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Last Friday morning, the day before Halloween, I was up at 5:00am-ish to start working on my make-up for the day. Over the years, I've made myself up at work, and I have a little bit of a reputation at the office; apparently when I took Halloween off last year, there were more than a few coworkers disappointed that I didn't come in made up (and they didn't buy the excuse that they didn't see me because I was made up as the Invisible Man!), and I missed it a LITTLE bit, so I was committed to pulling something off this year.

But what to dress up as?

If you read my last column, you know there would be no chance that I would dress up as something non-monstrous. I had to do something scary-like, so another zombie was dreamed up. But what kind of zombie? I've done the random, generic bit over the years, and the last time I went in to work dressed for Halloween, I made sure I was a "character" zombie and totally ruined a Pizza Hut uniform and pizza delivery bag in the process.

I had two questions to ask myself: 1) what "character" zombie should I dress up as this year, and 2) whatever happened to that Santa suit we bought almost two years ago?

My life can get pretty congested, and I didn't spend as much time as I would have liked distressing the Santa suit, but that's okay - I didn't need to stain anything at work this year. Instead, I opted to focus on a bit of "battle damage," and Brenda (the best wife EVER) helped me create a dangling eye effect (her suggestion that we use latex- and dye-painted straw as the exposed optic nerve was fantastic!).

When I do work on Halloween, I try to only work a half-day, which was just fine by me because working four hours in front of a computer screen with one eye glued shut and a fake eye sticking into that eye's eyelids was just about as much as I could take!

The rest of Halloween weekend involved Brenda and I catching up on the rest of Season Two of "Dexter" and catching a matinee showing of Paranormal Activity. I also watched Night of the Creeps and The Church on DVD^*. All in all, it was a good Halloween . . .

Are the following movies still my Top Ten Horror Movies?

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Prince of Darkness
The Monster Squad
Creature From the Black Lagoon
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
Hellraiser
In the Mouth of Madness
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

Right off the bat, I'm surprised that some of these titles are still what I consider my favorites. Whenever I talk about my favorite movies, I'm always quick to add, "But that might change tomorrow!" to the conversation, but when I look at this list, I see movies that I STILL consider my faves.

Night of the Living Dead (1968), Prince of Darkness, The Monster Squad and Creature from the Black Lagoon are still at the top of my list (I realize my old LJ post stated that I wasn't ranking anything in order, but there is a reason why these four movies immediately come to mind when I start thinking about my favorites - although Creature from the Black Lagoon is my hands down favorite and it was only listed fourth on my list). As for the others:

Wes Craven's New Nightmare - I certainly still like this movie. I think a lot of the commentary Wes Craven (with Kevin Williamson) made in the Scream films can also be seen in the meta- elements in this film. The pseudo-behind-the-scenes elements of the A Nightmare on Elm Street mythos ring true enough to make this an interesting take on the Freddy story, and bringing Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon back to the franchise was a nice touch. Casting David Newsom and Miko Hughes as Langenkamp's husband and son doesn't really hold up now, and when thinking about it honestly, I don't know if they were good choices back in '94 when the movie was released either, especially in the case of Hughes. They just don't fit in with the "this-is-real" reality Craven and company were creating in this film. This film's Freddy Krueger is easily one of the scariest incarnations, even if the thumb-blade was superfluous, and J. Peter Robinson's score holds up to this day.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood - Enter Kane Hodder. Aside from the recent remake/reimagination/re-diving-into-our-wallets, when one thinks of Jason Voorhees, chances are the one that comes to mind is the one played by Kane Hodder. He embodied the character with such menace, such body language and physicality, that, at least for me, every Jason from this point on will be compared to the benchmark that is Hodder. This installment of the Friday the 13th series also features one of the best kills in the franchise (who knew you could wrap an occupied sleeping bag around a tree that way?), and the character design of Jason Voorhees is fantastic (just prior to the sleeping bag sequence, pay close attention to Jason as he rises from Crystal Lake). The music isn't as strong as some of the other films', maybe because Fred Mollin was brought in as the primary composer this time around (Harry Manfredini returned to the franchise with Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday).

Hellraiser - I like this movie. I really do. Is it a favorite? I don't know. When I see that I put this on my favorite list a couple years ago, I wonder if I put it on the list more out of respect than out of any actual favorite-ism. It's a solid film, and belongs on several lists, but today I can't put it on my Top Ten list. It's not that I dislike the movie; I really, really like Hellraiser. However, this is not a film I can go back and watch over and over again. I've already been exposed to the dark delights contained on the innocent-looking DVD, and while I don't mind going back for a reminder from time to time, I think I'm good now. I do listen to Christopher Young's score from the film repeatedly, though. (And, dear Leviathan, I'm dreading the eventual reimagining/rebooting of this franchise more than I've dreaded/I'm dreading the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. This may sound like sacrilege, but I feel Doug Bradley is more important to the role of Pinhead than Robert Englund is to the role of Freddy Krueger.)

In the Mouth of Madness - A second John Carpenter film on the list? Well, this IS a good one. The music, the performances, the cinematography and ALMOST all the special effects work well and hold up. It's solid. If I were to come across it flipping channels, I'd stop and watch a bit, but I don't think I'd watch through to the end. I'll leave Prince of Darkness as my sole Carpenter entry . . . for now.

Dawn of the Dead (1978) - Wow. When I first sat down to write this Papercut, I didn't think I'd want to move this off my list. I'm kind of surprised to find myself here, jettisoning Uncle Romero's classic following to Night of the Living Dead. I like this movie perhaps more than any of the other films I'm discussing here, but is it a favorite? No. I don't think it can be. Let's be brutally honest - the movie does run a bit long, there is perhaps one too many tone shifts in the film, and the score is a cut-and-paste job. The special make-up effects work has become one of the standards against which all other zombie movies' special make-up effects should be judged, and the acting is just as solid as the characters.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man - If I had to choose a favorite Wolf Man film, this would be the one. Lon Chaney, Jr., delivers an even stronger performance as Lawrence Talbot than he did in The Wolf Man two years earlier, and you know what? I like Bela Lugosit as the Monster here. It makes sense bringing him in to play Frankenstein's Monster since the brain of his Ygor character from Son of Frankenstein ended up in the Monster's head in that film. There is criticism about Lugosi's portrayal, but I think he did the best he could with what he had (even if what he had - knowledge and direction of playing the character as blind - didn't make it in the final cut). The direction, set design and cinematography are stellar, especially during the opening scenes in which the graverobbers inadvertantly bring Lawrence Talbot back to life, and Hans J. Salter's music singular sets the mood in a way that previous Universal monster films hadn't exploited yet.

I just removed six movies from my Top Ten list, which means I need to close out this Papercut with six new titles to call my favorites (which I'm sure I'll look back on at some point in the future and change again!).

Day of the Dead (1985)
The Revenge of Frankenstein
Alien Raiders
Phantasm
The Zombie Diaries
Eegah!

^*I just reviewed Night of the Creeps in Episode 93 of Mail Order Zombie. Brenda and I MAY review Paranormal Activity in an upcoming episoide of MOZ Presents: The Munchies; I don't think I'll be reviewing Michele Soavi's The Church on a podcast anytime soobn, but I did really enjoy the movie!