Christmas movies for the family...

If your family is the Manson family that is.... For all to enjoy - a list of 10 random Xmas themed horror flicks!

Thank you Fark.com...

I found a movie worse than Malevolence

and it’s called Zombie Honeymoon. Words cannot describe how bad this movie is – and if you’re very lucky you to can catch it on Showtime.

Denise & Danny are honeymooning on the Jersey Shore when Danny gets accosted by someone resembling the Swamp Thing coming out of the ocean and bleeding all in his mouf, which as you know turns you into zombie. At least it normally does. This clearly was a slow moving zombie-virus – flesh-wise anyway, his blood lust kicks in pretty quickly. After coming back from the dead (the brain trust at the hospital tried to shock him back to life), they decide they want to have a romantical dinner with the main course being cream of mushroom soup (WTF). But before she can make said soup, she comes back from the store and finds Danny munching on the fat guy next door. Love knowing no bounds, Denise decides she’s going to stand by her man no matter what.

Correct me if I’m wrong, in zombie cannon, the zombie a) turns pretty swiftly, b) wants brains (I’m a purist, what can I say) and c) usually isn’t sentient. Not only is Danny walking around making pleasant conversation (when he’s not attacking and eating people), he’s in the loo talking to the porcelain gods after each tasty treat.

Danny, who is slowly falling apart and getting hungrier by the moment, which makes Denise decide she’s going to put on her red wedding dress (symbolism much) and make her man some soup. Before that happens, their best friend shows up with the cops, WHO SHOOT DANNY IN THE HEAD, perturbed by that he attacks & eats everyone around. Hours after his feast he’s getting already to bring his bride over to the zombie-side when he makes the realization he’s hurt her too much, apologizes and pukes blood all over the wall instead of in her mouf.

Couple all of this with some awful acting, a lead actress who has an unidentifiable accent, the set which was clearly the director’s house, and you my friends have yourself my very first 1 George review.

So tell us Jesus, what the hell happened…

Huh, so that live-blogging thing didn’t work out so well now did it. I have no real excuse other than that due to a case sleep deprivation, I came down with a case of Jeff-like being practically dead [but I’m not dead yet, you’ll hear her cry].

So yeah [she does that crazy little Eddie Izzard dance] that worked, and now I’m wasting valuable work time to bring you the story of Billy and his hatred (and/or hard-on) for sorority chicks.

Black Christmas (1974)

Having never seen A Christmas Story, it is my understanding that Bob Clark directed both movies, and Porky’s of all things, which seems a bit counterintuitive to me, regardless, I tarry on. One final note on Bob Clark -I was supremely disappointed that no one was dispatched with the trademark Leg Lamp, because that would have been genius.

The scene opens with a rockin’ holiday party at the sorority house and some guy climbing into the attic – how he got up there is anyone’s guess, I suppose Santa might have dropped him off – some of the girls who live at the house were presumably on the naughty list (what with one being a drunk and the other knocked up) and should have had their bags packed and expected a kickin’ (see: Sinterklaas – thank you David Sedaris, thank you). Regardless one comely-lass doing some last minute checking on her dry-cleaning becomes our first unwitting victim. Now why Billy drags her, dry-cleaning sack & all to the attic to rock-away her afterlife is a puzzler, but never mind that, Billy’s got a phone call to make.

Cut to a “telephone conversation” with who the girls refer to as the “Moaner.” Here’s the thing – I would have imagined that sorority chicks get a number of obscene phone calls and having listened to all of Billy’s calls that night – none of them sounded anything like I would call an obscene phone call.

We got to see a number of increasingly inventive killings –Margot Kidder impaled with a glass unicorn, and Mrs. MacHenry, our booze-hiding-in-every-possible-place-imagined gets a hook in the face whilst looking for her kitty being two of my favorites.

Their paranoia gets the better of them and the girls go to the cops (your typical dolt-like backwoods morons who much like Kellie Picker don’t know the definition of the word “fellatio”) and report the calls. Goober & Barney think it’s the boyfriend and have the phone tapped, meanwhile Billy kills again, the cops trace the call, and then dear readers, we get the money shot:

“The calls are coming from inside the house! Get out!”

A chase scene ensues, the boyfriend is killed, Barney & Goober confident the case is closed, leave the pregnant chick, upstairs sleeping off her bad day and fade to a ringing phone…

Did Billy strike again, you decide…

Black Christmas: Squared!!! (1974, 2006)

Black Christmas (1974)
From the man who brought you A Christmas Story, comes its disfigured, misanthropic, taking –a-dump-in-the-neck-stump-of-a-rectally-desecrated-St. Nick counterpart: Black Christmas. OK, maybe that is too much of a buildup. But it is a horror movie that takes place on/around Christmas, and there is no Red Ryder bb gun to save the day here.

BC is the story of a sorority house that gets terrorized and slaughterized during Christmas break. That is the movie in one sentence. The terror comes in the form of phone calls to the house after each killing and the slaughter coming in sporadic bursts in various parts of the house (preceding each phone call) throughout the film. The creepiest parts of this movie were the phone calls. Each one consisted of multiple voices, whispering, tittering, atonal shrieks and yelps, and they got progressively weirder and more disturbing. The killings were fairly swift and virtually goreless, so a bit of a disappointment there. But it was a nice touch to keep the first victim sequestered and undiscovered in an attic chair with her head wrapped in a plastic back for the entirety of the movie.

Anywho, we never get to see the killer, the killer is never caught, and the movie ends sort of open endedly. I kind of like the ending, but I wish we had gotten a little bit on the killer ID/motivation. This was one of the earlier films to use killer POV camera shots and it worked well in adding to the atmosphere of creepiness. This film also made use of the “The call is coming from inside the house!!!!” meme. Tracing a call back in the 70s was no small thing either. In this case, some poor schmuck had to run around a room the size of a city block filled with cacophonous clacking towers.

Actors of note in the movie include Margot Kidder, Olivia Hussey, and an atypically mousy Andrea Martin (of SCTV fame). Something to note, this is a horror movie set in a Sorority House, and there was NO nudity. For Shame, Bob Clark, for shame! Let me remind you that Bob Clark also directed Porky’s and Porky’s II: The Next Day, so he is capable.




Black Christmas (2006)
Same setup as the original, but a lot more story. The 2006 version gives us an identity of the killer (killers, actually), motivation(s), backstory/origin, and a much more fleshed out and elaborate ending. This version also gives us a lot more gore, with one of the killers having an eyeball fetish (gotta collect ‘em all!!). This was also a more modern telling of the tale, with the phone calls coming from each victim’s cell phone.

Actors of note include Lacey Chabert, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Andrea Martin again. This time she plays the house mother, rather than a sorority sister.

I’d give each of the movies 3 Georges but for different reasons. The original had a good creepy atmosphere and POV work, with disturbing phonecalls, but no gore or nudity. Plus the fact that it was directed by the guy who gave us A Christmas Story, great duality.
The remake had a great story, plenty of gore, and did its predecessor justice, as so few remakes do.

Fun Times With Skull Butter

Dear Readers,

I know there are already two reviews of Carlos Puerto's 1977 film "Escalofrío" (aka "Satan's Blood") on this site... but mine has lots of pretty pictures! Allow me to depart from my usual verbose method of film critique and give you the Jeff's Notes version:



How To Live Like A Satanist

---

First, grow a beard and decorate in Tarot Cards:




Next, do what Satanists (apparently) do best: undress women!




Now cut the cheese!


"Why don't you cut the cheese, huh?"


Contact kosher spirits with the Jewija Board!




Finally, make sure you provide a decent home to Chucky's Grandma...





...because she makes the best homemade Skull Butter in Spain!
Skull Butter!!!


Two Georges for plenty of full-frontal nudity and one because I laughed a lot at the unintentional humor. That means at Dudes of Horror, this movie has thrice received a George Rating of three! Three threes? 333! That's half of 666! And look! I unconsciously posted six photos from the film! Help! I'm becoming a Satanist! Where's my skull butter!?!?!?

8 Films To Die For 2007 (What Happened, Jeff?)

WTF? The Dudes of Horror came into existence as a result of the original "8 Films To Die For" horror film festival in 2006- so how in the hell could this site allow the 2007 event to go by without so much as a single post?

Well first off allow me to apologize to you, dear reader, for dying. Your humble defacto site administrator was buried six feet under for several months and by the time he was reanimated and subsequently rejoined the ranks of the living there simply was no time to plan and organize an excursion to allow the Dudes of Horror to see and review the 2007 festival as it happened.

So what are you going to do about this? Huh?

Well if Cher ever returns any of my calls, I'll travel back to November 9th, 2007 and post reviews straight from the theater. I'll even buy seats for all of our site's regular readers. (ha!)

Failing that, the Dudes will resort to our Triple-A Backup Plan!

The Triple-A Backup Plan

1. Acquire all eight of the 2007 films when they become available on DVD


2. Assemble as many of the Dudes together in one spot with the 8 DVDs


3. Assess the films and post our reviews

When will this happen? We have no idea. The 2006 films didn't hit DVD shelves until the following March. The "fan favorite" film (The Abandoned) was re-released in theaters and show up on DVD until June. So it could be a while if the 2007 films follow the same DVD release schedule as 2006.

One thing we could do in the meantime is dig up the two "bonus films" from 2006: Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror and The Tripper. I, for one, would love to see a film written by, produced by, directed by, and starring David Arquette which features both Paul Reubens and Jason Mewes as actors. Sign me UP!

Another thing we can do is look out for the film Frontières which was originally supposed to be part of the 2007 line-up but received an NC-17 rating and is now being released separately.

For right now, there is a list below of the 8 Films from 2007 and links to their entries on IMDB so you can go read inferior reviews until ours come out! You can also read back over some of the great reviews that were made while I was rotting in the grave. I have spruced these up with poster images and George Rating icons- so if you didn't read them before, then now is the time to catch up!

Opera (reviewed by Karl)
Satan's Blood (reviewed by Karl)
The Abandoned (reviewed by Karl)
Satan's Blood (reviewed by The Jesus)
Angst (reviewed by Karl)
Hard Rock Zombies (reviewed by Karl)
Unrest and The Hamiltons (mused over by The Jesus)
30 Days of Night (reviewed by The Jesus)

Super-thanks to both Karl and The Jesus for keeping the content coming in while I crawled my way back to the earth's surface!

8 Films To Die For 2007

• The Deaths of Ian Stone (Dario Piana)


• Nightmare Man (Rolfe Kanefsky)


• Crazy Eights (James Koya Jones)


• Unearthed (Matthew Leutwyler)


• Borderland (Zev Berman)


• Mulberry Street (Jim Mickle)


• Tooth and Nail (Mark Young)


• Lake Dead (George Bessudo)

Once again- my apologies for dying on you, dear reader.

Hopoto 2007 Afterpost

The Horrorpornothon was largely a success! For the sake of posterity I have culled together a list of all things consumed during the event: food, drinks, and films.

The most germane aspect of this event to Dudes of Horror readers is probably Saturday's viewing of both versions of the film "Black Christmas". Karl and I were able to put both versions together in the same room and we made a little holiday marathon out of it. What we found (having never seen either film) was that the 2006 remake was effectively a sequel. I'm sure that between myself, Karl, and The Jesus there will emerge at least one full-on review.

So here is the itinerary, complete with IMDB links to every movie we watched (or sampled) as well as some links to pretty much all of the alcohol products we drank:

Friday
Food:

• Papa John's Pizza (courtesy of Jeff)


• Homemade cookie bars (courtesy of Maude)


• Big bag of cookies (courtesy of One-Eye)


• Stolen Snacks (courtesy of Karl)


• Triscuits (courtesy of The Jesus)

Drinks:

• Dutch Henry "Argos" Wine (courtesy of The Jesus)


• McManis Cabernet Sauvignon (courtesy of The Jesus)


• Nøgne Ø "Dark Horizon" Beer (courtesy of Karl)


• Zaya Rum (courtesy of Karl)


• J.W. Lees Harvest Ale (courtesy of Karl)


• Espresso Martinis (courtesy of Jeff)

Films:

• Frankenhooker


• Exponerad


• Schulmädchen-Report: Was Eltern nicht für möglich halten (skipped around)


• Trasgredire (Special Feature Documentary only)


• Così fan tutte


• Star Wars Holiday Special (much skipping)


• Valerie a týden divu

Saturday:
Food:

• Belgian Waffles (courtesy of Jeff)


• Homemade Lasagna (courtesy of One-Eye)


• Affogato (courtesy of Jeff)

Drinks:

• "Canaan's Delight" (courtesy of Jeff)


• Dogfish Head Punkin Ale (courtesy of One-Eye)

Films:

• Black Christmas (1974)


• Black Christmas (2006)


• An Evening with P. Oswalt (some comedy to cleanse the palate)

Other Activities:

• Momentous occasion whereas Jeff arose prior to 9:00 AM


• Approximately 3 hours of Wii gaming

Sunday:
Food:

• Brunch at the Diner (courtesy of One-Eye)

Drinks:

• Turkish Coffee (courtesy of Jeff)

Films:

• Breaking Point (Classic!)


• La Chiesa (a viewing total of 10 minutes)


• Trauma (we watched one scene. Guess which one?

Conan O'Doyle

When all is said & done, I honestly believe I would have rather watched Salo. Although, the Wookie bukkake scene was kinda worth it...

It's 2:47

and, I'm sad to say I miss the porn. Currently playing is the 1978 classic Star Wars Holiday Special - help me jebus, you're my only hope.