The End Draws Nigh...

Well, we're creeping up on the end of one of my favorite horror franchises.  In October, Saw 3D (aka Saw VII) will be released and, we're promised, the final answers to the entire series will be revealed.

I'm aware that there are plenty of people out there who assume that the Saw series is nothing but torture or gore porn.  That's not so, but I'll reserve my full diatribe for the seven-part series that's coming to this blog after Saw 3D is released.  No, today, I'm here to offer a sort of eulogy.

Review: Death of a Ghost Hunter (2007)

Going into this film, I wasn't sure what to expect.  The title and box/poster image made me think it might be some hokey attempt to translate all of the currently popular ghost hunting shows on television into a horror film.

I was close, but I wasn't quite on the mark.

New Zealand Horror Week: Day 4: Review: When Night Falls (2007)

This film, with shades of The Strangers and every other great "Someone's in the house" film, is certainly nothing new or particularly inventive.  However, the atmosphere and the great, spooky period style make this a must-see.  It was released in New Zealand back in 2007, but didn't gain distribution in North America until just this year.

New Zealand Horror Week: Day 2: Review: The Scarecrow (1982)

It's been a good while since I've seen this film, but it has always been a favorite of mine for several reasons:

1. New Zealand.
2.  John Carradine being his creepy self.
3.  It's a bucolic horror/thriller on a par with the books and films of Tom Tryon's The Other and Harvest Home and Tom Reamy's only novel, Blind Voices.
4. NEW ZEALAND!

New Zealand Horror Week: Day 1: Review: Black Sheep (2007)

This was one of the last films I ever got to watch with my mum, and so it holds special memories for me.  Mostly memories of laughing and going "whaaa?" and "whoa!" and being amazed at the effects; for what they're meant to convey, they're damn good.  Of course, they were done by the fine folks over at WETA Workshop.

Next Week

First, a little heads up...thanks to an alert over at Midnite Media, I can tell you that Turner Classic Movies will be running the Dan Curtis classic Burnt Offerings back-to-back with the William Castle chiller House on Haunted Hill starting at 1AM central.  Catch'em if you can, or set your recording devices.


Just a note: next week over on Exhaust Pipe Potatoes, my pop culture and general entertainment blog, I'll be focusing on films, music, and television from New Zealand.  Not wanting this blog to feel left out, I've decided to do a weeks worth of reviews here on the horror films of New Zealand.  Should be pretty interesting, so stay tuned.

Links, Shout-Outs, and Assorted Gibberish

First off, I finally have a follower!  Bad Ronald suddenly popped up in my follow box for both this blog and Exhaust Pipe Potatoes.  Probably because of the little shout out I gave to his comments on James Cameron's comments on Piranha 3-D.  Awesome, because now, I'm not going around in a constant state of "BAWWW, no one's ever gonna follow my blogs!"

Next up, I must recommend this post from The Vault of Horror addressing the sad dearth of horror icons in the modern incarnation of the genre.  Pretty much everything written over there is a bit of a treat, including this.

If you're a horror fan, you might also be a death hag.  One isn't necessary for the other, of course, but the two often go hand in hand.  If you like reading up on the lives and deaths of the famous and the infamous, might I recommend a quick trip over to Find A Death?  Scott Michaels runs the site (as well as the Dearly Departed tours out in California, taking you to the spots where the stars met their final fates.)  There's a fine selection of interesting stories on dearly departed actors, musicians, and more.  Should your tastes run more to mayhem and death down the street, check out the forum, where a lot of great people gather to gab on celeb deaths as well as the passings of average folks.

Finally, a thought for the day: why don't inbred cannibal families take their act on the road?  If they get moving, there's less likelihood that they'll be caught quickly, if at all, and if they have reliable transportation, one lone girl (or guy) can't always rise up in the end and slaughter most of them.  At least not without a big rig.