So last night was positively great. Our plans to see Superman fell through as Derek had been running some sort of Dogapallooza parade/adoption thing at work with Operation Kindess. Lots of sun, suntan lotion in the eyes, dehydration, sweat--the usual sort of thing to make you want to stay home when you finally do get there. So we got some of our magical Chinese food and some Blue Moon beer and I popped in Black Christmas. And what a great little flick, how have I never seen that. Add about an hour's worth of pouring rain, thunderstorming, great wind...I'm so glad we stayed home. First bit of rain in months and still won't be enough. Not to mention it'll feel like an armpit out there this morning. Anyway.
First of all, in the first ten minutes alone you've got Olivia Hussey and the word 'cunt' being repeatedly whispered on the phone. After years of seeing Ms. Hussy in the Olivier-narrated version of Romeo and Juliet, well, it takes a moment, that's all I'm saying. Derek found Margot Kidder's outrageous character to be similarly bizarre. ("Did you know there's a species of turtle that can screw for three days without stopping?") But regardless, the movie itself is incredibly well-done. It's all you could ask for in a horror flick--it gets right down to it, has a decent amount of gore (not overly done), and a fantastic ambiguous ending. Even better than most of this sort, it actually spends a moment or two with the killer in a few vaguely disturbing scenes. One at the end when Olivia Hussey glimpses him behind the door was probably one of the film's best scenes. Nothing shocking, just moments of real creepiness. And you know, I don't think this movie had any sex or nudity...and it was actually just fine without it.
Now the one we saw afterwards, which I thought we'd save until after dinner, was Maniac. Another classic neither of us had seen, though this one is a celebrated gorefest (for 1980). And really, it holds up quite well. It's about a, well, mentally disturbed--to say the least--serial killer who kills women, scalps them and then takes it home and tacks it to a new mannequin. (I love that he uses colored tacks rather than nails). What really gave this movie huge points in my book was the obvious care taken in setting the scene. His apartment (including the cast of a mouth on the door) had so much detail, which is far more interesting than the abusive-mother-plot they have going (it's hard to forgive the movies that did it first when you're seeing them twenty years down the line). And upon reading imdb's trivia, I absolutely love this tidbit: The film originally had a title song of the same name, but in the end was not used. The lyrics were toned down and the song Maniac was used in Flashdance (1983). Trying to picture that song in this movie, give me a moment. Anyway, have to highly recommend this one based purely on the scene where Tom Savini (of gore make-up fame) gets his head blown off through a windshield with a rifle, in semi-slow-mo.
Still have Lifeforece and November to polish off, though the latter is more of a thriller. Netflix decided to send that to me instead of Critters for whatever random reasons they pretend to have. I guess someone just thought four was too many horror movies at once.
And now to warm up some cream cheese for Derek's pumpkin-ginger cheesecake. I think I need the blender to make the crust...which means I'll have to do something with that last bit of margarita that's in there at the moment. Eleven on a Sunday? Perfect.
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