2009 Spooktacular Lineup

Spooktacular #5 - Hostel 2
a good opening spooktacular movie isnt just about the quality of the film, but also the potential it offers to humiliate someone there.
before your spooktacular, youll want to watch this movie and decide which scene is especially disturbing.
then, on the night of the event, youll want to pause when this scene is over and demand: “so, who here has an erection?”
now scan the faces of your guests and decide which one look guiltiest.
call that person out and say that, as this is just supposed to be a fun night for friends to watch movies together, they might prefer to go home and masturbate to footage of contractors being beheaded in iraq.
dont resume the evening until this person has left.
when they do leave, point out to everyone else that you were obviously joking and that that guy must have some serious problems.
depending on the tenacity of the person you have accused, you might not have time to finish hostel 2, or any of the movies, but thats the price you have to be willing to pay.
the downside to this is you will need to rent hostel 2, which will make the people at the video store think youre a pervert.
why hostel 2 you ask? because the advertising of that movie was basically: “all we can guarantee is that women will be humiliated and murdered. $10, please!"

Spooktacular #4 - Candyman
im on the record as a fan of candyman 2: farwell to the flesh, but ive also got to give props to the original.
if i said to you that a strange black man would appear in your house tonight, youd be understandably upset.
if i said it would be a magical black man, youd probably chill out because youre imagining morgan freeman making mint juleps out of thin air while teaching you valuable lessons about tolerance.
thats why candyman is so effective.
its the classic bait and switch.
you stroll in looking for a distinguished gentleman and find a hook handed slaves ghost with a penchant for white women.
welcome to danger town! population- oh.
youre already dead.
but not before you peed yourself.
by the way, in case you were wondering, my feelings on candyman 3: day of the dead are… mixed.
i think i would have preferred it if it were its own thing, but it doesnt measure up to the artisitic standards of the other candymans.
candymen?

Spooktacular #3 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
ive got to brag, i totally shamed some film student with this one.
i told him that i was going to show the horror movie with the most famous shower scene in cinema and he was all like, “oh yeah, psycho is a great halloween movie!”
are you kidding me?
im as big a vince vaughn fan as the next guy but i barely even remember that thing.
no i was talking about nightmare on elm street 2, which features a leather bar frequenting gym coach getting the treatment from freddy in the shower.
this is a movie with a message that im surprised slipped under the hollywood liberal radar.
its all about how homosexuality is like having the ghost of a claw handed child molestor inside of you.
feel free to use this for your youth groups movie night too.

Spooktacular #2 - Grizzly
some people just dont get scary. for example, a friend of mine suggested i show jaws at my spooktacular.
last time i checked, kansas was a pretty definitively landlocked state.
have you ever thought about the logistics and planning necessary for jaws to be a threat?
first of all, its off season, so youd want to wait over half a year before the weather was pleasant enough to be devoured.
then youd have to get some friends together to split the driving time and gas money, and youd still probably want to book a hotel room.
then theres all the stuff youll want for a trip to the realm where jaws holds dominion – swimsuits, towels, sunscreen, buckets for seashells, light reading… the list goes on and on.
i imagine myself being really psyched about the idea of the trip, but quickly losing interest and finally just watching jaws do his thing on shark week.
by the time you get to the beach youve done so much work you might as well crawl into jaws mouth and move it up and down on your torso.
given the state of the puppet, you actually might be called upon to do that.
plus he was killed by the guy from all that jazz.
come on.
but heres a question: do you live on land? are you edible?
then grizzly is something you should seriously worry about.
priorties, people. thats what terror is all about.

Spooktacular #1 - Drag Me to Hell
not since face/off has a movie so thoroughly delivered on its title.
this movie is all about a young woman and her attempts to avoid a demon whose goal is the above.
spoiler alert: she fails.
also, this movie shines a harsh light on a group that has been given a free ride for way too long: gypsies.
seriously, im pretty sure the only contribution the make to society is to occasionally curse people who dont have time for their bullshit.
thanks gypsies. way to pull your weight.
admittedly, this movie might loose something if it isnt seen in a big theater full of people screaming stuff at the screen like, “bitch, he gonna drag you to hell!” but its still a really fun movie and this years #1 spooktacular film.