Music Box Massacre 7

I’m rather late on reporting this but this past weekend (October 15 till the 16^th) was the yearly Music Box Massacre at Chicago’s own Music Box Theater. This year, unlike the past two years that I went, was different for me because I slept through half of the 24-hour marathon. I have no idea why I was suddenly tired all of a sudden but I missed out on some movies that I’ve wanted to see for a long time. Regardless, I was fortunate to experience three films on 35mm print one of which is a must for the Halloween season. So, without further ado, I’ll give you a short rundown and musings of the films I was able to catch.

The marathon started off with the silent film…

Waxworks (1924)

This fantasy film is considered horror but I’m not sure why. I feel it’s more action adventure than anything although I guess it’s because there are some elements of horror that must have been shocking for people back when it was first released. Personally, I felt it was a little boring but what I have to applaud was the live organ player who had to sit there the entire time.

Burn Witch Burn (1962)

After his wife confesses to being a witch, a college professor must find out whether or not she was telling the truth but time is running out because dark forces are descending upon him and the only way to stop them is by sacrifice. Also known as Night of the Eagle for some reason. This was a fun movie and a perfect candidate for MST3K or any other type of Riffing. Hammy acting, sexist dialogue and some really cheap but strangely effective special effects laden this film. I personally loved the part when you hear something howling, screaming and bellowing outside the door but never end up seeing it.

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

I slept through this movie.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

I loved this movie but calling it horror is a bit much even if the final revealing of Phibes is shocking, then again I guess it could be considered a Slasher movie. Oh whatever, either way I liked it a lot. Price plays yet another interesting, stylish and charismatic killer that sort of reminded me of Theater of Blood. This time he plays Dr. Phibes, a doctor of music, who seeks murderous revenge on all the doctors who were unable to save his wife from a tragic accident. Dark British humor and the 12 plagues of Egypt make this movie work seeing and it’s even funnier watching it with a live audience.

Wizard of Gore

With special guest Herschell Gordon Lewis

I broke away for dinner.

Halloween (1978)

No party that takes place during October is complete without a 35mm screening of Carpenter’s infamous slasher movie. The print we saw was reddening, scratch and dust filled with horrendous jump cuts… everything I wanted to see to give me that authentic “grindhouse” feel. This time around, because I saw the movie so damn much, I began to notice the small things that gave away the film’s actual location of California. Not just the ridiculous foothills but also the palm trees in the background and the cactus looking plants in some people’s yard. If only Illinois had palm trees.

Poltergeist (1982)

Upon watching this for the first time in years, I was suddenly reminded just how much I love this film. It’s such a touching and sad story of how the parents of a little girl are willing to travel to another plane of existence to save their daughter. Unfortunately, in reality, Heather O’Rourke died young and went towards the bright light anyway. The subtle humor, the nods to childhood fears and the chilling yet uplifting score by the famous Jerry Goldsmith gave me this warm feeling as I sat in those uncomfortable chairs.

Pumpkinhead (1988)

After releasing an ancient demon to seek revenge on the youths that accidentally killed his little boy, a farmer must stop what he unleashed before it ends up killing him as well. I saw this movie only once before and I hated it. Upon watching it again, I enjoyed it and I loved the special effects (of course I would because it was directed by Stan Winston) but I feel that it was a little unjustified to release such a horrid monster after the teens apologized for the fatal accident. The climax is anticlimactic but then again we are talking about the 80’s.

Gates of Hell

I broke away to grab a quick snack.

The Vampire Lovers

I fell asleep to.

Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things

I drifted in and out of sleep to. I was awoken by the excruciatingly loud ending.

The Sentinel (1977)

“What do you do for a living?” “We fondle each other.” Indeed, The Sentinel is one of those 70’s movies too fucked up to describe but very simple when you get right down to it. Basically it’s about a haunted apartment complex that’s being investigated by one of the new tenants who claims to have been invited to an birthday party by the tenants. However, there are no tenants in the apartment except for a reclusive priest. Now the young woman must find out why the apartment is being haunted, why is she being plagued with unsettling visions and what is the priest guarding on the third floor. Naked fat women eating people’s brains, a cat in a hat, loud noises, non sequitur scenes and an ending that’s reminiscent of Browning’s Freaks makes this film a worthwhile acid trip.

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

What a perfect movie to end a noon-to-noon, 24-hour horror marathon. I’ve always loved this movie and it’s a roller-coaster ride to see it with sleep deprived horror fanatics. Whoever thought that vampires would evolve from charismatic, caped villains (Lugosi) to ancient Mexican strippers (Hayek)?

The Massacre survivors (12:00pm)

Try and spot me in this picture. Here’s a clue: I’m the one who is holding the brown pillow. Also, I was smart to bring a pillow and blanket to this.

Thus concludes yet another Music Box Massacre and although I didn’t meet anybody there like I would have, probably because this year seemed more packed then usual, I had a blast with all the films. I will close out this piece with one of my favorite quotes of the night (aside from Sentinel).

“Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them! I don’t give a fuck how crazy they are!”

Pictures courtesy of WGON Helicopter, Kindertrauma, The Vault of Horror and Hey! Look Behind You.

Music Box Massacre 6

Well folks, another year went by and another Music Box Massacre is under the belt. This time around the thing that intrigued me the most was seeing Psycho, Fright Night and Killer Klowns From Outer Space on 35mm print. This was my attention getter. The rest of the movies I wasn’t really hell-bent on seeing although some of them I wanted to see again because I hardly remember them like Pet Semetary and Theater of Blood. I was happy to meet a lot of my Twitter/Chicago horror friends from Horror Society and the blogosphere. Most notably, I was pleased to see my high school A/V Tech teacher there as well (He hosts the podcast The Harvey and Bob Show).

Like all the Music Box Massacres it starts off with a little thing called trailer trash, however before that they had a DJ playing. This year’s trailer trash had the following movies… all of which were either wonderfully campy or have amassed a massive cult following:

Godzilla
Night of the Living Dead
The Raven
Blood of the Vampire
Black Zoo
Konga
Curse of the Werewolf
Devil’s Partner
Black Sunday
Terror in the Haunted House

The Massacre kicked off with a great Universal classic and didn’t let up, except maybe once but here are my short takes on the films that I was able to see. (I slept through one and I ate dinner during the other). Remember, Music Box Massacre is 24 hours of straight horror movies starting at noon on Saturday and ends at noon on Sunday.

Phantom of the Opera

It has been far too long since I’ve seen this movie and this time I paid attention to the details in the costuming and the set design; all of which were breathtaking for that time. Also, up until the end, I felt really bad for the Erik.

The Raven (1935)

Ah this was a fantastic movie. Though it is plagued with some ham-handed lines, cheesy acting and a few cheap shots… Lugosi and Karloff were the power of this film. The chemistry they had in the film was electrifying. Honestly, it was such a treat to see two of the greatest movie monsters playing incarnations of their trademark roles.

The Wolf Man

My friend and I stepped out to eat lunch since we had already seen it twice last year. Besides, we were going to see it during our mini movie marathon.

Hungry Wives: Season of the Witch

Not the John Carpenter film but the one by George A. Romero. This one started off as a strange and haunting experimental and then swan dove into a trippy drama. It’s a feminist movie that said more about aging and living in the suburbs than about witches. Half way into the movie I fell asleep from boredom and woke up still wondering what was happening. Hardly any witches too.

Jan White was there in person too. I didn’t stay to hear the Q&A but when I saw her walking out she looked like a typical helpless old lady… who was packing a Glock.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Not much to be said here. If you haven’t already seen it, go do it now. It’s a wonderful, delightful and dark film about aliens that look like clowns that invade a small town. Cotton candy cocoons, popcorn eggs, laser guns and of course killer klowns makes this movie a fun watch.

The Chiodo Bros were actually there in person for a Q&A:

The Q&A was great. They talked about how the idea of clowns from another world came to be: essentially one of the brothers was driving and somebody sped up next to him and it turned out to be a clown. He thought if you got rid of the car and he was floating, it would have been frightening. Then voila. They also talked about incorporated as many circus motifs as they could and how they may have had something to do with the Ringling Brothers Clown Circus to get shut down. Afterwards, it was a photo op time. Pardon my geekiness here and I'm not trying to rub it anybody's faces. We skipped out on seeing Rabid because we wanted to meet the Chiodo’s so Cronenberg had to wait.

Me and the Chiodo Bros.

My high school teacher El’Ahrai and the Chiodo Bros.

Colleen Elizabeth Miller and the Chiodo Bros.

Henenlotter and the Grim Reaper looking guy.

Overall, they were just really nice folks. They really love their fans and they really seem to be down to Earth people. I was very fortunate to see them.

During Basket Case my buddy and I went out to get some pizza. I didn’t want to see it because I’ve seen it so many times. I, however, wanted to meet Kevin VanHentenryck and shake his hand:

Pet Sematary

This movie was always a film that I regarded as being terrible since I first watched it back when I was about 11 or 10 years old. It also seemed that most of my friends liked it so I decided that I would give it another go round during Massacre and here is my consensus: it was a deliciously, dark, compelling and often tacky horror movie that isn’t that bad. I enjoyed it.

The Funhouse

About 2 or so years ago I saw this for the first time. I thought it was great but as time went on I lost interest in it. It’s certainly not a bad film but it’s forgettable. I’d have to say that the most memorable thing about the film is the sound design. It’s loud, booming and very sudden.

House By The Cemetery

Here was a film that I fell asleep during the first half of the movie. When I woke up I was greeted with typical 70s camp. Over exaggerated soundtracks, bad voice dubbing, pointless facial expressions and a whole lot of over the top zooms. I loved it purely for it’s nostalgic factor.

Theater of Blood

Ah this was also a fantastic movie. Probably one of the more underrated slasher flicks out there. Vincent Price’s performance is dark, gritty, theatrical and very frightening especially with all the makeup. His methods of killing are brilliant, Saw-like and very original. Highly recommended.

Psycho

What can be said about this horror classic? However, I do have a small bone to pick with this film… full report coming soon.

Fright Night

A great movie to end a wild festival. I’ve stated numerous times that I love this movie so no need to further my thought of it.

Someone also got married as well.

6:00am, Sunday. Good to see the blue sky.

Overall, it was a fun time. Aside from the painful seats, the uncomfortably, the giant ant colony that was next to my chair and a few projector malfunctions… I had a great time. Partly due to those aforementioned things. It was a great time with my friends and I hope to go next year as well. Below are all of us that survived the Massacre. Try to find me it should be that hard.

Photo courtesy of Nicki.

Music Box Massacre 5

I finally am able to do a nice long post about my time at the Music Box Massacre 5. To start off, it was really fun and I met a lot of cool people. We got there just before it started and the lineup for this years Massacre was as followed: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Isle of the Dead, Bucket of Blood, The Brood, Re-Animator, From Beyond, Pontypool, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Blood Feast, Maximum Overdrive and Carrie.

For the most part, I enjoyed it and I had lots of fun although because of some seating difficulties we were unable to see The Brood, which was fine because I had already saw it and we missed out on Stuart Gordon reading Edgar Allen Poe and we missed the Poe movie too. Instead, my buddy and I ended up going out to eat before the long night ahead of us. On our arrival back, I was about to buy a $15 original 80s poster for The Blob, but held out and a good thing too.

 Pontypool had to have been one of the best movies I saw there and I know everybody laughed when they saw the made for TV show Dark Night of the Scarecrow because of it’s cheesiness and bad acting, but in all honesty, it was pretty creepy and it had a creepy atmosphere to it. I don’t know why people hated it.

 

Left to right: J.D. Feigelson, Me.

Near the end, the seats were becoming uncomfortable and people began leaving, the pussies that only came for half of the show. Well, during the break between Blood Feast and Maximum Overdrive my buddy and I went out to an alley and burned a film trailer for Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story movie. Because it was really early in the morning I slept right through Maximum Overdrive and watched Carrie in full. And when everything was over, they had us crowd the street to take a picture of the ‘survivors’ of the Music Box Massacre.

This is what we think of Moore's new film.

I think the highlight of that night would be my story: I was walking down the isle and some fat, bearded guy was walking behind me pretty close, so I said under my breath, “fat bearded geezer.” He heard me and muttered, “watch your manners.” Turns out I called Stuart Gordon a bearded geezer. No autograph for me.

 

Left to right: Art Hindle, Me. 

I had a great time and I will be definitely coming back next year. 

Intro To Music Box Massacre

From Blogger Pictures

As many of my Illinois and Chicago based horror friends know, another Music Box Massacre is planed for this October and I will be attending this one. This will be my first Music Box and many of you have already been to these so don’t be surprised if I don’t know anything about it. My friend from Hollywood Havoc will also be attending this as well. From what the website says, Stuart Gordon will be there to sign autographs and if it’s pay per autograph I might give in, but it depends on how much it is.

The movie lineup is as follows:

Re-Animator

Blood Feast

The Brood

From Beyond

Bucket of Blood

Pontypool

Maximum Overdrive

Carrie

Isle of the Dead

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

 

Advanced tickets are $27

Day of tickets are $33

Pictures and updates from the convention will be posted as well as anything that I end up picking up along the way. I am excited for this as much as I am for Flashback Weekend.

Click here for more details.