Nesbit

What if one set was watching the original Psycho while the other played the shot for shot remake.... I could see you getting enjoyment out of both movies at once doing that.

(Yes I know it is a stupid question but figured I'd ask before someone else thought of it)



Tried to watch my first film on the ferry ride to work this morning. Of course this was the first time in the three months that I've been taking the boat that an attractive college student asked to sit at the table with me. Turned Night of the Living Dead off and talked to her the entire ride. Do women have to ruin EVERYTHING in my life?!?

Trevor

There were only 18 hour long TZ episodes, and only some of those are horror.

If MOH is the only exception, then why do the rules seem to indicate that there are others?

I'm only complaining because I just bought and broke the shrinkwrap on TZ season 4, only after the rules and posters seemed to indicate that they would count as non-wildcards.

A few of them are horror, and if MOH counts they should too, imo.


On another note, I added "silent" and "criterion" to my stats section.

stonecountry

But Halloween documentaries and such that are an 40 mins long or more still count right?

caligulathegod

I stand corrected. We are not counting even anthology shows. For all intents and purposes, we do have a 60 minute rule, then. Feature films under an hour are exceedingly rare and theatrical releases are almost non-existent.

The idea is to watch movies and have fun. We all know what a movie is and what a TV show is. MOH is in that middle ground, but we've excepted and accepted it. The 40 minute rule is pretty much irrelevant since only TV shows ever fell under an hour. Something like Call of Cthulu could have been accepted, too. In any case, no one is going to be able to load up on 40 minute features even if you can find some.

Surfinhank

What about the Stephen King anthology "Nightmares and Dreamscapes"? I have that set aside to watch sometime soon.

caligulathegod

Even though voting was open for a year we really didn't get into any debate until last month and then voting got closed almost immediately before we hammered everything out.

Documentaries are a tough one. If we had gone with a 60 minute rule, then any documentary that would have qualified would have been a true feature (Not horror, but no one would argue Bowling for Columbine was not a feature). 40 minute documentaries smack of bonus extras on DVDs rather than real features. While they are eligible technically, they aren't in the spirit of the challenge. If you are going to watch a documentary, at least choose one that could stand on its own as a feature. This is a Horror movie challenge. There are Horror Documentary movies, but if it is just a puff piece on your DVD that qualifies only because it reached 40 minutes, then I, personally, would say no. Your mileage may vary.

Chad

That was discussed back in early September and it was determined that since the IMDB classifies it as a mini-series, the whole thing counts as one title, just like all the other King (or any) mini-series.

I agree, but are there really that many horror docs that run under an hour to begin with? The only one I know of is "Boogeymen: The Killer Compilation" and that's essentially a compilation of clips from various slasher flicks and not really a true documentary, IMO.


And speaking of horror docs, are any of these worth watching:

-Terror in the Aisles
-Horror Business
-Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film

Any other good quality recommendations?

Shack

I watched Going to Pieces for last year's challenge and liked it. A lot of it won't be revelatory for serious horror fans, but it had some nice interviews and a watchable style.

EdTheRipper

You hit that right on the head. Last year was my first time taking part and I was surprised by all the bickering and debating that went on during the duration of it. People were arguing over what counted, what didn't count, why did this count when that didn't, etc. It just got sickening quickly. This is all about fun yet some people treat it like we're competing to find a cure for cancer. It's not that serious an event. Just pop a bag of popcorn, sit your ass down on the sofa and watch some horror flicks. It doesn't have to be as complicated as some people try to make it.

Cardsfan111

Does it have to be a bag of popcorn? Does a tin of pre-popped popcorn count? What about it being in a bowl?

terrycloth

jeez i believe have two tins upopened in my closet from the past two yrs of christmas thnx to my nieghbors..you more then welcome to it.

caligulathegod

Right. I was just hoping to put the kibosh on trying to count DVD special feature extras toward the documentary field.

Terror in the Aisles is basically a clip show of the best moments, but they fall flat out of context, IMO. Never saw Horror Business but Going to Pieces is great. I've never been much of a slasher fan, but it is still a very interesting, honest and exhaustive delving into the history of that genre.

EdTheRipper

As long as it's popcorn, it counts towards the Challenge

Shack

1. But what about potato chips? Or candy corn? Or M&Ms? If popcorn counts, they should too!
2. Do we have to finish the bag for it to count?
3. I don't believe those people are actually eating all the popcorn they list -- we should be counting kernels instead!
4. I don't have time to eat this popcorn, because I have a job/family/life.

caligulathegod

How about M&M minis or fun size Halloween candy bars? Nope, must be full sized candy bars. You can count fun sized towards your wild cards, though.

EdTheRipper

Giles

took the day off from work yesterday and just totally veged - in terms of food: snacked on two bags of microwave popcorn, lunch: greek salad and prosciutto, pizza for dinner.

question re: MST3K can we watch just the movie portion, or do we also have to watch the bookend and middle sections as well?

dcrw6

Yeah, the worrying about what does and doesn't count kind of takes the piss out of the whole thing. Simple solution: Read the rules and then use your own taste and common sense. If you're someone who considers movies like Copycat and Taking Lives scary movies and want to count them, then rock out with your bad self. Somebody has an issue with you counting them? Screw 'em. The point is, you took the time to sit down and watch a movie YOU felt fit the contest, not them. As long as it's not Norbit or something and somehow goes along with the theme, you should be fine.



As for my first day, somehow I managed to watch three between sleep and a twelve hour work shift, which I then have to go to class in a few hours with no sleep between. I kicked mine off with what'll probably be my favorite dvd release of the year, Monster Squad. I'm still surprised at how well it holds up. I'm trying to strike a balance between my bad B movies and the good stuff so I don't get burned out on either too soon.

Trevor

Obviously just the movie portion will count, but if you want to count it as the extra MST3K tally in the stat section some of us are using, you obviously have to watch the host segments.

Better question: Why wouldn't you watch the host segments? They are often better than the films, and even when they are bad, they add to the MST3K experience. And you're watching the MST3K version to get that experience, no?

Giles

no generally I would watch the entire episode but to sneak as many movies into a day/evening, somethings gotta go

Trevor

Well said.

If this was for money, then we could argue and perhaps need arbiters and clearer rules than, "TV shows (defined as those with recurring characters such as X-Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer) are not allowed. The general consensus has been to allow Anthology format television shows (such as Masters of Horror) as long as they meet the 40+ minute rule."

But this is for fun, so everyone should just do what dcrw6 and others have said. Relax and have fun people. I'm having a blast so far. I'm loving actually watching my DVDs instead of the usual just "collecting" them that I tend to do. And (again as dcrw6 said)trying to strike that fine balance between the B grade stuff that is ok in small doses, and the true classics like Alien, Dracula, or The Thing. I've been holding off on watching horror for a few months, really looking forward to watching a couple a day (I'm sure I won't keep up with my pace so far).

Darth Maher

I love you guys!!!

My viewing is already off to a rocky start.

First off, I'm trying to get through the rest of Heroes Season 1 on DVD so I can start Season 2 (which is on my DVR). So I watched 2 episodes at work instead of a horror movie. I planned to start Fright Night after those were done, but about 30 minutes into the second episode, the power went out at work. Came back on a few hours later, but by then it was too late to start it so I finished the second episode of Heroes. Now I only have 2 more to finish the season.

At home, I turned on Drew's Famous Ghoul Log, a silly DVD that shows various CGI pumpkins in a haunted house along with "scary" music. We played this while attempting to decorate for Halloween with the family. Later, my daughter refused to go to sleep and kept screaming (waking up our 8 month old) and running out of her bedroom. She finally settled down around 10:45pm. Since I had to get up at 5:30am again, I just gave up.

Tonight, we are going to see Genesis, so we'll see what happens.

Cardsfan111

Last night as I went from Critters to Cujo, it dawned on me that Dee Wallace was in both films. Made me think of an entertaining thought...if you really wanted to challenge yourself, you could 'link' your movies. Each title you watch has to be connected to the previous one...could be by an actor, the type of movie, director, anything you choose...

I know it would probably be difficult, but not impossible. I was thinking about the movies I'll be watching this month and figured it'd be easy to go through the Friday the 13th series and from Freddy vs. Jason to the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, transitioning into more Wes Cravens stuff and so on.

Kind of a 6 degrees of horror movies challenge... Just food for thought, I don't think I'm tying myself down like that...at least not this year.

Giles

mini reviews (Oct. 1 - 2)

Monday

- Terror at Orgy Castle (DVD): waifer thin plot, revolving around a couple visiting a vampress' castle, which leads to numerous semi-explicit scenes, quite enjoyable on a very basic level

- Evil Come Evil Go (DVD): two woman go on a violent murder spree killing a few men, in their quest to erradicate 'evilness', campy, but very amauterish

- A Bucket of Blood (DVD): Dick Miller owns this film, one of the surprises of the day

- Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) (DVD): Imagine a cross between 'MST3K' and 'Kung Pow: Enter the Fist', with really bad, bad humour, but that's it's charm... besides nearly every woman in the cast shredding off all their clothes

- Bride of the Monster (DVD): Bela Lugosi camp performance is surprisingly strong in this cult classic, the octopus scenes had me rolling

- Blood of the Virgins (DVD): Given what was promised, swinging swingers, eroticism and vampires, this was quite frankly a mess

- The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies (DVD): Music, mayhem, more music and a silly zombie outbreak at the end of this film, this was a hoot

- The Swamp of the Ravens (DVD): nasty, little flick revolving body reanimation and sexual lust, nearly lost my lunch during the unsimulated autopsy scene

- Death Curse of the Tartu (DVD): a mummy in the everglades, hmmm interesting, the few deaths are downright bizarre and funny. The music score is hammy and waaay overblown

- The Thirsty Dead (DVD): a reimagined 'Lost Weekend' action/horror film with Philapino zombies, less of the horror aspect though, pacing is terrible and what could have been a good flick comes off as tedious

- The Red Shoes (Bunhongsin) (DVD): Interesting multilayed story about a pair of shoes found at a subway stop and it's curse it inflicts on it's varying owners. Involved story with notable performances and a murder that evokes early Argento - numerous great jump scares. Film falls into several Asian horror cliches, but is still recommended. Fantastic 5.1 surround soundmix

- Sting of Death (DVD): Imagine 'Beach Blanket Bingo' with a monster - a jellyman monster, with great unintentional humour. Something Weird's film to video transfer is impecible: colours as well as the girating/dancing buttocks threaten to leap out of the tv! "Do the jella!"

Tuesday

- The Blob (1988) (HDNet Movies - DVR): forgot how intense and over the top this remake was, looked great in HiDef

- Guess What Happened to Count Dracula (DVD) forgettable horror/comey in which Dracula sporting a very bushy goatee, is trying to score and turn a girl into his mistress

Trevor

To be the completest that I am cursed to be, I am trying to track down at least two pre-1910 horror shorts.

The first horror film is sometimes thought to be La Manoir du Diable, by George Meiles. Finding one of these would satisfy the 1890s decade.

For the 1900s, I'm thinking films featuring Quasimodo included Alice Guy's Esmeralda (1906),or The Hunchback (1909) would be fun.

I can find information on these films, but I can't find the actual films on the net or on DVD in my limited searching.

I figured someone in this thread is bound to have something for me.