Hiya. Here is the most recent episode of the show. My pal Eric Grubbs and I talk about Black Christmas from 1974 and we throw a bone to the remake (which I love, Eric not so much). There was some technical issues so this episode sounds a little poopy on my end but the convo is solid. This is the last episode of 2015 so enjoy it, my friends. Hey, we released 30 frickin' episodes this year! Wut? Pretty amazing.
Listen here! And dig on the archives right here!
Wow. Episode 100 ain't that far off, my friends. That is crazy. Here's the two most recent bouts of insanity. Listen here!
Check out the archive for the oldies.
I realized that it has been way too long since I've recorded one of these. Hope you enjoy it 'cause I'm a tad rusty.
Sorry that I've been so busy, my friends! I've been toiling away on my horror fiction novel and editing Cinema Sommanbulist: The Book so much that I didn't post any of my wife LeEtta's and my October viewing. It was a great month for spooky Halloween type stuff and we had a great time. My new catchphrase, "Rum says yes!", was born during this fine month.
So here are the Halloween movies and TV specials that we watched all month long...
October 1st:
"Halloween Crazy"
The Addams Family (1991)
The Worst Witch
"SpongeBob SquarePants: Scaredy Pants”
October 2nd:
"Halloween's Most Extreme"
Alien - Blu-ray provided by Brad; thanks, Brad!
"The Haunted History of Halloween"
"Tricked Out Halloween"
October 3rd:
Madman (1982)
Idle Hands
October 4th:
All Hallow's Eve (2013) - This one stuck in my head after it was over but I wish that all of the female characters weren't shrill idiots.
The Fear: Resurrection - I knew this was going to be bad but wow, the man in the 'wooden man' costume is wretched.
The Coven (2015) - The Chav Witch Project? This was fucking terrible.
October 5th:
Bram Stoker's Dracula
"Halloween Crazier"
October 6th:
"Goosebumps: Attack of the Jack-O-Lanterns"
"Johnny Bravo: Franken-Bravo" - This was truly hilarious. I forgot how much I love this show.
"Goosebumps: The Haunted Mask I & II" - The kid-acting in this is next level perfect with Canadian accents.
October 7th:
"Halloween Wars"
Practical Magic - I am the best husband in the world.
"The Martha Stewart Holiday Collection - Martha's Halloween Ideas" - Essential American television.
October 8th:
Addam's Family Values
The Crow - This actually comes with an official Goth Society ID card.
October 9th:
Evil Dead (2013) - A rollercoaster straight to hell. I love this remake.
Teen Witch - This film is the devil. Watch at your own risk. I love it.
October 10th:
Witches
October 11th:
"Agatha Christie's Poirot: Hallowe'en Party"
Bewitched (2005)
Dr. Giggles - Wow! This was my first viewing. Bad 90s teenagers die horribly. This felt like William Castle but with more "doodly squat".
October 12th:
Hocus Pocus
October 13th:
More Travel Channel Halloween Crap
October 14th:
Suspiria - This was very special. We attended a screening of this at The Vault here in Tampa. Seeing Suspiria with a crowd was genius.
October 15th:
"iCarly: iScream on Halloween"
"Fairly Oddparents: Scary Godparents"
"Saturday Night Live: Halloween"
October 16th:
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
Cursed (2005)
October 17th:
Lisa and the Devil
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
October 18th:
Trick 'r Treat (2007)
October 19th:
An American Werewolf in London
Ginger Snaps
October 23rd:
"TV's Spookiest Halloween Episodes" DVD
October 24th:
You're Next
Psycho (1960) - This is why Blu-ray was invented.
October 25th:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
"R.L. Stine's Nightmare Room: Full Moon Halloween"
The Craft
October 26th:
American Scream
The Crow: City of Angels - This was my first viewing of this. Kind of great but mostly baffling and stupid.
October 27th:
Crimson Peak - Read my review here.
October 28th:
The Changeling (1980)
Witch's Night Out
October 29th:
Halloween III
Halloween 6: The Producer's Cut
October 30th:
Return of the Vampire (1943)
Carnival of Souls (1962)
Freaky Farley - Still one of my favorite indie horror films of all time.
The Child (1977) - Well, this went over like a lead balloon but I still love it.
October 31st:
Halloween (1978)
Halloween II (1981)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Once Bitten
Slumber Party Massacre
City of the Living Dead - Watched this with my #MoviePartyCrew homies. A perfect end to the season.
Sorry if I haven't been around lately but if you want to live forever, listen to this.
Mia Wasikowska plays Edith Cushing, a Turn of the century lady (that's the 19th Century, BTW) who's struggling to be taken seriously as a writer. Her industrialist father (Jim Beaver) entertains a business proposal from Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), a nobleman who is trying to make his fortune in the mining industry. Edith overhears Thomas's appeal to her father and the board of directors and is quite taken with the man.
As romance blooms between Edith and Thomas, much to the chagrin of Edith's father and Thomas's overprotective sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain), a terrible tragedy "coincidentally" occurs sending her rushing into marriage. At the family home of the Sharpes, Allerdale Hall, all is not well. The place looks like a Charlotte Brontë fever dream only not as structurally sound.
Oh and there's ghosts! When Edith was a young girl, her mother died and came to visit her after the funeral to give her a warning, "Beware of Crimson Peak!" This encounter makes Edith just a tad more open to supernatural experiences than your average person. The moment she sets foot in Allerdale Hall, she is besieged by spirits that are all pretty pissed off. What do they want? Who were they? These questions and more will be answered this season on Crimson Peak!
As the month of October is coming to a close, I realized that I hadn't been to see a horror movie all damn month. And that was probably because everything but this looked like shit to me. I desperately didn't want to miss Crimson Peak on the big screen. Thankfully, the new place around here, Studio Movie Grill, is close to work and the wife and I could easily catch a screening right after work. This place used to be the Regal University 16, the legendary theater glorified in my account of Nafa's and my Halloween II experience back in 2009 (read it here).
I only have two negative criticisms for Crimson Peak; one is rather slight and the other a bit more annoying. Heck, they might even be tied together, at least they are in my deranged mind. The first thing is, I feel like the setup leading up to Edith getting to Allerdale Hall and falling for Thomas Sharpe should have been longer. Period pieces are slow and the good ones are achingly so. Thanks to my wife, I have seen A LOT of Jane Austen adaptations, some of them 4 hour versions and that length lets you settle into a story thus making the small emotional moments have a huge payoff. I realize that asking for a horror movie that is one minute short of two hours goes against every molecule of my being but damn it, this is a gothic horror film and I wanted more.
The second thing is the acting felt pretty stiff in spots. I don't want to harsh on this point too much because I'm hoping a second viewing of Crimson Peak will help me change my mind. Would I have been more invested in these performances had the movie taken it's time a little more? Probably not. I did care what happened to these people and I did get wrapped up in all the gothy melodramatic business but something is nagging at me. The one person who really bothered me was Jim Beaver. His portrayal of Carter Cushing really left me cold. He needed to be a bit more gruff or drunk or pissed off or jolly -shit, I don't care- just more something.
Now that that nitpicking is out of the way (see, only two paragraphs!), let me gush for a bit. Guillermo del Toro has never let me down and Crimson Peak is no exception. This film feels like 1. A love letter to the Hammer horror films of the 1960s, 2. A knowing nod to Mario Bava fans, and 3. A full on manly makeout session with Henry James. I've only read a few of James's works but I get the impression that he liked to kiss dudes, hard. The eerie atmosphere, beautiful set design, and magnificent lighting are paired with surprisingly brutal violence and monstrous apparitions making this a real treat for horror fans.
What makes this some next level shit is that Crimson Peak is kinda smart and it made me want to talk about this movie immediately after it was over. del Toro tells you what is going to happen early on and when it happens, your brain goes, "Damn it! I forgot about that! I'm not as smart as I thought. Blast these spectacles and useless vest!" Okay, maybe that's just me. I notice that this film has a slim chance of making its money back and I really hope it does because I want more classy, lush, and thoughtful horror films like this. Recommended. And -BONUS!- it's a great date movie.
I don't know what that means!
My wife LeEtta is participating in Drawlloween this year. You should check out her stuff, it's fun!
So here we are in the 10th year of DoomedMoviethon.com and the site is down. Apparently, the web-hosting company I've been throwing money at for a decade is gone. Woops! Instead of screaming to the heavens and eating a bag of my own intestines, I'm taking this as an opportunity to revamp the old girl. The next time DoomedMoviethon.com is ready for your eyes, it'll be way hotter with some new content and a celebration of all the old stuff that's been what the site has been about all along. Apparently, people still like horror and cult movies! And double apparently there are some of you out there who STILL LIKE Doomed Moviethon! Thank you for that!
Speaking of recycled content, I wanted to announce right here, right now that I've been putting together another book. Say what!?!?! Yep, that's right. It's called Cinema Somnambulist and it's a collection of my writings on movies from this very blog and the aforementioned DoomedMoviethon.com. There's going to be approximately five chapters. All of my Franco Fridays, all of my nostalgic crap, and a bunch of Eurohorror and Asian horror stuff will be represented, just to name a few.
There will be very little material that is unique to the book but I really wanted to collect all of these pieces in one place just for myself. Then I thought, hey maybe some folks would like a copy too! Nice ego, Richard. But since it's a selfish exercise, I'm going to make the print as cheap as possible and offer the Kindle version for super cheap as well. Rest assured that Cinema Somnambulist is a passion project and not an empire-building money machine like everything else I do. Wait, what? Anyway, I hope you will enjoy it.
Take care, my friends.
-Richard
So kick back, relax, or don't relax, eat something healthy like fruit, break out the chess set, and listen to some men talking!
Look at this busy art I made.
Hey there, gang. You know who I'm super proud of? My wife! She drew the cover for Giallo Meltdown and has been drawing the Doomed Moviethon Girl for a decade. Currently, she's working on the second issue of her comic, No Evil. Here's what No Evil is all about. Well, LeEtta was kind enough to let me write the script for the second issue. She is going to post a page every Tuesday on her blog until it is done. When that happens, we're going to have it printed so y'all can own the whole thing in physical form! Crazy, right? I agree!
Oh snap! I was asked to contribute to the Theater Of Guts blog.
I picked the awesome Italian horror flick, The Spider Labyrinth, to review. Check it out here!
Sincerely as heck,
Richard Glenn Schmidt
No one yet knows the effects of slashers on the minds of human beings. On this show, we predict that by 2010, all humans will be watching slasher movies in bed with their sex partners. That's the first two hours of this episode. In the last 21 minutes, Brad and I discuss the entire Prom Night franchise. So yeah, that's 5 films for the price of none (especially since the 2008 remake is fucking worthless)! We haven't done an episode -oops, excuse me, I meant MEGASODE!!!- this long in a while. It was a lot of work but it was A LOT OF FUN. Listen and enjoy.
Listen to the show and download it right here!
Check out the old episodes in the archive!
Write in to the show: doomedmoviethon[at]gmail[dot]com
I had a day off coming up so I had an idea, how about a moviethon where I watch as many movies as I can during my normal working hours? My criteria went like this: the film must be unseen by me, it must be streaming on Netflix, and it has to have beeen released in the last 5 years. It also wouldn't hurt if the movie was around 90 minutes or heck, even shorter. I decided to keep my thoughts on each film short, no more than two sentences per "review". Boom. That was my plan. Let's see how it played out... Shall we?
6:00AM - Prepartions.
I can hear my wife LeEtta getting ready for work. I have to remember not to gloat that I have the day off. Chicks don't like that. I wash my face, brush my teeth, and get dressed. I wish her a good day at work and then I get my playlist together. A few of these movies were already in our queue but I need a few more to squeeze in. Once that's done, I pour myself some iced coffee (French vanilla) and start heating up a bagel in the toaster oven. I start the first movie of the day.
6:55AM - Wolfcop (2014)
This is gory fun with a capital "HOLY SHIT!"
8:15AM - The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)
Wow, just wow. I really wish I had seen this in theaters. A new slasher classic?
9:42AM - Toad Road (2012)
This is the druggiest movie that ever drugged a drug. It requires a fuckton of patience and skinny pants, you'll need skinny pants.
11:02AM - Haunter (2013)
Very nice! A competently made ghost movie with a teen horror sensibilities, great atmosphere, and likeable characters.
12:00PM - Lunch
I made a hotdog and bacon sandwich with cheddar cheese, mustard, and ketchup. Then I had a piece of cherry pie LeEtta made for the 4th of July with vanilla ice cream on top for dessert. I'm awesome.
12:44PM - Alyce Kills (2011)
This took me down a painful road and rewarded me for my agony. Had my favorite moment of the day (pictured above).
2:22PM - Jug Face (2013)
This is the weirdest remake of Kissin' Cousins I've ever seen.
Conclusion
And there you go. Thanks to some short running times, I managed to squeeze 6 movies into my 9 hour day. I even had time to do the dishes and clean up all of the blood before LeEtta got home. I think my favorite film of the day was The Town That Dreaded Sundown with Alyce Kills trailing close behind it. I liked everything but Toad Road was really a slog the more I think about it. The film had a great moment in the middle but it was just grueling but not in a good way. That's the only film out of everything that I watched that I don't recommend.
Now this one I've actually heard of before! Il mostro dell'opera was released 51 years ago today. Anybody seen it?
Here's some of the soundtrack:
So my band, GYROJETS, has some new music! If you glance casually (or glare sinisterly) at the track-listing you will see a song called "Ann The Babysitter". It's about Ann the Babysitter from Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery. As fans of Italian horror well know, Ania Pieroni is one of the most bewitching faces in the genre. It's no surprise that her confusing character in my favorite horror movie of all time would inspire a song. I even snuck in some dialog bits from my VHS tape at the beginning. BAM!
I will accept videos or pictures of you dancing to the songs in the comments below.
Another episode so soon? Well, you know, I gotta represent the giallo fandom especially with Giallo Meltdown: A Moviethon Diary running around on it's bookish legs. Jeffrey and I get up to our elbows in blood and J&B. Some comedy ensues when I accuse Jeffrey of picking this movie and then he accuses me of picking this movie! It's good podcast content let me tells ya.
Check out the archived episodes.
Here's something from South Korea that sounds pretty fun, Bride from the Grave. Is this a lost film? I can't find much more about it other than it was released today, 52 years ago.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0396135/
Brad and I talk about the 1983 giallo, A Blade in the Dark, directed by LamBava. Brad gushes about Giallo Meltdown: A Moviethon Diary and it's probably my favorite moment of my life. We have a GREAT TIME discussing the film and we also talk a little about another giallo, Nothing Underneath. We don't spoil anything about that one but A Blade in the Dark is completely spoiled! So don't say I didn't warn you. If you haven't listened to the show before, this is one to start with. It's A LOT OF FUN.
50 years ago today, a film called Creature of the Walking Dead was released on an unsuspecting Earth. Has anyone seen this one?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407696/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_of_the_Walking_Dead
