Halloween Blog#3-Girls are scary

One thing that I have picked up on in recent years especially when I worked at Blockbuster is that girls love slasher/horror movies. One would think that movies about a usually male psycho chopping up naked girls would appeal to weird, horny boys. Well, you thought wrong my friend! Many girls love it too. Not all girls fit my female slasher lover criteria but if you do this what you are....

• Aged 13-45
• Attractive
• Usually in a committed relationship
  

Almost every day when I worked at Blockbuster I would have girls come in and ask me for horror movie recommendations while their boyfriends and husbands groaned and walked towards the comedy,action and soft-core porn. I enjoyed helping these gore hound girls. It was fun and I always liked talking to people about different movies. I also would love when they would return the movie and tell me they loved it. I felt like I was doing a public service and helping people get their money's worth of entertainment.
The question is why are so many girls attracted to horror movies? I thought I was the only one who had noticed this until my boyfriend and I watched a documentary called Going To Pieces:The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film where some the point was brought up. According to the documentary (and me) girls enjoy these films because most of the time a female is the hero. Look back at movies like Rear Window where Grace Kelly is hell bent to solve the mystery of the missing neighbor all while looking fabulous and saving the day. (I have a theory that Grace Kelly was the prototype for the last surviving smart girls in horror movies).

In every horror movie now there is that last remaining girl who either gets away, kills the bad guy or is left to come back for the sequel such as Nancy aka Heather Langenkamp in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies who finally gets rid of Freddy even though I love him and want him to kill all those stupid teenagers.

Then you have the heroines who do some serious ass kicking such as in 1980s I Spit on Your Grave which was the first female revenge movies and has some of the most disgusting scenes ever put on celluloid. It's a good cautionary tale and allowed girls to seek justice on those who did them wrong. Note to girls:this is not a good date movie. Watch this one alone or with your friends. I was actually told by a guy I dated in high school to watch this one alone. YIKES!

While there are the girls who save the day there are also some great horror female villains even though they are very hard to come by. Girls cheer on the heroines but we also love a good nasty, female villain. Society frowns upon women being bad which is why we are so drawn to them such as The Bride of Frankenstein. Even though we only see her for about 5 minutes in the actual Bride of Frankenstein film she is the most popular Classic Universal monster. Why? Because she a monster with boobs. What's not to love?

Some other great female villains include that awful Japanese girl in Audition, Glenn Close as the infamous Alex Forrester in Fatal Attraction, Sherri Moon as Baby in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses, and Shawnee Smith as Amanda in the Saw movies.
Another reason why I think girls are drawn to these movies is that they teach us that bad girls and whores die first. If you are a girl who has sex in a horror movie you will die! I think there is a fascination with wanting to see girls that remind us of the ones we hated in high school get hacked up. Also consider the fact that us girls bleed for five days every month gives us a higher tolerance for blood. Sorry to be gross but it's true. If men had periods they would all kill themselves. Like I said, girls are scary!
Happy Halloween!

"Raintree County" a personal look at a almost Civil War classic

Raintree County (1957) is not a good movie. It was a huge bomb. For starters, it was trying to rival Gone with the Wind by attempting to be the greatest Civil War romance movie ever made (EPIC FAIL!).

At the time it also held the record for being the most expense movie ever made which MGM bragged about during it's production. The film stars Elizabeth Taylor as Susanna Drake, a overly dramatic Southern Belle from New Orleans who manipulates Northern poet John Shawnessey (Montgomery Clift) into marrying her and leaves behind is true love Nell (Eva Maria Saint). The rest of the film is North vs South and John trying to figure out Susanna's past (SPOILER ALERT: She is nuts!) The rest of the story is a love triangle between Susanna, John, and Nell which sounds a little like another big budget Civil War romance from about 20 years before this one, doesn't it? :)
I do have a special place in my heart for this film because my grandfather was an extra in it and half of it was shot in my home state of Kentucky. The other half was shot in Natchez, Mississippi. I have been to some of the locations where it was shot. Including the Rhodes House in Danville, KY. I could not find a picture of it but it is Eva Marie Saint's house in the movie. I have also been to the Liberty Hall historic site in Danville which served as another location in the film.
The historic town set is also at the Pioneer Playhouse in Danville. You can actually walk through the set which has pretty much turned into a antique mall and something to do while you wait for plays to start.

All of these locations are easily recognizable in the film.
My grandad was back from the Korean War and he needed money and having been in some plays in college he was cast in the film as a Union solider who gets shot. He has told me many stories about being in the film....
The first thing my grandad told me about this movie was that he was shocked at how time consuming making a movie is. He also said that he watched Lee Marvin and Montgomery Clift's do 27 takes of a scene where Lee Marvin slams a door in Montgomery Clift's face. The stars and director of the film stayed at the historic Old Crow Inn while filming in Danville which I think was also used as a location in the film.

There was also a night when Montgomery Clift, Lee Marvin, and Rod Taylor (who co-stars) got really drunk and walked down the road naked. I love it! He said that Eva Maria Saint was very nice and talked to him for awhile one day between takes. Between shots another day, Montgomery Clift was standing above the set on a ladder dumped a bucket of water on Elizabeth Taylor. I am sure she was not pleased. He saw Elizabeth Taylor a few times and said that she was very beautiful but extremely short.
During a shooting break is when Montgomery Clift had the car wreck while leaving Elizabeth Taylor's house which left half of his face paralyzed and caused some of his teeth to get lodged in his throat. Elizabeth Taylor heard the car wreck and promptly pulled the teeth out of this throat. What a good friend!


Sadly, my grandad does not have any pictures of his experience. He likes to talk about it a lot which is good because I always love to hear his stories.
While this movie is not a great movie, the plot is a little ridiculous, and in some scenes it's a little cheesy. It has great location shots, wonderful costumes, and all of the actors have a great Southern accents (I know because I have one). I am pretty sure this movie is out of print and very hard to come across but occasionally it will show on Turner Classic Movies. It's no Gone with the Wind but it is worth the watch!

Werewolves of Summer

According to my recent movie choices I have discovered something new about myself. Apparently I like werewolves. I know my last blog was about the nonexistence of vampires and a brief rant about a certain "toy". I have a fascination with the mystical, paranormal, and spooky things (I was born on Halloween so I can't exactly help it!) and as a result I like to talk/write about them. I have never been as enthusiastic about werewolves as I have other monsters until now. I always thought that they were a little lame. I guess growing up with a wolfish looking dog who I have seen kill smaller animals multiple times makes you immune to things like that. Enough with the chit chat, let's talk about some silver screen lycanthropy!

The first werewolf movie I saw this summer was Ginger Snaps. Made in 2000 in Canada this movie is now a cult classic. I remember it being on the shelves of the Blockbuster were I worked for 3 years and I am sorry that I never watched it until now. The movie follows two death obsessed teenage sisters (Ginger and Bridgette) who take mock crime scene photos and are outcasts at school. On the night of her first period Ginger gets bitten by a werewolf and slowly starts transforming into a bloodthirsty werewolf. While Bridgette tries to control her, Ginger mistakenly thinks her new primal urges are for sex but instead discovers she only wants to tear things to pieces. This film is funny, gory, hip, part horror movie, part chick flick and cleverly uses transforming into a werewolf as a metaphor for teenage hell.

The second werewolf movie I watched was The Wolfman. Usually I stay away from remakes of any kind but this one was different. And by different I mean actually good. This version takes the 1941 Universal classic and gives it a modern day twist with some great gore effects. You can't beat the classic Universal monsters but this movie did it's best and honestly did entertain me. For starters I love Emily Blunt. Not because we share the same first name, I love her because she is talented and that girl is in line for an Oscar someday! Plus she can play both dramatic and comedic roles and be equally as good in either of them which is very rare. Emily Blunt reminds me of Vivien Leigh which is another reason why I like her so much. Who doesn't love Anthony Hopkins? It's Hannibal, for cryin' out loud!! Benicio Del Torro also did a great job. This version was not entirely true to the original script but keeps some of the same elements such as the character names. I loved this movie because I have a thing for movies set in 19th century London. With the dreary weather, fog, foreboding architecture, and buzz of Jack the Ripper 19th century London is the perfect location for a horror film. I know this movie is not destined to be a classic but I think that it will be a good one to watch at Halloween.