Fifth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series #6: May

Wow.  It's Halloween and I've only managed to watch six scary (or, "scary," taking Warm Bodies into consideration) movies for the entire month.  That's a pretty lame FMSSOMS showing.  On the plus side, #6 (May, 2002) is a pretty good little indie horror flick.

Poor May is such a weirdo.  Shunned by her classmates as a child because she was shy and had an eye patch to correct her lazy eye, little May's only friend was a creeptastic homemade doll that her mother made - and who lives in a glass case because she's too precious to be touched.  (May's mother's motto: "If you don't have any friends, make one!")  Grown-up May (Angela Bettis) is still weird.  She's got her own apartment - filled with dolls she's made and her own homemade clothes - and a good job - as a veterinary assistant where her facility with needle and thread and a high tolerance for blood and guts comes in handy.  But she's still shy and hopelessly awkward, and talks to creepy doll Suzy because she's so lonely.  When Polly, the hot party girl receptionist at work (Anna Faris), starts making friendly overtures to her, May uses the interaction to build enough confidence to approach Adam the carwash boy (Jeremy Sisto) she's crushing on.  It all works out at first and she is thrilled to have these new friends.  But she's just so weird and creepy, and she doesn't have any social skills at all.  She finally freaks Adam out just too much and he dumps her; turning to Polly, she doesn't understand when Polly blows her off for a booty call.  Abandoned and alone again, May remembers her mother's motto and that's when the blood starts flowing.

For probably two-thirds of this 90 minute movie, May is more of a darkly funny psychothriller: you know that something is wrong with May but you hope that she'll be able to pull herself together.  It seems like she might be able to get herself to be normal enough, if not completely normal.  I was rooting for her at first, this sad, lonely weird girl.  But May is too weird to really identify with and once the killing starts, I stopped rooting for her.  Unlike Carrie White, with whom the audience sympathizes even as she takes her vengeance, May is just too creepy and damaged to be relatable. Still, the performances are good and the effects are, well, effective even if the "blood" is a little thin.  May is an unexpected dark little treat of a movie, a fine way to wrap up the month.

The Walking Dead S5E3 "Four Walls and a Roof" 10/26/14

Holy crap - that was by far one of the best episodes TWD has done in a really, really long time.  "We didn't want to waste the bullets."  

We pick right back up where we left off, with Gareth and company noshing on leg du Bob in front of a campfire outside of an elementary school.  Inside the school: dozens of walkers, pressed up against the windows, clamoring to get out.  Gareth is very talky, charming and psychotic - he's a good villain because you like to hate him.  The Terminusians usually prefer to eat women but Bob is, surprisingly, very tasty.  After a while, Bob starts weeping.  Then the weeping turns to sobbing, which turns to laughing maniacally.  The Terminusians gather around, saying that he's cracked.  Still cackling, Bob pulls his shirt away from his shoulder, revealing a suppurating walker bite (that he got at the food bank).  "I've been bitten, you stupid pricks! I'm tainted meat!"  The cannibals spit out their mouthfuls, some of them vomit, panicking that they're now infected.  "TAINTED MEAT!" shrieks Bob.  Awesome.

Sasha, Tyrese and Rick wander in the woods around the church, looking for Bob, Darryl and Carol.  They go back inside and confront Father Gabriel, sure that he's hiding something that has hurt their missing people.  After some badgering, he breaks down, coward that he is, and confesses his guilty conscience: he locked himself inside his church and refused to open the doors to his parishioners when the zombies swarmed.  He listened to his flock get ripped to shreds and eaten and then, afterwards, he buried all the remains.  Rick et als., especially Carl, who wants to believe that people are good, look at him with disgust.

Then they hear something outside: the Terminusians have left Bob out on the lawn.  They run out, drag Bob inside, and cap a few walkers just for the hell of it.  Back inside, Bob brings them up to speed, including telling them that Gareth said he saw Darryl and Carol drive off.  He also shows them all his bitten shoulder and everyone sort of collapses in on themselves.  Death is such a constant on this show but it's still devastating when it's slow and peaceful, as peaceful as the aftermath of a bite during a zombie apocalypse.  Gabriel says there's a couch in his office and they move poor Bob in there.

Abraham speaks up: the "get Eugene to Washington, D.C." contingent is bugging the hell out of here before things go to shit any further.  Rick's like, you can't take that bus.  Abraham: the hell I can't.  After some back and forth macho posturing between Rick and Abraham, a compromise is reached: Abraham will stay for twelve more hours to try to fight against Gareth's group, but then he and his leave, and Tara, Glen and Maggie go with them.  (It seems a little sudden that Glen and Maggie would agree to go except that Glen has more history with Abraham than the rest of Rick's people, and he's begun to be troubled by Rick's growing brutality.  That's why Glen agrees to go.)

Bob and Sasha scene.  Very sweet and sad.  When Bob dies, he's going to take most of the hope and optimism and humor out of this group.

Out in the main part of the church, the gang makes a plan.  "Plan's got stones, I'll give you that," says Abraham.  "It's a big play," notes Rosita, getting a tiny line at last.  Rick, Sasha, Abraham, Glen, Maggie and Michonne head off into the nighttime woods, leaving Carl, Eugene, Rosita, Tyrese, Bob, Gabriel and baby Judith huddled in the church office.  And then, terribly, just as Rick's group fades from sight, Gareth and his crew sneak out of the woods themselves from where they have been hiding and watching and break into the church.  Oh shit.

Gabriel gets to talk and talk again, taunting the hiders as the other five pull their guns and advance through the church.  It's actually quite tense because, quite frankly, any of the hiders could conceivably get killed off (although probably not Carl or Judith).  Just then, Judith gives out a wail before Carl can shush her.  The gunmen move over to the office door, ready to bust it down.  And then BANG BANG the heads of two of them splatter all over the wall.

It was a trick!  Figuring that Gareth was watching, Rick and his group left and then circled around behind, silently coming back into the church.  Rick tells them to drop their guns and kneel and when Gareth doesn't immediately respond, Rick shoots off all his fingers.  Gareth tries to convince Rick that they'll leave and never come back, never bother Rick's group again.  But Rick is done with mercy.  He pulls out that red-handled machete and hacks the kneeling Gareth to pieces; behind him, Abraham, Michonne and Sasha take care of the other three.  It is brutal and horrible, the Terminusians screaming, Glen, Maggie, Tara and Tyrese looking on in shock and horror.  When it is done, Michonne lifts her sword off one of the bodies, her face unreadable.  Gabriel staggers out of the office, looking at the gore splashed around his church.  He whimpers, "But this is the Lord's house," but Maggie interrupts him with a curt, "No.  It's just four walls and a roof."

The next morning, Bob is still hanging in there.  Everyone says goodbye to him.  He asks Rick to sit with him for a minute.  Rick does, Judith on his lap.  Bob says that before the prison, he didn't know if there were any good people left but Rick took him in.  "Nightmares end - they shouldn't end who you are.  And that is just this dead man's opinion."  Later, Sasha sits with Bob.  He wakes from a restless sleep, smiles at her and then breathes his last.  She bows her head, crying quietly, then pulls out her knife to make sure he doesn't rise back up.  But Tyrese comes in, takes the knife from his sister and, after she leaves the room, gently, sadly, slides the blade into Bob's temple.  He's broken his vow not to kill again but he couldn't let Sasha do it herself.

Abraham, Eugene, Rosita, Tara, Glen and Maggie drive off in the bus, Abraham leaving Rick with a map of their planned route and eliciting a promise that they'll come to D.C. after they get Darryl and Carol back.  After they've gone, Rick helps Tyrese dig some graves to bury the Terminusians out in the woods (Bob being already interred in the church's cemetery).  He says to Tyrese that he never asked him how it was for him, getting to Terminus.  Tyrese: "It killed me."  Rick, after thinking about it a bit: "No, it didn't."

That night, Michonne is up keeping watch on the church's front steps, her sword sitting across her knees.  Gabriel can't sleep and he joins her, saying that he still hears his congregation.  Michonne: "Yeah, that won't stop - but it won't be all the time."  They hear some rustling in the underbrush.  Gabriel scurries back inside but Michonne draws her sword from its scabbard and walks towards the woods.  After a tense moment, Darryl steps out.  Michonne grins at him, then: "Where's Carol?"  Darryl just looks at her for a second or two and then looks back into the dark woods behind him and says, "Come on out."

Previously on The Walking Dead / next time on The Walking Dead

Fifth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series #5: The Conjuring

Okay, so The Conjuring is one of the scarier flicks I've seen, at least for the first two-thirds: for approximately half of the first two-thirds, I had to watch from behind my fingers, slouched down on the couch, trying not to startle the dog every time I jumped.  Which was a lot.

Based on a "true" story, The Conjuring is set in Rhode Island in the early 1970s.  The Perron family - Roger (Ron Livingston), Carolyn (Lily Taylor), their five (!!) daughters and their dog Sadie - move into a great, old farmhouse. Right from the get-go, things are weird: Sadie refuses to enter the house; and the parents find a boarded-over staircase to a forgotten basement, full of various junk.   The poor dog is killed the first night, one of the daughters starts sleepwalking, Carolyn develops mysterious bruises and all the clocks stop at 3:07 a.m. every night.  Roger is a truck driver, requiring him to leave his family alone a lot, and the nighttime disturbances intensify: pictures falling off walls, doors opening for no reason, sleeping daughters getting their feet touched by unseen assailants.

Finally, scared and worried, Carolyn tracks down Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), real life paranormal investigators whose claim to fame is Amityville.  Ed and Lorraine investigate and determine that not only is the Perrons' new home haunted, it is probably inhabited by a demon - a former witch who sacrificed her own baby to the devil.  The investigation continues and the disturbances escalate further, dragging the Warrens into the fray on a personal level.  The culmination is an exorcism, performed by Ed because the Catholic church won't authorize an official exorcism for a non-Catholic family, and there is mostly a happy ending.

The first two-thirds of The Conjuring is fantastic: suspenseful, creepy, scary and tense.  The camera follows the Perrons into their home as they move in, so the audience gets to explore the house as the new residents do.  Then, the camera focuses on what is not there - dark shadows, spaces under the beds - which is particularly effective when one of the daughters is shrieking and screaming that something is RIGHT THERE BEHIND THE DOOR and we are watching right there behind the door, and there is nothing there.  There is a rhythm to the jump scares - tension building, false scare, actual scare - but that doesn't make them any less effective, and one of the best sequences is when Carolyn searches the dark house by herself, opening doors and going into the basement alone. Dear god I was squirming.  But for the last bit of the movie, when the Warrens really get involved and the scary bits get explained, things fall flat.  The demons come out into the light and the tension drains away - and the exorcism itself is perfunctory and unimpressive.

So, here it is in a nutshell: The Conjuring is fantastically scary for the most part and then, when you can't stand it anymore, it steps back and lets you down easy.  Still, it's a solid example of a haunted house flick and worth your time for the most part.

The Walking Dead S5E2 "Strangers" 10/19/14

This episode is extremely talky.  Fortunately most of it doesn't matter, until the reveal at the end.

Our gang walks away from the burning Terminus, in slow motion.  Tara 'fesses to Rick that she was at the prison with the Governor.  Carol and Tyrese decide they don't need to tell the others about what happened to the girls.  Bob and Sasha are completely adorable, playing cute word games and smooching (this, of course, means something terrible is going to happen to at least one of them).  That night, camping out in the open, Carol and Rick talk some - it's not important until the end of their conversation when he says, "I sent you away to this and now we're joining you.  Will you have us?"  Carol is surprised and nods yes.  He thanks her.  Later, Carol and Daryl sit up, keeping watch.  She tells him that she doesn't want to talk about it, she can't.  Daryl's like, all right.  Then he thinks he hears something out in the underbrush; when nothing lurches at them, trying to chew their legs off, he shrugs, guessing it was nothing.  But there is someone there, watching, waiting.

In the morning, they are on the march again when they hear screaming.  Rick doesn't want to get involved but Carl does.  They find a minister treed on a boulder, surrounded by zombies.  Rick, Daryl, Carol, Carl and Michonne make short work of the walkers.  The minister comes down, promptly upchucks all over his shoes, and then answers Rick's three questions: he hasn't killed any walkers, he hasn't killed any people and he hasn't done anything.  His name is Gabriel and Rick doesn't believe him.  He does, however, have a church nearby, a place where they can shelter.  He takes them there and our gang checks it out, finding nothing amiss but no food either.  Seems safe enough for now.  Gabriel tells them that there's a nearby town: he's cleaned it out except for one place that's been overrun - about a dozen walkers.

Our gang decides to head out on a scavenging run, except for Tyrese and Carl who will stay behind to protect Judith.  Before they go, Rick tells Carl to be aware, that he's never safe and can't let his guard down.  Carl listens and agrees, but does say to his dad that he doesn't believe that everyone can be evil.

Daryl and Carol fetch more water.  They find a car abandoned on the side of the road: the battery is dead but Carol finds a charger/generator in the trunk, so she figures they can use this car as a back-up.  Glen, Maggie and Tara check out a gun store where Glen finds three silencers that had been hidden in a mini-fridge (Glen: "Rule #1 of scavenging: there's nothing left in this world that isn't hidden.") - they call that a win.  Rick, Michonne, Bob, Sasha and Gabriel go to the town's food bank.  The basement, where all kinds of canned foodstuffs are stored, is full of water from holes in the building's roof; it's also full of walkers, squishy, waterlogged, extra-disgusting walkers.  All five of them go down and here's the big zombie action scene of the episode: splashing around in that gooey, stinking water, crushing heads with whatever is handy.  Gabriel panics and Bob is almost nailed by a submerged zombie but they all make it out, none the worse for wear, and with lots and lots of food for their trouble.

As they take the food back to the church, there's more talking.  The only thing important is that Rick asks Michonne if she misses her katana sword.  She says no, and she doesn't miss the life she had before - she misses Andrea and Herschel but she doesn't miss that sword.  When they get back to the church, Carl shows Rick what he's found: knife marks scratching up the shutters on the outside of the church and the words "YOU'LL BURN FOR THIS" carved into the siding.  Carl: "This doesn't mean Gabriel is a bad person.  But it does mean something."  When did Carl get so smart?

That night, they feast and even crack open a bottle or two of the church's communion wine.  It is here that Abraham makes his pitch: for Rick to agree to bring his group with them to Washington D.C., so Eugene can work on the cure.  They believe that there's still infrastructure in place, food, medicine, a place to be safe until they can clean out the dead.  Most of our gang looks like they want to go but they hold their tongues until Rick nods, agreeing to go to D.C.  People applaud, liking having a plan.

Not everyone is feeling happy, however.  Rick sits with Gabriel, who is moping by himself.  He tells the minister that he knows he's hiding something - that's his business - but if what he's hiding hurts Rick's people in any way, he [Rick] will kill him [Gabriel].  In the meantime, Carol steals away and Daryl finds her getting that car started.  She doesn't feel like she can stay with the group but her running away is interrupted when another car roars past them.  It has a cross painted on its back window and Daryl shouts that that is the car that took Beth.  They knock out the taillights and jump into their car, giving chase.  You know, I bet no one else knows where they are.  That's not good.

Back at the church, Bob has also gone outside, alone, away from everyone else.  He leans against a tree and begins to sob, apparently not as happy and optimistic as he seemed earlier.  His pity party is interrupted, however, when an unknown assailant clubs him over the head.  When he comes to, things have gone from bad to worse:  he has been captured by Gareth and some other Terminus-ers.  Gareth gets his turn to talk, blaming Bob and his group for ruining their home and casting them out into the world where they now have to hunt.  What are they hunting?  Our gang.  Why are they hunting them?  It's not personal - they would have done it to anyone, it's just cosmic justice that it's our gang that the hunters have found first - it's because they're hungry.  The camera pulls back: Bob's leg has been cut off at the knee and Gareth takes a big bite out of the hunk of Bob-meat he's holding in his hand.  Everyone around the fire, on which the rest of Bob's leg is roasting, is munching on Bob meat.  Bob starts to wail and panic, as one would do in that situation.  Gareth:  "If it makes you feel any better, you taste much better than we thought you would."  Nom nom nom.

Previously on The Walking Dead / next time on The Walking Dead

Fifth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series #4: The Ring

I watched The Ring, last night, the U.S. remake, not the original Japanese Ringu.  I was a bit conflicted about it because I do try to see originals first, like REC or Let the Right One In, but I'd heard good things about this 2002 Naomi Watts vehicle and was just not in the mood for subtitles.  I was in the mood to be scared a bit, however, and The Ring fit the bill.  Although twelve years after its release I am already well aware that many of its iconic moments are now well-worn tropes (i.e. evil girl with dripping wet black hair), it still did its thing.

Everyone by now knows the story: there's a videotape and if you see it, you die seven days later.  The fun thing is that this movie is as much a mystery-thriller as it is horror; the onscreen body count is low and the bulk of the movie follows reporter/mom Rachel (Watts) as she tries to figure out WTF.  Director Gore Verbinski sets a very creepy, atmospheric stage with a dark, almost monochromatic color palate, rain-washed and moody, very evocative of the J-horror from which this remake sprung.  The opening scene - with a very good Amber Tamblyn - effectively ratchets up the tension.  Many of the shots are beautifully framed, especially the ones out at the horse farm - not what you expect from your average horror flick.  And speaking of horses: anyone who does not find the horse on the ferry scene disturbing is a bad person.

While I thought it was maybe a little bit long at 1 hr. 55 min., I enjoyed The Ring quite a lot.  I don't suppose it holds up that well on repeated viewings and it does seem dated now, what with the flip phones and videotape, but I found it a fun Thursday night viewing.  Now if someone could just tell me why that creepy little kid called his mom by her first name ...

The Walking Dead S5E1 "No Sanctuary" 10/12/14

And we begin with a shout, not with a whisper.  Also: CAROL.

Then.  People, not our people, cower in train cars as shrieks and screams echo from outside.

Now.  Our people, in their train car, work on putting together whatever weapons they can scrounge, from belt buckles, zippers, chips of wood.  They are focused, ready to attack when the Terminusians come for them.  Unfortunately, the Terminusians don't come in the front: they open a door in the top of the car and drop in a smoke bomb.  Rick, Darryl, Glen and Bob are dragged out, bound and gagged, and brought into what pretty much looks like - and is - a slaughterhouse.  They and four other captives are made to kneel against a stainless steel trough while one dude sharpens a knife and another dude practices his swing with a baseball bat.  It is very tense.  And then they whack the guy on the end in the head, and when he slumps over the trough, they cut his throat, the blood gushing out in torrents.  It is SO GRIM.  They do the other three captives and then Glen is next in line.

Again, it's very tense and it looks almost like it might be Glen's turn to buy the farm.  But Gareth interrupts just in time, coming in with some administrative stuff to do.  Bob begs for their lives; Gareth is uninterested.  What he is interested in, however, is the bag Rick buried out in the woods before coming into Terminus.  Gareth threatens to gouge Bob's eye out so Rick tells him all the weapons that are in the bag, including a red handled machete with which he intends to kill Gareth.  Gareth's all, ooh, scary.  He heads out, leaving the two butchers to finish their job.  Bat Guy winds up behind Glen again (but this time, all the tension is gone) and just as he starts his swing, the building is shaken by an explosion.

Out in the world, Carol, Tyrese and Baby Judith walk along the tracks towards Terminus.  Carol tells Tyrese that she'll get the two of them there but she's not going to stay.  When a walker menaces them, Tyrese takes the baby, saying he can't kill anyone/thing, not yet.  Carol rolls her eyes, all exasperatedly "Men!" before stabbing the walker in the head with her knife.  She then catches sight of a large herd of walkers heading their way.  The humans hide and luckily the herd is distracted by the sound of gunfire in the distance, probably coming from Terminus.  When the walkers are past, they continue on.  They come across a Terminusian setting up fireworks out by a little shack in the woods,  They overhear him talking about a "chick with a sword" and a "kid in a hat" and quickly subdue him, tying him up.  They don't gag him, though, and that's too bad because he's an asshole.

Leaving Tyrese and the baby behind with the asshole, Carol heads out, gooing herself up with walker guts and walking along behind the herd undetected.  (Back at the shack, the asshole first tries to talk with Tyrese and then to rile him up.  Tyrese is determined to turn the other cheek and be the bigger dog - he doesn't want to kill anyone today.  The asshole is like, dude, that means you'll be the one who dies - you and the baby.)  Meanwhile, Carol has made her way to the Terminus fence in time to see Rick, Darryl, Bob and Glen dragged out of the train car and into the buildings.  She watches as the herd of walkers starts to menace the Terminusians, then spots a propane tank.  With the magic science/physics of television, she shoots a couple of holes into the propane tank, causing a leak, then shoots a fireworks rocket right at the tank.  There's the explosion that kept Glen from getting his head bashed in.  Hooray for Carol!  She watches carefully as burning walkers stagger through the hole in the Terminus fence, then follows them.  Walkers pour into Terminus.  The Terminusians fight back but there is a lot of carnage: a shot of a burning zombie chewing off a guy's nose; at least two women being eaten alive.  It is horrific and extremely violent.

Inside the slaughterhouse, Bat Guy and Knife Guy dither around about what that explosion could have been, distracted enough for Rick to pull a stake of wood out of his boot, cut his bonds (that's a sharp piece of wood!) and then stab Bat Guy and Knife Guy in the throats.  He cuts Darryl, Glen and Bob free.  As they wander through the buildings, they find a room full of butchered human body parts.  They cannot even articulate their horror and just pick up as many weapons as they can find.  Rick's all, if you come across any of these people, do not hesitate to kill them.  The guys are like, WORD.  Glen insists that they have to let the captives out of the train cars; Rick agrees although he'd really rather just be killing people and zombies.

Carol wandering through the buildings, looking for her friends and killing zombies and Terminusians indiscriminately, finds a stash of personal belongings.  She quickly snatches up Darryl's crossbow as well as a couple of guns.  (She doesn't take Michonne's sword?  Poor form.)  In another room, one creepily adorned with candles, Mary (Gareth's mom apparently, played by Denise Crosby a/k/a Tasha Yar) finds her.  The two women fight until Carol gets the upper hand.  Mary has a little speech, saying how they didn't used to be like this, how they really were a sanctuary until they took in some bad folks who took over the place, raping the women repeatedly and beating and killing.  She says they learned that you're either the butcher or you're the cattle - and they weren't going to be the cattle anymore.  (But cannibalism?  I can see being distrustful and killing threatening strangers, but eating them?  WTF can't you get enough deer?)  When Mary won't answer her questions, Carol shoots her in the leg and then leaves her for the walkers who come in when she opens the door.

Out at the shack, the asshole manages to get his hands around Judith's neck, forcing Tyrese to drop his weapons.  The asshole says he'll snap the baby's neck unless Tyrese goes outside - where three or four walkers are lurking - so with tears in his eyes but a roar in his voice, Tyrese goes out.  The asshole listens to the sounds of struggles for a while, but then there's silence.  And then Tyrese bursts through the door, having put down all the zombies, and beats the living crap out of the asshole, shouting "I won't! I won't!" all the while.  I guess that means he isn't going to kill this guy, which may come back to bite him later.  (But later he tells Carol he killed him ... although we never see the body.)

Back at Terminus, the gang still in the train car (Carl, Maggie, Michonne, Eugene, Sasha, Tara, Rosita, Abraham, etc.) are again readying their weapons, trying to figure out what's going on outside.  Sasha wants to know what the cure is that Eugene knows about.  While I have my doubts that Eugene knows any such thing - I think he's just saying he knows a cure so people will protect him - he says he used to work for a lab that engineered biological weapons and he believes that with some tweaks to the formula, he can change these weapons so they kill the dead instead of the living.  Everyone seems to buy it and then Rick yanks the train car door open so they can all come out and fight zombies and Terminusians.  They do, fighting and killing, and all make it over the fence.  Rick takes them to where he buried his bag o' weapons, saying that they have to go back and kill all the Terminusians.  Glen, Maggie, Rosita et als. are all, um, NO we just got out of there, but Rick is in a killing mood.

Until they look up and see Carol standing there quietly, watching them.  Darryl throws himself at her, hugging her, not wanting to let her go.  It's really quite sweet.  Rick limps up, a small smile on his face: "Did you do that?"  She nods and he hugs her too, whispering, "Thank you."  Everyone crowds around but she just says, "You have to come with me."  She takes them to the shack where Tyrese and baby Judith are waiting.  Rick and Carl and Sasha are, respectively, overwhelmed and overjoyed.  After the reunion, everyone heads out, walking down the railroad tracks away from Terminus.  They have no supplies and barely any weapons, but they are all together again.  As he passes one of those Terminus signs, Rick picks up a handful of mud, obscuring most of the wording and revising it to say NO SANCTUARY.

Well, that was something.  A strong start, shocking and sometimes scary and ugly, with the completion of Carol's transformation from meek mouse to full-on badass.  There was also a tag scene that I think my DVR cut off: a black man, in a mask and a hood and a long coat, following the tracks some ways behind our heroes.  Rumor has it that he's Morgan, the guy who rescued Rick way back in S1 and then got all crazy the last time we saw him.  

Previously on The Walking Dead / next time on The Walking Dead

When in doubt, post a list

It's all the houseguests' fault: we had houseguests, and we had to do things with houseguests, and all that being social and a good host really cut into the scary viewing.  This is what's upcoming: the recap for the season premiere of The Walking Dead (oh dear god I can't believe it's back on already and I have to recap it again and can we please focus on Darryl and Michonne and Carol and ignore Rick?) and also the latest scary movie, The Ring.  But not yet.

Since I don't have much for you in the meantime, and since I've been re-reading Stephen King's Dreamcatcher just for the hell of it, and since it's a scary time of year and since Mr. King is the undisputed high emperor of scary written things, here's a list of all his novels with the ones I haven't read in red.  I'm a big Stephen King fan.  There will not be much red.

11/22/63
'Salem's Lot
Bag of Bones
Black House
Carrie
Cell
Christine
The Colorado Kid
Cujo
Cycle of the Werewolf
The Dark Half
The Dark Tower: Song of Susannah
The Dark Tower
The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands
The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole
The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass
The Dark Tower: Wolves of the Calla
The Dead Zone
Desperation
Doctor Sleep
Dolores Claiborne
Dreamcatcher
Duma Key
The Eyes of the Dragon
Firestarter
From A Buick 8
Gerald's Game
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
The Green Mile: The Complete Serial Novel
Insomnia
IT
Joyland  
Lisey's Story
Misery
Mr. Mercedes
Needful Things
Pet Sematary
The Plant: Zenith Rising
Revival
Rose Madder
The Shining
The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition
The Talisman
The Tommyknockers
Under the Dome

Then there's also his short story collections, which I think I like even better than his novels: Different Seasons; Everything's Eventual; Four Past Midnight; Full Dark, No Stars; Hearts in Atlantis; Just After Sunset; Night Shift; Nightmares & Dreamscapes; Skeleton Crew; and Stephen King Goes to the Movies.

Wow.  I sure do love me some Stephen King.  (Except Full Dark, No Stars.  Didn't like that one quite so much.)

Fifth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series #3: Warm Bodies

Zombie Romeo and Juliet is really all you need to know about the third movie in this year's installment of the FAFMSSOMS, Warm Bodies - there's even a balcony scene!  R (played by Nicholas Hoult) is a fairly sentient zombie who wanders around an airport wondering about the meaning of it all, grunting at his best zombie friend Marcus and trying to avoid the "bonies" - really advanced zombies that are little more than teeth and skeletons.  R may shamble and drool and eat brains but his voiceover is clever and sarcastic.  There's clearly more going on here than with your average zombie.

One day, a group of attractive young humans is sent out from their walled city to collect medicine.  This happens to coincide with a hunting excursion R, Marcus and some other zombies are making.   R's group attacks the attractive young humans; R eats Perry (Dave Franco) and absorbs his memories, immediately falling in love with Perry's girlfriend Julie.  R saves Julie from the rest of the zombies, secreting her back in his secret hideout, and over the next couple of days she segues from frightened captive to friend.  Their burgeoning relationship sparks something in R and he begins to change physiologically; more importantly, it sparks a change in the other non-bonie zombies.

Let's get one thing straight: despite the zombies and the occasional brain-eating, this movie is not remotely scary.  Nicholas Hoult is far too pretty - even with blood and brains drooling out of his mouth - to be a convincing zombie, but his expressions and mannerisms are pretty good.  The more frightening part of the whole flick: John Malkovic ... who is just playing a human, Julie's father.

Apparently this little movie was based on a book - maybe I'll check it out.  In the meantime, Warm Bodies is a decent little zom-rom, but certainly not any sort of a horror movie.

Fifth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series #2: The Cabin in the Woods

Okay, so this one is sort of a cheat because it's like the fourth time I've watched The Cabin in the Woods.  It's the only horror movie I own.  But it is just so good and has everything you could possibly want.  A creepy cabin in the woods.  Pretty college kids, including an athlete, a scholar, a nerd, a sexpot and a "virgin."  Drinking.  Drugs.  Sex.  Girls in bikinis.  Conspiracy theories.  Latin incantations.  A zombie redneck torture family.  Beheadings and stabbings.  Running screaming through the woods.  Every monster ever.  Sigourney Weaver.  I mean, why wouldn't I watch that again and again?

Fifth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series #1: Candyman

By all accounts ( and by all accounts I mean Final Girl and her devotees), 1992's Candyman is an under-appreciated classic.  The music is elegant and creepy; the gorgeous Virginia Madsen carries the flick and does a great job of it; and Tony Todd is an ominous, looming presence.  Plus bees!

Helen (Madsen) is a graduate student at the University of Illinois, writing her thesis on urban legends and modern folklore.  She learns about the legend of Candyman, the son of a freed slave who dared to love a white girl.  Her outraged relatives cut Candyman's hand off for the audacity, then arranged for stung him to death by bees, then burned his corpse in a bonfire.  Now, at one of the projects, gory murders are being pinned on Candyman - the legend coming to life, according to the locals.  Helen goes to the projects to investigate, befriends a young single mom, then gets herself beaten by some gang members.  Oh, and she inadvertently summoned Candyman - by staring into a mirror and repeating his name five times, because she didn't believe anything would happen - who starts to rampage and frames Helen for the crimes.  In Tony Todd's glorious, booming voice, Candyman tells Helen that her investigation had weakened his congregation's belief in him, so he had to come forth and kill to re-establish his power over the project's inhabitants.

I am Rumor.  It is a blessed condition ... to live in other people's dreams but not to have to be.

Candyman is a little dated but holds up well.  It is genuinely scary; I watched a bunch of the movie through my fingers as the tension built around Helen's poor choices.  While the actual violence takes place off-screen, we get to see plenty of blood in the aftermath.  I should give a special shout-out to the scene where Tony Todd and Virginia Madsen let bees climb all over their faces, including in their mouths.  Those sure looked like real bees - yikes!

I had no expectations whatsoever going into Candyman and I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was and how much I liked it.  Not too many people have seen this movie when compared to the classic horror movies like Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, etc., but if you're in the mood for something on the vintage side, Candyman is well worth your time.

Pre-Fifth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series

Here it is, October.  And the Fifth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series is rearing its ugly head.  We only got through nine scary movies in all of last year's series - I'm hoping we can at least match that.  But the Mouse household is expecting some houseguests, neither of whom like horror flicks, so the viewing may be curtailed.  I'll watch as much as I can (after the crap day I had today, I'm soooooooo in the mood for something scary) and put them up here soon afterwards as best I can. In the meantime, what's your favorite scary movie this time (or any time) of year?