BTWF: #10: Katherine Heigl: Bride of Chucky

Her first big role in a motion picture, Katherine Heigl made it rain in Bride of Chucky. Although the movie was far from good (although probably better than a D+), it's pretty big news to be in the Child's Play movies. She'd later go on to be in Knocked Up and apparently that jitsu Grey's Anatomy.

Top 10 Before They Were Famous

Wgbw,

Wasn't anything too wild in the recommendations for the top 10. After mulling it over, we're gonna count down the top 10 movie stars who made their early debut in a horror movie. Now, before Jon goes and makes some polisci graph about why this countdown is inaccurate I should preface it with a few reservations.

1) I'll generally only include them if I've reviewed the movie before. I don't want to trace every famous movie star to some bad movie they did once that no one's ever heard of.

2) I won't include people who are now famous for some jitsu show. A few google searches produced some famous people from Lost or ER or some show I couldn't care less about.

3) It might not be their actual debut. I tried to weed out people whose 10th movie ended up being some horror movie, but generally it will be super early in their career.

The Amityville Horror (2005)

1) A really tight movie. Top notch stuff. The little girl that was haunted was scary as nuts, the scene where the regular little girl is on the roof of the house made my hands sweat, and most of the other shit was scary.

2) When I turned this movie on I started SMH at first. Ryan Reynolds in a horror movie just sounds like a stupid idea. He's only mediocre in RomComs but in horror movies I thought he'd be awful. He was actually okay though. Him going crazy was kind of stupid and so was him walking around half naked the whole time. But overall he didn't TKO the movie which was a plus.

3) I could go without the house doing all the stupid stuff but whatever. The little girl/creepy story behind it made up for it.

4) Two other minor things
a) Why was that girl going through the old school newspaper reel? She probably doesn't have lexis or anything but even a google search would be more efficient.

b) The babysitter wasn't the best looking horror movie chick of all time but she was still pretty top notch.

Good shit Miroki,

A

Jaws

1) Not really a Halloweenesque movie but it's scary as hell. For you avid followers, you've probably figured out that I'm scared of dolls, the devil, and heights. The ocean is a very close 4 and sharks are definitely a big part of it. Even when you know it's coming it's still scary as hell when Jaws pops out of the water.

2) I dunno why they let that one guy just sit there and run his fingernails across the chalkboard. I don't think I'd pay attention to someone if they did that I think I'd throw something at them.

3) Seems like there's a lot of horsing around here too. I mean, they know where the shark is at, why don't they just go take it down? And why do they decide to take it down in that makeshift boat? If you're going to go after this gigantic shark you might as well go big.

4) It's hard for me to reiterate how scared of the ocean/sharks I am. Part of it is probably because I can't swim, but even watching youtube videos of that Jaws amusement ride freaks me out. My hands are sweating up a storm just thinking about this.

Despite the great subject matter of the movie it's fairly boring,

C-

Top 10 Brainstorming

Wgbw,

A dedicated reader (@warnerben) thought a top 10 countdown might be in order. I agree with the idea and it's always tight to do (see evidence here), but I'm having a hard time thinking about a top 10 list that wouldn't reinvent the wheel too much on here.

Top 10 killers/villains?
Top 10 best looking ladies from horror movies?
Top 10 lines from 8 mile?
Top 10 Jon jokes?

Let me know blog world!

You can comment, tweet (halloweenjitsu) or email (halloweenjitsu at gmail) :)

The Evil Dead

1) They seem pretty oblivious the whole time. There's like this growling chick on the ground and the rest of them are just sitting around arguing about when to leave. If we were at the Cone and Alan started growling and rolling around on the ground I'd probably get the hell out of Dodge. I mean, they just lay around while all this spooky shit is going on around them it doesn't make any sense. They even watch each other make it rain on the other people and then just hang out and kick it. It's befuddling.

2) Some of the faces and shit they have going on are pretty scary, especially with all the crazy noises these n00bs make.

3) I wish the trees weren't infected. It'd be a lot scarier if it was just the people that got possessed but I dunno why all the other stuff gets possessed.

4) Some of the symbolism they use is the same stuff that Michael Myer's friend has tatooed on him in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

It was okay,

C

Seven

1) I dunno why Brad Pitt is so angry the whole time. He's got this tight wife to go hang out with and gets to make it rain with Morgan Freeman all day in this tight detective job.

2) I guess Kevin Spacey made a pretty good bad guy. His voice/character were pretty scary the whole time. I'm never really wild about any of the movies he's in (American Beauty), but I guess if he's going to be in a good movie, he might as well be the bad guy.

3) Where in the hell was this supposed to be set in? It like rains all the time, but then there's this desert just outside of this urban area? They could've made the weather less jitsu.

4) LOL there's an episode of Friends where Chandler is in a box. OPEN THE BOX!

A-

Cujo

1) I didn't realize they just hang out in the car the whole movie. That's a big downside to living out in the middle of nowhere. Seems like generally someone would see this killer dog making it rain on you and they would call the police, but not out in BFE. Living in the country would be tight, but dear god would it blow scary movie wise.

2) Kind of a goofy movie. I mean, the dog really looks like Beethoven so I dunno how it would be too scary. I get if you were trapped in a car and theres some killer dog shaking the car it would be scary, but how often would that really happen?

3) Anyone who ever cried after watching Old Yeller should watch this and it'd sober them right up lol.

4) The mom in the movie is Laurie's mom on Rob Zombie's Halloween 2. I guess she's been in a wreck of horror movies.

Knock on wood that I'll get bit by a dog soon, but it's hard to get too scared over this,

C-

Prom Night (2008)

1) Really got better the second time I watched it. Kind of like the top 5 movie Sorority Row I wasn't very wild about it the first time around. Now it's pretty tight. I think the first time I watched it I got distracted by that scary ass trailer for the Strangers.

2) The killer is pretty jitsu, but he keeps it interesting the whole movie. Some of the times when he would kill people it looked stupid in the point-of-view mode of the victim.

3) All of this could have been avoided with more responsible parenting. I mean, if your niece had a psycho try to kill her a few years ago would you really let her go stay the night at a spooky hotel that was undergoing renovations? And get a room with her boyfriend? #smh

4) I never realized the girl is also the bipolar chick from that SVU finale from a few years ago. Also the dude that dies wearing the Halo shirt is tight.

I can't believe I got Bricker to come watch this in theaters with me,

B

The Shining

Sorry bw for the delay, this weeks just been busy lol.

1) This movie was really super long. I get that it probably takes him awhile to have time to go apeshit and stuff but it seemed a little long even at that.

2) I think the whole point of the movie should have been that everybody gets cabin fever and starts going crazy. I'm confused how the little kid starts having all the visions before they even go to the hotel or what that one dude gets some vision to return to the hotel to check up on people. It would've made more sense if all of these shenanigans happened once they got to the hotel.

3) This shit was scary. Those 2 little girls were scary as hell, and so was the little imaginary Tommy kid. I don't think I'd get too scared of Jack Nicholson going crazy or anything, but those little kids were sure spooky.

4) The book was a lot better. Actually I never read the book lol.

5) I've sat around and thought about that picture at the end and I'm still not sure what to think of it. If it's really some haunted hotel then maybe it just got put there after he made it rain. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense. I mean, they've got all this time to kill (pun lol), but they don't ever notice it, so it probably has to have come after he died. Maybe it's a memorial or something, who knows.

Wish it wasn't so long,

C+

The Sixth Sense

1) The first time I saw this movie some dickhead spoiled the twist right at the beginning of the movie. It's hard to get buck wild about it after you know that he's a fucking ghost the whole time.

2) Kinda of a smooshy ending to a horror movie. I'm all for the romcom/horror movie but this feel good/reconnecting with his wife thing was a little jitsu. So was the scene in the car where they talk about how his grandma visits him.

3) It's actually one of the scarier movies I've ever seen. The dude with the bullet hole in head, the lady with the slit wrists, and the people just being hung were all scary as hell. If any of you blog readers get bored beyond the grave please don't come back to visit me in the middle of the night wearing scary shit.

Absent the feel-good ending, this movie was pretty legit. Hows this grade for academy awards winners Jon?

B

Frailty

1) Pretty scary when you think about it. The references in the movie to the bible telling the one guy to kill his son to show God he's serious make this kind of realistically scary.

2) I've written before about how Matthew McConaughey should stick to RomComs but he's pretty legit in this one. Back in the day before I really got hooked on RomComs I thought he was spooky because of this movie lol.

3) I don't totally get why his face gets all blurred out when he's on the videos and stuff. I mean, I guess the point of that is that he is doing God's work, but then that seems to defeat the purpose of the movie being scary since all those people were actually probably bad news.

4) Some good movie fan trivia for you blog world: little Fenton is actually the girl's brother who gets pranked in the critically acclaimed movie Sorority Row.

Solid original plot line, but just something missing

B

Silence of the Lambs

1) Top notch stuff overall. The scene at the end was crazy scary with the Buffalo Bob guy just chasing her around in the dark (another reason to sleep with the TV on). Also the crazy shit where he switches the dude's face onto his own so he can escape was nuts.

2) I don't really get the obsession with the lambs or really the makeup of the title. It's like she had these lambs scare her when she was little? And why does Hannibal care so much about the lambs? It's not like he's getting paid to hear her talk about her childhood or anything.

3) It was definitely scary and really tight, but I always thought that Red Dragon was a lot scarier and had a much crazier ending. Buffalo Bob is also pretty weak sauce compared to the the guy in Red Dragon.

4) The punch line at the end was tight "having an old friend for dinner" lol.

A

When a Stranger Calls (1979)

1) The first 20-30 minutes were really tight, but after that it kind of struggled. I thought the newer movie was a lot more suspenseful/generally creepier the whole time. The first part of this movie was super scary but I didn't really care about what happened to the killer in the interim period.

2) It was worse for other reasons too. The new Jill is a lot better looking then the old Jill, and the new killer is a lot creepier too. The new one was a lot more teen-horror genre which was tight.

3) The whole private investigator thing didn't really make sense. Horror movies are a lot creepier when nobody really knows who the killer is or why they're making it rain. This whole 'investigating the bad guy' thing was pretty jitsu.

4) And the killer's name was Duncan. Who names their kid Duncan anymore?

C

28 Days Later

1) Pretty spooky parts during the movie. I almost jumped a few times when those fucking zombies made it rain out of nowhere.

2) I don't know why they had to keep playing music during the whole movie. There was even some Church music going on during the movie. It seemed like it woulda been a lot spookier if there was just no music.

3) Pretty crazy twist with the whole military base. I didn't realize how rated R this movie would actually be. The dude putting his fingers through that guys eyeballs was CRAZY.

4) Sometimes these n00bs kept mumbling, it was pretty hard to understand them at some points.

Nothing really wrong with it, just doesn't fit my horror taste very well,

B-

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

1) I'm never terribly wild about these black and white movies but I know I need to catch up on some of these 'classics' lol.

2) For a black and white movie it wasn't great. For the first 45 minutes it was so dark that it was hard to tell what was going on. You know those times you're at Henry's upstairs and you wonder why it's so fucking dark everywhere. It kind of reminded me of that: really dark, a bunch of n00bs running around, and there's always the danger of someone falling and hurting themselves (lol bunz).

3) I don't really get why the movie was so important for horror movies. I mean it's a mediocre mid-60s black and white zombie movie but that's about it. I guess it had a showing in the old Halloween 2 (where the dude is watching it on tv) and the new Halloween 2 where she wakes up to it.

4) The "They're coming for you Barbara" line is money though.

C-

I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

Uhhhhhhhhhh

1) I really am taking a break from some of the torture gross horror themed movies. I know I said this when I reviewed the newer one but man was this bad.

2) There's really not much to say except the whole movie was pretty gross/fucked up. It was just a bunch of messed up rape scenes and then her going to town on the bad guys. I totally get how people got all nauseous watching this.

3) I don't know how anyone could think watching this was even remotely enjoyable,

F

Saw

1) What a tight movie. It had such an original plot line (I think it was pretty radically different from Seven) and was spooky as hell. The first time I saw it I was at the old Milhouse/ATM/Toromir house sleeping on the couch. I kept freaking out that the scary little doll guy who rides the tricycle would come down the hall at me. That doll guy is still pretty spooky and is actually featured in Dead Silence.

2) It had just the right about of plot twists/revelations. And the ending was fucking crazy. Nobody would've guessed it was just the crazy Jigsaw dude just kicking it on the floor.

3) It has some of the tightest scary movie lines ever. The live or die....make your choice line is tight and so is the I want to play a game line. It's even tighter when @enronnie just says them over and over again lol.

4) Despite all of this tight stuff, I can't quite figure out why it's still not top notch. It's one of those horror movies that after you see it for the first time you want to watch it again so you can see all the twists coming. But after that I get kind of bored lol.

B+

Paranormal Activity

1) At first I thought this was super spooky but now it was pretty ho-hum. The first time I watched it I couldn't make it through the part where she's hovering over him in bread just staring at him. That's some spooky stuff. People standing around looking spooky just staring at people is one of my pet peeves lol.

2) The rest of it seemed like a bad remix of The Blair Witch Project and Poltergeist. I can't believe that people actually thought this footage was real. I mean, this is just a less spooky version of the BWP. It's just in some house in the suburbia instead of some creepy woods.

3) I'd echo the my criticism of the BWP's camera usage. If any girl I was living with was just recording some supernatural entity scaring the shit out of me I think it'd be time to rethink the relationship.

4) And why on God's green earth don't they just run out of the house and never come back? Or turn the TV on at night so you're not in the dark? Sleeping with the tv on solves.

Meh,

D+

Jennifer's Body

Wgbw, it's finally one of the greatest days of the year! October 1st is so tight because it's the start of the sickest month and November 1st is still a month away lol. Without further ado,

1) I'm not terribly wild about vampire or werewolf movies, but this one was tight. I'm not even a huge Megan Fox fan (I know thats pretty jitsu) but this movie was tight.

2) It's kinda funny she's actually a succubus. I didn't even know that was real, I just thought that Doggles made that up for the actual succubus lol.

3) I've always been a fan of the horror-romcom, but am now starting to warm up to the horror/dark-comedy genre. I've seen a bunch of turd dark comedy movies, but this one was legit. Megan Fox was pretty funny the whole time and they made all the kinda gory parts get mixed up with her humor to keep it well rounded.

4) I am becoming a bigger Amanda Seyfried fan lately and I hadn't even realized she was in this movie. What a tight revelation. and how tight was that scene with her and Amanda Fox? #yeahbuddy

What a great start to October,

A+

New blog format/subject area

In response to those fans seeking a new format/subject matter I figured I'd try out a more interesting area. Some fans think I'm not qualified to review movies (which I'm not, I obviously have a bad taste in entertainment generally: movies, tv shows, music, etc.) This isn't late breaking news to anyone who reads the blog.

Instead of reviewing movies, I'm going to tell you what I had to eat today. For lunch today I had some eggs and oranges. And a vitamin water zero. I've attached a picture of it for you all to enjoy.

Now before anyone gets bored and quits reading this I should explain the purpose of the blog. I'm showing you my gross looking lunch so you all check my blog everyday.

It's known as the Hawthorne Effect. The theory is if anyone actually cares enough to look at phone pics of my breakfast everyday that they will pressure me to keep taking pictures of scrambled eggs and vitamin waters. Theoretically, if I quit posting pictures of eggs everyday, it will cause uproar throughout the blogosphere and I will be pressured into taking more pictures of the shit I eat for the blog world's enjoyment.

Now I know what you're thinking. "Buffalo, your movie taste is mediocre but this just seems crazy!"

Before you jump ship, I should tell you my approach to blogging is endorsed by Tim Ferriss, a blogger with a degree in East Asian Studies. Although his work has been frowned upon by "experts" (people licensed to practice medicine), I'm pretty sure this should make people want to check out my blog lol.

Actually as I'm writing this I'm getting bored already. Not as bored as I was during Annie Hall, but I think I'll be okay giving D+'s to those turd Academy Award nominees.

JWW, this blog post was for you <3

Happy 1 Year Anniversary!

Whats good blog world, special shout out to the website today for its one year anniversary. Some reflections on its first year..

1) It's came a long way from the first few posts. I still think I'll stick with the numbering system (obvi) but I'm glad it's evolved.

2) Some interesting stats for the fans

a) October 2010 was still the highest month for hits on the blog in 1 month, although I now get more hits per post then ever. September 2011 has its highest month of views per post than any other one.

b) The top 5 most visited pages are 1) Top 10 Movie Scenes #2: 8 Mile Rap Battle , 2) Inception, 3) 8 Mile, 4) The King's Speech, and 5) Piranha 3D (smdh). Also interesting to note that the top post has almost 4 times as many views as any other post on the website.

c) Google recently surpassed twitter as being the number 1 referring site.

3) I like the grading guidelines, although they're not always wildly accurate.

4) I'm a little stumped what to do this October. I have a general idea of watching some more of the old classic movies, following up on the bad sequels to a lot of the old hit movies, watching some of the favorite cult movies, and obvi revisiting some of the money ones closer to Halloween. Outside of October my general goal will be to stay away from straight-to-dvd movies and anything that Alan suggests lol.

It's been a good year blog world, here's to a tight Ocotber!

-buff

Law and Order SVU: Season 13 Opener

1) Pretty solid stuff. I'm still a little dejected that Elliott is gone but I'll try to make due with what they give us.

2) Pretty crazy first episode. I can't believe they really made the Romeo from Letters to Juliet the bad guy.

3) I don't really understand why the SVU cast is always so angry whenever someone else new joins the team. They are always super mad at the new ADA's and they were pretty unreceptive to the new cop from ATL.

4) The scene where Olivia starts crying because Elliott's not coming back is probably the biggest tearjerker moment since The Last One from Friends.

5) Captain Cragen said WHEELS UP lol.

A

Last House on the Left (1972)

1) It's a lot less messed up then the new version. I mean, don't get it twisted, there's some screwed up stuff in it but at least it's not as horrible as the first one.

2) It didn't make a whole lot of sense that the ending only took like 12 minutes. I'm all for short movies but I don't know why they cut the ending so abruptly.

3) Maybe the reason for the short ending is it didn't take any time at all for the parents to TKO the bad guys. I mean how jitsu were those n00bs here? These dudes just get pwned by these 2 middle aged parents who pull these Home Alonesque tricks on them to get them killed.

4) I never really get these old movie posters from the 70s either. "It rests on 13 acres of earth over the very center of hell!" First off, no it doesn't. That place is actually in Western Kansas. Second, why don't they even mention this in the movie? Unless my ADD fooled me they don't even talk about it but just put it on the poster smh.

C+

Limitless

1) I saw this one awhile back, it was kind of mediocre. It seems like the whole movie kind of lacks a real point. It's like, should he take more of the drug, should he not? Won't he just be normal if he doesn't? What if he takes more? Will it really matter, will anyone really care?

2) Seems like a big hyped up drug for some kind of ADD medication on steroids. You take it and just get a whole bunch of stuff done.

3) I don't really get the point of the ending. He just decides to take it to be smarter then everyone else and then run for president? Why didn't the people who originally made the drug just take all of it so they could be president? It doesn't really make that much sense.

4) There wasn't anything horribly wrong with the movie, but there wasn't anything to write home about either.

This movie could've used to take smart smart pills lol,

C-

The Frightening

1) I have to get away from these straight to DVD movies for awhile. I havent seen a straight to dvd movie that was good in awhile and I have no idea why I'm so optimistic I'm going to stumble on one.

2) The theme of this movie just seems like school bullying on steroids. It's like these kids go to school and get killed by this group of people in black clothes.

3) I know the ending changes this, but what was up with the jitsu at the beginning? They keep talking about how the school has the state's best wrestling team but they keep getting pwnd by the men in black. Must not be a Kansas 321a wrestling team lol.

4) The movie was pretty bad all around, but all of the scenes just seemed like they were a hodgepodge of bad scenes from other movies. The one scene where he's dreaming is a really bad mix of that awful movie Eyes Wide Shut and that scene from Scream 2 where they're all in the play.

D-

Urban Legend

1) It's kinda tight that the good looking chick that Nick Beam almost got on in Nothing To Lose (which I actually haven't reviewed) is in it. I just wish she wasn't the killer in it. Kind of like in Friday the 13th it makes you wonder how such a small woman was so muscular the whole time.

2) They shoulda just picked a few of the spookiest legends instead of doing some of the more jitsu ones. I mean the birth control pills or the bubble gum? smdh

3) A lot of horror cameos in this one. I know Robert Englund seems to be doing this on the reg, but they got him and Danielle Harris (who I've totally got a thing for) all in the same movie. I mean at least they put some effort to make this appeal to horror fans.

4) The second assistant director was Jonathan Wright lol.

Despite some effort, this one was pretty terrible,

D

Juno

smh

1) It's almost October which is tight between Alan and the lady friend I've unfortunately seen to many of these movies lately. Hopefully all the spooky movies in October will get me back on track.

2) She's kind of a turd to the Superbad guy the whole time. I dunno why she was so mad at him when he just tried to be nice the whole time lol.

3) I didn't understand all the goofy metaphorical art shots going on. Like at the end of the movie where it's panned out super far for no reason. Or the animated beginning, what was up with that? Or that part where she pulls over to cry and they take an aerial view of the van on the highway? Someone should explain the point of that.

4) There were some pretty funny lines in it. I'm not totally wild about her 16 year old sense of humor, but there was some good stuff.

Just when you thought all remnants of that damn Inception movie had gone away, this had to reappear

D+

Black Christmas (2006)

1) Light years ahead of the original. I reviewed the older movie back in the day. Maybe it's just that some of those older movies are too goofy to be scary, but the older one here is getting blown out of the water.

2) I think my original complaints about the killer being pretty goofy are still valid here, but I think they did a better job of setting up the history of the dude. It's kinda like in the new Halloween with Rob Zombie, where they do the tight flashbacks to his childhood. The only difference here is that all of the Halloween movies rule and this old one didn't.

3) The ending was kinda goofy. I mean the guy got killed by the Christmas tree? smh.

4) The babe from Eurotrip was in it which was tight.

Good stuff,

B

Phone Booth

1) It was pretty tight overall. I saw this in theaters with somebody back in the day but can't remember who, maybe @milhouse. I don't think I've ever watched this movie with someone who actually enjoys it but I thought it was tight. (Random FYI: bricker actually likes this movie and is glued to the tv when its on but he never wants to admit to it).

2) Kiefer Sutherland has the easiest job in the world in this movie just being the narrator. I'll bet he just did this from home and got paid a wreck of money.

3) Seems like Kiefer should get something better to do with his free time during the movie. I mean, the first two people that he talks about killing seemed like bad people (the pedophile and the thief). Even then this whole vigilante justice things just not a good idea. But Collin Farrell? Not that Collin Farrell is a great guy in this movie but the world's got bigger problems to tackle then some dude who pretends to be rich when he's not.

4) Roger Ebert gave it 2 thumbs up, me too.

A

10 Things I Hate About You

Wgbw, since it's almost October (yeahbuddy) I'll be audibleing back to a pretty strict scary movie diet again soon. But until then I'm gonna try and get the last of these RomComs out of my system.

1) An oldie but goodie. It's got a pretty well rounded cast, had a good ending, and I've always had a thing for high school romcom/horror movies.

2) Seems like 1 thing they could've really fixed was how irritable everyone was during this movie. Julia Stiles gets all riled up about a bunch of shenanigans but then kind of gives in pretty fast about the whole 'you were paid to take me out' thing. And Alex Mack gets and that dude from Inception fight about the goofiest stuff, smh.

3) The scene where Julia Stiles reads him that poem is one of the better RomCom scenes of all time. Definitely top notch.

4) I've always had a crush on Julia Stiles too. Her and Amanda Peet. <3