Bad Trick or Treat Ideas: Box of Raisins

I suppose raisins could count as a fruit (which we already know is a big no-no!); however, they do come in a box (with a sexy ass chick on it) therefore disguising this "only good with bran" trick as a faux tasty treat. No matter how hard the California Raisins tried, children cannot be conditioned to believe that raisins are in any way, shape or form delicious (unless they are covered in chocolate). So do yourself a favor, raisin giver: take your raisins, throw them away, and buy some grapes. But don't even think about giving me those, either. Unless they're seedless. And green.

Halloween Happenings: Tales from the Front Yard!

I wanted to take a quick moment to share some of the front yard decorating my domestic partner in crime and I had done for Halloween this year. Unfortunately, however, as exciting as this should be, this post is plagued by sadness and despair. More on that in a minute, though. In the meantime, I'll go over these sick pics real quick so you can see what we did!

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Here are a couple of jack-o'-lanterns that my slave lady and I carved up to ward off demon's during the Halloween season. This was only our second Halloween carving jack-o'-lanterns, and I think they came out pretty rad, especially considering we did them freehand. Ain't no stencils up in dis piece!

This is a quick glimpse of the rave to the graveyard we put together. This is certainly the most we've ever done as far as outdoor decorating goes, and I like how it all came together. I actually built the spooky looking dude on the left as well as the rave to the graveyard fence, both of which were done for under $10 in total.  

Here's a video that will give you a better look at what we did as far as decorating goes. Don't mind me being an idiot, because I don't.

 

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Anyway, as great as all this Halloween decorating was, tragedy struck. Well, actually, lame Ohio weather struck, and because we live on the flat chested part of the country, most of these beautiful decorations took a beating from Mother Nature's unrelenting flatulence. No matter how well I reinforced them, all of the rave to the gravestones were uprooted two or three times, and no matter how far into the ground I stuck him, the grim reaper dude also kept getting blown over. To top it all off, our awesome $2 pumpkin light cover was blown away and into oblivion, never to be seen again. $2 or not, that shit pissed me off like you wouldn't believe. That thing delivered an orange glo powerful enough to clean any surface.  

In the end, I gave up on constantly trying to re-secure and reinforce shit, only to have it get rocked like a hurricane on a constant basis. I've taken out all of the rave to the gravestones as well as the grim reaper dude and away they have been put for the season. At this point, I'm over it. Though, for the record, we did carve the jack-o'-lanterns after all that shit went down, so that's helped make this disaster a little easier to deal with. Keyword being little.

RIP Pumpkin Light Cover Guy 

May your orange light glow oh so brightly in pumpkin light cover guy heaven.

32-bit of Terror: Satan's Little Helper (2004)

 

Jeff Lieberman's Satan's Little Helper has been on my radar since, well, since I first read about it in an issue of Fango some 8 years ago now. It's not difficult to figure out why such a film would grab my attention; it has an interesting idea, a cool looking costumed character and, most significantly, it's set on Halloween. But does Satan's Little Helper deliver a proper Halloween treat, or did it leave me tricked out like a $10 hooker in Hoboken? We'll just have to leave it to the 32-bits of Terror to decide the fate of this one, now won't we… 

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Little Douglas Whooly (Alexander Brickel) is obsessed with one thing and one thing only: Satan. This fixation that Dougie has with the dark lord stems from his uncontrollable love for a handheld video game, fittingly titled, Satan's Little Helper. In Satan's Little Helper, the player is given the power to control Satan as he walks the streets, killing people for points with his loyal little helper right by his side. Now, while Dougie is totally "insane for Satan," he is also excited that his sister Jenna (Katheryn Winnick) is coming home from college to take him trick or treating later on in the evening. Unfortunately, however, things get a little ugly when Jenna shows up with her new boyfriend Alex (Stephen Graham), something that Dougie doesn't take all too well. In response, the clearly distraught Dougie takes to the streets in search of his idol, Satan, hoping he might be able to help Dougie get rid of his sister's new meatsicle.

As luck would have it, Dougie comes across someone who he believes is the dark lord Satan himself, and seeing as Dougie's already dressed up as Satan's Little Helper for Halloween, the two naturally become fast friends. However, what Dougie doesn't know is that this so-called Satan (played by Joshua Annex) is actually just a serial killer using Halloween and his mischievous Satanic guise to "decorate" the town with the people he is killing. Regardless, Satan and Dougie embark on an epic killing spree together, with the abnormally gullible Dougie believing it's all just pretend, just like in the Satan's Little Helper video game, where there are no consequences, just a high score. Unfortunately, what Dougie doesn't realize is that the final level in this game of death will be played in the sanctity of his home, with his own family's lives at stake.

Graphics: 6

The actual Satan's Little Helper handheld game is essentially nothing more than a cartoon being sold as a video game. So, outside of it being sort of charming in its low-budgetness, there's really nothing that impressive on that front. On the other hand, what keeps the score above water is the actual game itself, which is purposefully over-the-top in the most entertaining of ways. I mean, this is a game where you not only control Satan, but if you get enough points, you can rip someone's guts out (which brings incredible joy to Dougie)! And to top it off, boss battles consist of fights against angles and even the big man himself, God.

Sound: 5

To be honest, I didn't really notice the sound too much, so I can't really recall whether or not the score was any good, though I assume it's probably your standard low-budget horror film fare. Either way, if I didn't notice the music, then it mustn't have been either bad or good, so I'll give it a middle of the road score.

Terrortainment: 8.5

While there are moments when it comes close to being almost ridiculous, the overall tone is charmingly tongue in cheek, and the film is self-aware enough to where it never goes over-the-top and into a territory where the cynical humor feels cheapened in any way. It's not an easy task to pull off horror and comedy, and while the horror in Satan's Little Helper is far from actually being horrific, it does come correct with a deliciously black sense of humor that's difficult not to enjoy.

Replay Value: 9

I'll lay it straight out on the table here and say that Satan's Little Helper is a superbly entertaining little black-comedy that fans of horror, humor and Halloween should truly love. And I have to admit that I am a tad disappointed in myself for not having watched it sooner than I did; however, I am certain that I'll be revisiting this one a few more times, as Satan's Little Helper will definitely being going into the Halloween season rotation.

The 32-bit Rating: 7.125

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Sorry, but the only trailer I can find is in Spanish, but it's sort of cool that way.

Halloween: The Musical

I came across this Halloween theme song parody whilst scanning YouTube recently and thought that some of you might get a kick out of it. The whole thing is put together by a comedian named Andrew Goldberg (aka Goldentusk), who basically takes well known movie theme songs and adds lyrics to them. The results are pretty funny (and oddly hypnotic), and the lyrics actually do a good job of telling the story of Halloween in a very condensed way.

Check it out!

The Tall Man: I Believe the Children Are Our Future

In the financially devastated mining town of Cold Rock, WA a community is plagued by the disappearance of numerous children, seemingly by the hands of a dark, mythical figure known as the Tall Man. As the town desperately tries to figure out where their kids have been taken to, a mother does whatever's in her power to get her missing son back, all the while unwittingly unraveling the truth behind the missing children, the Tall Man and an unexpected motivation that will throw a wrench into viewer's expectations.

Directed by French filmmaker Pascal Laugier, The Tall Man is a film that has sparked a small amount of debate from a number of people who have sat down to watch it. Naturally, The Tall Man hasn't called for the intense "discussion" that came with Laugier's previous film, 2008's Martyrs, for reasons that are obvious to anyone who has seen that film (and if you haven't, then please do). Regardless, before seeing The Tall Man for myself, I had read various opinions that ranged from people who either love or hate it, or others who really like the first half but disliked the second half and vice versa.

 

Since The Tall Man is filled with numerous unexpected occurrences (that's fancy talk for twists), I will keep this brief and say outright that I'm very happy that Laugier has been able to craft yet another film that is far from conventional. Naturally, as I've mentioned, this one has gotten pretty mixed reviews, but  there's certainly no denying that The Tall Man provokes a certain level of thought. The direction that the film goes in is basically impossible to predict, and I felt like I was never sure where the narrative could be going because it never once went where I thought it would.  

If there's a major theme strewn throughout The Tall Man, it is neglect. The neglect of children; the neglect of a town's communal, financial and physical structure; the neglect for one's own wellbeing and the wellbeing of those around them. This theme of neglect is given time to flourish as the unpredictably captivating story plays out, but it is only in the end that it's truly brought to the forefront, making everything that has come before it seem all the more clear.

Jessica Biel gives a very strong performance that grows deeper and more impressive as the film moves towards its unexpected, and possibly alienating to some, climax. It's her character that I believe shows Laugier has a thing for writing complicated female characters who are much deeper than they initially appear to be. Something else the director seems to be keen on is making a pretty gorgeous looking movie. Like Martyrs, The Tall Man is a finely crafted piece of cinema with a visual style that becomes increasingly more appealing as the story progresses towards its climax.

Being a huge fan of Martyrs, I'm not disappointing in The Tall Man, mostly because I knew there was really no possible way Laugier could do something quite like that again. Regardless, I do think he has brought something very interesting to the table with a film that will not only catch you off guard but will make you put your thinking cap on real tight. And for me, the mark of a strong film comes from the thought it commands from me afterwards, and with The Tall Man, my thoughts led me to enjoy the movie infinitely more than if I had simply shrugged it off and moved on with my day.

Goosebumps at 33: The Cuckoo Clock of Doom!

 

Previously on Goosebumps at 33…

 

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Welcome back to what is now the 3rd annual edition of Goosebumps at 33! This season we are starting this party off with a real bang, so why don't you kick off your hooves, grab yourself a warm cup of witch's brew and pull up a seat, because I am about to tell you the tall of…

The Cuckoo Clock of DOOM!!!

 

The Cuckoo Clock of Doom originally aired on November 3rd, 1995 as a part of Goosebumps' 1st season. In fact, it's the third episode behind the two-part series opener, The Haunted Mask, so you could look at The Cuckoo Clock of Doom as being a truly OG episode of the ever enjoyable children's horror series. In any event, this episode focuses on Michael, a 12-year-old boy who simply cannot stand his bitch of a sister, Tara. Tara is constantly picking on Michael, humiliating him in front of all of his friends on a continuous basis, but seeing as Michael is the biggest pussy on the planet (did I mention that Tara is 6?!), there is little he has done about this problem.

"Tara the Terrible," as she's so properly dubbed, has a vise like grip on Michael's balls, and he sees no chance for escape. That is, until one day when his father brings home an antique cuckoo clock and specifically warns Tara to keep her hands off. Michael sees this as an opportunity to get Tara in trouble, so he concocts a plan to take revenge on his sister by messing with the cuckoo clock and letting her take the fall. Seems like a great idea, that is, until Michael's prank on Tara goes horribly wrong, and after screwing around with the cuckoo clock, he finds himself trapped in a loop where he keeps reliving the same day over and over again. To make things worse, Michael is becoming younger and younger with every day that passes, and if he doesn't stop the process, he will soon become negative years old. Or become sperm. Not really sure how that works, exactly, but he must stop it before it happens.

I suppose you could look at The Cuckoo Clock of Doom as being a cross between Groundhog's Day and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as told by R.L. Stine. It's a pretty good concept that works well enough despite the 22 minute runtime, and overall I think this is a pretty solid episode that actually has one of the better payoff endings that I have seen in my limited Goosebumps history. With that said, what really stands out in this episode is actually the first 2 or 3 minutes; a 2 or 3 minutes so great that it caused me to write down a half page of notes at a frantic pace. 

Please, allow me to elaborate…

It's come to my attention that a very high number of Goosebumps episodes feature a specific character being pranked and bullied by another character or group of characters. I think it's happened in at least three of the five episodes I have reviewed (not including this one), and I'm sure it'll be a very common theme as I continue on my Goosebumps quest. Anyway, while I've already been subjected to some pretty memorable (and not in a good way) pranksters such as *blech* Tasha (don't call me John) McClain from Calling All Creeps and *ugh* Stephanie from The Headless Ghost, Tara the Terrible brings the terrible unlike any Goosebumps bully before her.

Something that totally sets Tara apart from the pack is her introduction, which comes at the start of the episode. After Tara pulls a prank on Michael by squirting him with ketchup, she goes on to refer to Michael as a KREJ, which, as Tara so Canadianly explains, is a JERK spelled backwards. I mean, really?! Calling someone a name forwards is bad enough, but backwards? That shit isn't right, bro. Another key aspect to what makes Tara the Terrible so terrible has little to do with her actual bullying as much as it has to do with her target, Michael. The idea that a 12-year-old Michael allows his 6-year-old sister to pick on him is absolutely incredible to me. Like, how weak willed are you to let a child half your size piss all over your Cheerios then laugh at you as she forces you to eat it?! That doesn't actually happen, but I was going for dramatic effect. Anyway, if I were in Michael's situation, I would have snuffed that bitch in the chest and called it a day.

So anyway, in the end, The Cuckoo Clock of Doom is a solid entry into the Goosebumps cannon. And although she is only a small part of the episode, Tara the Terrible leaves behind a villainous legacy that firmly places her in the Goosebumps Annoying Bitch Hall of Fame.

Bad Trick or Treat Ideas: Fun Size Candy

Now, to be clear, fun size treats are totally fine, so long as you're handing out at least three pieces of that shit. On the other hand, try to give me one piece of something labeled "fun size," and you might find a fun size "you know what" in your "you know where," and see how fun it is then. When it comes to candy, size always matters.