Three Reasons Michael Myers is the Best Slasher

So, if you know me at all, then you know that I am the biggest fan of the Halloween franchise. I’ve seen and own all the movies and I even own memorabilia of the film. Michael Myers is by far my favorite slasher from a slasher film but I happen to think that he’s one of the best as well. DISCLAIMER: this is purely opinion based so feel free to disagree. 🙂

My top 3 reasons Michael Myers is the best slasher icon of all time:

  1. Michael was a normal boy from a normal home. He wasn’t like Thomas Hewitt (Leatherface) who was a backwoods hillbilly raised by psychopaths. He was a normal kid that was raised by normal parents. That is what was so terrifying about the whole thing. He was completely normal and then one day snapped. After that night, he never spoke again and he became this silent terror stalking the night. The mystery behind the shape is what makes him so scary and the fact that he was a normal human boy makes him terrifying.
  2. Which brings me to my next point. Michael Myers was human. So many slashers, especially in the 70s and 80s, had a supernatural twist to them. Look at Jason, he drowned in the lake and came back to life to avenge his mother’s death. Freddy Krueger was a pedophile that was burned alive and know stalks people in their dreams in order to kill them in real life. Chunky was a criminal that died and was reincarnated into a killer toy. I can keep going with this example. Michael Myers is one of the few human monsters of his day. This aspect of him makes the fact that he gets stuck in deadly situations and still doesn’t die even more terrifying.
  3. Finally, he virtually has no motive. Every other slasher in every other film has a motive. Leatherface needs skin to make masks for himself. Jason kills the counselors with no morals because they were too busy having sex to save him from drowning. What’s michaels motive? To finish the job? If that were the case he would go straight for Laurie and not kill everyone else to get to her. Because he wants to be reunited with his sister? Why would he kill every person he came across to do that? No. Michaels motive is simply because he enjoys killing people. Nothing more, nothing less.

Those are the top 3 reasons I think Michael Myers is one of the best horror movie slashers of all time. I could honestly talk about this all day.  Feel free to disagree but tell me in the comments who you’re favorite slasher is and why!

until next time…

Stay spooky ghouls!

Movie Review: Down a Dark Hall

I recently was given access to HBO in order to watch the final season of Game of Thrones. Yesterday, I was perusing around on the app and found a movie titled “Down a Dark Hall.” I took a peep at the preview and thought to give it a chance. I’m honestly not really pleased with horror selection on HBO but the preview seemed promising so I watched it.

is a movie based on a novel by the same name written by Lois Duncan. It was directed by Rodrigo Cortez with the screenplay written by Mike Goldbach and Chris Sparling. The movie stars AnnaSophia Robb as Kit Gordy, a troubled teenager after the death of her father at a young age. After a failed attempt to burn her school down, she gets expelled from school and is sent Blackwood Boarding School, an old, dark victorian mansion isolated in the middle of the woods. There she meets four other troubled teens and the mysterious headmistress of Blackwood, Ms. Duret played by Uma Thurman.

The trailer spoke of promises of everything I love, creepy victorian scenery, slow moving scenes ending in jump scares, creepy poltergeist activities and mysterious motives from the staff. I had the impression that there was going to be some kind of evil witchcraft or demonic energy involved so I watched in anticipation of a good, creepy movie. I will say, this movie did not deliver such expectations and ended up being just “meh”.

Where do I begin? The plot was extremely underdeveloped. Nothing was explained aside from the actual motive of the headmistress to give deceased artists, writers, mathematicians and musicians a vessel to continue the work that was cut short by their untimely deaths. Such a cool idea wasted on 96 minutes of nothing. There were creepy, slow moving scenes alright but one jump scare the entire film and in the most obvious scene with a jump scare. Some of the scenes took place in areas that made no sense in relation to the house they used to film. And literally nothing was explained. One of the characters, Ashley, was channeling a famous female poet named Victoria. Around the middle of the movie Ashley begins to mention a man who has replaced Victoria and is evil with evil intentions. This character is never developed more than popping up in a few other scenes. Aside from that, nothing in this movie indicates who he is. Madame Duret mentions that once you open the door, you can’t control what comes in. So apparently they had been dealing with this half burned man for a while in order to continue their project. But if she knew about him then there must be something to know about. So the question still stands…WHO THE HELL IS HE?

On top of the mysterious evil half burned man, there are many other scenes that make absolutely no sense. The scene where Kit and Veronica go into the locked portion of the house to find all the past student records. Madame Duret shows up and Veronica takes the fall. During the whole scene you see spirits tucked away in the shadows watching their every move. It wasn’t until the end, when Madame Duret shows up and “gives” Veronica to “them”, when the lurking spirits finally strike. These same spirits show up in a couple more scenes. It would have been nice to know who these spirits were. Why did they not act until Madame Duret instructed them? What did they actually do to Veronica? Kit ends up going back and finding Veronica chained up and seemingly possessed by a demon or something. After an intense battle, Kit yells at Veronica to fight it and somehow the demon possessing her exits her body. HOW? Everything we know about demon possessions from a hollywood standpoint screams impossible when it comes to this scene. What did those spirits do to Veronica and why didn’t they do the same to Kit when she was up there rescuing her?

There was just too many scenes that didn’t make any sense or were severely underdeveloped story line for me to enjoy this horror film. The ratings for this movie weren’t that great, receiving 5.2 out of 10 from IMDB, 50% from Rotten Tomatoes and a 56 from Metacritic. I’d have to agree with those ratings. The story is such a good one and they could’ve done so much more to make this movie a hit but in the end, it came up lacking. By the end I was happy to see the credits and I probably won’t watch it again. I would, however, read the book because I would like to hope that Lois Duncan provided an actual story that makes sense and hollywood, once again, watered it down to make it a movie.

Until next time ghouls

Even in Death: A Short Story

Our story, though long and at times troubling, is one of my favorite love stories. It transcends space and time and even death. The year was 1876 when I first locked eyes with Benjamin. From the very first time he smiled at me I knew he was the one I’d spend my life with. I was fourteen at the time, Benjamin was seventeen. We met at the annual Christmas party my parents were throwing. His parents were aristocrats, as were mine, so we were destined to be togethe

Two months later Benjamin was promised to my sister, Katherine. You see, my father and his father decided to merge our families in order to preserve the wealth so Katherine being sixteen would be first to be married. Unfortunately, by that logic, that meant that Benjamin, being the oldest, would be first to marry as well. This devastated me, but I knew he loved me…not her.

Six months later they married and moved into this beautiful cottage that my parents bought for them. It was like something out of a dream. But Benjamin wasn’t happy, I know this because he spent his spare time running around with me. We were in love! We did whatever we could do to be with each other.

When I turned sixteen my father promised me to Armond Whitacker, son of Victor Whitacker. Victor was the mayor of our little town so this was a very prominent and important marriage proposal. With this betrothment, my family and I would be set for life. I didn’t care about any of it. Armond was a twenty one year old spoiled half-wit with absolutely no class. He had no idea how to treat a lady! So naturally, Benjamin and I kept seeing each other long after the wedding.

Five years into this arrangement, Katherine becomes pregnant with their first child. She is filled with pure joy at the thought of having a child. Benjamin, on the other hand, was devastated. He only consummated with Katherine because eventually, he had to in order to keep this marriage legal. She didn’t care to know why he hated sleeping with her, she just wanted a child. When she became pregnant, Benjamin knew what he’d have to do.

So one night we made a plan. We were going to run away together! First, we had to take care of our two issues. It was raining hard that night so the world was extra dark. Benjamin snuck into the bedroom he shared with my sister. He rose the axe high in the hair and chopped her up into little pieces. Meanwhile, I was packing my bags to leave when Armond came in. We began to argue because I told him I was leaving him. He struck me and things began to get physical. All I kept thinking is that I wouldn’t meet Benjamin in time.

Things started to go south when Armond, in all his fury, grabbed me, turned me around and lifted my dress. He shoved my face down into the mattress and began to rape me. It burned so badly and each time he thrusted himself onto me my cries grew louder and louder. That wasn’t enough for him to stop. He just kept grunting and thrusting managing to yell out “If anyone gets to fuck you it’s me” inbetween grunts. I began to scream from the pain.

A loud bang came from behind me but it did not slow Armond down. What did slow him down was the knife taken to his throat by Benjamin. Armond fell to the floor, mouth open and eyes staring straight ahead. Benjamin grabbed me and held me while I sobbed into his shoulder. I was traumatized by what just happened but being in his arms, even for a moment, helped relieve my sorrows.

“We have to go before they realize he’s dead.” He whispers softly into my ear. I nodded, straightened myself up and grabbed my bag. We left through the back entrance, completely missed by all forty-two of the house servants. With the house getting smaller in the distance, we hear a bloodcurdling scream which was our cue to run faster.

We made our way more north until we found a nice little inn to stay at. We were miles from anyone who would recognize us so we took a room for the night. We ended up staying for weeks, maybe even months.We lost track, lost in our own romantic paradise. We made love, ate great food, drank at the pub and laughed for days on end. It was the happiest moment of my life. We decided to go further north to avoid anyone ever catching up to us. We went to an entirely different country all together and settled down. We changed our names to Winifred and Edward. We married and bought this quaint little home to spend our days. It was absolutely perfect, all I ever wanted in life.

For fifteen years this is how we lived. He opened a bakery, making the finest breads and pastries. I wrote, spending days in poetic oblivion. Sometimes years would go by and we wouldn’t even notice because we were so happy. That was until Benjamin developed consumption. When the doctor told him it was like our bubble of happiness instantly deflated, leaving us to suffocate in it’s midsts.I personally felt like my heart exploded into a million pieces. How could this happen? How could I go on?

That leads me to this moment. Him, laying in this wooden coffin, and me, crying excessively by his side. He was beautiful. Every part of him was glistening, even in the dark funeral parlor. His wavy, chestnut brown hair lay perfectly around his slender face. He smelled of cherry wood and tobacco smoke. I lay my gloved hand upon his, tears pouring from my eyes. I leaned down to kiss his forehead, whispering to him “I will never leave you.”

Every seat in the parlor was taken. Sad faces staring up at me as I made my way to my seat. The service was beautiful but I didn’t hear a word of it. All I could hear was the beating heart in my chest echoing back at me. And just as I started to fear forgetting his voice, I heard it. Loud and clear. He said “even in death, our love goes on.” It was at that point that I knew what I need to do. There’s only one suitable place for his body and that is at home…with me.

Written by K. Holbrook