Schlocktoberfest XI: The Recap Kills

Let‘s review!

In order from best to worst score:

House of the Devil, The (N/A)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (9)
Eating Raoul (7.25)
The Final Terror (7)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (7)
Psycho IV: The Beginning (6.5)
The Boogens (6)
Tremors 2: Aftershocks (6)
Hatchet (5.75)
Intruder (5.5)
Halloween Kills (5.5)
Razorback (5)
Primal Rage (5)
Videodrome (4)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (4)
Ghoulies 2 (4)
Galaxy Destroyer (4)
Mutant War (4)
DeepStar Six (3)
Alison’s Birthday (3)
Sleepwalkers (3)
Piranha 2: The Spawning (3)
Hellbound (2.5)
Houseboat Horror (2)
Evil Spawn (2)
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (2)
Leprechaun In the Hood (1.5)
Last House on the Left, The (1)
Thirsty Dead, The (1)
Intercessor: Another Rock n‘ Roll Nightmare (0.5)
Blood Dolls (0.5)

Brad‘s Thoughts

We could‘ve easily called this year‘s Schlocktoberfest: The Purge since we (mostly me) used leftover or unused notes from previous years just sitting there wasting away. I‘m not the one to neglect a good piece of schlock! We kinda, sorta said we were done with the site and Schlocktoberfest last year after 10 years but I accidentally forgot to cancel the WordPress autopay option and I said, hey, what the hell—maybe I can finally use those drafts I never used. I was fully expected to go solo this year but to my surprise Brian (& even Jim to a much lesser extent) joined me in my dumb quest. I‘m glad I changed my mind because like we always say, Schlocktoberfest is some of the fun times I have for the site and I love reading those other reviews from my friends.

I was a bit surprised that my “leftovers“ were actually decent flicks and not total crap. This might be the first year in a very long time where most of the flicks I watched (or rewatched) were graded higher than usual. I guess back when I originally watched these, I deemed them not-schlocky enough. But I also treated myself to watching 4 Nightmare on Elm Streets and you can‘t be tortured too bad this those flicks.

Will we return next year? That‘s still the $38 question ain‘t it? Truth be told, I still have over a dozen unused drafts sitting in my Notes app practically begging to be released onto the bloggersphere. So there‘s some chance that they‘re be a Schlocktoberfest 12.

Movie That I‘d Gladly Watch Again: Hands-down, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. I loved it back in 1987 and it still is one of the best horror sequels out there. Sure it has its flaws and the ending is kinda meh but over all well down from start to finish.

Movie I Regretted Watching Twice: I gotta say, that most of these movies that I rewatched again to spruce up my notes and memory of them weren‘t that awful. I had fun for the most part rewatching these again. Maybe because I knew what to expect the second time? I dunno. Surprisingly, there‘s a tie to what movies I would like to take a looooong break from seeing again and that‘s Freddy‘s Dead and Halloween Kills. I knew I always loathed Freddy‘s Dead but I wanted to finish the initial run of Freddy flicks. But for our review of Halloween Kills I watched it like 3–4 times and sadly, it gets worse each time I watch it.

Movie I Already Forgot About: Alison‘s Birthday. Man, what a bore. The movie, too, was a bore.

Best Villain: The baboon in Primal Rage. Just kidding, Freddy of course!

Best Kill: I‘d have to go with the giant log with spikes on it that decimated the old forest lady killer in The Final Terror.

Runner-up: Freddy killing Phillip as a marionette puppet, making it look like he sleepwalked out a window in Dream Warriors.

Worst Kill: I still feel cheated big time that we only got about 45 seconds of primal rage baboon action.

Best Character: MAD DOG! in Galaxy Destroyer. I was a bit sad not to share him 2 years ago but I‘m glad he now has his moment to shine in the annuals of cinema schlock history.

Runner-Up: Roger in The Boogens. Actually all 4 main characters in The Boogens I can see having a nice time with. Nice class of people.

Worst Character: I‘d like to give this award to Chuck Norris but I suppose I can‘t really do that. So I suppose it should be a tie between James Woods and Charles from Sleepwalkers.

Best Special Effects: Again, I can‘t praise Dream Warriors enough.

Worst Effects: There was a lot of examples of terrible make-up (Galaxy Destroyer & Mutant War), CGI (Tremors 2, Sleepwalkers) but my vote would have to go to Freddy‘s Dead since it was tentpole franchise that should‘ve done a helluva lot better with Freddy‘s make-up as well as the effects. Especially when this was (at the time) the final film in the franchise and they went out like cheapos.

Best Female Lead: Hard to beat Debbie Harry but she was, sadly, barely in Videodrome and barely made an impression (in my pants!). I always crushed on Heather Langenkamp when I was younger but now I‘m kinda seeing she‘s not such a great actress. She‘s still cute though. The hottest chick this month was the secretary in Evil Spawn and she also showed the most skin. Wish Mädchen Amick was in a better movie than Sleepwalkers.

Favorite Review from Someone Other Than Me: Brian and I actually got together more so this year, probably due to being vaccinated, and I actually watched six features of his with him. Almost seven but we couldn‘t get through more than 15 minutes of The Refrigerator! And that‘s not counting our severely lapse in judgment when we watched M. Night Shyamalan‘s Old! Razorback was good and fun but his line: “Is that John Landis in the booth? I don’t think he’s qualified to be a producer on this show, he’s only killed a grown man and two children.“ from Psycho IV floored me. It was also great seeing him rip apart the disappointing Intruder.

Kudos to Jim for the finding that old TV guide that totally ripped off our blog‘s great Schlocktoberfest title. It‘s a shame that the feature 40 years ago was The Thirsty Dead but his inclusion of the old TV commercials was the sugar that helped the medicine go down. Maybe he‘ll change his mind and do more next time.

Brian‘s Thoughts

Well, this seemed like a good idea at the time, but getting through this year‘s Schlocktoberfest was rougher than a steel wool condom. I tried to go with a theme of revisiting some themes of Shlocktoberfest past, but it stopped working out the moment I tried to watch The Refrigerator, so the last couple I just kind of watched what I felt like because I was tired of torturing myself. But you didn‘t come here to read me complain about things.

Least Excruciating: It probably won’t be an annual horror tradition watch like An American Werewolf in London or Punctuation for! Beginners but I quite enjoyed Eating Raoul when I wasn‘t expecting a whole lot.

Runner-up: Hatchet, which I heard was really good, and it was ok, which is great for Schlocktoberfest.

Never Again: Did I really rate The Last House on the Left over Blood Dolls? Well they‘re both worthless wastes of time, in slightly different ways.

Most Disappointing: 100% Intercessor: Another Rock n‘ Roll Nightmare, which may be the most disappointing entry ever, even though I had no hopes for it, and was disappointed by the original. What am I saying?

Runner up: Halloween ~~Sucks~~ Kills.

Most Pleasant Surprise: Psycho IV was actually really decent, which just goes to show you the power of Henry Thomas.

Best Villain: Victor Crowley from Hatchet was pretty good but not very unique (basically the same villain as the Houseboat Horror killer), so I‘m giving it to the Razorback.

Runners-up: Just the two ghoulies who high-fived.

Worst Villain: I didn’t want to bring this up again but the Blood Doll who was not representative of the proud African-American community.

Best Kill: By far when Miguel Ferrer fatally decompresses in DeepStar Six.

Runner up: Anything from Hatchet.

Worst Kill: Anything from The Last House on the Left.

Favorite Character: Easily the Blands from Eating Raoul. I don‘t think there were any runners up. Maybe Chandler from Razorback but he was kind of useless.

Worst Character: Hands down Jeff from The Video Dead. Yeah that was 10 years ago but I still hate him. This time it‘s still that racist doll, and its other racist doll friends.

Runners up: The Haddonfield mob from Halloween Kills.

Best Special Effects: The House of the Devil, which still looks like it could have been released today!

Worst Special Effects: Literally anything in Intercessor.

Runner up: Chuck Norris‘s hairpiece from Hellbound.

Schlockscars:
Best Actor: Paul Bartel – Eating Raoul
Worst Actor: Anthony Michael Hall – Halloween Kills
Best Actress: Olivia Hussey – Psycho IV
Worst Actress: All of them – Intercessor: Another Rock n‘ Roll Nightmare
Best Director: George Méliès – The House of the Devil
Worst Director: Wes Craven – The Last House on the Left
Best Original Song: Hellbound

Miss Schlocktoberfest 2021: This comes down to three lovely and talented ladies: Mrs. Bland from Eating Raoul, Mrs. Bates from Psycho IV, and Mrs. Dominatrix from Blood Dolls. And of course it‘s Olivia Hussey.

Best Chest of the Rest: I loved Brad‘s Primal Rage review because we love our baboons here, and Red Letter Media would plagiarize it wholesale! And Jim‘s The Thirsty Dead gave me cottonmouth.

See you next year?

Jim‘s Thoughts

Jesus, I’m sorry I didn’t have any leftovers. I left everything out on the field.

After last year I went to the snack bar during intermission and pretty much didn‘t come back. I was perfectly happy hanging out on my private island meditating and drinking blue milk from weird creature‘s tits; but the universe beckoned as it so often does and after a quick Force projection: I took Schlocktoberfest back in time and defended another Halloween movie from severe prosecution.

Being back, I see not much has changed. The font color still defaults to gray all the time, classic editor is is still fighting the Cola wars with block editor, and readership grows fewer by the entry. Oh well, at this point we‘re only in it to make each other laugh.

Doing the normal recap categories will look pretty fucking stupid since I only did one movie and and a third of another, so I actually have no clue what do here. I guess I can try a few. Hmmm, let‘s see…

Best Hero: I guess Baru from The Thirsty Dead? He didn’t really do much, and his sacrifice for the survivors at the end was pretty much in vain, but all of the heroes from Halloween Kills were either stupid or bedridden.

Best Kill: The Haddonfield Firefighter Massacre from Halloween Kills. Hands, axes, and buzz-saws down.

Best Villain: Michael Myers as portrayed by Airon Armstrong during the flashbacks to 1978. Absolutely not taking anything away from James Jude Courtney who has now made the role completely his own—Airon just had that Nick Castle feel to him, and who doesn’t want to feel like that?

Miss Schlocktoberfest 2021: Claire from The Thirsty Dead was the closest thing to attractive that movie had, but I really have a thing for Judy Greer so that‘s the Halloween Kills representation.

Favorite Joke I Wrote This Year (An Exercise In Self-Indulgence Part 5): That would have to go to, “but as they say, those who live by the charcuterie board die by the charcuterie board.“ It even rhymed with what it‘s parodying. Go me.

Best Compatriot Contributions: Brian‘s Houseboat Horror only because he made a Midnight Oil joke, and Brad‘s Sleepwalkers because I mistakenly liked that movie when it came out and he reminded me how wrong I was in doing so. Plus seeing Otho as a creepy-touchy-teacher is enough to make you puke in your soup.

So that‘s the end.

Again.

Who knows what will happen next year. I have an old idea I mentioned once or twice that has the potential to turn into something, but it‘s gonna have to be a little different. No more movies that aren‘t rated R – that‘s the only certainty I can pledge right now. So if you‘re wondering what the future of this site is, or mildly interested in my involvement—I‘ll just leave you with this: