her cabin windows are open, so puts a raincoat on over her matching underwear/bra set and runs back, leaving Alice and Bill alone. In town, Steve, drinks coffee at a greasy spoon. The waitress has amazing red bubble hair and giant glasses. He puts on some giant yellow slicker to drive back to camp. Brunette, whose name I still haven't learned, hums to herself as she brushes her teeth for bed in the ladies' bathroom. A creep is creeping in the shower room area. Just run away, girl! She decides not to investigate because she's not an idiot. Uh-oh, Steve's jeep has broken down on the way back to camp. A local cop comes upon him and gives him a ride back to camp.

This place is majestic.

Brunette has clearly successfully shut her cabin windows and is, like, writing in her diary now or something. She lights a candle and reveals a virginal white nightgown in the "Seneca" cabin. The edges of her paperback's pages are yellow. Nice. We hear what sounds like a kid saying, "help me." After the second time, Brunette gets up to check it out. Put your jacket on? She follows a voice crying for help into the rain and the dark while holding the biggest flashlight I've ever seen. Lights suddenly turn on and she's standing on the archery range. I wonder who's going to to actually get arrowed this time! There's a scream and now we're back at the cabin with Alice.

Alice cannot play the guitar. I think she's waiting for Steve to come back so she can draw/bang him again. Bill says he'll go check out the scream/the lights at the archery range. Apparently Brunette was named Brenda. She's not in her cabin, but Alice and Bill find the bloody axe in her bed. They can't find anyone else. The phone lines have all been cut and their one car won't start. Bill claims they'll be laughing about this all tomorrow. Apparently it's a full moon tonight! The cop thinks that's a thing. The cop gets a call about an accident and has to drop Steve off before he quite gets to camp, but the rain has finally let up. He comes upon somebody with a flashlight. He seems to recognize the person, asking, "What are you doing out in this mess?" Is it Ralph? Now somebody's turned off the generator. This would be a good time to make a move on Alice, Bill. No lights! Instead, he leaves her dozing on the couch and goes to check out the generator situation. I'd just crash, I think. PERSONALLY.

Alice gets up to make some tea or coffee, I think. She shouldn't have let him go/go alone. Okay, instant coffee. She does a shit job screwing the cap back on the coffee mix bottle thing. BTWs, apparently Jamie Lee Curtis herself is making a Final Girls TV show. Color me intrigued! Did I space out and miss Bill's death? Well, Alice has gone to investigate and finds his abandoned poncho. Ha! He's been arrowed into the back of the generator cabin's door. Nice. I'm into it. Alice runs back to the first cabin. What will she do? Can she barricade herself in? I'm assuming the killer is already in there with her. She tries tying the door shut. Not a bad idea. Yes, pull those curtains shut. SRSLY. Move some shit in front of that door. She should probably check every nook and cranny of the building she's in now before she gets too comfortable.

Okay, Alice takes up a baseball bat and goes to investigate the other room (FINALLY). Nobody in the kitchen. She finds a stabby fork thing, but thinks she hears something. Her hair is so silly. OMG, Brenda's body has been thrown through a kitchen window. Don't drop your weapons. Alice! She cries and crawls away. She sees headlights on the road. It's Steve's jeep! But it's not Steve, because that bitch is dead. It's a lady in the jeep, her name is Mrs. Voorhees. Something something family friend.

Mrs. Voorhees is not afraid of being alone, but Alice is. "What monster could have done this?" Mrs. V. asks. She blames this place. Also she says that she was the cook when that kid, Jason, drowned, because the counselors were "making love" instead of watching him. Mrs. Voorhees IS Jason, I guess. She doesn't want the camp to open again. She blames Alice for Jason's death and attacks her with a knife. Alice makes good use of a fireplace poker and runs outside. Yes, drive away in that jeep. Oops, dead cook girl from earlier is in there. Alice runs into Steve's body now. Screaming, running, etc. She should have gotten in the jeep anyway and driven far away. In a terrifying little kid voice, Mrs. Voorhees tells herself to kill Alice. She converses back to "Jason" OMG creepy. To be honest, though, I really don't care if Alice dies. Alice finds a gun, but no bullets. "Kill her Mommy, kill her." Mrs. V slaps Alice, which I don't actually think is a very effective murder method. Alice fights her off and runs away again.

Ahhh, memories...

Alice makes it back to the main cabin thing again. She should've hidden somewhere obscure, I think. Mrs. V/Jason continues to advocate for killing Alice. OBVS. Alice has hidden in the pantry or something as Mrs. V crashes around outside. STAY. DON'T MOVE. But also don't relax, because the doorknob by your head is starting to turn! Mrs. V chops her way in. She's got a great cableknit murder sweater on. Alice hits her in the head with a cast iron frying pan. Mrs. V has passed out, but since there are roughly 029387489 of these movies, I'm guessing she's not actually dead. Now Alice is sitting next to a canoe by the lake, contemplating her own reflection. NEVER TURN YOUR BACK. Mrs. V chops an oar with a machete. Should've double-tapped that shit. Beach struggle. OH SWEET, Alice chops Mrs. Voorhees' head off with the machete! Must've been super-sharp to go off in just one swift movement.

And Alice goes out on the lake in the canoe. Into the night. Not a bad idea, though, nobody can sneak up on you there (unless they have a lake submarine). The cops show up at daylight because that is how fast local law enforcement works. We think she's going to be saved, but some kind of lake mutant thing jumps out of the water and pulls her overboard. Oh wait, that was maybe a nightmare? She's in a hospital. Apparently two men pulled her out of the lake, and the cop claims there was no boy in the water. I'm glad she's still got mascara on. PEACEFUL LAKE MUSIC. The end.

W.T.F.?

P.S. This movie contains no hockey masks.

*Sorry, this was misleading; there are no actual people of color in this movie.

Horror Classics: Halloween Live-Blog

The 1978 classic Halloween was referenced so much in Scream, I was like, "Maybe I should actually finally watch that shit." Here it is. I'm not drinking tonight,* so sorry if this is too detailed/still makes sense by the end. Oh, EXCUSE ME, it's JOHN CARPENTER'S Halloween. Introducing Jamie Lee Curtis, before yogurt changed her life.

I like these low-qual credits where we just keep zooming into the the jack-o-lantern's eye. This takes place in Haddonfield, Illinois, Halloween night 1963. Some teenagers are making out in a living room, on the couch. They're going to move it upstairs, where presumably they are now banging. The camera takes the view of a peeping tom/home intruder. There's a silky clown-looking sleeve as we grab a butcher knife from the drawer. The slutty boy puts his shirt back on and leaves the house. The slutty girl has clearly been left home alone by her negligent parents.The clown puts a mask on his face off the floor. Slut girl sits, topless, brushing her hair in the mirror. She turns and says, "Michael!" and sexily gets stabbed. We see her boobs some more through the mask. The parents come home and find Michael with the bloody knife. He's a little boy! Clowns are creepy.

Now we're in Smith's Grove, Illinois. It's the day before Halloween, fifteen years later. A smoking nurse lady and a guy who looks like a psychiatrist drive up to the state hospital to pick up an inmate to take him to court. Apparently they'll drug him to go in front of the judge, but the doctor doesn't think he should ever get out. They see patients out wandering around in the rain. Not a good sign. The doctor gets out to check something at the gate and a patient climbs on top of the car and grabs the nurse through the window she just opened for some reason. The patient on the roof of the car breaks the passenger side window with his palm somehow. The nurse escapes from the car and our friend Michael drives away with their car.

Spoiler alert: Mike Myers goes on a murder spree because they've let his family home fall to pieces. DO YOU NOT SEE THOSE GUTTERS? Disgraceful!

Back in Haddonfield. Happy Halloween day, errybody! Jamie Lee Curtis is walking to school or something and her dad reminds her somebody's coming to look at a house later. Why doesn't she get a bigger bag? She's really carrying a lot of books. She runs into a little kid, who seems pretty pumped she'll be baby-sitting him later. Jamie has to drop off a key at the Myers' house for a viewing. The kid talks about how nobody is supposed to go near it. A mouthbreather comes out of the house and watches Jamie walk away. The psychiatrist yells at another man in a suit with a sweet mustache. Jamie is spacing out in English class now. So much feathered hair. Out the window, she sees a station wagon and a guy in a mask staring across the street at her. She manages to answer the teacher's questions. Something something "fate never changes."

What is with the pumpkin? Why is it so big? Why is he the only one who has one? SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS, JOHN CARPENTER.

The little kid from earlier is carrying a huge fucking pumpkin and some older boys are taunting him, claiming the boogeyman's going to get him. The kids falls and breaks his pumpkin. Michael, in his coveralls, asthmatically watches the sad kid. We never see Michael's face. Michael's still driving the state vehicle. They're going to track you down, there's an APB, bro. Mustache thought Michael couldn't drive. Mustache was wrong. STOP FOLLOWING THE KID, IT IS CREEPY.

Dr. Psychiatrist warns somebody over a payphone that Michael will definitely come back to Haddonfield. He goes over to some old truck and throws somebody's laundry on the ground? Also, there's a matchbook from some Red Rabbit Lounge. Oh, and a dead guy behind a bush.

Jamie's friend has the tallest platforms ever and cheerleading and the dance are taking up so much of her time! Now a brunette in a sweater vest joins them and they share an illicit cigarette. Jamie forgot her chemistry book! The station wagon drives by the girls slowly. Brunette yells at him. Michael slams on the brakes, but ultimately drives away. Linda, the cheerleader, is going to show up at Brunette's baby-sitting job tonight to use the house for hanky-panky. She did not use the words "hanky-panky," but I did. I'm a little bit ashamed.

Jamie sees a guy in a mask loitering by a hedge. Brunette goes to confront him, but he's gone. Brunette taunts her for not ever going on dates. Brunette is a dick. Jamie's "too smart" for boys, apparently. Jamie/Laurie runs into the sheriff. Literally. By her house, Laurie hears giggling. There are kids out trick-or-treating already. Out the window, she sees Mike standing outside by the clothesline. He disappears quickly, but then she gets a phone call with no one on the other line. Apparently it was Annie (Brunette). She's going to pick up Laurie at 6:30. That double bed looks way to small for Jamie Lee Curtis. She is a tall lady.

Somehow it is still light outside, even though it is late October. Annie picks up Laurie, who his carting around a large pumpkin. Annie's mom's car is pretty sweet. Dr. Psychiatrist and a dude in a Texas Tuxedo walk through the cemetery, looking for Judith Myers' grave. Her headstone's been stolen. The caretaker thinks it's a Halloween prank, but Dr. Psychiatrist knows better. Annie and Laurie drive around, getting high. The station wagon starts tailing them. They hide the weed when they see Annie's dad, the sheriff, outside a store. A mask, some rope, and some knives have been stolen. Dr. Psychiatrist shows up to talk to the sheriff. He doesn't see the stolen station wagon drive away. Annie gives shit to Laurie for not asking anybody to the dance. She likes some guy named Ben. I can't believe they're going to show up to babysit high. I don't think I'd be able to keep it together in front of the parents. The station wagon follows them again and suddenly it's pitch dark out. Annie drops off Laurie and pulls into another driveway on that street for her job.\

Michael gets out of his car and watches Annie go inside the Wallaces' place. Creep. Whoa, they were really ready to leave. The sheriff and Dr. Psychiatrist go over to the old abandoned Myers' place because obviously. They find a dead dog, still warm. A window breaks upstairs somehow while they poke around the empty house. Dr. Psychiatrist says that Mike, basically, is evil. Dr. Psychiatrist is going to wait for him at the house where he totally won't be murdered. He doesn't want the media to know about Mike. The babysitting kid asks Laurie what the boogeyman is. Laurie answers the phone, even though it's someone else's house. I suppose it is for her, it's Annie. The dog starts barking at the Wallaces'. Annie told Ben that Laurie likes him because high school. The kid sees Mike across the street at the Wallaces', where Annie spills something on herself and immediately takes off her clothes. Now she's wearing just a men's dress shirt and her underwear. Mike Myers watches from the porch. The family dog comes around and barks at Mike. Mike kills him. The Thing from Another World is on TV.** Laurie and Tommy are watching intently. Laurie tells him the boogeyman's not real. FALSE.

Slutty McSlutface shouldn't have gone to go pick up her boyfriend for slut times.

Annie wanders over to some outbuilding or something to wash her clothes, which is apparently immediately necessary. The door keeps opening and closing on its own. Now she's locked in somehow. Her babysitting charge is entranced by the TV and doesn't hear her crying out from the backyard. Paul calls for Annie (her boyfriend?), who has tried to climb out a window. Little Lindsey hangs up on Paul and comes out to find Annie stuck in the window with her ass in the air. They go back inside but leave the back door open. Annie wants Paul to come over. Lindsey's scared of the movies on TV. She doesn't want to go with Annie to pick up Paul, so Annie brings Lindsey over to hang out with Laurie and Tommy. Laurie's scooping out pumpkin guts in the kitchen. Annie says she'll watch Lindsey if Annie promises to tell Ben she was kidding about Laurie liking him. Laurie's the group's girl scout. Annie's car was locked, but when she came back with the keys, it was unlocked and all fogged up. Mike's in the backseat, obvs. He strangles her from behind and she honks the horn as she struggles. I love her yellow knee socks/men's dress shirt look. He slashes her throat, I guess and her body lands on the horn.

The kids are watching some shitty looking flying saucer movie. Tommy sneaks and hides behind a curtain to scare Lindsey, but then he looks outside and sees Mike carrying Annie's body from the backyard through the front door. Don't these people have a back door? He yells about the boogeyman again, but Laurie calms him down. Dr. Psychiatrist hovers behind a bush at the Myers' place like a creep and scares some kids off. He's so proud of himself. The sheriff thinks the doctor is full of shit. Too much "fancy talk" from that one. Linda and her feathered hair boyfriend show up at the Wallaces' place in a van, drinking beer and planning where they're going to hook up in the house. They leave the van door open and Linda's dude carries her into the house. The house is unlocked but all dark inside. They seem unconcerned, however, and start making out on the couch. Mike does NOT like it when you make out. Laurie and the kids have finished the jack-o-lantern. Why are all the fucking blinds open in this house? The phone rings and it's Linda, wondering where Annie and Lindsey are. Linda's pumped she and whatshisname can go bang upstairs in peace with them gone. Where the hell are all these cans of Budweiser on the floor coming from? Linda is making WAY too much noise. The phone ringing bugs them, so they take it off the hook and get back to business. Mike's silhouette on the wall behind them. Feathered hair finishes quick, we get to see some Linda nipple and they light up a cigarette. He goes to get another beer. From the Wallaces' fridge, I guess? A door in the kitchen mysteriously opens. He hasn't turned on any lights for some reason. Mike comes out of the pantry and strangles him, lifting him off the ground with one hand. Apparently he did a lot of push-ups in crazy prison. He stabs the guy to the cabinet. It only takes one jab, I guess!

That's some Teenage Casper shit.

Back upstairs, Linda files her nails. The door opens, and it's somebody in a ghost costume/sheet with Bob's glasses over the top. Linda shows her boobs and wants her beer. He stands silently, breathing. Linda gets up and calls Laurie. Mike strangles her with the phone cord, but it kinda sounds like she's getting off on the other end of the line. Laurie tries to call back, but no one answers. She's so skinny. The kids are safely sleeping upstairs. Meanwhile, Dr. Psychiatrist spots the state vehicle parked down the street. Laurie is a bit worried about what's going on at the Wallaces', so she goes over there, where all the lights are out again. Her bell bottoms are majestically high-waisted. Nobody answers the door. She finds the kitchen door ajar. Apparently Bob's not stabbed against the cabinet anymore. Laurie doesn't turn on any lights, because people in horror movies don't believe in light switches. She hears something upstairs and thinks her friends are pranking her. Now she goes upstairs. In the dark. Like you do. At somebody else's house. I do wonder where he's stashed all the bodies.

There's a light on in a bedroom. Annie's body is laid  out, all Christ-style on the bed, with the Judith Myers headstone set up against the headboard. Bob's body swings down from somewhere and she finds Linda's torso in a closet. Now she's crying. Mike lurks nearby. He slashes her sleeve with the knife and she falls over the railing to the first floor. Why can't she open the front door?

"Well, he's on the ground, looks like I won't be needing this anymore!"

Laurie goes to hide in the kitchen. The door's been jammed by a rake outside. Why doesn't she break the windows? She finally does, but not before Mike punches his way inside. Laurie runs over to the neighbor's house, screaming. The neighbors are NOT INTERESTED in helping her. She runs back to the babysitting house, but has somehow lost the keys out of those tall pockets. She wakes up Tommy to let her in as Mike slowly approaches from across the street. Real evil doesn't need to run. The phone line is dead. There's an open door. Why are there so many fucking window-doors in this neighborhood? Mike stabs at her over the couch and she gets him in the neck with a knitting needle. I'm not sure he really wants to get her. Laurie's got the knife now. GET HIM. Stupidly, she drops the knife. Dr. Psychiatrist wanders around the town, not even using the sidewalk. The sheriff finds him. He is doing a shit job catching this guy. Laurie, whose leg is hurt, hobbles upstairs to get the kids. She tells them there's nothing to be scared of. Mike comes up the stairs right then. She hides the kids and then hides herself in a closet. NOT SMART. Isaac: "That's very Trapped in the Closet-esque." TRUE TRUE.

Laurie snivels in the closet. He could break those flimsy doors if he wanted to. And he does. She grabs a wire hanger and pokes at his face. He drops the knife again, because he is bad at this. Laurie stabs his face and he passes out? I think he's still not dead, girl. Double-tap. ALWAYS. She drops the knife again because she's so, so stupid. Run, run away! Laurie sends the kids to the neighbors' to call the police as she sits on the floor and waits for Mike to attack her again. Dr. Psychiatrist happens to be walking by as the kids run outside screaming. Mike walks up behind Laurie because she's stupid enough to turn her back to him and starts choking her. Dr. Psychiatrist walks in. Mike has to stop choking because his mask came off for a second. The doctor shoots him a bunch of times, off the balcony. Bullets have no effect, take a drink.*** It was the boogeyman. AND HE'S GONE. Laurie cries. Mike breathes heavily from somewhere in the neighborhood.

That was really pretty good. I mean, Mike's aggression is senseless, but I, like, cared about Laurie. I probably should have watched this before Scream, but I did catch The Shining references on both Bob's Burgers and Spaced recently, so this project is helping me expand my zeitgeisty knowledge.


*New project: get drunk fewer than 5-6 nights a week. I turn 30 in a couple of weeks, and that shit just ain't cute anymore.
**Oh hey, adding John Carpenter's The Thing to queue.
***XFDG. When we're out and about, Isaac and I always say, "Ford Taurus, take a drink" when we see one, but we do not actually take a drink, because we are usually driving/surprisingly I don't actually carry a flask at all times.