I am participating in a 30 day challenge. This time it is all about horror! If you know anything about us here at the Fort you would know that we are hard core horror fans. Each October we watch a movie each night in what we dub as “The 31 Nights of Horror.”
Day 4: Horror Musical
This is a movie I have to check out durning this year’s 31 Days. Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead has got to be one of the craziest independent horror musical films of all time. Has anyone seen it?
I am participating in a 30 day challenge. This time it is all about horror! If you know anything about us here at the Fort you would know that we are hard core horror fans. Each October we watch a movie each night in what we dub as “The 31 Nights of Horror.”
Day 3: Creepiest dead body
The exploding dead scene in Scanners (1981) scared me to death when I was a kid. I saw this movie with my dad when it came out in the theater. I was 9 years old. This scene set the bar high for my thirst for the horror genre for years to come.
Calling John Goodman, there is a Giant Spider attacking Phantom Lake County and we need an exterminator pronto!
In the 8th annual installment from Saint Euprohia Pictures and filmmaker Christopher R. Mihm we bring you The Giant Spider! If you are a fan of 1950s era drive-in movies, cheesy dialoque, and overtly over acting by the characters, you will love the Mihm films and The Giant Spider is the best of the bunch.
Blended perfectly with a great story, a creepy-crawly spider, humor, cold war military extravagance, and a Three’s Company-esque innuendo or two thrown in– you have a film that should please every one in the family.
Writer/Director Mihm holds back no punches in Spider. He brings back his familiar cast of actors, many of them friends of his and local talent from around his home state of Minnesota. We welcome back Shannon McDonough, Mike Cook, James Norgard, Sid Korpi, and Mihm does his best Hitchcock trademark by placing himself in the film as a drive in movie theater owner.
The effects are cheesy but great at the same time. The giant spider fits right in even though you can plainly see he shouldn’t. The best scene is the motorcycle scene in which one minute he is driving along on a dirt road and in the next frame it is dry pavement! This is all part of the charm of the Mihm films and he does it deliberately to pay homage to the great sci-fi/horror movies we all grew up on watching on our black and white TV’s late at night in our parents basement.
Sid Korpi returns and is spectacular! She has been in the last couple of Mihm films (Attack of the Moon Zombies 2011 and House of Ghosts 2012). In this installment we return to Korpi’s victorian era home in Minneapolis that was made famous in Ghosts. This time to her attic that she and her husband Antony Kaczor, whom is also in the film, who have decorated in real life as a 50’s era malt-shop replete with checker boards and pictures of Elvis. When she and Kaczor are not acting in the Mihm films they teach dance lessons in the attic.
Another great feature of the film is the public domain archived footage of the omni-present military. What a great touch, Chris. I loved it! Not to mention how the Major acts like Private Gomer Pile to his superior 3-star General in the military scenes.
All in all, Mihm out did himself with The Giant Spider. It is by far the best film he has made to date. He continues to amaze his fans with what a very small budget, a vision, and a lot of time on your hands, to what a filmmaker can come up with. Who needs multi-million dollar CGI feature films with overpaid actors that care more about the red carpet than they do the films they make, when you can have the genius mind of Mihm on DVD every spring?
Lastly, I just want to know; where can we get one of those delicious Burger Dogs?
The Shining (1980) is one of my favorite movies. I have watched it so many times that I can practically cite it line-by-line. It is a great story, even though is does not stay on pace with Stephen King’s story all that much.
Jack Nicholson is brilliant. He nailed the role of “Jack” and set a standard for every other creepy stalker guy in film today. Did you know that he ad-libbed the now famous, Here’s Johnny!, line and it wasn’t in the script?
Danny (Danny Lloyd) is great as well. Did you know that he was told during filming that the movie was a drama so that he wouldn’t get scared.
Also did you know that the outside shots of the hotel are actually the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon? Contrary to popular belief the hotel Estes Park, Colorado, The Overlook Hotel, was not the hotel in the film. It was used for the made-for-tv version of the movie.
Also did you know that almost all of the movie was filmed on sound-stages in London.
What is your favorite scary movie?
There are movie that have scary kids, Namely that crazy kid from Home Alone in the scary/drama The Good Son, to Chucky–well he is a doll, not a kid. But none of them take the viewer by the throat and don’t let go than the little monster in kickers named Damien.
Admit this little snot-nose is creepy. Heck he is sportin’ birthmarks that tie him to the devil! Today people pay good money to get ink on their bodies to hail allegiance to the dark one.
The Omen (1976) is a scary flick. It has to be very parent’s nightmare and reason enough not to ever hire a nanny, well unless it is Rebecca De Mornay (Hand that Rocks the Cradle).
Did you know that after this film was released that the popularity of Rottweilers skyrocketed?
What is your favorite scary movie?
