r Wicked Things Horror Blog: stephen king
Showing posts with label stephen king. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stephen king. Show all posts

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Ghost Story Collection Movies

1.  Tales From The Darkside (The Movie) (1990) - This "horror anthology" film, tells the story of a kidnapped paperboy, who through telling three horror stories to a witch (Debbie Harry...yup, like the Blondie front-woman), who is prep cooking to eat him in a very similar, but modern retelling fashion of the classic story of Hansel and Gretel sans Gretel.



Three additional stories, separate from the boy's own are told in this story collection, which includes Lot 249, which tells the story of a young man and his "mummy" and stars Steve Busemi as well as Julianne Moore and Christian Slater; Cat From Hell, which is a story that tells the tale of Drogan, a well-to-do handicapped elderly man who hires a a hit-man kill a black cat, which he believes is evil and kills; and finally Lover's Vow, a tale about an artist (James Remar), who bears witness to a murder committed by a mythical creature that promises to not kill him if he never tells. He moves on with his life and gets married and has kids, but he's still guilty about the incident.



 

2. Tales From The Hood (1995) - An absolute gem, Tales From the Hood - is a trilogy of stories that all take place in South Central, Los Angeles.  It kicks off at Simms' Funeral Home, where three young men simply wish to buy weed form the owner, Mr. Simms. Mr. Simms is the storyteller, who weaves the tales the trilogy tells.  The 1995 film is co-directed by Spike Lee, who is awesome!



3.  Deadtime Stories (1986) - I enjoyed the twisted stylings given to Goldilocks & The Three Bears with the psychotic family meeting the equally disturbed Goldilocks with her very necrotic collection of exes. I also loved Little Red Ridinghood's tale, where the big bad wolf was a drug dealer and Little Red Ridinghood was an attractive teenage girl in a red jogging suit.


However, my favorite story was an original, which was a combination of a few tales such as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and that type of theme, where three witches resurrect their sister.  It was sort of like the precursor to a much more sinister Hocus Pocus.



The story is narrated by a babysitting uncle who is watching his nephew and twisting tales into his own to entertain himself.  The only person in the film of note (I guess.) is Scott Valentine from Family Ties, you know, Mallory's Boyfriend Nick, 'ey....

Magoga is my idol!  I want to rise from the dead and go kill everything that gets in my way.  Actually, in my yearbook this kid signed it and that was his life advice for me, "Kill everything that gets in your way.". 

IMDB gives it a 4.2 and I concur. 

4.  Trilogy of Terror (1975) - a made for ABC TV classic, featuring the recently late Karen Black, who takes on four, if you count the twins as two, distinct roles in this short story film diverse film characters in the horror trilogy.



The Zuni Fetish Doll in "Amelia" is the best thing I have ever seen EVER! It has a miniature knife and relentlessly pursues Amelia, who is of course, portrayed by the ever great and recently late Karen Black until she meets her demise and turns into the Zuni Fetish Doll itself with its sharp, awesome, little angry teeth. It kind of reminds me of Monkey Shines if it were the spirit of a Zuni Warrior instead. Its got all the persistence of the Monkey Shines monkey, that's for sure!

"Julie", appears shy and innocent. She is drugged and date rap'd by a pervy college student with whom she is forced to carrying on a secret affair, thereafter in a blackmail ploy. He wondered what she looked like "under all of those clothes". She wins! It was all a ploy to poison and kill this scumbag loser. One point for Professor Julie. Karen Black didn't even want to do it until Richard Burton, who was her husband signed on as the pervy student.
 
Millecent and Therese, the twins who were really the multiple personalities of one women were classic. The saucy blonde, Therese, used witchcraft against Millicent, the dowdy Debbie Downer and of course ends up screwing herself over, because, NEWS FLASH, she's both of them. Its very clever if you haven't seen it. I suggest it!!!  Watch it free below!



Monday, March 10, 2014

The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer & Rose Red

The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer is a 2003 TV mini-series that was the prequel to the film directly related mini-series, Rose Red (2002).   The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer is an adaptation of The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red (2001), a novel written by Ridley Pearson under the pseudonym Joyce Reardon, Ph.D., who, of course actually appears as a main character in Rose Red.  Pearson's novel was based on the script of Stephen King's Rose Red.



The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer is set at the turn of the 20th century when Rose Red mansion is constructed by John Rimbauer as a wedding gift for his submissive young wife, Ellen.  Rimbauer owned an oil company, and used a substantial amount of his financial wealth to build the mansion.  The site on which the structure was built was a Native people's burial ground.  The house appeared cursed even as it was being constructed as three construction workers were killed on the site, and a construction foreman was murdered by a co-worker.


Shortly after the Rimbauer's marriage, Ellen began keeping a detailed diary. Ellen confessed her troubles about her new marriage and the horrors of the life she began to lead in the sinister mansion.  The diary not only follows the development of a young lady into womanhood, but the construction of Rose Red.

At first impressed by her husband's extravagance, Ellen grows to be afraid of John, which begins when learning about disturbing elements of his past. She hates him, pretty much more and more as the diary progresses.  All the while, the home they share appears to be saturated with ghosts, presumably people associated with John who have mysteriously disappeared.

While honeymooning in Africa, Ellen Rimbauer fell ill as a result of an implied STD her husband gave her and made the acquaintance of Sukeena, a local tribeswoman. The two women became very close while Sukeena nursed Ellen back to health, and Sukeena accompanied the Rimbauers back to the newly completed Rose Red.


Subsequently, Ellen quickly became unhappy with her marriage to her philandering and neglectful husband.  However, the marriage did produce two children, Adam and April, one of which was born with a malformed arm.  John Rimbauer appeared to commit suicide by throwing himself from an upstairs window, however, he was actually murdered by Ellen and Sukeena.

Ellen and Sukeena continued to live in the house after John Rimbauer's death. After a spiritualist seance, Ellen came to believe that if she continued to build and expand the house, she would never die again similar to the story of the wife of the William Winchester, Sarah, the heir to the Winchester Gun Company's fortune, which I would guess is part of the inspiration for Rose Red and The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer.  William Winchester actually died of Tuberculosis in 1881.

Ellen used nearly all of her late husband's fortune to continually add to the home over the next several decades, enlarging it significantly. The mysterious disappearances continued to occur and even Ellen and Sukeena disappeared in Rose Red.  Deanna Petrie, an actress friend of Ellen Rimbauer's and Sukeena both disappeared over the next few years. Ellen Rimbauer disappeared in 1950.  The house continued to build "itself" through supernatural means.
 
For several years after Ellen's disappearance, only servants occupied Rose Red. Adam Rimbauer, who inherited the house, lived there for a short time with his wife. However, he abandoned Rose Red after witnessing several paranormal events.  After his death and with the family fortune spent away, his wife sold off many of the home's antique furnishings, and generated some income by permitting the fictional "Seattle Historical Society" to give tours of the house. These tours ceased in 1972, after a participant disappeared while on a tour of the mansion. Investigations for paranormal phenomena were conducted on the property in the 60's and 70's. But these ceased and the house fell into disrepair.

The Rose Red miniseries is set in the year 2001. Steven Rimbauer, the great grandson of John and Ellen Rimbauer, inherited Rose Red. He was offered a large sum of money to have the house torn down by developers to build condominiums.  However, he is intrigued by the paranormal history of the house and has decided to allow one final investigation of the mansion.

Dr. Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis) is a professor at the fictional Seattle State University who teaches classes on psychic phenomena. Kevin Bollinger Jimmi, a reporter for the campus newspaper, skeptically questions her about a trip she will be taking to Rose Red, an ostensibly haunted and abandoned mansion in nearby Seattle. Professor Carl Miller, Joyce's departmental chair who questions the validity of Joyce's research, orders Bollinger to follow Reardon and spy on a meeting with the group of psychics she is taking to Rose Red.


A girl in her mid teens, Annie Wheaton has Autism and has limited communication skills with the rest of the group.  However, she has profoundly developed psychic abilities and is cared for by Rachel, her adoptive sister.  The group includes Victor "Vic" Kandinsky, an older man, who is a precognate with heart disease; Pam Asbury, a young woman with the ability of psychometry; Cathy Kramer, a middle-aged automatic writer; Nick Hardaway, a telepathic man with remote viewing capabilities; and Emery Waterman, a young man with the ability of post-cognition.  The group meets with Steve Rimbauer, the last living descendent of Ellen and John Rimbauer, in an auditorium at the college.


Rose Red begins with Dr. Joyce Reardon, an unorthodox university psychology professor, leading a team of psychics to Rose Red in an attempt to record data which would constitute scientific proof of paranormal phenomena. The mansion is publicly thought to be haunted, as at least 23 people have either disappeared or died there and the interior of the house appears to change or increase in size. Reardon's team unleashes the spirit of the house, leading to several deaths and the revelation of the mansion's secrets.




To purchase both Rose Red & The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer on DVD, it costs a little under $12, when shopping on Amazon.



Friday, November 15, 2013

Free Friday Horror Movies


Alexis Arquette is in this one and she was a man then, well, in the film, anyway.  You may know her as George in The Wedding Singer or for her appearance in The Bride of Chucky as Tiffany's boy toy.  She is the sister of David, Patricia, and Rosanna Arquette.  Anyhow, she looks great!


The full five and some odd hours of Stephen King's The Stand






Enjoy and happy Friday!!!

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

10 Free Horror Movies You Can Watch Free Online!



1.  Children of the Corn - Outlander!  He wants you Malki!  There was Carrie, but a classic even more awesome thank Carrie is Stephen King's Children of the Corn!

2.  The Cloth -  A strapping young lad man is being recruited into "The Cloth", a Secret Catholic Church Society created to stop the rising number of cases of demonic possessions.

3.  I Spit on Your Grave - A NYC writer ventures to a secluded cabin in the woods to write her first novel.  In the woods, she is savagely r*p'd by four country boys and left for dead.  She lives and these hicks are in effing trouble!

4.  Night of the Living Dead - The original, which needs no introduction.

5.  The House by the Cemetery - Dr. Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco), of the New York Historical Society, accepts a research assignment abandoned by a colleague who has committed suicide.

6.  Freak Show - When a gang of thieves, hiding out in a circus sideshow, decides to steal from the wealthy owner, there are horrific consequences!

7.  Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers - Based on the true events that inspired the classic, The Exorcist, a psychiatrist suggests a girl has been possessed by the Devil, and contacts a Catholic priest to perform an Exorcism.

8.  Fragile - At her new job in a rundown children's hospital, a nurse desperately tries to keep her patients safe from a plague of random mysterious attacks.

9.  The Children - A nuclear plant leak turns a bus-load of children into murderous atomic zombies with black fingernails.

10.  I'm Not Jesus Mommy - Desperate to have her own baby, a fertility specialist steals a cloned embryo -- but the child could have a terrifying impact on the entire world.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Best Horror Villainess Characters!

Nothing is cooler than a female psycho unless of course its in real life.  If we are discussing horror and horror thrillers as well as sci-fi horror, a female nutcase is welcome once in a while.  Of course, if she is your ex or your current flame, you have a problem!

I think its more realistic when a female psycho is unattractive or even attractive but very unassuming and able to come in the guise as a librarian looking chick or an old lady or something cool like that. 
Let us begin with Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (1987).  She certainly is a handsome woman, isn't she?  By far the only movie that Glenn Close was actually "bad", she portrays the character, Alex Forrest, a woman in the publishing industry who appears self-confident, fun, and put together. 

Unfortunately, Alex has a serious case of attachment disorder or borderline personality disorder or something.  She just can't seem to let go of the married man she had a one night stand with.  Although Dan finds Alex to be a handsome woman and is attracted to her, he loves his hot but sort of boring wife.  Alex is crazy so she's exciting, you see. 

Alex begins to stalk Dan and the story goes on, but Alex was certainly a fabulous villainess, don't you agree!?

Let us continue our discussion of female psychos in film with the unassuming Hedra Carlson in Single White Female (1992).  She's cool, calm, collected, understanding, and super nice at first and on the surface, but damn does she have some underlying issues and she certainly takes being roommates and even best friends to a whole new level.  Heddie likes to get very close to her best female friends to the point where she needs to "take out" her other friends and especially her cheating dooshbag of a boyfriend (ex-boyfriend). 

Yeah, it becomes sort of a problem when Heddie colors her hair and cuts it in the exact same style as Allison Jones in the film and she realizes she has a "single white female" on her hands.  Of course, that figure of speech was coined from this very film.  Who would have ever thought Jennifer Jason Leigh could be such a super psycho?
We should never forget Misery's (1990) Annie Wilkes, where we are truly introduced to Kathy Bates and how she can act her a mean psycho with some seriously deep rooted issues!  This is probably also the first and last time we've seen James Caan (Paul Sheldon) portray such a helpless character. 

Ms. Wilkes is so enamored with the writer, Paul Sheldon's book character, Misery Chastain that she imprisons him and makes him "unkill" the character he has killed off in his book after rescuing him from a car accident in which he breaks his leg.  Annie is a nurse and sort of nurses him back to health, but she's really just keeping him immobile and cut off from the outside world so her favorite writer can write at her will!
Sissy Spacek portrays one of the best female psycho characters in another film such as Misery that is an adaptation of a Stephen King book, Carrie (1976)Carrie White is a super telekinetic teen with a bad temper and a tough life.  Her religious fanatic mother (Margaret White) and the real villainess in this film from a book is portrayed by Piper Laurie.  Carrie is provoked at the prom by having pig blood thrown on her head over her beautiful pink gown she made all by herself and the horror ensues.  Even though they all deserved her wraith, she's still the film's villainess of purpose, she's just a sympathetic one.
Baby Jane Hudson, portrayed by Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) is one of the best and scariest horror villainesses of all time!  If you remember Baby Jane serving the rat on the silver serving tray to her wheel-chair bound sister, Blanche (Joan Crawford), you know exactly the fear Bette Davis instilled in audiences everywhere in black and white, literally!  My father is afraid of her to this day!

Sharon Stone redefines the role of a psychopath as a sexy, intelligent and well-to-do bisexual woman named Katherine Tramell in Basic Instinct (1992), her weapon of choice an icepick and her vajayjay.  Katherine toys with the cops and bangs the detective investigating a murder in which she is a suspect.  Its even implied that she killed her own parents, oh Katherine, you naughty girl, you.  This put Sharon Stone on the map in her famous scene where she uncrosses her legs and isn't wearing any panties when being interviewed by detectives.




Sunday, September 22, 2013

Hillbilly (Backwoods) Horror Picks

In honor of the county fair that I just left, (I puked on the tilt-a-whirl--not kidding), I wanted to share with you some of my favorite top horror picks set in a country, backwoods, or hillbilly setting.

So, if that wasn't horrible enough, I stayed for a little after buying a $10 tank top that was 3 sizes too small with my top 3 buttons unbuttoned, I returned home so I can blog on this effing computer. I did bathe and ate a salad, but yeah, disappointing and it was the last day of the fair so at least I got to pat cows and alpacas. I have that experience to tide me over for the rest of the year.

Look, its me, not at the fair!!!!!


  

 1. Texas Chainsaw Massacre

2. House of a Thousand Corpses/Devil's Rejects

3. 2001 Maniacs

4. The Hills Have Eyes

5. Last House on the Left

6. Deliverance (da da ding ding ding ding ding ding on the banjo). Sequel like a pig for me!

7. Evil Dead

8. The Shining

9. Pet Cemetery

10. Children of the Corn

Wow, note Stephen King books converted to movies are the last three on the list. That's what happens when the author comes from Maine. It develops a wicked pissa imagination when you are stuck in the house in the winter while it snows. I should know.  I live in New Hampshire.

Staunton Hill sucked, but it was set in the back woods on a farm.

Of course, Night of the Living Dead, which was phenomenal...

Things can go either way.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

`

`