by Wallace, Amy
ZOË BRIAN’S TOP TEN CREEPY MOVIES FOR A
SEVENTH-GRADE SLUMBER PARTY
Zoë Brian is twelve years old and goes to Indian Hills Middle School in Prairie Village, Kansas. She enjoys listening to music, watching movies, throwing parties, and playing with her pets. She has a dog named George and a hedgehog named Lucy.
1. Sleepy Hollow (starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci): My personal favorite, Sleepy Hollow, is about young Ichabod Crane, who finds himself solving the murderous crimes that are engulfing Sleepy Hollow. When everyone tells him the Headless Horseman is doing the killings, he is determined to find the real killer. This movie is sure to have almost all the girls screaming in terror and at the edge of their seats! Rated R for blood and language.
2. Little Shop of Horrors (starring Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene): Seymour is a geeky guy who works (and lives) in a flower shop. One day when he is out buying exotic flowers, he finds a “strange and interesting” plant that brings his shop sudden success! But the Audrey Two, his plant, is not growing and he doesn’t know what to feed it—until he cuts his finger and finds that the plant feeds off blood! This musical is a toe-tapping, sing-along, get-up-anddance movie that everyone should love! Rated PG–13 for blood and language.
3. Pan’s Labyrinth (starring Ivana Baquero and Sergi López): A village in 1944 Fascist Spain is ruled by the captain of a sadistic army. His new wife is pregnant with an heir and comes to live with him, but she brings something he wasn’t expecting: a young girl named Ofelia. Ofelia is visited in the night by a fairy who leads her to the center of a labyrinth, where she meets an old faun, who tells her she is a princess and if she ever wants to see her real father, the king, she must perform three tasks. If she fails, the consequences could be dire. Pan’s Labyrinth is a fairy tale with a twist that all (who have the patience to watch a subtitled movie) should see. Rated R for blood and language.
4. Edward Scissorhands (starring Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp): Edward Scissorhands is the tragic tale of a misunderstood creature with scissors for hands. When Peg Boggs, an Avon salesperson, finds Edward alone in the attic, she takes him home to care for him. There he falls in love with Peg’s daughter, Kim. But everyone is afraid of Edward—until they find his gift. The suburbs he now lives in will never be the same, as the neighborhood learns that not all things different are bad. Edward Scissorhands is an amazing story that will have everyone wanting to know what happens next and might even have a few tearing up! Rated PG–13 for language and suggestive material.
5. Beetle Juice (starring Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, and Winona Ryder): Adam and Barbara are killed in a car crash and trapped as ghosts in their house. Soon, an annoying family named the Deetzes moves in. When Lydia Deetz, the daughter, discovers Adam and Barbara, she befriends them and tries to help in the ghosts’ quest to get the family out of the house. With little luck, Adam and Barbara call on a demonic specialist of fright named Beetle Juice—but is he too much to handle? The special effects and crazy characters are sure to have everyone intrigued! Rated PG for language.
6. Phantom of the Paradise (starring Paul Williams and William Finley): This is Phantom of the Opera in rock ’n’ roll form. Winslow Leach is a gifted musician who wants his music to be heard, but when it is stolen by a big record-label producer, Swan, he wants to destroy his company. When his revenge backfires, he is mangled in the record-making machinery. Swan cuts him a deal, promising to give him his voice back if he sells him his music and (without Leach knowing) his immortal soul! When Phoenix, Leach’s secret love, gets together with Swan, he is torn apart and must destroy Swan—even if that means destroying himself. This film has great music and a scary story to tell. Guests will be shocked out of their wits when his mask is removed! Rated PG for language, suggestive material, and disturbing images.
7. Heathers (starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater): Veronica Sawyer is part of the most fearsome clique in school. The three Heathers rule the school and have a reputation for being mean. When she meets a new kid named J. D., she falls for his rebellious personality. But when he kills Heather Number One, J. D. talks Veronica into helping him write a suicide note to make it look like Heather killed herself. But the murders don’t stop here. What will happen to the school when all the popular kids seem to be committing suicide? This movie is a tragedy with a comedic edge. Many girls will love this movie. Rated R for suggestive material and nudity, language, and blood.
8. The Nightmare Before Christmas (starring Chris Sarandon and Catherine O’Hara): Jack Skellington doesn’t want to be king of Halloweentown anymore, and there is something missing inside of him. When he stumbles into Christmastown, he realizes Christmas is just what he needs, and decides to take matters into his own boney hands. But will the children appreciate what Jack is doing for them? And what does Sandy Claws think of this? This movie is a dark Disney musical with loveable characters. It actually scared me the first time I saw it (when I was 6)!
9. Buffy the Vampire Slayer—Season Four, Episode Ten—“Hush” (starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alyson Hannigan): Buffy is a teenage girl who is chosen to fight the forces of darkness and defend the world. In this episode, which is one of the creepiest, everyone in the town of Sunnydale loses their voices. People are being found with their hearts ripped out and nobody knows how this is happening—until Giles finds a fairytale about the Gentlemen. When you can’t talk, or scream, how can you call for help? Rated TV–14 for language.
10. Scary Movie 3 (starring Simon Rex and Anna Faris): Although this is a comedy, it is a perfect choice to watch at a slumber party. This movie is a takeoff of all the scary movies made around the year 2002 and back. Spoofing everything from The Ring to 8 Mile (now there’s a scary movie!), this movie is sure to have everybody laughing . . . and a few others grossed out (especially when Kate’s head falls off). It may not be creepy, but it sure is fun! Rated PG–13 for language and suggestive material.
LIAM VOLK’S TEN FAVORITE HORROR VENDETTAS
At the ripe old age of thirteen, Liam Volk is a life-long horror fan. He attends Pontypridd High School in South Wales and his uncle is Stephen Volk, whose list appears elsewhere in this volume. Liam grew up on Universal Classic monsters, but now prefers Doctor Who (and James Bond). He also likes The Simpsons.
1. Jaws vs. the Brody Family ( Jaws films)
2. Dracula vs. Van Helsing (Dracula films)
3. Michael Myers vs. Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween films)
4. Michael Douglas vs. Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction)
5. Robert De Niro vs. Nick Nolte (Cape Fear)
6. Cindy Campbell vs. cars (Scary Movie)
7. Freddy Krueger vs. the children of Elm Street (Nightmare on Elm Street series)
8. Aliens vs. Sigourney Weaver (Alien films)
9. Dr. Jekyll vs. Mr. Hyde (Jekyll & Hyde films)
10. Doctor Who vs. the Daleks (Doctor Who)
CHARLES BLACK’S FIVE FAVORITE
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET TIE-IN PRODUCTS
Charles Black has an unhealthy pop-culture obsession, which extends to cinema, television, literature, video games, and any other sort of media he can experience. A love-hate relationship with horror lasted throughout his teenage years (and yes, as much as it shames him, he had nightmares for two weeks after seeing The Gate), but he was instantly converted the day he read his first Stephen King novel. These days, even the best horror movies don’t scare him, but he still loves them. He is working on several horrorthemed film projects, trying to establish himself among all the other great artists who cause people to sleep with their lights on.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I am a fan of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, in all of its incarnations. In fact, though I relentlessly mock the following items, I’ll openly admit to having owned/watched/played/etc. all the damn things. My obsession began when I was about twelve, on vacation with my family on a houseboat in the middle of a lake, listening to my older cousin, Josh, recap the first t
hree films of the series in loving and gruesome detail. I was both terrified and fascinated by such tidbits as . . .
“. . . and then you see a little light come on in Kristen’s dollhouse . . . and the movie ends!”
Well, I had to know what happened next. And a horror geek was born. Thanks, Josh.
1. Freddy’s 1–900 Number
As a last-ditch effort to cash in on a decade—the eighties— defined by greed, the trend of celebrity 1–900 numbers was a hilarious yet utterly despicable way to manipulate young people into running up Mom and Dad’s phone bill. For a nominal (ha!) per-minute fee, you could listen to recorded messages from your favorite New Kid on the Block, your favorite steroid-ridden athlete, or even . . .
. . . Freddy Krueger? Sure, it made sense to want to listen to the impersonal (and most likely scripted) ramblings of your favorite dreamy celebrity, but do you really want to get cozy on the phone with horrordom’s most infamous child-molesting charcoal briquette?
Well, I sure did. And I’m sure a lot of other disturbed young ones did as well. God help us all.
2. Freddy’s Greatest Hits, (previously) available on LP and cassette
A long time ago, future Biggest Movie Star on the Planet Earth Will Smith showed that you could create a pop song about Freddy Krueger with the smash hit single “Nightmare on My Street,” a catchy tune with creepy lyrics that made you giggle.
Unfortunately, that song—and any originality or charm that it contained—was painfully absent from Freddy’s Greatest Hits, RiC Records’ 1987 attempt to cash in on the Elm Street franchise.
Naturally, Freddy’s Greatest Hits was a collection of songs about dreaming and/or sleeping. The best-known song on the compilation was “Do the Freddy,” a cover of the 1965 Freddie and the Dreamers (nice coincidence!) hit, recorded by a gathering of musicians known as the Elm Street Group.
Other tracks included additional covers like “In the Midnight Hour” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” as well as original tracks like “Don’t Sleep,” “Down in the Boiler Room,” and “Elm Street Dreams.” Sadly, the only ones being tortured and maimed were the people who bought this crap.
3. A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Board Game (from Cardinal/Victory Games Inc.)
Talk about fun! Round up a few friends and try to figure out which one of your buddies is actually Freddy Krueger in this clever and scary whodunit!
Okay, sorry. This charmer is actually a demented rip-off of Clue, only with rules that are nearly impossible to figure out. Most of the game involves drawing cards and suspecting which of the other players is actually Freddy in disguise. If you’re playing with only two people, the confrontation devolves into a rousing game of “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.”
You really need anywhere from four to eight people to have an interesting game, but then the kind of person who would own this game would have to be the kind of person who had friends in the first place.
The best part of this insanity is that the game is for “Ages 8 and up,” so don’t miss your chance to gather up a bunch of impressionable youngsters and watch them get slaughtered one by one by a resurrected child killer. Yippee!
4. The Freddy’s Nightmares TV series
The 1980s produced a bumper crop of occasionally cool TV horror anthology shows, including a new version of The Twilight Zone, Tales from the Darkside, Monsters, Friday the 13th: The Series, and others. Not wanting to be outdone (or miss a chance to cash in on New Line’s resident cash cow), network executives spawned Freddy’s Nightmares.
The show was originally intended to be a TV series that followed a similar plotline to the films, but that idea was jettisoned when the studio realized that having a regular cast of teenagers didn’t make sense, as Freddy would most likely dispatch them rather quickly. They decided to make the show into a standard anthology series, with Freddy as the Crypt Keeper–like host, spouting grisly one-liners and puns.
Even though they managed to work Freddy into a couple of the actual plotlines, it grew tiresome to see him relegated to bit player, and the actual anthology shows offered nothing original. Ultimately, the show was cancelled after two seasons, but these Nightmares continue to haunt us on cable, where reruns can be easily found.
5. The Nightmare on Elm Street video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System
Back in the pre-Internet days of video gaming, kids weren’t able to rely on Web sites with reviews to keep them away from utter trash. We had to get our feet wet and, just maybe, have our legs devoured by a swarm of bloodthirsty piranhas.
In that era, companies used movie licenses (such as Back to the Future, Friday the 13th, and The Karate Kid) as a familiar marketing tool to sell games to the unsuspecting public. Apparently, no one told them the games actually had to be good. One of the worst games of its kind was, of course, Elm Street.
The game had almost no resemblance to any of the movies, with the exception of Freddy himself. Your mission was to guide your hero into battle against snakes and bats (?) armed only with your fists (?!), all to recover Freddy’s scattered bones (which were shaped like your standard dog biscuit) and get them safely placed in consecrated ground.
If only they had buried this game in a similar manner.
R. B. PAYNE’S TOP TEN BEST HORROR
PULP MAGAZINE COVERS
A member of the Dark Delicacies Writing Group, R. B. Payne recently sold his first horror tale, literally and figuratively. Frightened at the prospect of never being published again, he continues to write. He has several other tales in the publishing pipeline and has completed his debut novel. He lives in Los Angeles.
Pulp magazines were adventure, romance, western, war, detective/ crime, and horror tales published on cheap paper (wood “pulp” paper) and sold at corner newsstands, drugstores, gas stations, and wherever else anyone was willing to part with some hard-earned coinage. Pulp magazines are generally associated with the 1910s to the 1950s but their heyday was really the Great Depression, from 1929 to the early 1940s.
Magazines such as Weird Tales, Terror Tales, Uncanny Tales (yes, there were a lot of “Tales”!), Phantom, Eerie Mysteries, Horror Stories, and others gave a start to many legendary writers such as Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Hugh B. Cave, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, A. Merritt, Talbot Mundy, and Seabury Quinn, just to mention a few.
Much pulp artwork is unattributed: We don’t always know who created them. Often they were painted in only a few days and went out unsigned. Many famous pulp cover artists included Frank R. Paul, Virgil Finlay, Edd Cartier, Margaret Brundage, and Norman Saunders. Pulp covers were so important to the magazine’s sales that often they would be painted first. The authors would then be shown the cover and contracted to write a story to match.
The general recipe for a pulp cover was a woman in distress plus whatever was the magazine theme. So a half-naked woman threatened by a demon made it horror, an enemy soldier made it war, a criminal made it a crime pulp, etc. The only requirement was that the woman was scantily-clothed and you could only save her by buying the magazine.
World War II started the demise of these magazines (even this cheap paper was needed elsewhere), and the final nails in the coffin were comics, paperback books, and, oooooohhhh, television.
Here are some of my favorite horror covers from back in the day. Many of these are available as reprints, as most pulps have fallen into the public domain and are now being rediscovered and reprinted by fans worldwide.
1. Terror Tales (January 1935)
Terror Tales, January 1935 (© 1935 by Popular Publications. Reprinted by permission of Argosy Communications Inc.)
A terrific cover with undead hands pulling an innocent woman into a pool of blood while Death watches. This cover has it all, the inevitability of pain, death, and the realization there is no escape . . . for any of us! If I had seen this on the newsstand as a kid, I would have bought it in a heartbeat!
Buh-bump. Buh-bump. All that blood. Try not to scream, my dear! This wi
ll teach you NOT to fall in love with a stranger!
2. Uncanny Tales (Special Quarterly, 1942)
Uncanny Tales, Special Quarterly, 1942 (© 1942 by Manvis Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed, reprinted as public domain.)
A spectacular cover that emphasizes the deep fears explored by horror fans: black cats, skulls, Death, the undead, decay, and spiders and their webs. And yes, THE GOBLINS WILL GET YOU! Unfortunately, this was one of the last issues of this wonderful magazine. It appears that the goblins did get them, simply because goblins are not known for their reading skills and seldom subscribe to magazines.
3. Weird Tales (October 1933)
Weird Tales, October 1933 (© 1933 by Popular Fiction Publishing Co. Reprinted by permission of Weird Tales Ltd.)
I shouldn’t really have to explain why the thirteenyear-old boy still inside me would be drawn to this cover. This woman is frighteningly attractive. In fact, this woman actually looks exactly like someone you could meet today (especially the leather!), at a Halloween bash anywhere on the Sunset Strip here in Los Angeles. When I see those alluring eyes and blood red lips I have to admit I would offer my neck . . . at a minimum! Please, please . . . bite me!
4. Horror Stories (October 1935)
Horror Stories, October 1935 (© 1935 by Popular Publications. Reprinted by permission of Argosy Communications Inc.)