Just a reminder to horror fans interested in the beginnings of the genre. Tomorrow at 12:30 pm, TCM is showing Thirteen Women, a pre-code film from 1932 that many people have called the first proto-slasher.

The story centers around the great Myrna Loy as she murders a bunch of female boarding school roomies. It’s not a straight horror film, of course, but it is a film that has been seen as being the “first” of many themes and conventions that would become standard in slasher films 40 years down the road. The film also has a legendary, mythic quality to it for being Peg Entwistle’s only on-screen role. She would become infamous for committing suicide off the Hollywoodland sign shortly before the film’s premiere. And it upset the high brows of the times:

The New York Times reviewer wrote “Some of RKO-Radio’s most comely actresses are permitting themselves to be lured into highly improbable situations with guns, knives and a mystic letter signed by Swami Yogadachi. It is horror without laughter, horror that is too awful to be modish and too stark to save itself from a headlong plunge into hokum.” Variety mirrored the same sentiment with its verdict: “Between covers it was fast light reading, thanks to the writing, but on celluloid it deteriorates into an unreasonably far-fetched wholesale butcher shop drama which no amount of good acting could save.”

Now you gotta see it, right? It’s a film that has rarely been screened, seen, and isn’t on DVD, so I’m pretty excited to check it out tomorrow afternoon. Be sure to check your local listings and don’t miss it!

As I was thinking about topics that podcasts generally haven’t touched on (that I’m aware of, anyway), one pretty big one came to mind: horror films directed by masters of film. I’m talking stuff made by dudes who are considered giants of the entire industry, not just a genre director. For example, Stanley Kubrick and The Shining. He’s not known as a “horror director” per se, yet it’s an example of a giant of film dabbling into our beloved genre. It’s always interesting when this happens; when a big director tries stepping into the black waters of horror. Some do it amazingly well, others fall flat on their face and head back to their traditional drama comfort zones. In any event, I thought it would be great to devote an entire month to spotlighting this rare phenomenon. Here’s a list of some names and films I’m batting around. Nothing is finalized yet, but expect to see/hear discussion on these filmmakers next month:

The Avenging Conscience (1914) d. D.W. Griffith: Griffith codified the conventions of narrative cinema. His most famous film, The Birth of a Nation (1915), actually inspired the reformation of the Ku Klux Klan. The guy is a giant of cinema, but a year before Nation, he made a film based on Edgar Allen Poe tales.

Dracula (1992) d. Francis Ford Coppola: Everyone knows of the Godfather films and Apocalypse Now (arguably a horror film itself), and if I wanted to be super geeky I’d be all like “Dementia 13, losers”, but I wanted to select films of director’s at the top of their game. This is obviously the most “mainstream” of all the films we’ll be talking about, but I think that’s alright. It’s good to have a modern spectacle thrown into the art house lot. Plus, Deejay is going to love Winona Ryder’s see through nightgown.

Nosferatu, the Vampyre (1979) d. Werner Herzog: Klaus Kinski stars as Dracula in Herzog’s ode to Stoker and Murnau.Herzog is an unbelievable director and theorist who has an actual passion for the horror genre even though he rarely dabbles in the genre. His take on Dracula (the Nosferatu title and Kinski’s look is inspired by Murnau’s film, even though the names and events are from Stoker’s novel) is dreamy and surreal.

Phobia (1980) d. John Huston: Huston was a giant of the Classical Hollywood Style. This is the guy who made The Maltese Falcon remake, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen, amongst others. In 1980 he made his first and only foray in the horror genre with a film about a doctor trying to cure his patients of their worst fears only to find the patients dying one by one.

Spirits of the Dead (1969) d. Federico Fellini (and others): A Poe anthology featuring a segment by one of the most revered and influential filmmakers of all time, Fellini. Fellini’s short is about an alcoholic actor who is seeing visions of a strange woman who may or may not be leading him to his death. Vadim and Malle also contribute.  A very interesting French/Italian horror anthology

Other films of interest that we might talk about: Jean Renoir’s Experiment in Evil, Mervyn LeRoy’s The Bad Seed, Multiple Maniacs, John Waters’ ode to H.G. Lewis’ Two Thousand Maniacs in typical over the top disgusting Waters fashion.

The goal here is to talk about horror movies you don’t get on other podcasts. We’re going to class it up a bit next month. If there is a film of particular interest you think fits our programming next month, leave us a message.

I’m about to head off to work, but I hope to write up a lengthier post on this topic, perhaps tonight. I’ll leave the question to you guys for now:

Is Platinum Dunes actually popular or do they just make a buck off of the name?

I’m about to sit down and watch Survival of the Dead. Land and Diary were pretty awful so I’m hoping this one is a return to form. I’ve heard both good and bad things. Any of you seen it? Maybe I’ll talk about it on Monday’s Splattercast if we haven’t killed each other over the ANOES remake.

Here goes nothin’!

I’ve been hearing a lot about the new Elm Street. The overwhelming vibe at TFW was scorn. I’m talking “Grab your pitchforks and torches” scorn and descend upon the creators houses. While in line to see John Carpenter (yeah, we met him. Be jealous.) a couple dudes in front of us used the wait time to launch into a scathing critique. Claims of a CG Freddy, excruciating acting, and laughable CG fx were pretty common throughout the con. Tim Sullivan, director of 2001 Maniacs and the upcoming 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams, made pretty cruel jokes about it during his Q&A. Currently, the film is sitting pretty with a 16% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I’ve been gone for much of the past week so I don’t know the vibe of the podcasting community but from the few facebook status updates I’ve seen….it isn’t loved, let’s just say that.

Then we have Jeff and Steve. Steve’s been slurping this film like he just found out Julian Sands piss tastes like Dr. Pepper. Jeff…well Jeff likes everything, so I’m not sure what that means. And to be fair, they aren’t alone out there. Though ANOES has a 16% RT rating, it goes up considerably when you view the community rating: a slightly under fresh 58%.

So who is right? Is the new Elm Street a piece of junk or is it the new Wolfman, a really good film with some flaws but that doesn’t deserve the hatorade?

Everyone assumes I’ll hate it. We’ll see what happens come 1pm today…

Aliens almost certainly exist but humans should avoid making contact, Professor Stephen Hawking has warned.

In a series for the Discovery Channel the renowned astrophysicist said it was “perfectly rational” to assume intelligent life exists elsewhere.

But he warned that aliens might simply raid Earth for resources, then move on.

“If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans,” he said.

Read more at the BBC web site

This is a huge night to be a Democrat. Whether you agree with the HCR bill or not, this is a huge historical moment. Health Care is the central issue for Democrats as a party. Despite all the claims that this couldn’t be done, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid actually did it. This is why so many people voted in ’08 and become involved in the process. This is why Democrats ultimately rejected Hillary Clinton and went with Obama. We believed him when he said he’d deliver. It’s such a weird feeling, to be a Democrat, and actually see the party pass a major piece of legislation instead of letting Republicans walk all over them.

Is this bill perfect? Do I agree with everything in it? No. It’ll be tweaked and changed in the coming years. Liberals didn’t get the public option that they wanted. Stuff like that will continue to be worked on in the future, but for Democrats, we accomplished something. And that’s really exciting and energizing and I think that will change the game a bit from all the doom and gloom predictions for November. Nobody will honestly know whether or not this bill worked until ten years down the road. Maybe it’ll fail and need to be reworked in future congresses. No matter how loud the Rush’s and Beck’s of the world shout that it will cause Armageddon for the country, they don’t really know. We’ll have to wait and see. It’ll either fail or succeed. But what if it does succeed? From this point forward, Democrats, for better or worse, are the party of health care. They own the success and failure. Not a single Republican would support a bill that had over 200 Republican amendments. And let’s be honest, there is nothing Democrats could have done to get their support. We have a different philosophy than Republicans. I understand that. I respect that. A lot of conservatives have valid criticisms of the bill. Even liberals have criticisms of the bill. But I think even conservatives can relate to the feeling of success that comes with your representatives accomplishing something big. Maybe the Bush tax cuts were that for conservatives. Health Care is that for liberals. If this bill succeeds in accomplishing even half of what is claimed and expected, the Republican party will have defined themselves in a way that will benefit the Democratic party for decades to come.

But I don’t know what will happen. Right now though, I’m just going to bask in the good feelings that come with accomplishment. Somewhere, Ted Kennedy is smiling.

Obama said he’d bring change. Whether you like him or not, he delivered. We won.

Check this out

On one hand, anybody that keeps their phone on in a theater should be shot. And that would mean everyone would be shot.

On the other hand, this might be a pretty cool experience (if you were the one that gets the call).

We all love Netflix Instant, right? Every day the library of films that you can stream through your PC or Xbox is getting bigger and bigger.

What is universally accepted is the shittiness of the Netflix search engine. If you go to their website and search under their instant “horror” section, you’ll find a bunch of garbage…and nothing else. Stuff like A Nightmare on Elm Street isn’t even listed. You have to get lucky and have it pop up under a “recommendations” page. Sometimes, that’s just difficult to navigate.

I’ve decided to try my best to rectify that. Following the jump is a long list of horror films that are currently (as of this writing) available on Netflix Instant. The films range from classics to interesting oddities to genre stuff made by notables etc. Obviously, this is not a complete list. Netflix has thousands of movies and I probably missed some noteworthy genre stuff, but if you know of one that isn’t on the list, that’s what the comments section is for!

A couple things to note: A shitload of Alfred Hitchcock movies are available on Netflix Instant. Not all are horror, obviously, but he was integral in incorporating suspense into the genre and so his non-horror films are required viewing. Also, stuff like Masters of Horror episodes are all available. I recommend looking up stuff in the television section because they have a lot of genre stuff (The Munsters, for example). And keep an eye on the old Universal’s. They’ve been slowly popping up…

And lastly, the 3rd Annual Splatcademy Awards is full of great films that you should watch. Here’s the list of nominees that are currently available on Netflix Instant:

100 Feet (2008) d. Eric Red
Antichrist (2009) d. Lars von Trier
Cold Prey (2006) d. Roar Uthaug
Dead Snow (2009) d. Tommy Wirkola
Deadgirl (2008) d. Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel
Donkey Punch (2008) d. Oliver Blackburn
Harper’s Island: The Complete Series (2009) d. Various
Laid to Rest (2009) d. Robert Hall
Surveillance (2008) d. Jennifer Lynch

100 Years of Horror (2006) d. Ted Newsom
Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) d. Charles Lamont
The Alphabet Killer (2008) d. Rob Schmidt
An American Werewolf in Paris (1997) d. Anthony Waller
Arang (2006) d. Sang-Ho0n Ahn
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) d. John Carpenter
The Astro Zombies (1968) d. Ted V. Mikels
Audition (1999) d. Takashi Miike
Batman vs. Dracula (2005) d. Various
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) d. Scott Glosserman
Beware! Children at Play (1989) d. Mik Cribben
Beware! The Blob (1972) d. Larry Hagman
Big Bad Wolf (2006) d. Lance W. Dreesen
The Birds (1963) d. Alfred Hitchcock
Black Christmas (1974) d. Bob Clark
The Blood Beast Terror (1968) d. Vernon Sewell
Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002) d. Herschell Gordon Lewis
Blood for Dracula (1974) d. Paul Morrissey
Body Double (1984) d. Brian de Palma
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) d. Francis Ford Coppola
Bride of the Monster (1955) d. Edward D. Wood, Jr.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) d. Robert Wiene
Candyman (1992) d. Bernard Rose
Cannibal! The Musical (1996) d. Trey Parker
The Card Player (2004) d. Dario Argento
Cat People (1982) d. Paul Schrader
Chamber of Fear (1968) d. Jack Hill and Juan Ibanez
Child’s Play 2 (1990) d. John Lafia
Child’s Play 3 (1991) d. Jack Bender
Christine (1983) d. John Carpenter
The Cook (2008) d. Gregg Simon
Creepshow (1982) d. George A. Romero
Darkness Falls (2003) d. Jonathan Liebsman
The Dead Zone (1983) d. David Cronenberg
Dead and Breakfast (2004) d. Matthew Leutwyler
Dexter: Season 1 (2006) d. Various
Dexter: Season 2 (2007) d. Various
Diabolique (1955) d. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005) d. Dario Argento
Dracula (1931) d. Tod Browning
Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002) d. Guy Maddin
Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) d. Alan Gibson
Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971) d. Al Adamson
Eight Legged Freaks (2002) d. Ellory Elkayem
The Entity (1981) d. Sidney J. Furie
Eraserhead (1976) d. David Lynch
The Evil Dead (1981) d. Sam Raimi
The Exorcist (1973) d. William Friedkin
Eyes Without a Face (1960) d. Georges Franju
The Faceless Monster (1965) d. Mario Caiano
Fido (2006) d. Andrew Currie
The Fly (1958) d. Kurt Neumann
Frankenstein (1931) d. James Whale
Frenzy (1972) d. Alfred Hitchcock
From Beyond (1986) d. Stuart Gordon
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) d. Robert Rodriguez
Frontiers (2007) d. Xavier Gens
The Ghost (2004) d. Tae-Kyeong Kim
Glen or Glenda (1953) d. Edward D. Wood, Jr.
Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (2006) d. Various
The Gore Gore Girls (1972) d. Herschell Gordon Lewis
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) d. Joe Dante
Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970) d. Mario Bava
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein (1971) d. Riff Markowitz
The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 (1985) d. Wes Craven
Homicidal (1961) d. William Castle
Horror Business (2005) d. Christopher Garetano
Horror of Dracula (1958) d. Terence Fisher
The Host (2006) d. Joon-Ho Bong
House of a 1000 Corpses (2003) d. Rob Zombie
Howling 3: The Marsupials (1987) d. Phillipe Mora
Howling 7: New Moon Rising (1995) d. Clive Turner
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) d. Wallace Worsley
I, Monster (1971) d. Stephen Weeks
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) d. Jim Gillespie
Ichi the Killer (2001) d. Takashi Miike
Innocent Blood (1992) d. John Landis
The Innocents (1961) d. Jack Clayton
Interview with the Vampire (1994) d. Neil Jordan
The Island Monster (1954) d. Roberto Bianchi Montero
It’s Alive (2008) d. Josef Rusnak
Jack-O (1995) d. Steve Latshaw
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001) d. Lee Demarbre
Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) d. Stephen Chiodo
Lady Vengeance (2005) d. Chan-Wook Park
Let the Right One In (2008) d. Tomas Alfredson
Lightning Bug (2004) d. Robert Hall
Little Shop of Horrors (1960) d. Roger Corman
The Lodger (1927) d. Alfred Hitchcock
The Lost Boys: The Tribe (2008) d. P.J. Pesce
M (1931) d. Fritz Lang
The Mangler (1995) d. Tobe Hooper
Marebito (2004) d. Takashi Shimizu
Metropolis (1927) d. Fritz Lang
Monster of London City (1964) d. Edwin Zbonek
The Mummy Returns (2001) d. Stephen Sommers
The Mummy’s Curse (1944) d. Leslie Goodwins
My Name is Bruce (2006) d. Bruce Campbell
My Son the Vampire (1952) d. John Gilling
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) d. Wes Craven
Night of the Living Dead (1968) d. George A. Romero
Nosferatu (1922) d. F.W. Murnau
Oldboy (2003) d. Chan-Wook Park
The Orphanage (2007) d. Juan Antonio Bayona
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) d. Guillermo del Toro
Peeping Tom (1960) d. Michael Powell
The People Under the Stairs (1991) d. Wes Craven
Phantasm (1979) d. Don Coscarelli
Phantom Ship (1935) d. Denison Clift
Phantom of the Opera (1925) d. Rupert Julian
Phantom of the Opera (1998) d. Dario Argento
Phone (2002) d. Byeong-ki Ahn
The Pit and the Pendulum (1991) d. Stuart Gordon
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) d. Edward D. Wood, Jr.
Psycho (1960) d. Alfred Hitchcock
Pulse (2001) d. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Puppetmaster (1989) d. David Schmoeller
Puppetmaster vs. Demonic Toys (2004) d. Ted Nicolau
Quarantine (2008) d. John Erick Dowdle
Return of the Living Dead Part 2 (1988) d. Ken Weiderhorn
Scanners (1980) d. David Cronenberg
Scream (1996) d. Wes Craven
Shadowzone: The Undead Express (1996) d. Stephen Williams
She-Devils on Wheels (1968) d. Herschell Gordon Lewis
The Signal (2007) d. Various
Sisters (1973) d. Brian de Palma
Sisters (2006) d. Douglas Buck
The Sixth Sense (1999) d. M. Night Shyamalan
Spider Baby (1968) d. Jack Hill
Starman (1984) d. John Carpenter
Straight-Jacket (1964) d. William Castle
Survival Quest (1989) d. Don Coscarelli
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) d. Chan-Wook Park
A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) d. Ji-woon Kim
Targets (1968) d. Peter Bogdanovich
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) d. Tobe Hooper
Them! (1954) d. Gordon Douglas
Them (2007) d. David Moreau and Xavier Palud
Three…Extremes (2004) d. Various
Tokyo Gore Police (2008) d. Yoshihiro Nishimura
The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967) d. Harald Reinl
Triangle (2009) d. Christopher Smith
Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness (1986) d. Tim Ritter
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009) d. Patrick Tatapolous
Vampyr (1932) d. Carl Theodor Dreyer
The Vanishing (1988) d. George Sluizer
Vanishing Point (1971) d. Richard C. Sarafian
Warlock (1989) d. Steve Miner
Werewolf of London (1935) d. Stuart Walker
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) d. Wes Craven
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) d. Robert Aldrich
White Zombie (1932) d. Victor Halperin
Zombiemania (2008) d. Donna Davies

Did I miss something noteworthy? Let me know in the comments section and I’ll add it to the list. Happy viewing!

Those pancakes look delicious, don’t they?

I never want to go to Sweden.