A review of good DVD's to watch on Halloween.

It is that time of year again. When people like to throw costume parties and watch scary movies. Since Halloween falls on a Friday this year, why not make it a three day event. Here are 12 titles for those who are brave enough to check them out. There would be 13, but everybody knows that it is an unlucky number.

1.      Halloween

2.      28 Days Later

3.      Friday the 13^th

4.      Nightmare on Elm Street

5.      Night of the Living Dead

6.      Willard

7.      Wrong Turn

8.      Texas Chainsaw Massacre

9.      Blade

10.  Bram Stoker’s Dracula

11.  Pet Cemetery

12.  Man’s Best Friend

(Synopsis for each film) – Do not include this sentence in article.

Halloween

25 years ago, this independent film introduced Michael Myers to the world of horror film fans.

            As a young boy, Myers killed his sister and was locked away in a mental institution. After breaking out, he returns home to begin killing again, and it is a young and resourceful young babysitter who becomes his primary target on that fateful Halloween night.

Trivia

* This was the debut film for Jamie Lee Curtis.

* The 25^th anniversary edition with high definition transfer also offers the featurette On Location: 25 years later, the documentary Halloween: a Cut above the Rest, the trailers, radio spots, photo galleries, poster art and more.

28 Days Later

This film brings new meaning to word bio-terrorism. After animal activists raid a British primate research lab, a nasty virus is unleashed upon the unsuspecting public. It is carried in a single drop of blood, and the virus has immediate effects that turn the victim into a murderous zombie.

            Within 28 days, Britain is ravaged and torn apart by the virus, and when a coma patient wakes up in a deserted intensive care unit, he has no idea what is going on. It is the explosion of a makeshift bomb that he finds out what is happening. Together the band of survivors must figure out a way to stay alive.

Trivia

* The film was shot in London, East End, the Docklands, Trafalgar Park in Salisbury, the TRL Research Centre in Crowthorne and Schwaben Park in Germany.

* The extras on this DVD include three alternate endings, deleted/extended scenes, audio commentary, a making-of featurette Pure Rage – The Making of 28 Days Later, a music video and more.

Friday the 13^th

After the drowning death of a young camper named Jason in 1957, Camp Crystal Lake was shut down. 23 years later in 1980, it is re-opened and counselors find themselves being killed off by someone who does not want the camp re-opened.

Trivia

* www.fridaythe13thfilms.com/saga/bodycount1.html provides the body count for the film to be 10 corpses.

* Sally Field was pursued for the role of Alice, which eventually went to Adrienne King.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

A serial child murderer is killed by a lynch mob. That monster was Freddy Krueger, and he comes back to haunt and kill the children of those who murdered him. The catch is that he is able to kill people in their dreams.

Trivia

* Because this film’s success saved New Line Cinema from bankruptcy, the studio has been jokingly nicknamed “the house that Freddy built.”

* Mimi Craven, Wes Craven’s wife, appears in the film as the nurse who examines Nancy.

Night of the Living Dead

Released in 1968, this black and white zombie horror film is still considered a classic. It was the radiation from a fallen satellite that resurrected the dead, and now they are looking for living people to feed on.

Trivia

* According to the Internet Movie Database, this was the first horror film to have an African-American playing a lead role.

*This movie’s working title was “Monster Flick.”

Willard

This film is like a creepy “Pied Piper” story. Willard Stiles, played by Crispin Glover (you may remember him as Marty McFly in Back to the Future), is a lonely social outcast who is picked on by his co-workers.

            The only friends he seems to have are an office temp and the rats living in his house with him. After one of them (a rat named Socrates) is killed at the job, Stiles influence over the rats cause them to rage against the co-workers that have tormented him over the years.

Trivia

* The film is based upon the novel “Ratman’s Notebooks.”

* Extras offered on this New Line Platinum Series DVD include 12 deleted/alternate scenes, filmmaker commentary, a making-of documentary “Year of the Rat,” the trailer and T.V. spots, DVD-ROM/online features, the featurette “Rat People: Friends or Foes?” and the music video “Ben.”  

Wrong Turn

This movie is proof of why travelers should have clear directions to their destination. A person never knows when they may become stranded in the mountains of West Virginia with someone looking to have them for dinner. Of course, that would not be so bad if those travelers were not being looked at as the entrée or appetizer.

Trivia

* Canada was used as a substitution for the Appalachians of West Virginia.

* Screenwriter Alan McElroy also penned Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

* The cannibal mountain men are named Three-Finger, Saw-Tooth and One-Eye.

* Actor Desmond Harrington who plays Chris was born in Savannah, Ga.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

In 1974, this cult classic terrified audiences as they learned the importance of not picking up hitchhikers.

            It started as a visit to check out their grandfather’s vandalized grave, and they pick up a hitchhiker on the way. Upon arriving at the man’s home they are greeted by Leatherface and his psychotic family. The meeting does not go well as the five soon find themselves fighting to survive the arsenal of power tools being used against them.

Trivia

* Headcheese and Leatherface were working titles for this film.

* Leatherface has three masks in the film: the “killing mask,” the “old lady mask” and the “pretty woman mask.”

Blade

Based on a comic strip, Blade is half human and half vampire. His mother was infected by a vampire, and it was that genetic material that was passed on to him. Resentful of the contamination and bent on the revenge of his mother’s death, Blade is a vampire hunter who will stop at nothing to rid the world of the night creatures.

            The film is extremely graphic and not for the faint of heart. Do most horror fans need to worry themselves with such a characteristic? Probably not but the warning is for those who want to see Wesley Snipes applying his martial arts magic into kicking some vampire ass, but they do not necessarily want to see a lot of gore.

Trivia

* LL Cool J was originally considered for the role of Blade.

* The DVD is part of the New Line Platinum Series, and the extras include three featurettes, alternate endings, photo galleries, filmographies, DVD-ROM content, trailers and more.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

In 1992, Francis Ford Coppola gave the world his version of the Bram Stoker novel Dracula. While he focused on the romantic angle of the story, there was still plenty of blood and gore in the film.

            Gary Oldman plays Vlad the Impaler, a count and fierce warrior who goes off to fight in the Crusades. After being lied to about the death of husband, Vlad’s wife Elisabeta commits suicide. When Vlad finds his dead wife, he renounces the God he fought for and becomes Count Dracula by making a deal with the devil for immortality. The film then moves forward to 1897 in London. Keanu Reeves plays Jonathan Harker who has to leave his fiancée Mina played by Winona Ryder for a journey to Transylvania. It is there that he meets Count Dracula to complete a real estate deal.

            After he sees a photo of Mina, he believes his wife has been reincarnated. Dracula keeps Harker as a prisoner in his castle while traveling to London to reunite with his lost lover.

Trivia

* The film received three Academy Awards in 1992 for Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Best Sound Effects.

* Winona Ryder was responsible for showing the script to Francis Ford Coppola.

* Dracula’s character was the only one costumed in red to symbolize blood. The one exception was Mina’s red dress when she dances at the Rule’s Café with Dracula.

* Gary Oldham (Dracula) has been cast in the third Harry Potter film as Sirus Black.

Pet Sematary

This film is based on the Stephen King novel, and it includes ancient Indian tribal grounds and an animal burial spot.

            The Creeds are an ordinary family, and when they cat is killed in an accident, the family buries it in what they think is a local pet cemetery. Their neighbor later tells them that the site is actually sacred Indian ground, and that things buried there have been know to resurrect.

            Imagine the amazement of seeing the cat later in the week, but little do they know that evil spirits have come back in the place of their loveable pet. The problems really escalate when their neighbor buries his dead son their, and when the son rises from the dead, he also brings back an evil spirit.

Trivia

* In typical Stephen King fashion, he has a cameo role as a minister at the funeral.

* The Creed’s pet Church was portrayed by seven different cats.

Man’s Best Friend

In the realm of what really happens to the test subjects in laboratories, Man’s Best Friend provides viewers with a look at dog who has been injected with chemicals designed to alter his DNA and general temperament.

            The animal has been turned into a vicious killing machine, but the world is safe as long as he is kept confined in the lab with drugs that control him. Of course, the movie would not go very far if someone did not trigger the dog’s escape.

            In comes Ally Sheedy as an aggressive journalist looking for a story. She breaks into the lab, and in the process, she sets the dog Max free to roam in the world. Now it is a race to capture the dog before the body count gets too high.

Trivia

* The drug-altered is played by a Tibetan mastiff.

* Director Bob Engleman was also a producer for Blade.