The Horror Hangover

Hey there hot stuff, the hangovers should be getting worse as you all are drinking yourselves into an "I can't afford or figure out what to get for Christmas" coma! I'm here for you, lovely reader and I will give you the gift that keeps on giving, and no, it's not a picture of me this time. It's The Horror Hangover!

Starting at 11:00 AM (2007) Hot Fuzz is on Comedy Central. Edgar Wright's follow up to his masterpiece, Shaun of the Dead is not nearly as good, but a whole lotta fun with its comical situations and extreme flashes of gore. Anything teaming up of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and Wright is all "Wright" in my book and Hot Fuzz is a great way to start off the Hangover this Sunday.



Also at 11:00 AM, King Arthur (2004) is showing on SyFy. I never saw this film, but thought it looked like a pretty decent action/adventure film. Clive Owen is the man and he may be enough to make this one worth a shot at some point.

SyFy follows up King Arthur with The Brothers Grimm (2005) at 1:30 PM. I'm a big Terry Gilliam fan, but I have only seen bits and pieces of this mish mash of fairy tale and horror and it seemed okay. Monica Bellucci is in it, and she is hawt enough to garner a full viewing at least!



1:30 PM brings the pain with Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) on Spike. LOVE Kill Bill and I can and will watch this movie every time it's on. I'm sure it will be edited to shit, but it is still a fun view, censored or not. This just makes me wish that Tarantino would release The Whole Bloody Affair, for crying out loud.

At 2:00 PM, Tales From the Darkside: The Movie (1990) is showing on WGN. Not all that familiar with this station, but I looked into it and it is Chicago based and an affiliate of the CW, so hopefully most people get this channel. Anyway, I love this horror anthology staring Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi, James Remar and Blondie in a great wrap around story. I haven't seen it in many years, so it is my definite pick of the week.



3:00 PM brings us Heat (1995) on ION. Michael Mann's best film by far and another I haven't seen in a wicked long time. Great cast of actors that were still great at this time, Heat is an awesome crime film that is a sure bet for a great Hangover movie. "Hoo-hah!" That's my Pacino imitation.

And to end the day, at 4:00PM Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004) is on Spike. I love Vol. 1 more, but this second part to Tarantino's epic is quite great and the Pei Mei segment alone is worth the free price of admission.

Chuck Norris on the LAMB Leaderboard!

About a month ago, this magical little blog that you are reading right this very moment became old enough (three months to be exact) for LAMB consideration. For those who do not know, The LAMB stands for The Large Association of Movie Blogs and is the premier movie blog directory (well, now it is!), a one-stop shop for readers and blogger's alike. So CNAMB became a member of The LAMB and after the first month of membership, CNAMB made it on The LAMB leaderboard! The leaderboard works from click-through's from this site to The LAMB's site and apparently my 9 readers have clicked enough to get me on the leaderboard! This made me extremely happy and I don't know if it means anything outside of making me feel warm and fuzzy, but it does and that is all that matters.

So thanks to the LAMB for letting an asshole like me be down with their cause and thanks to all of you who read and comment and follow and get some sort of enjoyment out of reading posts where all I talk about is boobs. I truly appreciate it and the comments have been nothing short of spectacular and they are a big reason for my enjoyment in doing this blog. The interaction with, meeting, and befriending some quality horror fans, many with crazy dope blogs themselves, makes all of this worth it. Now go and click on that LAMB thing up on the left side of the page and while you're at it, why not click on that HS Top 100 thingy too. You should have known there'd be a catch when I was being so sweet!

Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972) All, Is Not Calm...

It's Christmas Eve in a small New England town, where a battle over the rights to an infamous psychiatric hospital with a storied and disturbing history has been going on. The hospital's owner has no interest in this long time abandoned building and is trying to strike a quick deal to get rid of it for good. Besides the mysterious horrifying history behind the asylum that is plaguing the community, there is also the threat of an escaped serial killer running around knocking off the town's bigwigs. For the record, that always makes things worse. That's the best your getting out of me as far as a plot goes, because Theodore Gershuny's Silent Night, Bloody Night has an obnoxious plot filled with a lot of depth - and a lot of holes that go just as deep. Very confusing at times and told through voice over for at least 40% of the film, this 1972-or-3-or-4 holiday Slasher film is incredibly tedious with its overly complicated story. HOWEVER, there is a story to be had and one that has some smarts to it in many ways. Dealing with intense family trauma, cover-ups and themes of incest, there is something interesting to take from this film's story, convoluted or not. Silent Night, Bloody Night was made almost two years before Black Christmas, but wasn't released until '74, the same year as Bob Clark's holiday Slasher classic (which I will be posting a review for very soon!). So it's an easy case to make that Silent Night is the first Slasher film and there is no way in hell that "someone " didn't see, or hear about, or even know someone that worked on this film and used it some capacity as inspiration for Black Christmas. Not to take anything away from Black Christmas, which is an inspirational film that paved the way for Halloween to pave the way for the Slasher genre as we know it, but this film's inspiration should certainly be noted. Silent Night, Bloody Night is filled to the rim with promise and great ideas, only to be hindered by the low budget and cheapness of it all. Doesn't help that most transfers of this film are utter shit too. This first use of a Slasher POV is competent-to-very well done and there are some odd, yet intriguing technical and stylistic choices that work and hurt the movie. Shot in a sort of low light, the film has a very nice looking, almost Gothic quality to it (and the old New England setting helps too), there are some shots that are only lit by a lantern, which had a great old look and feeling...kinda reminded me of Old Sturbridge Village! With that, kinda neat, kinda cool low light effect comes a wickedly dark film that is made even darker by a terrible transfer of an older low budget movie. There are moments where you can almost see nothing on screen. Not entirely the fault of the filmmakers, but there are some very dark scenes in Silent Night, Bloody Night, bad transfer or not. There are even a few decent kills in this holiday horror with one of them really being a surprise in a Psycho sort of way, as in, I was not expecting it to happen when it did. Or I am naive, which could be the case too. As I mentioned before, there is a lot of voice over, and while voice over is often used as a crutch for the untalented, it is much needed in such a complex story. Most of the voice over work in the opening of the film is set to old photos of the past, as the history of the mental institution and the town is gone over. Almost the entire last 20 minutes of Silent Night, Bloody Night is told through voice over, but instead of being done to photos, it is done to old sepia tone footage of the past horrors that occurred. It is surprisingly inventive and while being a bit off putting at first, it really starts to draw you into what is happening with how it's done...which is well I might add. At one long moment, the voice over to this old footage is fittingly replaced by an instrumental version of the Christmas song, Silent Night, Holy Night and it is a very creepy and nicely created scene that had me at full attention as to what was happening on screen. What unfolds in the story during this final act is another captivating aspect too and something that keeps the wild plot above water with its incestuous cover up scheme and other equally awful happenings at the mental institution resulting in the current issue of the escaped lunatic that is taking people out in present times. Silent Night, Bloody Night has cult status written all over it, with its proto-Slasher sensibilities and to top it off, there are a few nice genre surprises to be found with a mute played by John Carradine and the presence of cult starlet, Mary Woronov. While this film is a bit of a mess and extremely cheap looking, there is a lot to be seen in this little known gem and it is worth the time of any fan of Slasher films and anyone looking for a decent Christmas horror movie. Silent Night is a public domain film, so it is easy to find on many multi pack sets and it is available to watch on sites like YouTube, so you have no reason not to give this one a try!

Freddy's Friday Night Dance Party!: Product Placement Edition!

Changing things up for this weeks pajama jammy jam, I thought it would be nice to bring in one of the hottest DJ's working the tables in the underground hip-hop dance scene. Straight from San Fransisco, I now present you with D.J. Tanner! You know the House is always gonna be Full when D.J. Tanner is up in this piece - so lets get ready to enjoy this Hip-hop Happy Meal with Mac and Me!

Man...who the hell invited Kimmy Gibbler? She is totally going to ruin my party!



This 1988 E.T. ripoff is such a fantastic mess and this scene is so moronic, that I just had to include it in a dance party someday. With a large dose of heavy stuff like Coca-Cola, Skittles, and McDonald's, there are more addictive substances in Mac and Me than there are in this entire club! You can see the addiction in the dancers eyes too - the thumb moves, the footloose football players, and that jerk off kid in a wheelchair who can't even at least try to join in by doing some spin moves on one wheel cause he's too doped up on sugar and meal worms! Then there's the Mysterious Alien Creature, otherwise known as MAC, dancing all up on the counter, which is so unsanitary. What kind of germs did that alien asshole bring from planet Mickey D's I wonder?

The one thing I can't help but think is this would totally happen at the exact moment I went into Mac Donald's to get something to eat. I mean business when it comes to eating and all I want to do is get my food, eat it, and get out, but if a dance scene broke out, I can only imagine that there would be no time to make my food, let alone blend me a shake. "Umm…excuse me?! Could you maybe stop dancing and get me my fucking plain double cheeseburger? Maybe?"

CNAMB Presents: Holiday Monster of the Week!

Why not go a different route and make this months Monsters of the Week holiday themed? Some of the upcoming monsters might not be your typical antagonists that you would find in this segment, but they will be monsters in some capacity, therefor garnering them this prestigious honor.

Our first holiday monster is one that would certainly make it year round, but now would be the perfect time to show some love for this tiny terror. This weeks Monster of the Week is....

Stripe!

Created by Chris Columbus, Stripe made his big Hollywood debut in 1984 in Joe Dante's holiday classic, Gremlins. As the vicious leader of the rogue Mogwai, Stripe came about when dumb ass Billy accidentally spilt water all over his precious pet Mogwai, Gizmo. Voiced by Frank Welker, Stripe has appeared in numerous old school video games based off the Gremlins franchise and also was one of the baddies to some degree in Gremlins 2: The New Batch as Mohawk...a sort of off shoot of Stripe. I am a huge fan of both Gremlins films and it was only a matter of time before Stripe showed up as a Monster of the Week - what better time than during Death-cember?!

Instead of a trailer or a clip of Stripe in action, I will provide you with this fantastic fan made thingy. The Exorcist and Batman segments are so great!

Snow Angels

Brrrr...it sure is getting cold outside, but there is not yet a flake of snow to be seen in my neck of the woods, which is somewhat unfortunate. I love when it snows and being from Massachusetts, I have seen more than my fair share. I really only hate snow when it starts melting and gets all slushy and gross - otherwise, I love the look of it as it coats my surroundings in purity and solitude.

To help quench my thirst for the white stuff, I busted out a few of my favorite revenge based fight scenes that take place in the snow, with some women hot enough to melt their respective fighting surfaces.

A movie that everyone should see if you are a fan of Asian cinema and Martial Arts (or even if you're not), Lady Snowblood is amazing and has more style and originality than 90% of films made today. The film's star, Meiko Kaji is one of the most beautiful Japanese actresses to have ever graced the screen.

Lady Snowblood: Vengeance is A Dish Best Served Cold



Rarely (and surprisingly) do I use the NSFW tag, but it is necessary with this next clip for the pinky violence classic, Sex and Fury. I should warn you that you will have to watch this video a few times; it will take you at least one viewing to get over the fact that the "Snow Angel" in this clip, Reiko Ike is completely nude while she jacks these dudes up. Once you get over that, there is some awesome stuff to be seen here. The music is so great, as well as the way it's shot, in particular when you only see her legs, her shadow, and limbs hitting the ground.

Sex and Fury: Nude With A 'Tude - or - I think Your Headlights Are On



As you saw with the previous clips, Kill Bill was inspired heavily by both films and this "chilling" scene in particular by Sex and Fury's backdrop and look. I couldn't have the other two clips and leave this one out, because it truly is a goose bump inducing snow set fight scene and one of my favorites.

Kill Bill Volume 1: That Really Was A Hattori Hanzo Sword

It's Begining to Look A Lot Like Kwanzaa...

It is officially December and as you can tell from my inspired banner, it's time to start the Christmas celebration! First off, much like Chucktober, I decided to rename the month of December to fit my own personal liking. I have been going back and forth between calling it "Dismember" or "Death-cember" and in the end, I liked Death-cember a little better. So from now on, the month of December will forever be known as Death-cember (let's see how many times I fuck up the spelling...) here at CNAMB! If anyone would like to use Dismember for their own blog, then please send me a money order for $50 and a box of crayons, and it's all yours!

There are 10,926 horror blogs out there and at least 90% of them will be doing a Christmas Horror themed month, I am assuming. This causes me great grief knowing that so many others will be doing the same thing and there isn't that much to choose from to stay different (though I look forward to what others do). I'll think of something, hopefully, but I will definitely be covering a few Holiday Horror films throughout the month and along with those, I will cover a couple of films that are set in winter. Winter means snow and snow means my favorite movie aesthetic. Period. I LOVE snow in my movies and that could partially explain why I kinda love awful Hallmark Christmas films. Or it could be that I am a huge pansy, but whatever.

Another thing that kinda bums me out is something that came up in the comments section of a recent post about the eventual over saturation of holiday Horror blogging. Bee Ef Ef Emily, from The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense, brought up that she wished there were some Hanukkah (spell check?!) Horror films out there to cover and sadly, there really aren't any at all. I celebrate Christmas, because I believe in commercialism and I easily fall victim to pretty colors and sparkly fun things, but I feel it only fair to be able to cover some of the other holidays like Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. I don't even know if I have any readers that celebrate those holidays, but in the chance that I do, why should they be excluded from the holiday fun?!

Oh well...maybe someone will see there is a couple of holidays the need to be exploited and make some great Hanukkah/Kwanzaa sleaze in the future. I can only hope so at least. I do look forward to this month of Death-cember and I will begin by leaving you with this fun and very nostalgic clip to start off the holiday hoedown!