Happy Halloween!

Have a safe and Happy Halloween! 

Halloween Image Gallery!

HALLOWEEN 6: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1995)

A few years ago I decided it was time to stop avoiding the various Halloween sequels and finally check them out. Maybe there was some gold in those movies- who knew? Well, after I finished slogging through HALLOWEEN 4, HALLOWEEN 5 and the sad-ass HALLOWEEN 6 I realized that I had wasted my time in a futile hunt. For all the talk about how many bizarre avenues the producers of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises walked their boogeyman characters down clearly the most potholed road was travelled by Michael Myers. My god! There should have never been a Michael Myers film made after HALLOWEEN II (1982) and these three movies only made me wish harder that the direction of HALLOWEEN III (1983) had been realized. The stories for 4 and 5 are pretty damned bad but by the time they got to 6 - subtitled The Curse of Michael Myers - they had written themselves into a corner from which there was no escape. Celtic priests, runic tattoos, constellations in alignment, shadowy conspiracies, evil cults and druids -fucking DRUIDS, people - were woven together into a threadbare mess that only partially resembled a coherent story. Watching Paul Rudd try his best (in his screen debut) to make the expository dialog sound sane is almost worth your time, but not quite. I'm not surprised the producers decided to scrap this storyline, ignore it completely and pretend it never happened with the next film in the series HALLOWEEN H2O (1998). That was a pretty strong and well made sequel to the original two films even if they had to go and screw it up with the next one. Damned Halloween sequels. 

Anyway- this past week I couldn't stop myself from rewatching HALLOWEEN 6 (1995) mainly because I wanted to watch both versions back to back - again. You see, HALLOWEEN 6 exists in two sort-of official cuts. There is the hideous and stupid theatrical cut that everyone saw in 1995 which plays like a typical sequel except that Donald Pleasance's Dr. Loomis character disappears for the final thirty minutes. That's because the entire ending was reshot to change the mad druid priest curse clusterfuck ending that confused and pissed off the test screened audiences. Pleasance isn't in this ending because he had died before it was shot! The original version of the film - now known as the Producer's Cut - is better than the theatrical but only by virtue of being so totally nuts that it becomes goofily entertaining for the wrong reasons. Guys in black robes stealing babies while trying to create another Michael Myers to bring about the end of the world - or something like that - is much more fun than watching Paul Rudd run around a basement and beat Myers to death with a pipe. But maybe I'm stating the obvious there. 

HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1995) is a terrible movie and quite possible the perfect example of what happens when you don't think a franchise through or extend its life past its 'sell by' date. But I suspect I will watch it again. And when I do I will question my own sanity again while I shake my head and laugh at the idiocy of the plot hole riddled script. Is it so bad it's good? Maybe. I don't know. I just know it's stupid as hell and I'm drawn to watch it every few years. 

Linus Van Pelt - Religious Fanatic

Seriously. He's about two steps away from 'Cult Leader'! 

The Bloody Pit #31 - DIARY OF A MADMAN (1963) and other Horla adaptations

For a Halloween treat I present an episode that focuses on Guy de Maupassant's classic short story The Horla and its various adaptations. The most prominent of these is the Vincent Price movie DIARY OF A MADMAN but the story is much twisted out of shape by the film's script The film adds a tragic family history, romantic entanglements, a conniving femme fatal, a cuckolded husband and murderous dark deeds done with knives to a tale that was much more of a treatise on fear and the horrors of the mind. Still, the film is worth seeing and Price is a joy but, while I discuss the story and its cinema incarnation, I also include in the show two of the three known radio adaptations of it as well. I think you'll get a kick out them - listen with the lights out!

If you have any comments you can reach me or the various co-hosts of past episodes at thebloodypit@gmail.com and I'll be glad to include your feedback in a future show. Thank you for downloading and listening! Happy Halloween! 

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Visit Peaceful Santa Mira!

I just keep finding more great artwork for HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)! 

Vintage Halloween Cheesecake Photos

This is my idea of  'sexy' Halloween costumes! 

Beyond Naschy #15 - PIECES (1982)

You don't need to go to Texas to have a chainsaw massacre! Finally bowing to listener pressure Troy and I are covering our first Juan Piquer Simón movie. To say that PIECES (1982) is a unique film is to undersell its many odd qualities and the strange pleasures that can be derived from this incredible horror effort. Simón is infamous for directing several terrible movies in the 1980's that are usually hidden behind his Anglicized pseudonym J. P. Simon. Besides this film he is responsible for the movie at the heart of the classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 'Pod People' as well as SLUGS (1988).  Simon's films often got distribution outside of Spain because of his insistence on filming in English knowing that America was the biggest market for genre pictures - don't ever sell the man short when it comes to business!

Simon's original title for his script was 'Mil gritos tiene la noche' which translates to 'A Thousand Screams in the Night' and while that might be an interesting name for this tale, PIECES truly sums it up perfectly. Pulling inspiration (to be generous) from several different sources (The Shadow, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, anything that might occur on set, etc.)  the movie might not be very original but it is also never boring. I have a personal affinity for PIECES that stems from having seen it on the big screen in its American theatrical run in 1983. We touch on this tale of teenage movie going and how it might have been the beginnings of my adult fascination with Euro-Trash cinema as well as Troy's earliest impressions of this gore drenched classic. We have a great time discussing this crazed film and I get so excited I spend several minutes referring to Lynda Day George as Susan George! Jeeze! Luckily Troy notices and steers me back to the correct name and then we publicly embarrass the poor actress by playing her most cringe inducing line from this film. We can be bastards! Bastards. Bastards.

The mailbag is light this month but we do have some interesting comments from a listener who has gone and created his own podcast - Fandom Radio Podcast! Go check it out! I also relate the discovery that the novel on which ROTTWEILER (2004) was based was actually filmed once before in 1979 with EXORCIST star Jason Miller in the lead role. I now need to watch this version and report back to compare and contrast.

You can reach us over on the Naschycast Facebook page or email us your thoughts at naschycast@gmail.com if you so desire. We'll be back next month with a very obscure Naschy film from the 1970's. Thanks for downloading and listening. 

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Hammer Title Screens!